Email Signatures and Fellowships/Scholarships

dyl10

I came across an old and interesting thread elsewhere (http://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/21773-how-to-put-grfp-into-your-email-signature-without-being-pretentious/) and it has me wondering. How do people feel about putting awards in their email signatures?

I know plenty of people who have email signatures such as:

Joe Bloggs,
PhD Student, Harvard University
Rhodes Scholar

Although some seem to think this is extremely pretentious others think it is important. I'm not sure. Thoughts?

candle_wax

I think there's something in the Irish Research Council T&C that you must put it into your email signature. If other schemes have the same criteria, then it might explain why it's so prevalent.

I wouldn't be keen on doing it voluntarily, but I don't necessarily think it's pretentious. I suppose I just see it as part of the academic "game"...

challengemaster

Depends - if it's on your personal emails going to friends/family, I can see why they'd think you're a pretentious so and so.

If it's on your academic related emails, mainly to other academics - It's probably very useful to the recipient in determining their reply to you (or even if they should reply at all).

Think about it this way:

If you email the authors on a paper asking for a reprint, because your institution doesn't have specific journal access, or information on techniques used, etc - Are you more likely to get a reply if the recipient knows you are "Joe Bloggs", or "Joe Bloggs, a PhD student at Harvard"

Tree

My personal email doesnt have a signature, but my work one has Full name, $scholarship PhD researcher, Dept of biological sorts, University. Lab phone number. It's handy for when people need to return invoices to you or need another way of contacting you than email.