Professors/Teachers only replying to part of my email

Professors are busy and receive a lot of mail (> 100 per day, not counting mass-mailings). It's rational for them to skim past the salutations and introductory parts until the end, where you usually find "the gist". Obviously, this filter is fast but imperfect.

To ensure that you get a response to all of your questions, write very short and very neat emails. Also make it as clear as the day what you want the respondent to do. Finally, don't bother asking questions to which you can simply look up the answer:

Dear Professor Foo,

this is about our discussion after the last seminar on FooBar.

1. Should I hand in my essay before or after the last session? I couldn't find this on the syllabus.
2. I was also wondering if you could recommend a textbook on BarBaz.

Kind regards

Foo Baz

There really isn't more you can do. If you still get partial responses, write another mail about only the remaining items (as you do).

I've been guilty of this kind of thing.

The emails I receive can be roughly taxonomized into two categories:

A. Those I can quickly answer while waiting in line at Starbucks, sitting on the bus, waiting for a late thesis proposal to start, etc. These emails usually get a very prompt answer from me.

B. Those that will require me to sit down and dedicate large amounts of time to a reply. These go into a priority queue and I have the best of intentions to try to answer them quickly, as soon as I first answer emails from the funding agencies and school administration; finish that grant proposal or paper due next week; finish that late paper review the editor has been harassing me about; write that recommendation letter for that other student; answer my colleague's email about a discrepancy they've found in one of my old papers; prepare the lecture for tomorrow class, .........

So, I'm standing in line at Starbucks, and get an email from you with a list of questions:

1. When is Assignment 3 due?
2. I'm having trouble on problem 6. Here are 3 pages of poorly-written work. Can you help me find the problem?
3. Are we allowed to work in teams on problem 7?

Now, I could treat the whole email as a Category B, and get back to you with complete answers to all three questions in a few hours, days, weeks, ... Or I'll fire off a Category A email answering only parts 1 and 3, under the assumption that you'll ask me again about part 2 if it's important to you, or with the intention (perhaps misguided) of remembering to answer the last part sometime later.

What's the fix?

1. Try to send emails containing only one question per email;

2. If you must include multiple questions, make sure they're all Category A questions;

3. If you get back a reply with only a partial answer, email about the missing parts again.

1. Keep it short. Bear in mind that professors have lives too and verbosity costs them time. (Moreover, it's hard to handle long emails on mobile devices, and yes, professors use those too!)

2. In the first line of the email, state what you need and when. For example, "Hi Professor, I have three questions on the assignment you set for ECON302. Would you mind answering by Wed, April 4 so I have time to complete the assignment? The questions are below. Thanks."

(Regarding #1, as a very long time email user I've noticed a cultural change in what an email represents. Used to be like a memo or letter. Now, it's more like a text message. I'm sure the rise of mobile devices has something to do with it.)