Please put Geology XXX {fill in your specific course number} and your name  as the subject line of all e-mails you send to me.  E-mails without subjects are rude and you don't want to be rude, do you?  Another problem, particularly for those of you with free accounts such as hotmail, is that you may find that your e-mail gets automatically directed into my Spam folder unless it has a subject. Never send an e-mail with subject such as Hi or Hey There, etc.

 You will nearly always receive an e-mail back from me within 48 hours max. I typically will respond to your e-mails within hours (minutes, sometimes) unless I am traveling or having a really good time somewhere. If you don't receive a message back from me, please send your e-mail again and/or call me on the phone. Don't wait days for me to respond. If you don't hear from me, it could be that your e-mail inbox is full (always check this first) or that your e-mail address was incorrectly transmitted or that something went wrong at my end. Please feel free to send another e-mail. I'd rather get too many e-mails from you than none.  If your e-mail is a question of a general nature and pertains to everyone in the course, I will respond through an update on your course resources page, as well as to you personally.

Please NEVER send me attachments, including any  required homework or other assignment which are due on days you can't be in class.   Copy and paste your message into the body of an e-mail. This is especially true for any forwards you might try to send me. Some e-mail services automatically turn forwards into attachments. Please don't send them. Attachments are the number one vector for dangerous computer viruses and I will delete them no matter what. I delete attachments from my wife so don't feel discriminated against. They are just a bad idea unless you confirm via phone that an attachment has been sent (which is what my wife does). It's easy enough to copy and paste your message into the body of an e-mail. Otherwise, put a hard copy in the U.S. mail or Whatcom campus mail. This is not as good an idea as e-mailing for time sensitive materials (i.e., ones which have "due dates").  I check the time you send the message to be sure it is before the class starts, otherwise  your work is late and you will receive any deductions which are due you.

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