Email Etiquette for HS Freshman

Email Etiquette
Writing for the Digital Age

Importance
 Represent self to…
 Teachers
 Professors
 Bosses
 Potential Employers
 Use in professional situations
 Different from social media: need to use a
different language!

Email Address
 Set up a neutral or professional account
 Use for communicating with teachers, employers,
professors
 Contain name or initials of name
 Colleges will give a school address.
 Do Not Use
 inappropriate words (hotfoxychick@partyanimal.net)
 difficult or long symbols/words
 immature-sounding titles
(ihatepeople@allaboutme.com)
 personal information beyond name

First Impressions
hotangel@msn.com
assignment
i can’t find the assignment u gave in class. can you send me a
new one? thanx.
bcrowley@hershey.k12.pa.us

First Impressions
gr8timestoBhad4all@hotmail.com
zero
U gave me a zero! i reely don’t think that was fare. i have
worked so hard to imprve on my writing this year.

Subject Line
 Make it applicable!
 Brief/concise
 non-threatening
Don’t use…
 Hey!
 Re:
 I was wondering if
you could give me
an extension
Monday assignment

Salutation
 Often forgotten
 Important for setting
tone
 Respectful
 Be mindful of titles
and spelling names
correctly!
 If you don’t know the
gender, use the first
and the last name
together or a title.

Salutations
Dear Terry Smith,
Yesterday’s meeting
tsmith@ptd.net
hersheystudent@hershey.k12.pa.us

Um…
hey,
I was wondering if you had a Moodle site? Thanx.
hey…
bcrowley@ptd.net

Much Better
Ms. Winter,
Good morning! I was wondering if you could help me set up a
guidance appointment. My guidance counselor is Mrs. Good. I
appreciate all you are doing to help me! Thank you.
Ima Grait
guidance appointment
mwinter@hershey.k12.pa.us

Great Example
Dr. Kline,
Thank you so much for sponsoring me for the annual Hershey
High School mini-thon. I am emailing you to ask if you could fill
out the sponsor sheet by this Friday, and put it in my mom’s
mailbox at work. Thank you again for all you are doing to help me
raise money for the Four Diamond’s Fund. Have a wonderful day!
Mature Hershey Freshman
Mini-Thon sponsorship
bkline@duke.us

Your Turn!
Situation: You think your art teacher may have
incorrectly added your score for your last project and
now the grade that is in Home Access is so low that
it is dragging down your GPA! You decide to email
the teacher so that you don’t forget tomorrow and so
he/she can fix it ASAP.
Create an appropriate subject line and salutation
for this email. (1 minute)
Share out to a partner or two. (30 seconds)
Decide which one to share with the class.

Tone
 Respectful, Friendly,
Approachable (FAR)
 AVOID UPPERCASE
LETTERS AS IT
FEELS TO THE
READER THAT YOU
ARE SHOUTING!
 “no u didn’t rite ur tchr
like this. U r asking fr
trubl.” (Fleming)
 Read over once before
sending.

Remember this girl…?
hotangel@msn.com
assignment
i can’t find the assignment u gave in class. can you send me a
new one? thx.

Let’s Fix that…
hotangel@msn.com
Last night’s assignment
Mrs. Crowley,
I apologize for having to email you tonight, but I seem to have
misplaced the assignment sheet on sentences that you gave in
class. Do you possibly have a digital copy or have you posted
this online? I have already tried to call a classmate, but
unfortunately they were at an away game. If I do not hear from
you, I will check in tomorrow and at worst take the late grade
for my mistake. Thanks for your time!
Reformed (but still hot) Angel (English Honors 9 student)
Find three ways
this email has
improved!

Oh, and this one again?
zero
U gave me a zero! i reely don’t think that was fare. i have
worked so hard to imprve on my writing this year.

Would you grant it?
A concern
Dear Mrs. Crowley,
When I was checking on home access tonight, I noticed that you entered a
zero in for the assignment due on 9/3. Although I turned the assignment in
late, I do have a reason that I would like to explain. I understand the policy,
but there were extenuating circumstance that night, and I turned the paper
into the basket later in the day. Could I possibly talk to you about this
sometime soon? Let me know when you are free and I will come to your
room. Thank you for your time.
Learning how to keep the “gr8” times coming
Infer: From this example,
what could you jot in
your notes to remember
about writing a strong
email?

Formality
 Better to be more formal in tone and
salutation than less
 Take cues from response
 Emoticons: usually acceptable but best to
be safe when emailing a new person
 Be as positive as possible to
avoid a miscommunication of
tone

Fonts
 Neutral/
Professional
 Easy to convert
 iPad | iPod
 Smart phones
 Easy to read
This looks like a ransom note and
is terrible on the eyes
Fancy but a little overdone and quite annoying to get
through.
Easy on the eyes but a bit informal
for some communication.
Times New Roman
Trebuchet
Arial Black

Length
 Motto: “as short as possible”
 Do not ramble!
 If longer than one screen length…
 call the person
 email only to suggest a meeting time/place
 summarize your purpose in the first lines and
explain why the long email is necessary
 Too long is not easy to read on smart
phones

Too short
crowley,
gone tomorrow. back next week. will get missed work.
Sent from my iphone 12:00 a.m.
gone
bcrowley@ptd.net

Too Long…
Mrs. Crowley,
Hello! I just wanted to let you know that I might be missing class tomorrow (even
though I don’t want to!) because I have a problem with my ankle. It has swollen to be the
size of a grapefruit and I can’t get the swelling to go down with ice. The doctor has
recommended a CAT scan (scary!). My mom said she had one recently and it wasn’t
bad, but I get scared of small spaces. I hope it goes well. Anyway, I have to miss your
class tomorrow but I’ll get the notes from Angie when I see her on Saturday at work. By
then my ankle should be better and I’ll be back in class on Monday. Thanks for taking
the time to read my book! haha, sometimes I tend to ramble (as you have probably
noticed in class). Anyway, see you then!
Way Too Much Time and Energy on My Hands
absence from class
bcrowley@ptd.net
Tell me three things that I DIDN’T
need to know to have the basic
message conveyed.

Perfect
Mrs. Crowley,
I wanted to let you know that I will be missing class tomorrow
because of a doctor’s appointment. However, I will be back in
class on Monday with my note. If I don’t hear from you I will
check with my classmates for the missed assignments and notes.
Thanks for your time!
Ima Mazing
absence
bcrowley@ptd.net

Attachments
 Make sure your attachment is in a common
format
 Word 2010 or 2003
 Adobe pdf
 jpg or png for pictures
 Make sure it has a clear name
 “Literary Analysis paragraph”
 Do not use your name as the document title!
 Be sure to reference attachment in the body
of your email.

When NOT to email
 If possible to verbalize a complaint in
person, do so.
 If giving very shocking, traumatic or
personal news
 If you are angry: Don’t email until you are
calm or save the draft to be sent later.
 If what you write has the potential to be
used against you.

I’m not the only one…
Colbert Agrees!
CBS Agrees
John Tesh Agrees!

Your Turn!
 With a group of 5 people, create a situation
that would necessitate emailing. Turn this in
to Mrs. Crowley by the end of the period.
 Be sure to include the receiver.
 Be sure to include the details that make email
the BEST mode of communication for this
situation.
 Include enough information for the situation to
be clearly imagined and specifically
communicated.

Citations and Acknowledgements
 McKay, Dawn Rosenberg. "Email Etiquette - Why Is It Important?." Career Planning -
Career Planning Guide. 11 Sep. 2009
<http://careerplanning.about.com/od/communication/a/email_etiquette.htm>.
 Fleming, Grace. "Email Tips for Teens." Homework Tips - Help With Homework. 11 Sep.
2009 <http://homeworktips.about.com/b/2009/07/18/email-tips-for-teens.htm>.
 Brizee, Allen . "Email Etiquette for Students - The OWL at Purdue." Welcome to the
Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL). 11 Sep. 2009
<http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/694/01/>.
 All of the previous students who made this presentation so valuable.
 All of the people who send me the most annoying email communication possible—thank
you for being the impetus for this body of work.

Email Etiquette for HS Freshman

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