How to Communicate with Your Professor

The wrong way to communicate with your professor

Student: I’m having trouble passing assignments. I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. Can you help?

Professor: I’m happy to help. First, did you review my comments on your assignment?

Student: Um, kinda. I didn’t really understand.

Professor: What didn’t you understand?

Student: All of it. I’m just—I don’t know, lost.

Professor: Can you be more specific? What’s confusing you?

Student: Like all of it. I just don’t it. Can’t you help me?

          Unfortunately, this is most communications and meetings. When this happens, professors cannot help students. It’s not that we don’t want to; we do. There’s only so much we can do when we don’t understand what the real problem is. Students must do their part. Figure out the source of your confusion is and communicate that. Also, this eats up time. At one message per line, this could take days to go nowhere.

The right way to communicate with your professor

Student: I noticed my grade isn’t where I’d like it to be, so I’d like your help improving it. I’ve reviewed your comments, and I noticed that you keep telling me I need to support my arguments. I can see in some places where I didn’t support it like you said.

Professor: That’s good. I’m glad you’re finding my comments helpful. So what can I do for you?

Student: I’d like more tips on how to include support, and to check to see if my ideas for fixing this assignment work. For example, in this paragraph, I should add some real statistics from a source instead of just saying the rate increased, correct?

Professor: Exactly. Using concrete examples will make it more real to the reader and harder for the reader to refute your argument. Anyone can vaguely claim that the rate is increasing, but by providing the numbers, we know exactly by how much, and it will allow you to give an interpretation of what that increase means.

Student: Great. Now, in paragraph five you said I should have corroborating evidence. Isn’t one piece of evidence enough? I don’t want to overload the reader with the research, right?

Professor: No, you don’t want to overload the reader, but having at least two sources, especially for the really important pieces of evidence, reinforces your position. It’s why commercials say four out of five dentists. More evidence makes for a stronger position.

Student: Thank you, Professor; I’m starting to get it, now. Can I revise a few of these paragraphs and get your opinion on them? This won’t be for a grade. I just want to make sure I get it right for the next assignment.

Professor: Sure. I’ll be happy to take a look.

Tips

• Be proactive. Seek out solutions to the problem. Most of the time, your professor has already explained the correct way in class, the book, or other resources. Your professor’s comments on assignments will point out problem areas and generally offer a tip to improve it. Do your best to try to understand what he or she is trying to tell you.
• Be specific. Professors can’t help you unless they know what the problem is, which means you have to know what the problem is. Don’t just come in asking for help. What kind of help? What area do you need help in? Explain the concept as you understand it so the professor can identify the confusion.
• Time is valuable: Not just your professor’s time, but yours. Make sure the communication or meeting is productive. The more prepared you are for the meeting, the more help you will get.
• Be substantive. Communications and meetings should be about the real content of the class: lessons you need to learn, skills you need to develop. Questions about what happened in class, when assignments are due, or if it’s okay to skip class are all covered by the syllabus and other materials.