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I'm writing a letter to a professor. It is my intention to state the purpose of the letter in the prescript, such as:

This is about project FOO you assigned on date BAR.

But I think this would seem unprofessional. What would be a more proper way to state 'this letter is about xyz'?

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  • Define unprofessional or professional. Unclear or primarily opinion-based.
    – Drew
    Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 1:58
  • @Drew er... used for professional purposes, or in professional settings?
    – MD XF
    Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 2:01
  • Such as? What do you mean by those, exactly? There are all kinds of "professional purposes" and "professional settings" (and all kinds of professors).
    – Drew
    Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 3:35

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For very formal, I suggest "in re", which is used in legal proceedings to reference the subject of the case. https://definitions.uslegal.com/i/in-re/ For example, Dear Professor,

In re Project Foo which you assigned on date BAR, ...

Alternatively, you could just use "Re:" with this format:

Professor John Doe [Address]

[Date] Re: Project FOO assigned on date BAR

Dear Professor, With reference to the above project...

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    although on date "BAR" confuses me. I assumed that was an internal notation or abbreviation known to you and the professor.
    – Elby Cloud
    Commented Dec 13, 2016 at 19:07
  • 1
    Apologies, I'm a computer programmer and I automatically use foo and bar as placeholder names. For reference, see: Foobar - Wikipedia
    – MD XF
    Commented Dec 13, 2016 at 19:23
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    Thanks - love learning new things. If you use the second format, place a hard return afte the date. For some reason that got wiped when I posted.
    – Elby Cloud
    Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 21:10

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