I struggle with considering email a “legacy medium.” On one hand, I rarely use email as a form of communication but on the other, I still receive a ton of emails. Email definitely hit its peak of popularity about 20 years ago, but it is still a favored way for professors and students to communicate. The article was helpful to me because I seriously struggle with email etiquette.

It’s rare that I use email to communicate with anyone other than my professors, so I’m not super practiced with it. For me, I wouldn’t say writing the email itself is the hard part, it’s more about how to address the recipient. I don’t want to be too formal, but I also don’t want to be too informal. Besides that fact, I really don’t mind email as a way of communication.

In a sense email could be considered a legacy medium. I mean it has been replaced with faster communication (texting/calling), but I also think that email allows us to communicate in a way that texting or calling doesn’t. Email has evolved to stay relevant in this day and age by allowing us to share documents or pictures. I can’t count how many times in high school I would just email my teacher my assignments instead of printing them out or saving them on a flash drive. In a way, email has made flash drives a thing of the past.

All in all, I think email is still a useful tool that has just been downgraded to a specific set of uses.

After reading the two links, one that is more comical and the other that is more serious, I was honestly able to better understand how to write e-mails to a professor. One of the things that stuck out to me the most was the clear distinction with the more serious article and the implied distinction with the more comical article between a professional and personal e-mail.

A lot of times when e-mails are sent to professors, the line between sending a serious and professional e-mail and sending an e-mail as if to a friend is blurred. One of the biggest reasons that this mistake happens more often than not is that students are never made aware of how exactly an e-mail should even be sent. In the current generation, people have grown up using e-mail constantly but never in a professional manner. It was always a fun way to communicate with friends. So the jump can sometimes affect people differently, leaving them to not be aware of how to properly communicate with a professor.

Colleges and even high schools demand that students use the school e-mail to contact teachers with any matter. E-mail is the most widely used type of communication in the educational system. Part of the reason is that administrators are able to keep all forms of communications between faculty and students in one place, making it easy to find any specific communication for any reason.

However, the question of why colleges and universities don’t use different forms of social media such as Facebook or WhatsApp raises the issue of how much more personal communications become between a professor and a student. Social media is much more personal, allowing access to more than just academic performance or curriculum information. Students are able to access personal data about professors and vice versa through these communications and tracking any of it becomes much harder because how big the social media platforms are.

I personally didn’t start using e-mail till about 7th grade which was when my middle school set up e-mail servers for the students and the teachers. From then on, I used e-mail very frequently and still do. However, I rely more on social media solely to contact friends or family because of how much more accessible it is.  E-mail has always been something I saw as being used by me in more professional settings in which I needed to contact an employer, professor, organization, etc.

For me, email is absolutely not a legacy medium. I would receive emails almost hourly, seriously hourly from random businesses and specifically colleges. I actually have over 11,000 unread emails(I don’t delete them for fun now). Both of my parents are regularly using their email accounts in the workday, constantly checking messages and reading mail. Many companies create work accounts for employees to email through, so the company emails are all on a single server. This has transitioned to the college world even more. UGA has given each student a school email account that is run through Microsoft. This account is so all-inclusive, that a current student would practically not be able to pass classes or sign up for anything without the account being used. Emails are sent everyday reminding us students of upcoming events and deadlines. Everything from football tickets to volunteer service runs through the email system here. Another aspect to the UGA email, is that it is the primary source of communication between a student and professor. If a student needs clarification regarding something discussed in class, or a question about office hours, he or she can be most helped by sending the professor an email through the UGA account. This transitions into the article about emails sent to professors from students being unprofessional or useless. Certainly there are some students who lack formal communication skills through media, but that does not represent the majority of college students. These are rare blips in a vastly intelligent pool of college students who are able to construct a professional email worthy of being sent to a professor. This stems from the fact that students at UGA specifically are being more and more acclimated to the technological world, that email skills are being acquired along the way.

Email is definitely the easiest way for students to communicate with their professors and vice versa. Email may be a “legacy media” when it comes to communicating with family and friends, but with professors, it is probably the most efficient and professional way to get in touch with each other. I went to a very small high school where I had personal relationships with all of my teachers, and would often times send rather informal emails when I had questions for them. After reading about proper email etiquette, I realized that I could never email my professors at UGA the way I emailed my teachers in high school! Now that I am in so many large classes with three hundred people in each one, my professors have no idea who I am and that is something that I’m not used to. I have not had to email one of them yet, and am thankful that I have this article to refer to from now on. Now that I am in college and school is much more serious, I think it is very important to be respectful and professional when emailing a professor, and show them that you are serious about their class. One thing that I noticed on the second article making fun of students emailing their professors unprofessionally, is that text “slang” was being used such as writing “u” instead of you, or  “ur” instead of your. Many students email in this way because our generation is so used to texting and shortening words, that it even appears in their emails. However, most students think this is okay because they have never been told what is proper email etiquette. I am grateful for this article, because now I no longer have to worry about my emails being too informal or too formal. It is definitely a format that I will use in the future!

I don’t believe that email as a whole is a “legacy media.” However, certain aspects of it seem to have been replaced by modern technology, such as texting, instant messaging, and even “DM-ing.” These more modern forms of messaging allow for easier access to others and faster communication. Yesterday, I watched the movie You’ve Got Mail with a few of my friends from my hall and found the emphasis on email throughout the movie very interesting, as it was released in 1998. The characters’ main form of communication is through email, and I compared that to how it differs from today’s media culture. If that movie was released today, the characters would have most likely only communicated through texting.

Email still plays a large role in my life today. I tend to use email for more “formal” conversations, such as those with my professors, teachers, and boss. On the other hand, I use texting or calling for the more “informal” ones with my family and friends. I think that email is still widely used today, for these more “formal” conversations serve as a sign of respect to those you’re speaking with. Conversations via texting or instant messaging are almost too personable and casual for those who are considered your superior. Universities are so “email-crazy” because this form of communication is so universal and is able to be easily distributed to large groups of people, which other methods cannot offer. One of the downsides of email is the emergence of mismatched exchanges between professors and students. This is most likely due to the fact that students use more modern forms of communication to such a great extent that the type of lingo used for these is translated over to emails. Despite its downfalls, I don’t think email will become a “legacy media” any time soon.

I really enjoyed reading How to Email Your Professor because it reinforced what I knew about how to communicate with a teacher or professor. Throughout high school, I would email my teachers frequently about and questions that I had about the class, or any excuses I had. At my school, we were expected to communicate with our teachers in a very polite and respectful way, so I am used to writing formal emails to professionals. In high school if I for some reason sent one of my teachers a short or casual email, they either wouldn’t respond or they would talk to me after class about it. Even though sometimes writing such a formal email can seem tedious, I really think that it is necessary and expected. Every student should have respect for their professor, so sending a respectful email is definitely necessary.

Since social media is so prevalent in students’ everyday lives, it is sometimes easy to send an email that is not very professional. This occurs most of the time not because the student doesn’t respect the professor, but because the student is so used to communicating in a certain way with their peers. Social media has taught us to communicate more efficiently and more casually. Although sometimes this benefits us, it can also end up hurting us in the long run. Personally, I think that it is really important to treat adults with respect, especially professors, so I really enjoyed reading the essay and figuring out just how important it really is to be conscious of my emails.

Before coming to college, I didn’t really use email that much. I would just much rather text and call than email someone. But now that’s the way I communicate with my professors. I don’t think that emails will ever become a legacy media because it is used as a professional way to communicate through a business, school system, universities and much more.

Emailing a professor is way more professional than sending them a text. Students today, like to communicate through texting, Facebook, Twitter and other things that are informal and are personal ways of communication. I think universities are so email-crazy because it’s a formal way of communication. I think they haven’t embraced things the that students like to use to communicate to others because those are informal personal ways of communication and it would be weird, to me personally to text a professor. Since students don’t use email that often I feel like some people may not approach an email in a formal/professional way and would just approach it like they are communicating to a friend through texting or Facebook. That could then offend or come across rude the professor and he may not even want to respond to your email.

At first when I got to college, I didn’t really know email etiquette and I would have to ask people to read my emails to make sure it didn’t come across wrong or I wasn’t going to offend the professor or the person I was emailing. After reading the article, I realized that I wasn’t putting the “Element #4,” the author was talking about to make the professor feel like he does have some life outside of being a professor. Starting the email off with something like, “I hope you are having a great weekend!” to me sounds like you care for the professor/class. So now I will implement that  into my emails. Since I have this resource for email etiquette, I will most likely refer to it from now on.

How to Email Your Professor (without being annoying)**

Every semester, I see the tweets and Facebook posts. My professor friends, they are annoyed. Their students do not know how to write emails, they say. What they really mean is that their students…

The essay was 100% accurate when it came to the fact that no one has ever really been taught how to write an email.  I know that whenever I’m emailing professors, I’m always nervous about whether I’m being too casual or too formal just because no one has ever told us “this is right” or “this is wrong.”  However, I don’t think that students and professors have completely different viewpoints regarding email; I just think students were never told how to approach email, and they struggle to understand the formality necessary, especially since this changes with everyone they talk to.

I think the reason why universities and schools mostly use email as a way of communicating is because it is safe to assume everyone has access to email.  Some schools have tried to communicate through texts (remind101), but this only worked for reminders or one way conversations because students could not respond to these messages; they would have to email their teachers if they had any concerns.  Email is the best form of communication we have right now when it comes to contacting our professors, even if it is one of the older medias we have.  It’s simple, free, and everyone pretty much has it.  It doesn’t cost anything to send an email as opposed to texts, and it is something that people are already accustomed to and have access to (the school provides it in most university settings) as opposed to apps or social media that some people don’t have or want to create.

Today, all I really only use email for is school. I have a setting so that whenever someone sends me an email, it also comes in as a text message to my phone because I rarely ever check my email. Most people that need to contact me will either text or call me. This being said, I don’t think schools will ever really switch from emailing. I would just feel very uncomfortable texting my professor because texting seems way more personal than emailing.

I think that many students are so accustomed to new types of communication, like texting, where communication is very brief and to the point that it becomes hard to switch back into writing a long, formal email. It seems so pointless to add all of these other words when really you just want to ask your question and send the email. But, I do understand where professors are coming from when they want emails to be written in a certain way. Just like you would talk to your professor much more formally than you would talk to your best friend, emails and communication should be more formal too.

My school was one of the rare schools that actually taught their students how to properly email a teacher. In 7^th grade, one of my required computer classes actually had a unit on how to properly email teachers. The format I learned was pretty similar to the format given in “How to Email Your Professor”, and it has been ingrained in my mind ever since I learned it. I would probably have no idea how to email a teacher if I had not learned it in this class. I think it is important that students be taught how to properly write an email especially if teachers are expecting it to be written in a certain way.

Prior to college, email was not a large part of my life. If I had a question to ask my teacher in high school it could most likely wait until the next day where I would see them in class. Now that I only see my professors three times maximum per week I have begun to utilize email more often. Email in college serves as the only form of communication between professors and students  which makes it so important to not offend your professors while emailing them. While emailing your professor one needs to write the way they would talk to their professor in person.

The article was not lying when it stated that our generation has simply never been taught how to format emails. Whenever I have to write an email I stick to my same format that I have grown to be comfortable with. After reading this article I have come to the realization that I am not half bad at writing emails, but most definitely not perfect. I now know that I have to add details about which class I am in and at what time, which makes sense considering how many students my professor may have. I think to better ones email writing they should put themselves in the shoes of the individual they are emailing.

Professors may have different views of emailing than students do. I think this has to do more with the age gap than anything else. Professors look at email as a much more professional form of communication while students do not necessarily understand the formality of email. By being taught the proper formatting of emailing, students will become more efficient at emailing as well as eliminate the opportunity to offend their professor, which is the worst case scenario.