How to Email a Professor

Just a quick note on emailing professors. If you are asking for help or corrections on an assignment, you should send those kinds of emails ahead of time. Also, if you expect the professor to have complete knowledge of the problems in the book on the weekend, then you’re going to have a bad time. Every semester, I’ve had questions about problems in the book, and the student will email me the problem number in question rather than describe what the problem is. It is much easier for me to provide a response to a questions like, “should the truth table be ordered {00, 01, 10, 11} or {00, 10, 01, 11}?” than it is to respond to a question like, “I need help on problem 3.2.”

Be clear and concise and provide context when you email a professor. This should be standard practice for any form of communication. It also doesn’t hurt to mention the particular class. I’m teaching two classes right now, and both of them are working on the same numbered lab assignment at the same time, so asking for help on Lab 3 might take a little while for me to figure out which class’s Lab 3 you are talking about.

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