Help! Email etiquette question of sorts.

metaphor • 5 December 2012 at 11:27 AM

When is it considered tacky to re-email a professor who hadn't responded to the last email sent? Particularly if it's not about anything really that important to my performance in class? I just want to ask her how she would like me to deliver the sample paper she requested from the beginning of the semester and I also wanted to apologize if I came off as condescending in my last email where I talked about how I didn't mind her asking about my work.

...this feels weird. Sorry for being such a socially awkward penguin. xD

solaris • 5 December 2012 at 1:13 PM

@metaphor

If I remember correctly, you're in University, right?

Anyway, I suppose it depends what department the professor is in. If she is a professor of Mathematics or one of the larger fields, it might be good to wait about two weeks for a response. (Since she would be receiving a large volume of e-mails).

But, if she is in a smaller department, like a language of some sort, it would be okay to e-mail her after a week.

You might not want to apologise though. If she didn't view it as condescending, it might be a little bit awkward. I'd only apologise if it was amazingly obvious. 😋

metaphor • 5 December 2012 at 2:17 PM

@solaris


Well, to me, anything that involves me pointing out a specific strength of mine feels condescending, and so I suppose I'm biased there.

This is for a Lit class at a very small liberal arts Uni. I just want to make sure she still wants this paper before I go delivering it to her all proudly.😋

Thanks!


Another question (open to everyone of course): Would it be lame to write and read a poem for a lame community service project about leaf raking? It may seem over the top, but if you want the guidelines, you'd think the project as a whole is kind of taking itself too seriously.😋