ENGL 505B

Lately I've been trying to think of activities I could do with my students to hone their "netiquette," particularly in regard to the writing of emails.

First, I tracked down an interesting article I'd read in the New York Times about professors who feel their students are (ab)using email by bombarding them with questions/requests that they feel are inane or too demanding. That led me to a summary of a study that found that people misinterpret the intended tone of emails approximately 50% of the time. Here are the links:

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/02/70179/

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/education/21professors.html?_r=1&emc=e...

Using this information, I created an activity that included three actual emails I've received (with the names removed to protect the innocent). For each, I asked the students to circle what they perceived the tone to be: friendly, aggressive or neutral. We then discussed the students' answers -- which of course were all different -- and how we arrived at them. We then generated a list of rules we could use for conveying tone when composing our own emails. This included word choice, avoidance of all caps, and emoticons.

Next, I had the students select from a list of situations what they felt it would be an appropriate reason to email their professor. This led to an interesting discussion of audience consideration. Finally, we discussed how lack of proofreading (or capitalization) impacts their ethos as a writer.

Overall, I thought the students had some interesting thoughts on this topic, and I think it will save me from some incoherent rambling emails in the future. I would be interested in any advice you would have for extending this activity.

Oh wait, I almost forgot my obligatory smiley...