Example of Bad Email

Effective Emailing tips for prospective Scholarship seekers:

Going abroad for higher studies is the ultimate dream for many students. Most of them complete their graduation with outstanding results and they deserve to secure a fully funded position in many foreign universities.

As I am writing this note from Australia, I will try to point out some important aspects from Australian perspective. In Australia, scholarships are given for Higher Degree by Research (HDR i.e. Masters by research/ PhD). For research higher degrees, the first step is to manage a supervisor with whom the student would like to work and the first step in managing the supervisor is to email the prospective supervisor expressing an interest in researching with him/her. Once supervisor agrees to supervise the student, only then the application will be processed further. From these few introductory sentences, I think you already have guessed the importance of a well written email.

It is very regretful to say, the prospective students spend a lot of time searching for good universities, good research group and above all, a good supervisor. But, many of them do not pay much importance and effort before contacting the supervisor. All your effort of searching and finding a good supervisor with good research background that matches your interest can practically go in vain only because of a badly written email.

In recent years I had the opportunity to go through a number of emails sent to some of the academics of my research group expressing interest for higher studies. But, regretful to say, very few of those passed the initial screening. Some emails were even irritating to read, as those were written in a very informal way.

If you are a prospective scholar, you should show scholarly attire in every step from the very beginning of this prestigious journey. Without proper professional attitude, you may not taste the beauty of this glorious journey for the rest of your life or in some cases it can cause significant delays to achieve your desired goal. So, I couldn’t resist myself to warn my younger fellows/ brother/ future leaders/ scholars to warn about this critically important issue.

Here are some tips that I think will help you in effective emailing. I know these are all “unwritten rules” that you always follow. But it’s always good to have them listed somewhere. These are tailored for students seeking for research scholarships, but these are also applicable in any professional career.

1. Subject line: should be meaningful. NEVER send an email without a subject. ALWAYS stop before sending an email to check whether the subject makes sense.

2. Greeting: It’s always good to add a line of greeting at the beginning of an email. Some common greetings are: a. Hope this mail finds you well b. Hope you are doing good/well/fine/great. c. Greetings from [Location] Tips: Try something innovative. Don’t make people feel these are the only lines you know.

3. Language: should be easy to understand. Remember: a.Use positive language: i. For example, if you are requesting for something, use phrases like “Could you please”, “I would highly appreciate it if”, “Will it be possible for you to”…

b. Try to keep your email short and don’t write essays. Nobody has enough time to read essays.

c. Start the email with introducing yourself (who are you, what is your qualification, significant academic achievements, etc.)

d. Use multiple paragraphs. Skip lines before paragraphs. Don’t make a paragraph too long (use 2-3 sentences per paragraph).

e. Informal languages like “thnx for d help.” “looking frwrd to c u”.. is for chatting with friends, not for formal emailing.

f. Don’t use all CAPITAL LETTERS in any word or sentence. This is RUDE!

4. Attachments: ALWAYS attach all your important documents (especially your CV) in PDF version. Few other tips:

a. Always rename your attachments with your name and/or initials and a title with indication of what the document says. Never attach documents that have abstract names like “Document 1”, “CV”, etc.

i.For example: If your name is Abul Hasan, you could rename your CV as “CV_A_Hasan”

b. How often did you embarrass yourself sending out a mass email saying “attached is a document…..” but forgot to make the attachment? Don’t worry, it’s not only you. We all make this error sometimes.

The tip is: ALWAYS, attach the document(s) first, before writing the email.

c. People won’t open attachments if they aren’t convinced they need to. Mention a few of your key skills and research interest by using bullet points. You should write in the body of the email what the attachment is for. For example: i. Attached is the resume for your further consideration.

d. Don’t use “Attached herewith”. Just say “attached is a [document, excel sheet, etc.]

e. For multiple attachments: If you have multiple attachments, use numbered items to describe what each document is for: i.For example: “Attached are 3 documents: (then enumerate the titles of the attachments like below. It’s better to give the list according to the attachment order) a. Resume b. Bachelor of Engineering transcript c. Bachelor of Engineering Certificate

5. Closing: I know that you always do it – but just as a part of this article, I must add that it is good to use a nice ending for the mail, like: “Best regards, Kind Regards, Regards, Thank you”, etc.

6. Last thing: Few signs of professionalism:

a. Spell check and grammar check: We often make typos, especially when writing quickly. Although spell-check will not catch every mistake, it’s always good to do spell-check before sending out an email: a sign of professionalism

b. Proofread: Always proofread before sending out an email. If you are not very confident with your English, you should seek help from an expert English user – even if it requires you to pay some money.

c. Before clicking the Send button: Before you send out, ask the following questions:

i. Have I clarified purpose and actions? ii. Have I included supporting documents and written a clear Subject line? iii. Did I write the message clearly enough that it does not come back to me with questions? iv. Am I sending the message to the correct recipient(s)? v. Have I run the spelling checker and edited the message for grammar and jargon? vi. How is the tone of the message? Is it gentle enough or too rude?

Remember: emails can be used as legal proofs. Make sure your email does not end You up in trouble or ruin your long cherished dream in vain.

d. Respond promptly: if you get a response of your email, make sure that you address it promptly, but very carefully. Most often, the prospective students will be asked for further documents. In that case, take your time and carefully attend to all queries. If you need time to supply all the asked documents, it is always better to send a gentle reply informing about the possible delay.

Finally, keep in mind that a very well organized, well written, grammatically correct email can make your long cherished desire come true.

Remember that as a prospective International HDR student, you are initially screened by your email. Most academics would rely on the email correspondence with you to judge your language proficiency, vocabulary, international exposure, professionalism and above all, your competency as a prospective student. If you want to convince your supervisor, there is no alternative to writing a perfect email.

All the best and wish you good luck for your future endeavors

Shahzada Qamar Hussain

Sample Email for Getting Acceptance Letter

For getting higher research degrees' scholarship, the first step is to manage a supervisor with whom the student would like to work and the first step in managing the supervisor is to email the prospective supervisor expressing an interest in researching with him/her. Once supervisor agrees to supervise the student, only then the application will be processed further. Attached simple email (professors ain't got time for stories + main thing is your CV) and Letter of Recommendation had helped me a lot with getting acceptance from professors around the world when I was searching for scholarships. I hope these will work for you people too In Sha Allah.

Sample email

Dear Dr/Prof. _______________[writing the first/forename of the academic sounds less formal while writing full name is more formal. People in the West usually use full name the first time and then depending how they respond you could use just the first name in further communication]

I hope you are well. I have graduated in [add your specialisation] from the _______[add university name] (Pakistan) and I am seeking admission to the PhD studies in _______________[add the specialisation that you seek & the title of your research project]. My focus is on [add a sentence about objective/overall goal of your research].  I found your research on _____________ and __________ [add brief title of prof. article with year in ( )] very interesting/relevant/significant/revealing/insightful [add that word which seems relevant in a prof’s case] with respect to my research interests. I believe there are a number of commonalities between my research interests and your specialisation. I wonder if you would be willing to take me in as your PhD student.

I am attaching my research proposal and resume/CV for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanking you in anticipation.

Best wishes,

Your name

Guidelines for Getting Acceptance from Potential Supervisor or Professor

Students who need to contact supervisors for grants/scholarships for MS and PhD especially in China, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand etc. They have to find supervisors first and then contacting them.

How to find Supervisors/Professors

1) Find the list of universities, you want to apply for by writing in google.com. e.g., “Universities in Australia”, “Universities in South Korea”. You will get whole list of universities there.

2) Finalize your area of interest; you can finalize your area of interest by looking at your final year project, subject in which you are best, some already done research or some tool in your filed you are best for example programmers in Computer science field. So find as many keywords as you can from them, for example programmers and CS people can use keyword, image processing or computer vision or data analysis etc.

3) Open google.com and write the research area of interest with some university name whom you have already found out in first point given above.

4) You will get the results from google about the department links/professors links/papers from that university published etc., relevant to your area of interest b. You can open the links of professors and departments links or papers to find out your relevant professor/professors.

How to contact Supervisor/Professor

1) Professors are doing advanced research work, which you have not done, but may be some tools or techniques, which professor is using, you have worked on or you have basic knowledge of professor work etc.

2) Before contacting the professor, you must know that they have not much time to look at your emails. So be careful for the instructions given below

3) Read out the all the professors profiles very carefully and see which one is related to your area of interest.

By profile reading of professor I mean to read their

(i) Research papers

(ii) Projects

4) Finalize one or two or more professors based on who is most understandable and relevant to the area of interest you are going for. You will get this thing cleared after you have read their projects and their research papers

5) Then after the few professors you have finalized. Read with very extreme attention their research papers. Ask your seniors or teachers to help you understanding them

6) See and find that how your area of interest fits in them. For example if you are good in some subject/tool and they have already used it.

7) You must understand fully the ideas presented in the paper.

8) Then start writing an email with a suitable heading such as “Request for supervision of MS/PhD”.

9) Body of email should not be much long or short.

10) Start email by introducing with your name and the university, country you are from.

11) Then mention that while going through profiles of professors, you stumbled upon that professor profile and have read his papers, mention the paper/papers names you have already read of that professor and in one line the basic idea of paper/papers you understood. Then next line you mention how you link your area of interest with his that paper or papers whom you have already mentioned. This thing is quite tricky; you have to be good in it. For example I work in Computer science field and I write that “I read your paper “abc” in which you have implemented xyz algorithm using xyz filter. I have also implemented same kind of algorithm in which I have used abc filter with boosting classifiers and implemented the code using OpenCV libraries.”. This is just an example, you can write better version of it as it is just a sample line.

Also if you can give some genuine idea on which you want to work on, then it is best. But you should be writing technically when presenting such idea. These ideas come into your mind when you read many papers in one area of interest.

12) This thing will let him understand that you are a serious person and you have read his papers and you want to do serious work

13) Then ending lines that you would like to work for MS/PhD under his/her supervision,

14) You can mention sometimes in first email also the scholarships you want to apply for; e.g, IPRS for Australia, or NZIDRS or New Zealand etc

15) Put formal endings

16) Attach research CV

A sample of such CV can be seen here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sch...

17) Best is to use University official email address, if you do not have any university email address, then make a good email ID, do not make funny IDs, such as Romeo447@gmail.com or some jokes like it.

18) Also you can see these files

Scholarship guide for South Korea: https://www.facebook.com/notes/scho...

MS and PhD Scholarships tips and tricks for Australia: http://goo.gl/62DMqE

Tips to get PhD Scholarships in New Zealand: http://goo.gl/YcK9JK

MS, PhD scholarships in life sciences, Pharmacy, medical, Korea :http://federalurdu.gl/W5PMfR