I've been a Computer Sciences student for 4 years now, give or take, and my experience with emailing teachers/professors (teachers from now on) has been either of two cases:
- they reply to my entire email
- they read the last sentence or paragraph and reply to that.
Generally, if a teacher fits in one of those categories, they always respond like that.
However, for me it's quite frustrating to receive an email back (within 5 minutes, an hour, a day) with a reply, to only one point, and then having to mail back with my other questions, removing one question at a time.
To note: my e-mails are always very respectful, neatly written, and without spelling or other mistakes.
What can I do to get a higher percentage-of-questions-answered-per-email response?
Answer
Professors are busy and receive a lot of mail (> 100 per day, not counting mass-mailings). It's rational for them to skim past the salutations and introductory parts until the end, where you usually find "the gist". Obviously, this filter is fast but imperfect.
To ensure that you get a response to all of your questions, write very short and very neat emails. Also make it as clear as the day what you want the respondent to do. Finally, don't bother asking questions to which you can simply look up the answer:
Dear Professor Foo,
this is about our discussion after the last seminar on FooBar.
- Should I hand in my essay before or after the last session? I couldn't find this on the syllabus.
- I was also wondering if you could recommend a textbook on BarBaz.
Kind regards
Foo Baz
There really isn't more you can do. If you still get partial responses, write another mail about only the remaining items (as you do).
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