Audience Analysis

My primary audience is the manager of Westminster's Plant Operations. This man has a great deal of responsibility regarding maintenance and keeping college technology efficient. Plant Operations also extends tendrils of labor into event planning and engineering.

I've met the manager twice, and on both occasions he was polite and interested in my background as an employee of Plant Ops (I'm a mail room worker). My supervisor, Karen, enjoys frequent visits from the manager, who arrives to see how we're all doing as well as evaluate the efficiency of our office. He is concerned with both arenas of the greater work environment: employee satisfaction and office efficiency. He's managed plant operations long enough to know that both are crucial to a successful office.

My manager would likely read the email under fairly busy circumstances. He checks into the office every weekday morning and immediately sets about reading emails, returning calls, and listening to concerns and reports that are voiced by his immediate staff. However, he knows an urgent situation when he sees one, and that maintaining efficient communication and supply of materials across campus is one of his chief concerns. He would likely single out this message on his own and respond to it quickly, but I still need to insure that it presents both logic and urgency in one package.

My Response To "How to Email a Professor" by Michael Leddy

I agree with Dr. Liddy that it is important to keep an email professional and easy to maneuver. I've been told more than once by past professors that it's difficult to discern a student from a university email address, especially when the subject line is something general, like "Question about an Assignment". It is, I concede, far easier to write a more specific question, such as "Question about Comm 301 Assignment". Being polite and professional to a professor are obvious musts.

There is one point, however, that I respectively disagree with. I think that the presence of generous formality can be a liability rather than an asset. It is important to treat a professor with respect, but using too much formality can make it seem as though you're submissive to him or her. Most professors I know prefer a student-mentor relationship in which both parties can be open and reasonably informal, as it creates a speaking environment conducive to honesty and friendship, rather than just the give-and-take of assignments and related information. I suggest that Dr. Leddy's advice solely take the form of addressing a professor politely and professionally, without all of the cumbersome formality that can so segregate a student from his or her mentor. In Dr. Leddy's defense, the preference is, at the very least, subjective, but in my two years of college I've yet to meet a professor who preferred to be addressed as "Hello, Dr. Last Name" rather than simply "Hey, First Name. Hope things are going well!".

Book Bio

Ian Coppock was raised in northern Utah, where he began writing Accolade and other fiction material when he was nine. An avid gamer, Ian also became interested in video game story writing shortly after his arrival to Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he is currently studying professional writing. He divides his time between writing books, writing video games, reading books, and playing video games. Ian lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.