Sample Email To Professor Asking For Feedback

Simply receiving your grade isn’t enough as the professor’s feedback can help point you in the right direction. Good feedback would enable you to review your essay to avoid making the same mistakes in subsequent assignments.

Unfortunately, professors sometimes forget to include feedback when they grade students. Other times they may include something generic which may not provide much insight into where you went wrong.

So, what do you do about it? You need to reach out to the professor and kindly ask them to provide you with the necessary feedback on your assignment.

But if you’re wondering how you’re going to structure the email, we’ve got you covered. This article will provide some templates you can simply modify for the purpose as well as certain things to keep in mind when emailing your professor.

Tips For Emailing Professors

Let’s take a look at a few things to keep in mind whenever you’re emailing your professor.

Use Proper Title

Find out their official titles before you send the email. If they don’t yet have the title “professor” you should use the appropriate title “Dr”.

On the other hand, if they have the title “professor”, you should use the appropriate title. Professors go through a lot of trouble to acquire their titles. They would appreciate that you’re appreciating their titles.

Examples:
Dear Professor {{Last name}}
Dear Dr. {{Last name}}

Use School Email

Every tertiary institution provides its faculty and students with official email addresses. If you don’t know the professor’s email address, we’ll show you how to find it later.

Keep in mind that your professor may not respond if you send them an email using your personal email or, send to their personal emails.

Using your school email also ensures that the professor will get the mail as your personal email may end up blocked by spam filters.

Some professors also try to ensure there’s a balance between their personal lives and work. Any work-related emails, especially from students, to their personal emails would simply be ignored.

So if you want them to receive and read your email, you should make sure that you use your school email.

Formal Tone

Maintaining a formal tone is necessary when emailing your professor. Irrespective of your relationship, you should refrain from any form of informal language.

Avoid using emojis and other slang that you’d usually use with your friends. It would simply annoy the professor.

It may be considered by the professor as a sign of disrespect. You should know that the school has access to this email and moderates them.

So, any over-friendliness between faculty and students could set off alarms. Always use formal language in any official email correspondence between yourself and the professor unless they’ve instructed you to do otherwise.

Correct Grammar

If you know you’re not the best at writing, you should employ the help of another student or leverage tools like Grammarly to aid you in your writing.

Professors expect students at the tertiary level to possess rudimentary writing skills especially since it’s a simple email.

Too many grammatical errors will make your writing difficult to read which would end up simply irritating them.

You can use tools like Grammarly but keep in mind that these tools aren’t perfect. It’s advisable to double-check your email before you send it.

Be Polite

Professors dislike entitled students and would most likely just ignore any emails from them. So, you should always strive to be polite in your email to the professor.

It doesn’t matter how you may feel about the professor, you should be polite in your emails. Do not presume that they would stop everything they’re doing just to accommodate you.

Students sometimes believe professors are being paid by their school fees so they’re entitled to certain things. Avoid sounding like that, if you don’t want to get on the professor’s bad side.

Identify Yourself

The professor may not remember every one of their students. Sad but true. Professors may teach multiple classes and may not be able to remember every student.

You don’t want to give them additional work to do by not identifying yourself. No professor wants to spend the next 30 minutes looking through their student list to identify who you may be.

Either identify yourself in the introduction of the email or include it in the email signature. Alternatively, you can do both.

Clear And Brief

You may have time to write an entire essay in your email but that doesn’t mean the professor has the time to read it. Avoid writing long emails to the professor as they have busy schedules.

They receive various emails from multiple sources daily. Don’t make it difficult for them to understand your request by writing a lengthy email.

Try and shorten your email as much as you can while maintaining a polite tone and all necessary formality.

Explain Your Situation

If you need them to do something for you, ensure that you specify this in the email. You don’t want them to spend the next 30 minutes thinking about all the other options and whether it’ll be convenient for you.

Any back-and-forth emails may end up making them lose interest. So, if you have an idea what you need from them, politely explain it in the email. Try not to sound entitled in any way.

If you’ve already discussed what you need with the professor, you can simply remind them of the discussion in a few words.

Don’t Forget Attachment

Don’t forget to attach any necessary documents if necessary. Confirm this before you send the email. I can’t tell the number of times I’ve sent an email simply to receive a response that I neglected to attach the necessary documents.

The professor may simply ignore the email if you don’t include any necessary attachments. So, it’s advisable to always double-check to ensure that the email has successfully been attached before pressing the send button.

Wait Patiently

Don’t spam them with reminders as you may end up getting blocked. You can send them a reminder if you haven’t heard back from them in 24 hours.

Keep in mind that some professors may not view work emails during holidays and weekends. So, you need to be patient.

You can also visit their office if you haven’t heard from them in a while. However, if you’re going to send them reminders, you should be mindful of the frequency.

Act Early

Don’t wait till the last minute to contact the professor. You should reach out to them as soon as you get the graded script.

Don’t wait till a week later to ask them to give you feedback on the previous week’s assignment or essay. You’d most likely be ignored if you do that.

Clear Subject Line

Don’t forget to include a subject in your email if you want a response. Professors receive loads of emails daily. Subject lines help them identify urgent emails so they can quickly respond.

It makes it easy for them to understand the content of your email without spending too much time reading the full body of your email, which saves them a lot of time.

Example:
Request for Feedback On {{Assignment title}}

End Formally

End the email by expressing gratitude for their time and consideration. Include your full name, class, and section details if you haven’t already mentioned them in the opening of the email.

Example:
Thank you
Sincerely
{{Your full name}}
{{Class and Section}}

How To Find Your Professor’s Email

So how do you find the professor’s email address if this is the first time, you’re reaching out to them?

School Website

Check your faculty page on the school website. These pages usually include information about professors including their official contact information.

Course Overview (LMS)

If your school uses some form of learning management system (LMS) you can check the course overview page for the professor’s assigned course.

You’ll find the professor’s official contact details on the course overview pages.

Course Syllabus

You can also check out the professor’s syllabus for their contact information. You’ll usually find the professor’s contact information as well as their attendance policies on the course syllabus.

Other Students

You’re most likely not the only student who had to email the professor at some point. So, you can ask your classmates for the professor’s email.

Even if none of them has it, you can be sure that someone will provide some advice on where they may have seen it along the line.