MS/PhD in USA | How to Write Good Emails to Professors
Summary
TLDRIn this educational video, Chaitanya Samhara from the University of Texas at Arlington addresses the common issue of students not receiving responses from professors due to poorly written emails. The video provides a detailed analysis of two poorly constructed emails, highlighting mistakes in grammar, formatting, and personalization. It then contrasts these with an exemplary email, demonstrating how to effectively communicate with professors. The video serves as a guide for students to improve their email etiquette and increase the likelihood of receiving a response.
Takeaways
- đ Professors receive numerous emails daily, and they quickly decide whether to respond or not based on the quality of the email.
- đ Many students send poorly written emails with bad grammar and content, which is why they often don't receive responses.
- đ The script provides three real email examples to illustrate the differences between bad and good emails.
- đ The first bad email example has issues with capitalization, addressing the professor generically, and basic grammar mistakes.
- đ§ The second bad email example includes incorrect name usage, inappropriate familiarity, and lack of clarity in the request.
- đ A good email example is provided, which is well-structured, clear, and shows respect and understanding of the recipient's work.
- đĄ The good email example demonstrates how to establish credibility, express genuine interest, and connect with the professor's work.
- đ The importance of proper grammar, punctuation, and clarity in email communication is emphasized throughout the script.
- đ Attaching a resume and mentioning it clearly in the email is a good practice, as shown in the good email example.
- đ The script suggests that tailoring each email to a specific professor and showing genuine interest in their work increases the chances of a response.
- đ The script concludes with a recommendation to not copy-paste emails but to personalize them based on one's own credentials and research interests.
Q & A
Why do some students not receive responses to their emails to professors?
-Students may not receive responses because they send poorly written emails with bad grammar, incorrect salutations, and a lack of personalization, which can lead to professors ignoring or deleting them.
What is the importance of capitalizing the first letter of the first word in an email?
-Capitalizing the first letter of the first word is a basic grammar rule that shows professionalism and respect. Failing to do so can make the email seem unprofessional and less likely to be taken seriously.
Why is it crucial to address the professor by their correct name in an email?
-Addressing the professor by their correct name personalizes the email and shows that the student has taken the time to find out who they are contacting. Using a generic 'Professor' without a name can make the email seem impersonal and mass-sent.
What mistake did the student make by saying 'I'm pretty much interested' in their email?
-The phrase 'I'm pretty much interested' implies a lack of strong interest or enthusiasm. It's better to express keen or definite interest when communicating with a professor to show commitment.
Why should students avoid using their nickname or informal email addresses when contacting professors?
-Using a formal email address that includes the student's full name is more professional and appropriate for academic correspondence. Informal or nickname-based addresses can come across as unprofessional.
What is the significance of the spacing after a period in an email?
-Proper spacing after a period, which should be one space, is part of standard English punctuation and formatting. Incorrect spacing can make the email look poorly formatted and unpolished.
Why is it beneficial to mention specific work by the professor in an email?
-Referring to specific work by the professor shows that the student has done their research and is familiar with the professor's work, which can help establish a connection and increase the likelihood of a positive response.
What does the acronym 'UGC' stand for in the context of the email?
-In the email, 'UGC' stands for 'University Grants Commission,' which is an organization that provides grants for research projects in India.
Why should students avoid using contractions like 'don't' in formal emails?
-Using contractions in formal emails can make the language seem informal or casual. It's better to use the full form of words to maintain a professional tone in academic correspondence.
What is the purpose of attaching a resume to an email when contacting a professor?
-Attaching a resume provides the professor with additional information about the student's background, qualifications, and experience, which can support their request or inquiry.
Why is it important to proofread and check grammar before sending an email to a professor?
-Proofreading and checking grammar ensure that the email is free of errors, which can detract from the student's message. A well-written email reflects positively on the student and increases the chances of a favorable response.
Outlines
đ§ Improving Email Communication with Professors
The speaker, Chaitanya Samhara, a faculty member at the University of Texas at Arlington, addresses the common issue of students not receiving responses to their emails to professors. He critiques the poor quality of many student emails, highlighting issues such as lack of capitalization, generic greetings, and poor grammar. Samhara provides examples of bad emails and demonstrates how they could be improved. He emphasizes the importance of personalizing emails, using correct grammar, and expressing clear and concise intentions to increase the likelihood of receiving a response.
đ Analyzing and Refining a Student's Email
In this segment, the speaker continues his analysis of student emails, focusing on a second example. He points out mistakes such as incorrect salutations, lack of personalization, and improper use of spacing and punctuation. The speaker then offers a revised version of the email, demonstrating how to correct these errors and present oneself professionally. He advises students to avoid generic greetings, use full names, and ensure their emails are well-structured and polite to improve communication with professors.
đ Crafting an Effective Email for Academic Inquiry
The speaker examines a high-quality email from a doctoral student named Apurva, who is applying to American universities. He praises the student's clear subject line, proper salutation, and the way she establishes her academic credentials and research interests. The email is analyzed for its effective use of language, including how the student connects her research with the professor's work and expresses her interest in potential collaboration. The speaker also notes minor areas for improvement, such as clarifying acronyms and maintaining grammatical consistency.
đĄ Enhancing Email Impact with Research Interests
In the final paragraph, the speaker discusses how Apurva's email goes beyond just stating her credentials and research projects. She demonstrates a keen interest in emerging research areas and expresses a desire to pursue these under the guidance of the professor. The speaker commends the student's approach of attaching her resume for reference and her polite and professional closing. He concludes by advising viewers to tailor their emails to reflect their own strengths and to connect with the professor's work to increase the chances of a positive response.
Mindmap
Keywords
đĄEmail Etiquette
đĄGrammar
đĄPersonalization
đĄCredibility
đĄSubject Line
đĄSalutation
đĄAttachment
đĄResearch Opportunities
đĄAcademic Writing
đĄProfessionalism
đĄResponse Rate
Highlights
Professors receive numerous emails daily and often decide within seconds whether to respond based on the quality of the email.
Many students send poorly written emails, which is why they often go unanswered.
Three real email examples are analyzed to demonstrate common mistakes and how to improve them.
The importance of proper capitalization, especially at the beginning of the email and after periods, is emphasized.
Addressing the email to a specific professor rather than a generic 'professor' is crucial for personalization.
Grammar mistakes, such as missing spaces after periods, can make an email seem unprofessional.
Using phrases like 'pretty much interested' can dilute the message's strength and should be avoided.
Specifying a teaching assistant position and the semester for which one is applying shows clarity and intent.
Attaching a resume is a good practice, but clarity in communication about attachments is necessary.
Using 'thank you' or 'sincerely' followed by a comma and the sender's name is a polite way to close an email.
Avoiding the use of a nickname in the email address and using the full name instead is more professional.
A well-structured email with a clear subject line increases the chances of a response.
Establishing credibility by mentioning academic achievements and scholarships early in the email is effective.
Connecting with the professor by referencing their work and expressing genuine interest in it is a strong strategy.
Mentioning current and relevant research projects that align with the professor's interests can grab their attention.
Expressing a keen interest in emerging research areas and the desire to explore them under the professor's guidance is compelling.
Attaching a resume and mentioning it clearly in the email ensures the professor has the necessary information to consider the applicant.
Closing the email with a professional tone, expressing anticipation for a response, and signing off with 'sincerely' sets a positive tone.
Transcripts
how many times has it happened when you
sent an email to a professor and you
never heard back why does that happen
let me tell you why most of the times
you people send really really bad emails
they're horrible and no wonder why you
never get response for your emails so
let me show you three examples two
examples of bad emails and i will show
you how those emails could have been
written better and then i will show you
an example of a good email now remember
that all three emails are real emails
that professors had received
[Music]
this is chaitanya samhara faculty at the
college of business university of texas
arlington every single day professors
get tons and tons of emails okay most of
the times they open it okay but within a
fraction of a second they know whether
or not they want to respond to you and
because so many people write such
horrible emails with such horrible
content with horrible grammar nobody
wants to respond to those emails okay
they don't want to spend any more time
on you so they will immediately delete
that email or let that email become one
of those emails and pass that they had
received so without further ado let me
show you the first email that i had
received a few months ago okay okay so
let us take a look at this first email i
had received this email on august 31st
okay so the very first problem that i
notice here is to do with the first
letter of the first word at least this
first letter should be capitalized okay
it should be it should read as an r
regarding teaching assistantship ideally
speaking everything should be cap
regarding and this t should be cap
and this a should be also cap but if not
at least the first letter of the first
word should be capitalized
okay next
this student attached that resume that's
fine ut id uh i don't care about their
ut id but that's fine and the name also
okay now just look at this hello
professor
again this p should have been
capitalized
okay second thing that they are missing
is that they are addressing just
professor so i know that they just copy
pasted that email and sent it to
everybody right
now this is a bad idea you should always
individually send an email like you
should target an email to each
individual professor or else they have
no interest in reading your email okay
because we know that uh you just copy
paste it to everybody you don't you you
you did not even bother to find out who
i am
now what happens here is that
uh hello professor this is and this
student's name and notice this
there is
a period after a space
right here
okay
and then there is no space between that
period and i
this is
absolute basic of grammar in english
okay anytime you write a sentence
whenever you write a word you end it
with a period and then you give a space
here and then you start
your content
okay again same mistake made here as
well
okay so the period should have been here
and there should have been a space there
right here
okay
i am in my third semester of what you
did not tell me
okay next thing my major is computer
science okay that is okay and then again
the first
character he whenever you say i am
i should always be capitalized
i am pretty much interested in working
as ta
okay i'm pretty much interested what
does that even mean pretty much
if you don't know the grammar or the
language
well pretty much means that i'm somewhat
interested
okay i'm not keenly interested this
person is not saying that i'm keenly
interested okay
none of that language is coming across
and then again
my gpa is 3.2 okay again i would like to
apply for you should have an rta
position because
a teaching position
is your specifying that
in the fall 2021 semester again
below attachment is my resume bad
grammar you should instead say my resume
is attached with this email
again could you please check again the
same mistake and let me know if position
is available or not thank you professor
okay first of all here should be a comma
and then you should write your name abc
whatever your name is
okay
and then
uh you should instead say sincerely and
this if you want to say thank you
at least you have the decency to say
thank you
okay
and whatever professor's name is or you
don't even need to say that thank you a
comma and then write your name below
so this was an example of a bad email
second example of another bad email
would be this
okay so uh looks like i have not done
the best of the job when i tried to hide
the name but at least their full name is
hidden and this name smither here is a
pretty common name okay
now let us uh analyze this email
first of all
the person who she sent that email to
his name is his last name is parallel
okay so she
wrote the name wrong
to begin with
and then she says hope again same
mistake
hope
h capital hope you and your family are
doing well now what is wrong with this
this person does not know dr peral at
all
has never met him has never communicated
with him so you should never start with
discussing their family okay just say
that i hope you are doing well
okay
now hope you and your family are doing
well but
i would still let it go but ideally you
should not bring family to a stranger
then i'm smitha that is fine i was
interacting with dr chaitanya again look
at this
a space between period and c is missing
okay and ideally she should have written
my full name
okay and he suggested me connect with
you again
bad grammar
okay he suggested that i should contact
you
that's what you should have said and i
will uh show an email how it could have
been written to make it much better
i sent you a request on linkedin for the
same okay i need your guidance on few
things
on a few things but let it go for a
second
i got an offer for admission from oise
now what on the earth is oic we don't
know
okay you should have elaborated that and
then she says university of toronto for
the program curriculum and pedagogy for
the curriculum and pedagogy program is
what she should have said
okay and then she says i want to know
the options for the same both in usa and
canada after completing med now again
she should have just elaborated on what
it is and there is no such thing as mdd
it should have been m
key m capital e capitalized and then
small d
masters of education that is how it is
written okay
and then
in the end she says thanking you should
have been
thank you or sincerely
comma and her name
and one more mistake she made was that
she used her nickname family name
gmail.com you should always write your
full name
okay your first name dot last name or
something on those lines that is how
your email should read
okay now
how this email could have written if i
wrote this email this is how i would
have written this email okay
this is the email that she had written
okay and this is how this email could
have been written
dear dr paralkar okay i hope you are
doing well
again notice the space my name is this
and i live in whatever place you live in
i was interacting with doctor in that
case uh it was me so she should have
written dr chaitanya space samara
yesterday he suggested to me that i
reach out to you i sent you a request on
linkedin for the same or uh that is fine
then i would have said i request your
guidance on few things
i got an offer for admission from the
ontario institute for studies in
education i elaborated the whole thing
in brackets i write oise university of
toronto for the master's program
okay and then you're clearly indicating
that for the master's program m e d in
curriculum and pedagogy okay i would
like to know the career opportunities
for the same in usa and canada so now
you are explicitly stating that you are
looking for career opportunities okay
and so she wants to talk to this person
regarding what all options she can have
when she graduates okay
now in the end
i write here that looking forward to
hearing from you
sincerely and then write your full name
below
this is a much better way to write an
email by the way i wrote this email but
this is not exactly i would have written
that email but the point is that i
wanted to stay truthful to the extent
possible to that email that she had
written
okay so keeping her email format i
rewrote this email and shared this email
with her
and by the way to this person was a
senior to me by one year in college
and she reached out to me and asked for
help to connect her with somebody i know
okay now
now having seen two bad emails now let
me show you a very good quality email
okay
now even though this email is much
better than these two emails and this is
an email which would definitely evoke a
response from the reader
but this email also has some minor
issues so we will closely examine this
email and i will tell you on each line
why this is such a great email
okay now this email was sent by a
student a doctoral student
at indiana university her name is apurva
and by the way she runs a channel called
we desified
it's a fantastic channel one of the best
channels i have seen when it comes to
the quality of the content that is
presented
that guides youngsters who are trying to
pursue their master's or phd in the
united states
okay so if you are looking for college
applications you should definitely check
this channel out called we desified okay
now this email is what she had written
when she was applying for american
universities now let us closely examine
word to word sentence by sentence okay
first of all prospective look notice the
capitalized p
okay
phd student for 2017 need information on
research opportunities so the very
subject line clearly
tells the reader who she is
and what she is looking for
okay so we know that this person is
being serious and therefore a professor
would naturally open that email so now
uh what is going on here is that
she says hello doctor
doctor that professor's last name i
believe okay and look at the comma here
okay
now hope you are doing well
perfect opening okay then see what she
does i have completed m a in economics
with a merit scholarship and hired first
class from the university of mumbai
india in may 2016. so she immediately is
establishing her credibility
okay that i have already finished my
masters and i had a merit scholarship
with the first class in graduation okay
and then she says i'm looking to apply
for the phd program at
this whatever university it is for fall
2017. now immediately
when she starts that okay this is my
background very beef background in one
sentence which establishes her
credibility and then she says that i'm
looking to apply for the phd program
okay now after this great opening look
at what she does next she
immediately connects with the reader she
says i have read your article and she
writes the whole article's title in
quotes
okay
fantastic job and really like your work
now notice
how smart this email is that i have read
your paper and i really like your work
so she is immediately connecting with
the person and then she says that i am
currently working in a similar area with
a research project related to whatever
that project was
first
she gave her credentials and then she
connected with him and praised this
person's work that she really liked this
person's work
and now she's saying that she's also
currently working in a similar area so
now the reader would be even more
interested okay she is being serious she
has read my paper as she claims okay now
by the way you should always read the
paper generally at least read the
abstract introduction and conclusion
portions
at the least before you write that i
read your paper and i liked it because
apart from these three sections when it
comes to methodology and some other
sections
you might not understand the whole thing
because you are not yet trained but at
least these three sections you should
always read when you claim that i have
read your people okay
now
uh then she says that i'm currently
working in a similar area with a
research project which is to be
presented
for an international conference at
oxford
in
the uk in july 2017 again
i have read your work
i liked it i am doing similar work and
not just that
i also have a research paper in the same
area which i'm going to present so which
means that she had already completed
that work
okay
and then she says that i'm going to
present that paper in uk
now
just having read these three or four
sentences
what do you think the processor would do
definitely take this email very
seriously now by the way it does not
mean that all processors would reply but
the chances of a professor replying or
wanting to reply after having read the
first paragraph of these three four
sentences is very high
now
then what she says is that i am also
engaged in projects like
whatever project this and that
which also has a ugc grant
okay so in this case what she could have
done better is that she should have said
university grants commission in bracket
ugc grant so that the other person knows
what ugc is about she's assuming that
the professor knows what ugc is so it is
always better to elaborate
okay then last year comma perfect my
paper titled in double quotes she has
written the whole title of the paper was
published okay
so using ugc grant she worked on
research projects and that project was
also published
very positive sign so this clearly shows
that this person is a very able
researcher and is
a great
candidate to apply for your phd program
okay
now additionally looking at the new
developments related to demonetization
and other financial prospects now i'm
becoming uh too picky but in because
likely that this email was sent to an
american professor this should have been
a z rather than
an s
d monetization
okay and before i forget there is a
small error that this person made here
she says that grammatically i mean i'm
also engaged in projects like
now projects it's a plural okay
then she shows that it's plural project
number one
project number two
okay
which also
has the ugc grant so which also has a
ugc grant is singular so she should have
written i'm also engaged in projects
like project number one and project two
that also had
a ugc grant or also had
uh because this is in past
okay so she should have said that also
had that also had university grants
commission and brackets ugc grant
additionally looking at the new
developments related to demonetization
other financial prospects for the indian
economy and global trade
i have developed a keen interest to
study in the area of international
economics so she is clearly saying that
by the way
you might have been working on certain
projects okay i have worked on similar
projects but there is this emerging area
of research that i want to explore that
is essentially what she's saying
and that is the home run okay that is
like a chaka in cricket
okay
because she is showing that you know
what i also have certain ideas about the
areas that i think should be explored
okay
so that will actually give a 10 on 10
for this statement
and then she says hence i would like to
learn about the research opportunities
to study and work under your guidance
sweetly written well written
and she's showing respect that under
your guidance i want to learn more about
research opportunities okay
then finally she says i'm attaching my
resume with this email for your
reference remember you don't know where
that attachment would show up in that
person's mailbox above below we don't
know so unlike the first email that i
showed you where this person says that
the attached email is attached below
right
where this person says that below
attachment is my resume but look at
where the resume is attached above on
the top okay so
she is easily avoiding that confusion
just saying that hence
sorry i am attaching my resume with this
email for your reference okay
now look at the ending looking forward
to your reply
okay or you can also say looking forward
to hearing from you we either was fine
and then sincerely and then she wrote
her email so now when you write an email
like this
look at all the things she did
establish her credibility
expressed interest in a sense that she
first related to the professor
and then
noted that i have read your work and
then she
establishes her credibility by saying
that you know what i have also
done similar work
and i have this paper paper one paper
two and then i'm going to present this
paper also and i have published papers
already now because of all this
i also have keen interest in an emerging
area of research and therefore i want to
learn about research opportunities under
your guidance
okay
this overall email is probably one of
the best emails you will find
now
after having seen this email i would
suggest that
you should not copy paste this email
content because most likely you do not
have such a strong background as this
student had okay so based on whatever
your credibility is relate to that
professor first establish a connection
and then write a proper grammatically
correct email and then the probability
that you will get a response from the
professor will be very high
okay thank you for watching jain and god
bless america
[Music]
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