Does it bother you when students send you emails with grammatical errors?

[orangetea]

When I get emails from certain students, I often see many grammatical errors. (your/you're, its/it's, etc.) When I was a student, and when I emailed teachers or professors, I always checked carefully to make sure that the email didn't have any errors.

Many of these students will be going to college in a year or two, and I want them to know that it's not ok to send your professors emails with blatant errors in them. I think it reflects badly on the student and I know these students are capable of writing well. I'm not sure if it's something I should bring up in class, address with individual students, or just let go.

[Poodle15]

You could use this as an opportunity to relate their emails to you to communications with a future boss. Regardless of the career path they choose, they will have to deal with people who have control of some sort over their career. Making sure you make a good impression is important and that includes little emails. While it doesn't necessarily have to be formal, it does need to reflect their education and intelligence. Let them know it's good practice for job communications. Writing a professional email is important as that's how a lot if not most of business communications are sent.

[Reality Check]

It bothers me when ADMINISTRATION sends e-mails with careless spelling and grammatical errors. (We even had an assistant principal a few years ago who accidentally sent a love letter to his girlfriend to the entire school. Another one who accidentally sent a teacher reprimand to the entire school. A normal person would think, "Well, that's it for them, they're fired! They've lost the respect of the entire school." But no, the romantic one was laughed off and the teacher reprimand one was followed up with, not exactly and apology, but rather an "explanation.")

They don't seem to understand that even an e-mail is a direct representation of who they are. On second thought.........those ignorant e-mails are an EXACT representation of who they are!

[ku_alum]

I tell my students on day 1: if you communicate via email to me and use text talk or have numerous errors I will not respond.

[orangetea]

Originally Posted by ku_alum

I tell my students on day 1: if you communicate via email to me and use text talk or have numerous errors I will not respond.

I will definitely add something similar to my course guidelines next year.

[orangetea]

Originally Posted by Poodle15

You could use this as an opportunity to relate their emails to you to communications with a future boss. Regardless of the career path they choose, they will have to deal with people who have control of some sort over their career. Making sure you make a good impression is important and that includes little emails. While it doesn't necessarily have to be formal, it does need to reflect their education and intelligence. Let them know it's good practice for job communications. Writing a professional email is important as that's how a lot if not most of business communications are sent.

Do you think I should address this to the class or individual students? (I'm thinking of just talking to the whole the class, even though it's not a problem for most students...)

[catnfiddle]

One of my students emailed me yesterday about her lack of English homework (she is failing) and asked, "Please bare with me." Um, I am not responding to that homophone slip until I can speak with her directly.

[JustMe]

I would address it with the class, absolutely.

[lucybelle]

I used to always tell my kids I would not grade work unless written in real English. They would write their "r"s backwards and put in 3's instead of E's. I wouldn't grade it. So they stopped doing it.

Same goes for an email.

[Mrs. K.]

Last week we got an email from the district office informing us that a certain grant program was "excepting applications."

Excepting them from what, I wonder?