Dear Fellow Raveners,

As a teacher of English composition here at UTC, I've recently realized how important it is to spend a little time covering the rules of email etiquette. To many of my students, email doesn’t seem important and they do not consider their audience when they compose and send emails. For instance, I often receive emails from students, sent from a non-UTC email account with some unfamiliar and funky email handle/name, with no subject line, and no signature. Not only do students not bother to sign these emails, they don’t even let me know which class of mine they attend. I’m sure other professors across campus experience this same lack of awareness on the part of students. 

But everyday on the Raven listserv, I see evidence of this same lack of awareness when people post emails without a clear subject line. Please, when you post to Raven, make your subject line clear and to the point. We are all very busy, all taking time to sift through emails, and attend to other important matters. I love our listserv, I love it that we can talk about things, stir up controversy, explore topics, share concerns, send thank yous and notices of parties and yardsales, and freely put up our for sale notices. But it irks me when there is no subject line (like the dreaed "UTC Staff") or when the subject line just isn’t clear like: “FOR SALE.” When all I see is "For Sale," I just have to open the email because the object for sale could be the thing I’ve been looking for everywhere, all of my life. I may need to buy this thing, whatever it is. It could be the most precious object in the universe. Imagine my dismay when it’s just a coil of copper cable or a used Macintosh computer monitor from 1985. 

Please, Everyone. Use clear subject lines.

--Rebecca Cook, UTC English
 
Rebecca Cook
UTC English Department