1. Best Way to Message Your Professor

We will start off with the subject line.

Subject Line:
The subject line is the first thing someone will see when an email has reached their inbox. This is your opportunity to be concise and to the point. You want the recipient of your email to understand what your message is regarding and why it is important for them to open.

Ex. 1: “Jane Doe requesting to register for ART 200”
In my first example, you can see the subject pertaining to you needing to add a class. There is no confusion as to what class because you have already identified it. Let’s compare that with the second example.

Ex. 2: “I need to be added to your class”
In this second example, you can see that the professor reading it would have no idea who the email is from and what it was pertaining to. Being vague or writing a long subject line will likely not get your professors to open their emails. Your professors are receiving dozens of them daily. You do not want your message to slip through the cracks.

Body of the Email:
This is where you will address your point to your professor. You could think of this section as four parts:
1. Greeting
2. Purpose of email
3. Closing remarks
4. Sign-off

Greetings:
Greetings are typically composed of two parts; the greeting and salutation. Just like you say “hello” to someone you see in-person, same goes via email. Start your email off with a “Hello Professor X,” or “Good morning, Professor Y.” If you are contacting your professor with “Hey” or “Yo,” you may or may not like their reply.

Furthermore, the salutation is more of a gesture of courtesy. Following your greeting, you can say something like “I hope you are doing well.” It is good to be polite, after all!

State your purpose:
This section is where you go right into what you need help with. Wait though! Before you go right into it, you want to provide the professors with ALL the info they need to identify who you are. You can start off by saying “My name is John Doe, and I am a student in your ART 100 class.” Boom! You already identified who you are and what class you have them for. After that, you can go right into what you need help with. Once you have already developed a relationship with your professors, you do not have to keep messaging your name and information. Also, unless the purpose of your email requires A LOT of context to explain, try your best to keep your information concise and error free.

Closing Remarks:
The closing remark is a formal way of ending your message. You can write something as simple as “Thank you for your time,” or “Enjoy the rest of your day.” These are nice signoffs to signal to your reader that you concluding your message and appreciate their time.

Sign-off:
This is where you “sign your name” sort-of-speak at the end of your correspondence. Now, the word you use can change depending on the level of professionalism. For the purposes of messaging a professor, words you can use can be “best,” or even “kind regards.” You are certainly not limited to just those. Maybe do some research and find one that suits you best.

And that is pretty much all you need to know about emailing a professor! I hope you picked up on some important details that may help ease you into drafting your own emails.

One final thought! As one helpful tip, do not add the email address of the professor you are messaging until AFTER you have already drafted and edited your message. You do not want to be me and prematurely hit “send” before even finishing the email! Sometimes it happens (multiple times). To avoid this issue entirely, just add the email last.