Yes! This drives me crazy. Like Anonymous, I address this with my students in a way that makes them feel (or at least this is my goal) that I'm leveling with them, letting them in on something: "You know, professors across the board really hate it when you start off an email with, 'hey.' It also drives us crazy when you don't capitalize or use proper punctuation or grammar in your emails." They usually laugh about it (along with me, as in "Why would someone do that?"), and I tell them that even though they laugh, I get too many emails like that. I do think that once I started bringing it up, the emails did get a little better. A friend of mine gives a whole lesson (well, I mean, I think it's probably 15 minutes, but she treats it like a regular grammar or writing lesson) on email etiquette.
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Posted by Poppy Red to academicsecret at 10/27/2006 09:00:36 PM
