If you are sending me email, make sure your course login name or your real name appears somewhere in the message. I hate getting mail from “partyAnimal@aol.com” saying “ Why did I get such a low grade on question 5? ” when I have no idea who this person is!

Again, if you are sending me a question via email, please remember to state which course you are asking about. I teach multiple courses most semesters, and having to go look up your name to see which of my courses you are talking about is annoying. In fact, it's a good idea to make the course number part of the subject line. Which brings us to the next item...

A good subject header helps me find your message later if we need to do 2 or more rounds of back-and-forth responses. It's quite annoying when someone writes “ As I mentioned in my last message, … ”, then discover that the subject header is empty or contains only the course number, making it one of hundreds with the same subject tag! Empty or ambiguous email headers also increase your chances of being flagged by my spam filters.