School’s back in session, and my email traffic now includes messages from my students. I receive hundreds of email messages every day. Most of these messages are unsolicited commercial email (UCE or spam), and Gmail does a good job of keeping them out of my inbox.
When students ask me why there’s so much writing in my courses, I usually ask them how many email messages they write every day.
Writing well is an important skill for managers. A well composed email message can help get decisions made.
It’s always good when I can look at the subject line of the message and understand what the student needs. A descriptive subject line is a big help for the recipient.
It’s also a good idea for students to put their course number in the subject line. I’m teaching two different courses this term. I check my email several times each weekday, and I often use my phone. I can’t always pull out my course roster to determine the course for a specific student.
Here’s some examples of good subject lines:
- Due date for IS 6100 paper 3 assignment?
- Where are IS 7010 grades posted?
- Could you read my draft for IS 7010 Paper 2 by Thursday?
Sometimes, email senders are pressed for time, and they don’t include a meaningful subject. I’ve done that myself. Emails that have no subject line at all are easy to overlook. Some spam filters may be set to classify these messages as spam.
Here are some examples of poor subject lines:
- Your course
- My paper
- Please help me!
- I have a problem
- WebCT doesn’t work
- TurnItIn.com help!
- Question about the assignment
What’s wrong with the above subject lines? The messages may be urgent, and the subject lines may have been composed in a rush. The subjects aren’t specific or helpful. The sender wants the recipient to take a specific action, but the subject lines don’t provide any guidance.
Of course, some senders just use the reply button instead of the address book to generate a new message. That message might have nothing to do with the original message’s topic. Because it’s a reply, the subject line gets some additional prefixes like “Re:” or “Fw:”. It’s a good idea to restate the subject line if the message has changed topics. Otherwise, the recipient may assume the incoming message is about the original topic.
Unfortunately, sometimes my spam filter misclassifies student emails, and a message winds up in the junk mail folder. A good subject line will help the recipient identify messages that went through a spam filter and generated a false positive.
It’s never, ever a good idea to include a student ID number in an email subject line to an instructor. Student ID numbers are the kind of data that an identify thief wants to grab. Most of the time, the instructor doesn’t need to know the student’s ID number.
Here’s a few links about writing a great email subject line:
- Wired (via BoingBoing)
- BlueFlavor has an earlier version of the Wired article.
- Email Labs: 15 rules for writing email subject lines – this article is focused on writing email newsletters, but some of these ruls apply to any email message.
- ExcessVoice
