Professional & Email Etiquette

When emailing me and other professors, advisors, supervisors—or anyone in a professional or academic context—follow these guidelines for email etiquette.

In this course, failing to follow these guidelines may mean that you do not receive a response to your email.

General Etiquette Guidelines

  • Always be formal in anything you write or say. You will never offend or annoy someone by being too formal and polite.
  • While you are in college, your coursework is your job. Therefore, behave as you would in a professional work environment.
  • When addressing your professors, use the title “Professor” or “Dr.” and their last/family name. For example, “Professor Smith” or “Dr. Smith.” Do not call them by their first names or anything else unless they explicitly ask you to do so.

Specific Email Guidelines

  • Begin the email with any of the following formal salutations:
    • Dear/Hello Professor Smith,
    • Dear/Hello Prof. Smith,
    • Dear/Hello Dr. Smith,
  • Do NOT begin the email with “Hi” or “Hey,” or without addressing your professor by their title and last name.
  • Include a specific subject line. Emails that have (no subject) usually are not read.
  • Use a formal, polite tone. Any email to a professor or teaching assistant should sound like a formal letter, not a text message or a demand to a customer service representative.
    • Avoid abbreviations such as: u, thx, btw, etc.
    • Avoid emojis and exclamation marks (!)
    • Avoid “spoken” language, such as: gonna, wanna
  • When making requests (such as scheduling a meeting or asking for help), use the conditional tense to be polite. For example, “Would you be able to meet this Wednesday after class?” NOT  “When can we meet?
  • End the email by saying “thank you,” such as in the following:
    • Thank you very much,
    • Thank you, and best,
    • Thank you in advance for your time and help,
  • Write in complete sentences with correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
  • Proofread your email before sending it! Emails with many mistakes appear careless.
Good example

Dear Professor Smith,

I hoped to come to your office to talk about the upcoming project. However, I’m afraid that I cannot come to your office hours this week because I have an assigned lab for another class. Would you be available to meet at any time on Monday instead?

Thank you,

Jane

Bad example

hello
I don’t know how to start but I’m not gonna be able to write my discussion for tomorrow because I need to discuss something about my research question abd be more exact about my results. can i talk with you tomorrow?