Email To Professor To Submit Assignment
We’ve all been there at some point in our education. For one reason or another, we are unable to meet the deadline for an assignment and need to find a way to appeal to a professor to accept our late submission.
Sending an email to your professor would be the best option. The only question remaining is the contents of the email. After all, professors have loads of work to do and would not be able to read a long email.
Still, you need to convey your point to the professor and make it convincing. A long email would most likely lead to no response or a negative one. So how do you send a convincing email that would increase the chances of a positive response?
How To Find A Professor’s Email
The first step to emailing your professor is finding their email address. If you don’t know their email, how do you find it?
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School Website
The first approach would be to try looking for the professor’s email address on the school’s website. If your school has a learning management system, you’ll find your professor’s official contact details on the overview page of their course.
For schools with simple websites, you’ll find your professor’s email on the relevant faculty pages. Each professor’s official title, name, picture, and email address would be available on those pages.
Course Syllabus
Another way to find your professor’s email is to take a look at the course syllabus. Most tertiary institutions include each course’s professor’s contact email on the syllabus. This enables students to easily find their professor’s emails and contact them when necessary.
Ask Other Students
If the above options fail to yield the expected results, you can reach out to other students individually or on school forums and other dedicated student community pages. A typical example is asking on your student WhatsApp or Telegram groups.
You’ll most likely receive a response from another student or at the very least receive a tip from a student on where they may have seen the professor’s email address.
Tips For Writing To Professors
Simply writing “please find my assignment attached” may not be enough, especially in cases where you’ve missed the deadline for submission. Let’s take a look at certain things to keep in mind when emailing professors.
Use School Email
Refrain from contacting your professor through your personal email address. School email addresses are given to us for a reason. When looking to submit your assignment to your professor, it’s advisable to use your school-issued email address.
This will ensure that your email reaches the teacher as your personal email could likely end up in a spam folder. The school’s email addresses are whitelisted on the same network making it possible for anyone using the school’s email to receive emails within the school’s network.
The last thing you want is to carefully craft an email to send to your professor only to find out they never received it. You can’t blame the professor in such situations especially when the deadline has long expired.
Clear Subject Line
The subject of the mail should be clear to better convey the intent of the email to your professor. Typical examples include:
Apology for late submission
Requesting an extension of the deadline
Formal Address
Use the instructor’s appropriate title when addressing them. It may seem like a simple mistake when you address a professor as a Dr., but academics can be quite keen about their titles.
Avoid addressing professors as doctors as the title means a lot to them. Recognize their position and make sure you are familiar with their official titles. Use their official titles (Dr., Professor) when addressing them to avoid making a bad impression.
Identify Yourself
Professors may teach more than one class and interact with multiple students daily. Simply sending an email with your name isn’t enough for them to identify you, and the class you’re in.
Don’t give them extra work to go through their list of students to identify which class you may be in. They’d most likely ignore your email and focus on other pressing matters.
Make it easy for them to recognize you by providing your full name, and the class you’re in which they teach.
Formal Tone
Irrespective of your relationship with the professor, refrain from using informal language during official email communications. Avoid using abbreviations, emojis, and other forms of slang in your email. Refrain from including personal information that is irrelevant to the discussion or topic.
Correct Grammar
The role of a professor is to educate their students and they expect students at that level of education to have good grammatical skills. Writing an email that’s difficult to read will lead to the professor ignoring your email.
If you aren’t confident in your writing, let a third party read carefully read through the email before submission. Additionally, you can leverage tools like Grammarly to help identify errors in your writing. Keep in mind that these tools aren’t perfect. It’s advisable to go through your writing to identify any errors.
Clear Communication
Try and clearly convey your specific need in only a few sentences. Professors are busy and won’t have time to read lengthy emails. Avoid filling your sentences with words that would obviously require a dictionary to make a sentence understandable.
Be Polite
Being polite in your email can go a long way toward scoring points in your favor. Ensure that the tone of your email is polite and the necessary respect is being conveyed. Irrespective of any negative impressions you might have of the professor, it’s advisable to show them respect in your communication.
End Formally
At this point, you need to show appreciation to the professor for taking the time to read up to the end of the email. Simply thank them for their time and sign off your email with “Sincerely” or “Best regards” followed by your full name.
Follow Up
Professors have a lot of work to do and responding to your email may slip their minds. Refrain from spamming them every few hours with reminders as that could just serve to annoy them. If they don’t get back to you, simply follow up after your next class with them.
Sample Email To Professor To Submit Assignment
Template 1 – Late Submission Due To Emergency
Email Subject
{{Assignment Title}} : Apology for late submission
Body
Dear Professor {{Last name}},
My name is {{Your name}}, from {{Class name}}. I would like to apologize for the late submission of my assignment which was due {{Assignment due date}}. My brother fell sick and had to be hospitalized which left me little time to work on my assignment as I had to take care of him.
I realize I should have brought this to your attention earlier, and humbly beg that you consider this submission. Going forward, I promise that I will not repeat this mistake. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely
{{Your name}}
Template 2 – Assignment Deadline Extension 1
Email Subject
Request for deadline extension of {{Assignment Title}} assignment
Body
Dear Dr. {{Last name}},
My name is {{Your name}}, and I am in your {{Class name}}. I am finding it a little hard to find relevant materials for my {{paper title}} given the complexity of the topic. I would like to ask for a little more time to thoroughly go through the various publications linked to the topic.
I would hope to be able to complete this assignment by {{Date you wish to submit assignment}}. Thank you very much and I will endeavor to produce a well-researched paper on {{Assignment Title}}.
Sincerely
{{Your name}}
Template 3 – Assignment Deadline Extension 2
Email Subject
Deadline extension {{Assignment Title}}
Body
Dear Professor {{Last name}},
My name is {{Your name}} and I am a {{First, second, third, or fourth}} year student in your {{Class}}.
I am emailing you to ask if it might be possible to be granted additional time for the {{Assignment title}} due on {{Assignment due date}}. Unfortunately, I am behind with this assignment because {{Reason why assignment can’t be completed on time}}.
I would hope to be able to complete this assignment by {{Expected date of completion}}. I hope that you will consider my request and I look forward to hearing from you at your convenience.
Sincerely
{{Your name}}
Template 4 – Assignment Submission
Email Subject
Assignment submission : {{Assignment Title}}
Body
Dear Professor {{Last name}},
I hope this email finds you well. This is to inform you that I have completed my {{Assignment title}} assignment that you had assigned to the class {{Date assigned}}. A PDF version of the assignment is attached to this email.
While I believe my delivery is well-researched, I would be grateful for any suggestions or feedback you might have. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely
{{Your name}}
