Email to a professor or superior

Why this email gets its own lesson

Smith ends his email chapter with a side-by-side: a student's hasty, angry note to a professor and its rewrite. The genre is worth a lesson because the errors are so consistent. Students write to instructors and managers in the register of a late-night group chat — no subject, hey, no capitals, a wall of text — and add two content errors that no amount of formatting fixes: over-disclosure (a paragraph about a roommate, a relationship, a landlord — detail the reader neither needs nor wants), and asking what the syllabus already answers, which tells the reader in one line that the writer did not look. A superior reads the email as evidence of how the writer works.

Worked example — the rewrite

The draft, to an AFM 111 section instructor:

> hey, so i missed the kritik deadline last night bc my roommate had a whole situation with her ex and i was up till 3 dealing with it and honestly i just forgot. can u reopen it for me?? also when is the memo due. thx

What the reader sees: no subject; hey to a professor; no capitals, bc, u, thx; a roommate's private life in a professor's inbox; honestly i just forgot, which is candid and fatal; two asks, one of which — the memo's due date — is on page one of the syllabus; and no name, so the instructor must look up who sent it. The rewrite:

> Subject: Kritik cycle 1 — request to submit late > > Dear Professor Okonkwo: > > Could I submit my Kritik cycle 1 evaluations late, by 9 p.m. tonight (Thursday 10 October)? > > I missed the 11:59 p.m. deadline last night because of a situation at home that kept me up until the early hours; I take responsibility for not submitting earlier in the day. The evaluations are written and I can upload them as soon as the window is reopened. I understand from the syllabus that late Kritik submissions may carry a penalty, and I accept that. > > If a late submission is not possible, I would be grateful to know so that I can plan for cycle 2. > > Thank you for considering this. > > Kind regards, > > Amara Osei > AFM 111, section 003 · Student no. 21048873

Subject: five specific words. Salutation: the title the instructor uses — Professor or Dr, as the syllabus or their signature shows; never hey, never a guessed Mrs. The ask in sentence one, with a specific time. Context: one sentence, a situation at home — the reader needs to know there was a reason, not what it was — and responsibility taken in plain words. The syllabus question is gone, because the syllabus answers it; what remains shows the writer read it. A closing that names what happens if the answer is no. Full name, section, student number — the instructor can find the record without a search.

Rewrite a second one

> Hi, I'm in ur Tuesday section. I didn't get my group case mark back yet and everyone else did, is there a problem with mine? My group was kind of a disaster tbh, two of them did nothing. Let me know.

To: Subject: Group case mark — section 002, Group 7. Dear Professor Okonkwo: Could you tell me whether the mark for Group 7's PSP case (section 002) has been released? My groupmates' marks appear in LEARN and mine does not, as of this morning. — Then stop. The group's internal problems are a separate conversation, in person, not an aside in an email about a mark. Closing: If there is something I need to do at my end, I will do it today. Full name and student number.

Write one cold

The exam asks for a request to move a seminar presentation. Formal parts, one ask, the reason in one sentence, the evidence named, two dates proposed, a response route, full name and student number.