So-and-So, Ph.D.

we didn't

amateurist, b.a.

xpost, fucker

I don't trust any authors who list their degree after their name on the cover of their books. Especially egregious is when there's more than one: "Ph.D., J.D., L.C.S.W."

One thing I like about my dad is that, while he's a college professor with a Ph.D., he rarely advertises the degree or forces people to call him "Dr." When people ask him what he does for a living, he says, "I'm a teacher."

O.T.M.

my mother does that, and it annoys the shit out of me.

yeah, these are often self-published, it seems. or someone who has a degree in a subject totally unrelated to the subject of the book they've written.

"a practical guide to ufo sighting," by john smith, ph.d. (in comp lit)

is it appropriate to be proud of such a thing?

sure. is being proud the reason you place the credential in your From header, or on the cover of your book? no, it's to establish some kind of credibility. my sense is that this isn't a tactic that actually works for most people i know--in fact it's more likely to make you look foolish.

A comp lit degree is exactly what you need for UFO sitings, what do you mean?! You think all of that theory doesn't affect the brain enough to make you see things?

I especially like seeing the trad "Dr. and Mrs." reversed to "Mr. and Dr.!"

Counter-example to Amateurist's pride theory: Post-Structuralism and Psychology, by Robert F. Levin, I.Had.Sex.With.A.Model.Once

more important, your ph.d. alone doesn't establish much about you in any sense that will mattter in this context. your work should speak for itself. either that or people can start putting their number of citations or peer-reviewed journal articles after their name. all of this is really silly i think.

i don't know anything about the use of the "ph.d." in the context of business. a lot of "motivational speaker"-type people seem to use this. those people are usually charlatans though. ok, to phrase that more modesty: all of the ones that i've ever had the privilege of hearing sounded liked charlatans.

i'm not sure i understand entirely - do you mean you think that people awarded with the credential, at least most you know, don't really live up to it? and therefore they should be embarrassed to use it?

i mean that: the reason you would put this in your email header, or on your book cover, is likely to be for reasons other than pride. or perhaps it's a question of where you draw the line between pride and vanity. i tend to think of pride as something that you keep to yourself or your loved ones, or just sublimate into a kind of attractive confidence. not something you advertise.

i mean, when it comes to md's, or certified psychologists or certified windows technicians, etc. the credential is important because the consumer (or your client whatever) wants to know what they're getting. (even so it's unlikely a psychologist will send emails to friends that bear the header, "jim white, psy.d.") for an instructor at a university, it doesn't seem to have even that utility.

i tend to think of pride as something that you keep to yourself or your loved ones, or just sublimate into a kind of attractive confidence. not something you advertise.

so do i, though i'm more suspicious about the attractiveness of sublimated confidence. but why begrudge people who think differently?

FROM: Len Harrison, Ph.D
TO: [departmental-list] (multiple recipients)
SUBJECT: yogurt

I hate to even have to send an email like this, but we're beginning to have a real problem with theft from the department refrigerator. Whoever keeps taking my yogurt, PLEASE STOP IT. I am on a highly restricted diet, and without the yogurt that I pay for and bring every morning, I have very few on-campus lunch options.

FROM: Scott Balk
TO: Len Harrison, Ph.D
SUBJECT: Re: yogurt

You know who I always see eating yogurt, is that office assistant who wears the weird cardigan.

P.S. I was totally going to delete that email until I noticed you have an advanced degree.

I've seen what people go through to get a Ph.D. I don't blame people for putting it at the end. It's professional custom, just as "M.D." or any other professional initials are.

Some people in the U.S. are quite hostile to professionalism, I'd hate to align myself with what was once a sentiment associated with Nazis.

John Ipsissimus III Esq., Jr., Ph.D., LLC

yah me too but not as much as i'd hate to be aligned with someone what writes phd after their name

That being said, you are all wrong in that the most pretentious people are the people in universities who have "Dr. So and So" on their office doors. Email headers are a different matter, because the people receiving messages might not know the sender and will want to know that person's status. Putting it on the office door for everyone to see every day says "I am more important than all you grad students (even though I am doing exactly the same type of work that you are)."

yours,

vahid fozi, bachelor of SCIENCE

(xpost)

Mrs L.H. King, wasn't it? for Billie-Jean?

http://www.mun.ca/serg/marvin.jpg

or

http://www.fanandmore.de/fussballportal/media/juliuserving.jpg

my Dad's full professional title, however, is Cmdr. Thorax [of the Intergalactic Empire]

[man's title] + [mrs.] + [man's name] = "that dude and his woman"

*Poster Extraordinaire

Phew. Someone gets it.

My grandfather grew up on a farm in a pioneer community. He missed a lot of school working in the fields, but he wanted an education - so rather than acquiese to his mother's insistance that he drop out and help around the farm, he ran away from home at age 14. He finished high school living above a dry goods store, later worked in lumber camps, became a lumber inspector, saved his money, quit his job and enrolled in a university, where he paid his way through by working as a streetcar conductor and working odd jobs.

He got married as an undergrad, continued on in this way with no financial help (it was 1922), until he finished his Masters. That got him an associate professorship at a small college, where completed his PhD (during summers) in six years. Afterward, he liked to be called Dr. Oliver.

His pride in this herculean accomplishment did not make him a fuckbag. End of story.

no.

"real research" = something more than what you would do for a term paper? original research? primary documents? etc. can mean a number of things. i hear the phrase often, usually not in a snobbish way.

This statement seems to betray ignorance about the neologistic usage of "doctor" to mean "physician". "Doctor" never started out as a purely medical title.

The title of doctor originally meant learned, as in studied at university, and comes from the Latin ducor from which we derive the word education.

Physicians wanted to distinguish themselves from uneducated quacks; they wanted to show that they were trained in medicine by reputable institutions. So they took on the title of doctor.

From earliest memory I've always associated the title doctor with those other grown-ups who worked with my parents. The parental units were academics, of course. The academics never called themselves doctors, but my mother always taught me to address them politely and correctly by using Doctor in front of their surnames.

I used to vaguely dream of finishing my (non-medical) PhD just so I could say, "That's Doctor Mess-injure to you, bimbo." I can only claim the title Mistress and Research Fellow. Sometimes students call me Professor Mess-injure, but I never ask anyone to call me that.

Funnily enough, I have switched to a graduate degree in the health professions. Someday in the far off future I may get a doctorate in my new discipline, but I won't be a physician.

aimless otm. higher education is hard hard work.

-- Squirrel_Police (goblinatri...), September 28th, 2006.

lol

real research, in the humanities anyway is based on primary sources. fake research on secondary. i don't think you can get one without the former.

Oooh, I could do that.

http://www.rhizomatic.org/blog/imgs/ossie.jpg

Mr X & Mrs Y Bloggs? Mr X Bloggs & Mrs Y Bloggs? Mr & Mrs Bloggs?

I mean, I know which one of them is the man and which is the woman, and they know it too, so why does the postie need to know? But then, I usually just call people by their first name, no matter who they are, and I'm quite happy for anyone to call me by mine.

in the UK (and I tink Germany, and maybe lots of places) 'professor' is much more prestigious than being a lecturer or whatever. So basically everyone who lectures is a Dr, but very few are Profs.

Please someone who knows me send me mail addressed like this please!

(1) U.S. use of the "Professor" honorific is pretty strictly limited to the academic setting -- you expect it from your students, but no one expects her junk mail or her plumber to call her "Professor Whatsit" -- so people surely get used to the "Dr." part outside the classroom. (Your junk mail will call you "Dr." if you tick the right box.)

(2) Obv. not everyone with a doctorate is a professor, so ...

-- toby (toby_insertmysurnameher...), September 28th, 2006.

otm, except not everyone who lectures is a Dr -- older lecturers especially.