email etiquette

[hamburger]

Hi, is it common that these days students don't address their professors at all? Usually those I have problems with in the CC send me emails without addressing me. No hi, no Hello, no Dear. They just state their demands for exceptions rudely and expect that I say yes.

If I tell them that I will ignore any email sent to me without proper etiquette, they will probably complain about me.

[craftyprof]

Dear hamburger,

Yes, this is very common.

Best,
craftyprof

[mahagonny]

I suspect the concept of etiquette is alway a tug-of-war between the traditional norms and the emerging ones. Any day now I expect the term itself to be described as 'archaic' in our dictionary.
The internet only accelerates it. Experts, what do you say?

[ciao_yall]

Now I send emails like I send texts.

[ciao_yall]

I just hit send instead of a period or return when the sentence gets long enough

[ciao_yall]

And people get really confused when they are trying to read an email thread and they show up with the last email first in the thread

[Hegemony]

Very common, in email in general.  I get the same from the departmental secretaries, from friends, etc.  I think from students it's even more likely because they are unsure how to address us — "Dr. Hegemony" or "Professor Hegemony" or "Frieda" or whatever.

[Hibush]

I just hit send instead of a period or return when the sentence gets long enough

+1

[ergative]

I just hit send instead of a period or return when the sentence gets long enough

+1

Monsters.

[AvidReader]

I give all my students a template to use for emails to me on the first day of class. We talk through it in class, and I post it to our CMS. We talk about why it is important to present ourselves professionally, and why it is important for them to identify themselves and their class section in emails to me. This takes under ten minutes. Then they email me to introduce themselves, and I grade them on their adherence to the template. I get to learn more about my students, and they have an easy template to use for later (and my email address stored in their mail accounts).

AR.

[littleapple]

I have colleagues that put this phd comics on their syllabus:  http://phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1795

[Volhiker78]

Not just students.  My 73 yr old Director sends email to me like:  "Are you here?"  "Don't understand" without any context.

[Puget]

Not just students.  My 73 yr old Director sends email to me like:  "Are you here?"  "Don't understand" without any context.

I have a senior colleague who frequently types his entire email into the subject line.

[ergative]

Not just students.  My 73 yr old Director sends email to me like:  "Are you here?"  "Don't understand" without any context.

I have a senior colleague who frequently types his entire email into the subject line.

I have a senior colleague who can't be bothered to capitalize or punctuate beyond ellipses (STOPPIT!), and is maddeningly vague. Once I had time and went back and forth with her a few times asking explicit questions in an attempt to make it clear to her how vague she was being, but it didn't work.

[Aster]

Yes, student email etiquette is on average much suckier within the last decade. Those toy computer smartphones really do not help young people mature well into functional professional adults.

People need real computers to do real work, not a bit of touchscreen the size of a candy bar. People need to email professionally in a distraction-free setting. While sitting down. In a chair. With a real keyboard. Not a bot typing your messages for you and wanting to insert emojees.

Like other posters, I have kept specific email instructions on all of my course syllabi for over 12 years now. Information on how to send professional email to me. What such a message looks like. What email I won't respond to. What email is unprofessional.

Emails sent to me that are incomplete (e.g. lacking personal identifiers, no subject lines) are dumped into an email folder titled "bad emails." The only response I give to those is a quick robot-looking response that states that their message was incorrect and archived into a bad email folder. Students are notified about this during first-day orientation.

CMS email makes people lazy, but I don't have a problem with CMS email because that communication system is linked specifically to the course that a student is in. CMS email is highly effective and highly efficient. Students just have to use CMS email. But some CMS systems are configured for real computers and not candy bar toy phones. This makes lazy or impatient students mad so they won't use the CMS email.

One of my colleagues (who worked in the business college) actually marked down a student's grade if emails were not transmitted in business etiquette. Communicating professionally was made into a component of that course's assessment. I really liked that professor.