Academic Emails (1)  General Guidelines, Examples, Exercises

1. AUDIENCES (to whom)

Students, peers, publishers, administrators, journalists, ....
2. PURPOSES (for what)
apply for (fellowships, employment, project funding, jobs), request (information, action), more on:
https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/effective-e-mail-communication/
3. STRUCTURE (what and in what order)
You always have to include a clear subject, a polite greeting, and a polite farewell. In between the
greeting and the farewell, the text adapts to each purpose and audience in a clear, formal style.
EXAMPLE 1:
[Clear, relevant subject line] Following up on cybersecurity
[Formal greeting]
Dear Pr. Gotti,
[Clear, concise body of email using formal, friendly tone]
I hope you’re having a great week. I’m following up on the email I sent last week about cybersecurity
for our project. I understand you have a busy schedule, but if you have some time to talk about using
DataSmart technology to protect our project data from crypto viruses and digital intruders, that would
be great. Is Wednesday (March 4th) at 11:00 AM a good time for a quick 15 minute phone call? If not, let
me know what time works for you.
[Professional, friendly closing]
Best,
[Your name and title]
Dr. Halina Benarek
Department of Information and Knowledge Engineering
University of Economics, Prague
[Contact information]
Phone: +420 224 09 5427
Email: Benarek_Hal@vse.cz
EXAMPLE 2:
[Clear, relevant subject line] Substitute for my class 10/6?
[Formal greeting] Dear fellow teachers,
[Clear, concise body of email using a “work culture” appropriate tone]
I’m writing to see if anyone is available to take over for my Logistics and Transport Processes Control
class on October 6th at 1:45 PM. I have a very important doctor’s appointment that I cannot reschedule.
My plan for the day involves group presentations (you would simply need to mediate and allot time for
each group to present). I’ll leave the attendance list and presentation schedule on my desk. It’s a great
group of kids and the class should be a breeze!
Please let me know ASAP by replying to this email, calling my office, or stopping me in the hallway if you
see me flitting around.
[Professional closing]
Thanks,
Tiffani “Doc” Millner
[Contact information]
T_Millner@mit.edu
512-995-0382 (ext. 129)

Curso B1 a C2 Inglés ETSII Ismael Arinas Pellón  1

EXERCISE 1: Identify problems in the following real e-mails sent by students.
(a)
Professor Janet,
I am very sorry but I plan to drop your class. I do not know whether it is okay. Could you please tell me
the rules about this ASAP? Thank you very much!
(b)
hey,
i need help on my paper can i come by your office tomorrow
thx
(c)
My name is Chingis. I am from Erasmus program. According to my learning agreement i should choose
English subject. For some reason, my previously chosen English is not available now. So, Maria from this
departmnent gave me variants to replace this subject. The most suitable for me is your course. Below
you can see forwarded message where Maria confirmes that i can attend your course.

As for me, i dont see the problem to attend it and pass an exam, cause you connect with students only
on English.

The question is - could you let me attend this course and pass the exam?

Best regards, Chingis

EXERCISE 2: Fill the gaps in the email below with the words in the box. There are more options than
gaps. Watch out for false friends.
 investigation  assisting  earlier  participants  earliest  attending  hearing  regarding
 hear  behalf  regards  submit  articles  blind  research  behalf  contributions 

Dear _____________________ at CILC-2019,

On _____________ of the organising committee, I would like to thank you for ___________
the XI International Conference on Corpus Linguistics (CILC 2019), celebrated in Valencia last
week, and for disseminating your ________________ efforts.

As already told, we are planning to publish a selection of the _____________ of the conference
with a high-prestige publisher. Therefore we invite you to _____________ your full papers to
the organising committee (€€€€0@uv.es, €€€€1@uv.es, €€€€2@uv.es) by September 1, 2019. As
required internationally, all the contributions will follow the usual double-_________ peer
review process.

Your _________________ should contain between 5000-6500 words. The languages for
publication are English or Spanish. For questions of style, we attach publication guidelines.

Please confirm at your _______________ convenience your will to publish (ot not), so that we
can start preparing the volume.

Once again, thank you for making CILC-2019 a personal and academic adventure.

We look forward to ________________ from you soon.

Kind _________________,

CILC-2019 organising committee

Curso B1 a C2 Inglés ETSII Ismael Arinas Pellón  2