Saturday, February 18, 2012

Student emails

There's a short piece in the Eastern Daily News about how students need to improve the information they give, their literacy, and the tone of what they write, when they email their teachers. We had been discussing this issue at our staff/student committee, and it seems that it would be a good idea to give more guidance about using email when people start at the university. I myself don't follow all the advice in this article (e.g. I sometimes use "lol" and I end most of my emails "best wishes") and I'm not too much of a stickler in this area, but one increasing issue is emails sent via mobile devices, where it isn't clear who is sending the email. The news story doesn't mention information literacy, but I think it is: part of "understanding how to plan for and gather information from other people".
Daily Eastern News. (2012) "Staff Editorial: How (not) to email your professors." Daily Eastern News, 2 February. http://www.dennews.com/opinion/editorials/staff-editorial-how-not-to-email-your-professors/article_c48ec264-4e18-11e1-9da2-001a4bcf6878.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: valentine ballooons, Amsterdam, February 2012

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