SOPTalk

A few more dos and don’ts:

Do:

• Keep your emails short and readable
• Use good grammar, punctuation and complete sentences
• Include a relevant subject line (such as ‘2007 MS application’) so that your email won’t be relegated unseen to the junk bin.
• Respond as promptly as possible. These are busy people who may forget you easily. A prompt response also shows that you are seriously interested in that school’s program.
• Send short thank-you emails. As the less powerful person in the situation, it is your job to get back.

Don’t:

• Send formula emails. Try to fit it to the specific person and institution. In a similar vein, be careful with copy-pasted emails where you send an email to one person but address it to another.
• Be unduly familiar. Address your respondent as Professor / Dr. So-and-so. Use the kind of language you would in a business letter.
• Use email smilies or acronyms, even common ones like BTW (by the way), FYI (for your information), IMHO (in my humble / honest opinion). First, older email users may not be familiar with them. Second, they bring in an unwelcome level of familiarity.
• Use frivolous or unsuitable names in your email (e.g. partygirl@aol.com). It’s best to use such email addresses for correspondence with friends and family.
• Assume that the professor will remember every particular about your application and correspondence. Remind them of relevant details. The focus is on relevant here - don’t repeat every single bit of information. If you reply to an email as part of a
  thread, you give the respondent an opportunity to scroll down and read earlier emails if necessary.
• Make unreasonable demands, such as expecting them to inform you early of your application status. (Though if you need to know to make a decision about another offer, it’s okay to send a polite email informing them of the situation and asking if they’ve made a decision on your application)
• Send long papers or large attachments. Often people would rather have you send such things to the admissions committee as part of your application packet. Don’t assume that faculty members have time to read lots of stuff (unless they’ve given you permission)
• Hound your repsondents. If they don’t reply, gracefully let it go.

Finally, there are plenty of good websites that explain email etiquette, and it’s worth checking out some of these. A couple that we liked are:
emailreplies.com This website focuses only on email etiquette, and has a quarterly newsletter.
owl.english.purdue.edu This is the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University. It has a few other useful handouts and exercises on various aspects of writing. Also links to other writing resources and labs
Queensland University This website covers a few issues that the others don’t. It has plenty of good common-sense advice.

Tags: General, Writing Tips //