Whether they’re making grammatical errors, using suggestive handles, or just writing in an inappropriately casual tone, many students don’t know how to e-mail their professors properly. Or at least that’s the sentiment expressed by the 300-plus posts to a Chronicle forum on the topic.
Common sense — or maybe a spell checker — might seem to be the best remedy for most inappropriate e-mail messages. But another solution may lie in a new Google e-mail application called “Mail Goggles.” The tool is named after “beer goggles,” the slang term college students use to describe how inebriation can make a potential mate seem inexplicably attractive.
Mail Goggles asks users when they might be most likely to send regrettable messages (the default setting is from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights). It then forces users to solve a few simple math problems before letting them send any messages during those dangerous hours.
Although there’s no proof that alcohol is driving students to send questionable e-mail messages to their professors, Mail Goggles might have blocked one note that ended up gracing the Chronicle forum: A student e-mailed a professor to say he or she had been drinking wine at a Seder dinner and might not make it to class in the morning. — Caitlin Moran
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