Academia Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for academics and those enrolled in higher education. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I have the following degrees:
What would a proper e-mail signature look like?
Examples:
Dr. Bob Roberts
PhD IT, MSE, MEM
or
Dr. Bob Roberts
PhD Information Technology
MS Systems Engineering
MS Engineering Management
BS Computer Science
There is no formal academic convention for email signatures, although your university or institution may have formatting guidelines. You can simply include as much or as little information as you want the recipient to know.
Personally, I think your name and position are sufficient and listing every degree you have is a bit redundant (and, as others have pointed out, pretentious). People will probably infer that you have a BS and MS if you also have a PhD.
It's supposed to be an email signature, not a CV. "Dr Bob Roberts" already says that you have a PhD. The rest is redundant, because having a PhD implies that you probably have a master's degree (which nobody cares about, because you have a PhD), and almost certainly have a bachelor's degree (which nobody cares about, because you have a master's). And, hey, you probably got some qualifications in high school, too (which nobody cares about, because you have a bachelor's).
So the only reason for including all that stuff in your signature is tooting your horn. And, in an academic context, it looks crass because you're drawing attention to the obvious. "Oh, look at me, I have a PhD and a master's and a bachelor's!" Well, er, so does everybody else on the academic and research staff. That level of qualifications is implied by the fact that you work here.
If you'll allow me, i'd like to play devil's advocate. Don't list your degrees in your email signature. The signature is there to format email more like a letter. It's not the place to communicate your experience. I'd recommend setting up a personal resume website or a linkedin page to showcase your experience.
Allow your message content to communicate your command of a subject, don't rest on your letters.
I want to give a different perspective.
Do what is common practise in your institution/region (i. e. what your collegues or other comparable people do).
Here in Austria, it seems to be common practise to list all your titles (maybe except for BSc/BA if you have a MSc/MA because people are not so used to these two titles). I often see multiple doctor titles and honoris causa titles in signatures.
In my view, many people here see a signature (if there is any) as a place where you state your "official" name - and, at least here, this includes your titles. "Bob" in a signature would certainly be viewed as unprofessional and strange. (But then again, I am not sure if the commenters suggesting writing "Bob" are serious or joking.)
While many people on this site view many titles as "bragging", not including them can certainly interpreted as an insult to the others - like you are saying "you guys including so many titles are pretentious".
So in short, do what your environment does.
However, I have never ever seen someone stating the field they received their titles in. (Although there are titles like "BA (FH)" (FH meanging Fachhochschule, "university of applied sciences"), which appear sometimes. Probably they have to be stated in exact this way.)
Either:
Dr. Bob Roberts
or
Bob Roberts, Ph.D.
unless one of two things obtain. First, your organization has a set of internal customs or formal rules regarding the signature. Second, if your degrees are in different areas. For example,
Bob Roberts
Ph.D. Management Science
MS Nursing
For interrelated fields, the Ph.D. supersedes the master's degree and ceases being relevant. It is also relevant to show certifications that are not superseded by the doctorate.
Your signature indicates how you want the person you're writing to address you. If you want be called by your first name, sign "Bob" or "Bob Roberts". If you want to be called "Dr. Roberts", sign "Dr. Bob Roberts".
No one is going to call you "Dr. Bob Roberts PhD IT, MSE, MEM", and what do you really hope to accomplish with that signature?
I never had an email signature. Can't think of something to put there that the person I'm communicating with doesn't know already or can easily find out if interested in having that information.
When something is relevant to the other party I'll mention it in the email, not on the signature. If exchanging more than a few emails, having long signatures becomes annoying (IMO).
As for the question, I'd keep the signature as simple as possible, e.g. John Doe, PhD. This way you're not adding additional lines to your name/signature combo, while still informing everyone that you have a PhD and everything else that comes beforehand.
Another way to do this would be to just include your linkedin profile link. That way anyone interested in learning about your credentials can just click on there. Something else I see common in Academic settings is to link to their personal webpage for the department. That page usually lists their resume, educational credentials, what paper they may have presented in the past, etc. Ofcourse ensure to setup the webpage and add all the relevant information there.
While in grad school I was told by my dissertation advisor that in formal correspondence you should not refer to yourself by Dr. The proper form would be:
Bob Roberts, Ph.D. in and not,
Dr. Bob Roberts.
Medical doctors seem to violate this convention quite frequently though.
You can list your other degrees if they are relevant to your work. For example, if I were an art therapist, a BA in fine art is relevant to my work, so I'd list it. But don't list the BS in Psychology that led to the MS. And you would list any licensure first, if you have it, such as MFT.
I've seen
Fred Davidson, M.D. Ph.D
which i personally like because it's all in one line and the fact that the md and the phd are together makes it look more powerful rather than separated.
You shouldn't put any of that in your email. There is a general correlation of Ph.D.s who call themselves Dr. or use the ,Ph.D. being the weaker ones. Even if not true in your case, it will still come across that way. And not just to the general public, but other Ph.D. holders. (Same thing applies to retired military ranks unless you are writing a letter to the editor.)
First Last (optional) position and/or org cell phone number email
You include the cell so people can call you. Lots of people use email sigs for finding phone numebrs and get annoyed by others who don't list it. (Of course if it is an email you don't want the cell included, edit it out.) Include the actual email since many email programs or physical printouts list your name in the header but not the email adress
