how_to_email_elizabeth.md

How to email Elizabeth!

The two hour rule and other communication documentation encourages students to email me and/or the TAs. That's great! This is a hard class and we're all here to help you through things. Providing help in a timely and efficient process is everyone's goal here.

There are certain things that you, as a student in this class, can do to optimize your effort in communicating with me and getting a speedy and clear response.

The first thing you can do is understand your question. This doesn't mean you need to be able to answer it, but I want you to have a clear idea of what you need my help for. Here are some examples:

• "I don't understand this error."
• "Nothing appears to be happening."
• "I'm not sure where to start on this."
• "I've gone down a weird path and feel stuck in the weeds, how do I get out?"
• "Is my interpretation of the talk/problem here correct?"
• "Is the pattern/solution that I'm using appropriate for this assignment?"
• "Do I need to worry about handilng x, y, or z?"
• "Where is the assignmnet/am I doing the right thing here?"
• "Policy y is confusing to me, can you clarify it or tell me how you would handle x situation?"

Chances are one of these resonate with you, and that you'll have at least one of these questions. I hope you do! And I promise you that I want to answer them.

General guidelines:

I am often answering email on my phone.

This means I don't have easy access to moodle to fix something or look something up for you. I will be able to look at you .py files but I won't be able to execute them. I'm very good at debugging in my head, 99/100 I'll be able to answer your question just by looking at your code.

My suggestions to you are:

• Keep your question to me short. Try to use a question pattern from above and provide anything I'll need to see to be able to answer it. This includes any error messages you're getting, and about which line. Again, if I have to wait until I'm at a computer to replicate your problem, it'll add several to many hours until I can reply to you.
• Keep your question specicic. Tell me which part is confusing, and include any error messages you're getting.
• Attach your code or other input/output files. I'll be able to see these on my phone.
• Include a screenshot of your environment running the script if you're trying to figue out a weird error, particularly if you are reading/writing files. Cell phone pictures of your computer are fine, just ensure that the screen is legible.

Constructing questions is hard

Writing a good question is hard. You're tired, confused, and likely really upset. I get it, and I've been there before. I won't turn away a quesiton that starts with "I'm too angry to coherently explain what's going on".

Here are some suggestions:

• Ask a granular question. Example: "I think I'm not sure how to use x method. Am I using it wrong here?"
• Ask for a pointer rather than as solution. Example: "which part of the code has thing gone wrong in?" This may seem like a very broad question, but I can scan over your code and usually pinpoint where you have gotten lost or where your misconception has started to throw things off. Sometimes you just need me to point out the messy part, and you'll be fine from there.
• Ask a binary question rather than extremely open ended. This applies more to questions or problems unrelated to code. Typing out a long reply takes time, especially if I'm on my phone between meetings. Instead of asking "Can you explain this problem to me?" say "Here's my interpretation of this problem/policy, am I on the right track?" This allows me to review and confirm or correct rather than write fresh, plus you'll then have your own words to look back on rather than mine. These answers tend to be much shorter and easier to send on the fly. Also, constructing these interpretations can sometimes answer the question for you. I'm still happy to review, but again, it'll likely be a single word email.

Replying to your questions is part of the instructive process

As your instructor, I have to decide how best to answer your question. Many factors go into this, including our previous communication on the matter, your level of understanding or misunderstanding with the problem, and what I know you've been able to be sucessful at or struggled with before. The advantage of smaller classes is that I get to know you and can gauge how best to help you.

My suggestions to you are:

• Understand that I may provide you a hint or clue to get you into the right direction rather than giving you the code answer. This means that I may say "Ahh, I see, take a look at line 20 where you are missing a bracket." or "it looks like you're acting on that data structure like a list, but it's a dictionary.". These are always meant to be pointers for you, not absolute resolutions.
• You may often see me sign off with "Start down that direction and be in touch if anything else comes up." which I mean with all sincerity. I have often seen students get put right back on track after a short hint or pointer, but it may also expose a pretty large misunderstanding.

Retain agency and savvyness

You are an important part of this process, and also part of the instructional team. I'm here to help you, but I need you to be active and savvy along the way.

• I may miss a detail or a question you have in an email. Please speak up if I've misinterpreted your question or entirely missed an element of your email. I will not be offended if you do! I don't actively try to be obtuse or opaque, and if I am I'm pretty open about it being a teaching device.
• I don't believe in educational dinner theater. I want the context of your classwork to make sense and the educational process to be transparent. This may take you a few weeks to see as the content builds up as does your skill, but I'm not aiming to keep you in the dark in preparation of some grand reveal.
• Please actively try to look up answers on your own. You will get better at this over time, as this is a learned skill. Start with the class materials first, because I've attempted to design things such that everything you need is available within them. I try to stay pretty consistant in my wording and naming of things, so please search documents for those words.
• I have zero expectations that you are going out to other external resources (that are not mentioned/linked by me) to learn things or figure things out. I know there are weeks where I've done a poor job of providing you all the cues you need to solve the homework, but please use the provided materials first.
• I am also sometimes just wrong. I may miss a subtle detail in your code or have a bad memory of what the homework problem is asking for. Please speak up if what I've said doesn't make sense, and be understanding that even experts make mistakes.
• I respect honesty and want to help. I may not always be able to, but don't ever feel pressured to lie about a situation you're in to get me to help you through something. Likewise, I trust you and you don't need to give me any details you don't want to. I fully expect everyone to have some crisis to come up. 16 weeks is a long time to have an uneventful life.