Professional Etiquette in School Communications

If you’re new to college, you may be unsure about what’s considered polite and appropriate as you contact and interact with your instructors. We’re hoping we can offer some rules of thumb that might help.

Of course, because they’re all different people, your instructors will all feel differently about what constitutes polite modes of address and forms of interaction. Still, there are some norms you may want to consider as you begin working with them:

Begin by addressing each of your instructors as “Professor X or Y.”

This is one of the biggest differences between how you address teachers in college and high school: don't call them Mr., Mrs., Miss, or Ms.

If you know that they have a Ph.D., you can also call them “Dr. X or Y.” Some people think using “Dr.” is more formal and deferential. Whether they have a Ph.D. is something you can easily find out by looking up their page on the college website, which you may want to consider.

But that’s really up to you: either form of address is entirely acceptable.

Be aware that not all of your instructors will actually hold either title -- though we should be clear that this is certainly no reflection of their effectiveness or their readiness to teach. Many may also invite you to call them by their first name or some shortened form of their name, and if so, it’s polite to do so.

But begin by assuming that you should be formal. And remember that you can ask them if you're not sure how they'd like to be addressed.

Make emails and other communications concise, readable, and gracious.

Open with the mode of address they prefer. Like: "Hi Professor X:" or "Hi Dr. Y:" at the top.

Even if you’re composing on your phone or through dictation, make sure you proofread and edit: your care will be a reflection of your seriousness and deference. Also remember to identify yourself by course and section, since your instructors teach multiple courses. Like: "I'm enrolled in your 10:20 ENG 102/830."

Don’t, for example, do this:

Hey- I'm missing class today.Can u let me no wut u want 4 next clas?

Instead, we’d recommend something like this:

Hi Professor Johnson:

I'm sorry, but I will have to miss our PSY 100 class at 10:20 Wednesday because of a medical appointment I can't reschedule. I will ask a colleague what I missed and watch for postings on Brightspace. If there's anything else I should do, please let me know. Sorry again I'll have to miss class, and see you Friday.

If you’re unable to make it to class, don't ask for a blanket update on “what you missed,” especially in an email.

Ask a peer, look carefully at course materials, make sure you do the reading for the day, consider dropping into office hours with any questions – and recognize that what’s covered in class is your responsibility whether you’re there or not. Then, if you send an email, our instinct is that “I'm caught up on assigned readings and understand what the syllabus says is due this week, but is there anything else I need to know about for next time?” is a much better question than “Did we do anything important?” or “Can you tell me what we did?”

But remember that a conversation in office hours may be the best way to go.

Don’t expect immediate responses to your messages.

Most faculty members are very busy and are often tied up not only with other students, but with administrative obligations and research projects as well – it may take them longer to respond than they’d like. Also, recognize they may not have a chance to respond to certain emails at all. If you’re simply indicating that you don’t feel well and won’t be in class, for example, they’re not ignoring you if they don’t respond. They may simply need to be attending to other things.

Recognize that some reasons to have missed class or to request an extension on an assignment are better than others.

Your instructors are likely to be very sympathetic if something goes really wrong in your life that keeps you out of class or that leads you to request an extension – if you or someone you're close to is ill or injured, for example, or if there's a death in your family. And you shouldn't feel sheepish about letting them know if that's the case. Sometimes your attention needs to be somewhere else. This doesn't mean that your absences become irrelevant, of course, or that an extension will always be possible, but you should definitely let instructors know about anything that takes you away from your work in a course or interferes with attendance for more than a class or two.

We also advise that students having serious health, personal, or family issues consider getting in touch with the Office of the Dean of Students. They can offer various sorts of assistance and can send official notice to your instructors when an emergency requires that you're out of class for an extended period of time.

But instructors do take your participation in their courses seriously, and they aren't likely to sympathize with unecessary absences or casual requests for extensions. You should consider this when you contact them.

Consider what’s best discussed in an email and what’s best discussed in person before getting in touch.

If your question is complicated or sensitive, you may want to meet your professor during their office hours, which is the time your professor reserves each week for you and your questions. And remember that some of your professors may require that you schedule appointments for office hours in advance.

Try not to email instructors unnecessarily.

Make sure you’ve thought about your question and tried to solve it yourself on the basis of course documents like syllabi and assignments if you can.

At the same time, however, don’t be afraid to email your professors.

Doubtless, your teachers will all feel a little differently about communications. But we don’t want to overstate our previous point here and discourage you from emailing your professors with your thoughts. In fact, we'd emphasize that with your thoughts part. We feel strongly that most faculty members actually enjoy getting emails that some students may worry will seem chatty and unimportant. We're talking about emails like “this story that came on my news feed reminded me so much of what we were saying in class today” or “I loved our reading on X, which made me rethink something I’d always assumed about an experience I had in junior high school.” We think most instructors find these kinds of messages gratifying and engaging. They want to talk about the ideas they explore in their classes, which is why they became professors to begin with! Consider, too, that any authentic reactions you have to readings or class discussions may well become the topic for a course paper or some other project. These kinds of thoughts are part of your work in courses, so your instructors want to know about them.