For several years now I have been receiving requests for assistance or advise from people all over the globe on matters relating to research, selecting graduate schools/programs, starting a career in the field of international education and since I started IHEC Blog and posting to Twitter I’m starting to receive more and more requests from reporters wanting to interview me or requests from reporters wanting to locate certain data and/or people interview who are knowledgeable on their topic they are writing about, requests from publishers for book reviews as well as a whole host of other requests from people. About 2-3 weeks ago I decided to add the following vacation message to my IHEC Gmail account as there has been a notable increase in the number of e-mail messages I’ve been receiving the past 3 months:
“Thank you for your message. I appreciate your interest in my services and will reply to your message as soon as possible. International Higher Education Consulting and IHEC Blog are secondary projects to my family time, my work at the University of Chicago and my doctoral studies so my response time varies depending on my current work and research/writing loads.”
It’s flattering to receive all of these voice and e-mail messages and I work hard to helpful and to reply as quickly as possible. I currently have several e-mail messages in my inbox that require a response and some of the messages may be from IHEC Blog readers so please note that I will reply to you soon and I apologize for the delay. I welcome these messages as they often times provide a learning opportunity for me and a way for me help and to meet/network with new people! I’ve connected electronically with so many great colleagues via the various social/new media spaces where I find myself (and I’m including e-mail when I’m talking social/new media spaces) and I look forward to our paths crossing in person some day in the future. Many of the wonderful connections I’ve made over the years were made because I received a request for assistance or advice over e-mail.
Why am I posting about this to IHEC Blog?
Well, while I reply to and try to assist 95%+ of the messages I receive there are just some messages that I receive that I simply delete and never respond to. The following are two e-mail messages I recently received (Oct. 31st and today, Nov. 4th) from the same e-mail address that I thought I would copy and paste here to share as an example for possible discussion:
--Start October 31st message---
HELLO
I AM A STUDENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CIVLIZATION AND I AM PREPARING FOR MY DISSERTATION IN LITERATURE ABOUT THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AFRICANAMERICANS IN THE AMERICAN LITERARY IMAGINATION
BUT I DID NOT FIND CORRESPONDING INFORMATION
SO.IF YOU CAN HELP WITH SOME BOOKS,WEBSITES,OR AMY KIND OF DATA I WOULD BE GRATEFUL
I AM WAITING FOR YOUR ANSWER
--End October 31st message--
“Thank you for your message. I appreciate your interest in my services and will reply to your message as soon as possible. International Higher Education Consulting and IHEC Blog are secondary projects to my family time, my work at the University of Chicago and my doctoral studies so my response time varies depending on my current work and research/writing loads.”
It’s flattering to receive all of these voice and e-mail messages and I work hard to helpful and to reply as quickly as possible. I currently have several e-mail messages in my inbox that require a response and some of the messages may be from IHEC Blog readers so please note that I will reply to you soon and I apologize for the delay. I welcome these messages as they often times provide a learning opportunity for me and a way for me help and to meet/network with new people! I’ve connected electronically with so many great colleagues via the various social/new media spaces where I find myself (and I’m including e-mail when I’m talking social/new media spaces) and I look forward to our paths crossing in person some day in the future. Many of the wonderful connections I’ve made over the years were made because I received a request for assistance or advice over e-mail.
Why am I posting about this to IHEC Blog?
Well, while I reply to and try to assist 95%+ of the messages I receive there are just some messages that I receive that I simply delete and never respond to. The following are two e-mail messages I recently received (Oct. 31st and today, Nov. 4th) from the same e-mail address that I thought I would copy and paste here to share as an example for possible discussion:
--Start October 31st message---
HELLO
I AM A STUDENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CIVLIZATION AND I AM PREPARING FOR MY DISSERTATION IN LITERATURE ABOUT THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AFRICANAMERICANS IN THE AMERICAN LITERARY IMAGINATION
BUT I DID NOT FIND CORRESPONDING INFORMATION
SO.IF YOU CAN HELP WITH SOME BOOKS,WEBSITES,OR AMY KIND OF DATA I WOULD BE GRATEFUL
I AM WAITING FOR YOUR ANSWER
--End October 31st message--
No response from me other than my automated reply which I mention above.
--Start November 4th message--
I AM STILL WAITING FOR YOUR ANSWER AND I NEED YOUR HELP
,BECAUSE OF TIME CONSTRAINTS MAY I RECEIVE IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE PLEASE?
THANKS
--End November 4th message—
To be sure, this person and I certainly differ on how to communicate via e-mail. What I’m trying to determine is if I should be more sensitive to this person and chalk it (their rude and demanding e-mail messages) up to an intercultural miscommunication or if I should have different feelings about their e-mail messages? I’ve communicated with thousands of students from all over the world in my day job at the University of Chicago and based on my experience I’m not thinking this is an intercultural miscommunication.
Thoughts?
David,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting topic, one that I think about as well in getting requests from people requesting help with their international careers (and now reading this post, you've prompted me to post about it on Working World). My take is that there is certainly some intercultural miscommunication embedded in these emails. It reads like the writer is a non-native speaker of English (the awkward phrasing, the use of all caps) and any subtlety and diplomacy that might have been injected in the message might be lacking because of a lack of English skills.
That said, I think your reactions to the messages -- annoyance and a bit of bewilderment -- are completely justified. I would have reacted the same way. My main two recommendations when writing someone you don't know to ask for assistance are: 1) Keep your requests (especially your first one) short and manageable (you're much more likely to get a response if the person feels like they can accomplish the task reasonably fast) and 2) Always give the person an out (as in, "I know you are busy and may not have time for this..."). This allows the person to beg out if they are indeed too busy (and you should recognize that they may be, and is also the respectful thing to do.
Final thought: Just because email allows us to fire out quick and untactful, not-well-written emails asking for things this is a good practice, no matter our culture.
Mark (http://workingworldcareers.com
Sorry, the final thought got mangled for some reason. I meant to say: Just because email allows us to fire out quick and untactful, not-well-written emails asking for things doesn't necessarily mean this is a good practice, no matter our culture.
ReplyDelete@Mark ~ Many thanks for taking the time to comment on this post and for incorporating it into your related post over at Working World (http://workingworldcareers.com).
ReplyDeleteI was planning to answer with a polite "I'm sorry but my research and scholarship activities does not overlap with your research activities and interests and I don't know of any literature (or places to search for literature) that would be helpful to you". My two main concerns with the message (I was chalking the CAPS FETISH up to cultural differences in e-mail communication) was the fact that they are wanting me to find resources for the "dissertation" which is a concern to me and second the fact that despite a "thanks for your message and I'll get to you as soon as I can" auto reply they we so quick (4 days) to remind me that they were still waiting for a reply. The upside was that it gave me an idea for the days post on IHEC Blog! Thanks again. David
What's bizarre is that he really doesn't ask for anything specific, then asks to deliver said vague information in a timely manner. Basically I'M WRITING MY DISSERTATION ABOUT THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AFRICAN-AMERICANS IN THE AMERICAN LITERARY IMAGINATION AND I CAN'T FIND ANY INFORMATION ABOUT THAT SO RATHER THAN CHANGING MY TOPIC, I WOULD LIKE YOU TO TELL ME THE ANSWER. OH AND PLEASE DO MY WORK FOR ME QUICKLY, BECAUSE I HAVE TO TURN THE PAPER IN ON MONDAY.
ReplyDeleteThat's how I read it, anyway.
@Sarah ~ Thanks for the message! I laughed out loud at your comment! It was a rather strange and demanding request. I suppose I should have stopped all activities on Saturday (Halloween), which included coaching both of my kids soccer games in the morning, then a 4 hour Halloween festival at their school, then trick-or-treating, so I could search for the literature for this dissertation writing person.
ReplyDeleteDear random person who e-mailed me asking me for assistance with your literature review,
ReplyDeleteYour e-mail messages have intrigued me (and others) so I decided to learn more about your topic and to see if there is a solid literature base I could find. I typed into The Google "SIGNIFICANCE OF AFRICAN-AMERICANS IN THE AMERICAN LITERARY IMAGINATION" and it found about 540,000 results for this search. If you scroll to the bottom of the first page of the search results you will see a link with the title "Book results for SIGNIFICANCE OF AFRICAN-AMERICANS IN THE AMERICAN LITERARY IMAGINATION" where I believe you find a rather large selection of books that you may find helpful in your research. Some of these books even have a limited preview which I have found to be very helpful in my research activities.
I wish you all the best in your research efforts.
Sincerely,
David Comp
Although your post amused me, I find it peculiar that someone specialising in international initiatives is unaware of the significant differences in cultures but expects a student of English (i.e. someone less experienced) to know American customs. As highlighted by the German girl commenting on Mark's blog, this sort of email would be considered direct and to the point in Germany, and not rude at all. Allow for some mistranslations - 'I am waiting for your answer' should perhaps be read 'I look forward to hearing from you' and it's not half as rude as you were thinking. Especially as you'd already forgiven the capitals.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous ~ Many thanks for taking the time to comment on this post! I think the title of my post as well as my ending paragraph allows for the fact that I may be misinterpreting this person's intent with their message. As I say in my post, I have communicated with thousands of people from all over the world and I have have never received such a demanding message before so this was new to me.
ReplyDeleteI do think that their message (and my interpretation of their message) might not be related to significant differences in cultures but might be the fact that they are just a demanding/rude person. Is that not a possibility?
I will be sure to ask my German host brother who is a doctor in Germany (who I became friends with when he was an exchange student at my high school and I later stayed with him and his family as an exchange student the summer after I graduated from high school and who has since visited me and my family twice - once for three weeks in fall of 2008 and then again with his family for three weeks this past August) for his opinion on these messages I received to see if he would consider this to be to the point and not rude at all. While he is German it should be noted that he is a Bavarian so this is a variable that may be factor in his interpretation of the e-mail messages.
I heard back from my German host brother (lived all his life in Germany) and here is his reply:
ReplyDeleteHi Dave!
Hard question for a Thursday evening...
Well, first of all as I am no native speaker i cannot exactly get the meanings between the lines, the 'vibes' if you know what I mean. Generally, I dislike messages all written in caps, because I consider it as yelling. To me the message sounds impersonal and more like an order than a request.
Have a good time, see you soon again
Christian and family.
It should be noted that I simply sent my German host brother the messages from the person and asked he how he would feel if he received these messages. I didn't tell him about my blog post (and I don't think he reads my blog) or about the comment by Anonymous that read in part "As highlighted by the German girl commenting on Mark's blog, this sort of email would be considered direct and to the point in Germany, and not rude at all."
To be sure, he was reading the message in English and if this message was sent to him it would have been sent and read in German which may have made it sould less impersonal and more like a request than an order.