How to Email Your Prof

It’s the start of term!  OK, so that means that I am going to receive a lot of emails from students.  I think many students could use a few tips in this area.

1. I’m not your buddy.  I’m not your friend (I’m friendly enough, but, you know, we don’t hang out…)  So, when writing an email to me, don’t start out with ‘Hey’ or ‘Dude’ or anything like that.  Here’s a pretty straightforward tip: have a salutation. So ‘Dear Dr. Brodbeck’ is a good start.  Now, on the first day I’m going to let you know that I prefer being called by my first name, so ‘Dear Dave’ is fine with me.  Frankly, 'Hi Dave' is good too.  Others may prefer their title. You can’t go wrong being too formal. So your default should be ‘Dear Dr.’ Again, call me Dave, that’s fine, but others may not like the first name thing, follow their preferences..  Oh, don't go with 'Dear Professor' or 'Teacher'.  The first one there just seems clumsy to me, and the latter, umm, well, it makes me think I'm teaching elementary school or something....  

2. Try to use complete English sentences.  So ‘gotta pick courses’ is not as good as ‘Can we meet to look at courses for the coming term?’

3. Use actual English words.  You’re not texting to me. B4 is not a word.  Thx is not a word.

4. Related to number 1 above, sign your emails.  ‘Sincerely, Eddie Smith’ (assuming that’s your name) is how you end it.  Or, maybe ‘Eddie’.  

5. Let me know what class you are in if it is course related.  ‘Can we meet to talk about the essay’ is not nearly as good as ‘Can we meet to talk about the essay in BIOL 2606?’

6. No emojis, they make you look like you aren’t serious.

7. LOL.  You actually typed LOL?  Really?  Were you actually laughing out loud?

8. Punctuation is your friend.  

9. You are going to get a better reply if you have a question I can answer.  Now, that’s not always going to be the case, as sometimes you are asking to meet to pick classes or something. However, ‘I didn’t understand the last lecture’ is not nearly as good as ‘can you explain that part about spatial and temporal summation again, I didn’t really get it’.  

10. Don’t expect me to answer right away.  I’m pretty good with answering emails, but, when the work day is done, I’m at home.  I’m not at work.

11. Your and you're are two different words.  (Now I'm looking frantically to see it I've made any dumb mistakes, I probably have, hey, I just found a place where I wrote 'to' instead of 'two'!)

12. Don't use AI to write your email.  I can spot ChatGPT et al about a mile away (hint, all of your profs can).  It makes you look like someone who cares so little about communicating with your prof that you outsourced it to autocomplete.  Don't do this.

13. Don't tell me you 'hope this email finds me well'.  What the actual fuck does that even mean?  Emails don't find things.... 

That’s all I can think of now.  If anyone has any other tips, let me know and I’ll add them with credit to the person of course.

Guest Appearance on DTNS

Yesterday around 2 pm I got a text from Tom Merritt.  In case you don't know, Tom is the host of the Daily Tech News Show, which is an excellent podcast.  Indeed, it's where all the cool kids get their tech news.

I've been on once before, a couple of years ago.  Well once again Tom et al needed a psychologist, wait that came out wrong, once more Tom et al wanted an experimental psychologist to talk about overconfidence in decision making and how thinking like a scientist is hard.  Well I jumped at the chance, and here's the proof (that's a link to the episode).

I really enjoyed talking to Tom, Allison Sheridan, Roger Chang and Len Peralta.  As it was a Friday show, Len was there doing a comic in the background.  Thanks everyone!

Damn Fine Podcast Guest Appearance

It seems that once every March Tom Merritt has me on one of his podcasts....

This time around it is the Damn Fine Podcast that he does with Ron Richards.  I started listening to the show for a couple of reasons, one is that I am a really big Peakerhead, the other is that frankly, I like listening to stuff Tom does.

I emailed the two of them my and Isabelle's experiences watching Twin Peaks back in the early 90s, like how we walked down the aisle at our wedding to the theme song, and Tom emailed back 'wanna be on the show?'  Then Ron, unbeknownst to Tom I think, emailed me the same thing.  Of course I said yes.

We had a great time, even though it was at the point where season 2 sorta started to suck.

Anyway, check out the episode.  Thanks Tom and Ron!

So This Thing Happened

If you don't know this already, I have albinism.  It is a genetic condition (don't worry, you can't catch it from me) and the kind I have (there are many) shows up 1 in 17 000 live births on average.  Anyway, the UN has been at the forefront of trying to explain to people that we are just like anyone else, except on the outside (oh and except for our shitty vision).  So, they have been collecting stories and such from people.  Well, it turns out that one of the people they are featuring on their website is me!  (As an aside, I use parentheses way too often).

The local (and by local I mean 330 km away....) CBC station picked it up and had an interview with me.  You can listen to the interview here.  I think I did ok, though the guy misprounounced my name.  To his credit there is a typo on the website.

That Show With Billy Wilson, Episode 39

Billy Wilson is a former student at Algoma University, he graduated in 2011.  I taught him a couple of courses actually.  Anyway, he has a rather popular Youtube/Google + show in which he sort of moderates a discussion.  This one was a science special, and I had a great time being on the show.  Thanks Billy!