Jack Applin

Email Communication Tips

Greeting

Call me “Mr. Applin” or “Jack”. I’m neither a “Professor” nor a “Dr.”, so avoid those. Plain “Applin” only works if you’re my wrestling coach.

Identify yourself

Sign your email with your first & last names. I’m not good at associating faces in class with names, much less email addresses. Your first name is probably not unique.
Tell me what class you’re in (I teach more than one class).
Tell me your CSUID, if you’re asking about something that may require looking things up in CSU databases.

Ask a question

If you say “I don’t know how to do the homework”, I will be tempted to simply agree.
- What, specifically, are you having trouble with?
Similarly, throwing your program at me and declaring that “this doesn’t work”, will tempt me to just agree.
- What part is failing?
- What did you expect it to do?

Don’t whine

“I’ve been working in the lab for nine hours!” only tells me that you have poor judgment. Get to the point.

Don’t give orders

Telling me to “Respond ASAP” will not make me respond faster. In fact …

Keep it simple

If your email is a list of seven questions, then I won’t respond to it until I’ve considered all seven questions. That may take some time.

Don’t expect a response

I am not a paid 24/7 email consulting service; I am paid to teach classes and hold office hours.
If I choose to answer email, it’s on my own time.
I don’t keep the same hours that you do.