OnlineProfessor

Instructors like to say that there is no such thing as a stupid question, but honestly, there is. Students sometimes get lazy when it comes to reading instructions, and before they try to figure it out themselves and read through all the materials, they often write a note to the instructor.

A Little Common Sense Please
Consider the following question actually submitted to me by a student: “Your directions were real confusing. didn’t know where to submit my journal entry. in the journal or in the dropbox.”

Forget the fact that this contains some obvious and unprofessional grammar errors, but did the student really consider his question before sending it? Why would he think the journal entry would go anywhere other than the journal submission box? Furthermore, why would a student feel that it was appropriate to start out the message with an accusation about the clarity of the instructor’s directions?

A Little More Careful Reading Please
Here’s another classic, real-life example of a student inquiry. The instructions for a particular assignment contained this note: “The course textbook cannot be one of your three, required sources for this assignment.” I later received a message from a student asking: “Do you want one or three sources for this assignment?”

As you can see, so many of these errors stem from some careless reading. Instructors welcome questions, but be kind and avoid bothering them with things you could easily figure out on your own. They just make you look bad.