Successful e-mail messages
Successful e-mails begin with TO, FROM, SUBJECT, and DATE and they usually only cover one topic. They are written conversationally and concisely. Prior to sending the message, collect information, prepare an outline, and compose the first draft in a Word document. The subject line summarizes the central idea, the body explains and provides more information, and the closing includes action information with dates or deadlines, and a summary of the e-mail. If the e-mail is constructed correctly, then is will be a technology tool for effective communication.
Dr. Marcia L. Brown, PMP
William,
Agreed. The subject line and some background is important. We teach many courses and have many different assignments so an email stating. "I am having problems with my assignment" really doesn't tell us much. :-)
William,
Folders and organizing emails seems to be helpful to those using email so much. Thanks for your posting.
William,
Ah - more good advice on how to handle email overload. I avoid email overload by having students use the discussion board instead of emailing me.
Thanks for your input.
Dr. Tena B. Crews
William,
Excellent. An announcement is some place you can refer the students to if they continue too make mistakes. But, serving by examples is the best practice as well. Thanks.
William,
Sounds like you know the Outlook system. I also tell students not to email me (unless it is for personal reasons) and I tell them to post their questions on the FAQ discussion board where all students can benefit from the questions and answers. Then, everything is saved through the LMS and only I can delete posts. Hope this is helpful.
William,
What a system. Others will think about how they do things based on your post. Thanks for your input and sharing your system.
f
One thing that I do communicate expressly to my students is to denote the course number as I do and struck several different courses and albeit I may remember their names I am not quite sure exactly what course or section the Arabian so I encourage them very strongly to include the topic as well as the course number in their subject line. As they move into the body of their text I also encourage them to be extremely specific and provide any background material that would support the question that they are asking.
According email is a natural tendency because were always afraid that will need to back track and reference a source are important piece of information. I have discovered over the years that often times the information that I have retained is essentially useless or out dated and forced myself to delete many of the nonessential items and those that I still view as Sancho I place and folders where I can easily search using the search engine and provided by Outlook. This is works for me and perhaps it will free up space in your inbox.
If you keeping a clean inbox is paramount and with online courses is he said Rachel that you set of folders to move assignment such as late work and responses to the respective area. This will automatically free up space in the incoming email area where you can exercise control and respond accordingly. Also this pending on the policy of the company or organization at the end of the session after grades are posted in a reasonable time is past you can clear the folders sent items as well of as other areas out thereby freeing up space and not clogging up the organizational server.
Successful email is comprised of obviously the body of prior to that the topic is most important listed in the subject line. If responding to a topic one thing that I have included is that when I replied to that topic I put in parentheses next to the response topic (response one) and this notifies the student that I am responding directly to an email that they sent me. As is proven very effective as the chain of emails go back and forth I keep editing the response number Annie keeps me on track and saves me from having to review all the previously sent emails. It makes the most of this means of community.
All the best ways to address the methodology of email communication is to set the example by maintaining a proper style and grammatically correct email response to students. I often times place in my opening announcements for my course a Substantive example of an email which is in the correct filing sample.
It is a scary situation especially when you have a larger number of students communicating with you by way of email. Often times the email messages come in a large groups and Outlook for example has its own little methodology of handling them. I created a special folder where I can in mass move over the unopened messages to a folder entitled today's email. That is how I resolve my problem of losing or deleting a very important email. Also I would like to point out that if you do go to options and you have accidentally deleted an email you will discover under deleted items that Outlook has saved your deleted messages and it will purge the system every seven days.
Esther,
Yes, we have so many students and some have so many questions, we need to make sure we know which class so we can relay the proper answer and connect it to the proper content. Thanks for your input.
Esther,
It's good to show them and give them a demonstration or a template. Then, model good communication and send effective e-mail messages yourself.
Thanks!
I totally understanding what you're saying.
Many students forget or maybe don't know
that they should identify the course they
are in. I get e-mails from students registered
for two classes. What's missing is the proper
course number they are refering to.
Hi Marcia,
I always have a few students who have no idea
what an effective e-mail message is. They
often fail to express themselves properly, and
leaves me wonderful what they are trying to tell
me.
Cathleen,
Our sent box at our university gets "cleaned" out every so often. If sent emails are older than a few months they are deleted automatically. So, I have file folders set up to keep what I need. Each institution is different.
That's a great idea. I usually delete an email once I have responded. If I need to see it again, it's in my sent box.
Christopher,
It is a challenge, but well worth the effort. It is important that the students understand email etiquette and professional communication. Nice job.
