As you may already know the standard signature to all my email reads:-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
Read my blog. I am very interesting.
http://thepseudopod.blogspot.com
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
(illustration supplied by J.H.G, and acknowledged with gratitude)
Today I sent two requests to medievalist listservs, soliciting participants for my survey, and also requesting suggestions for further reading on the subject of digitisation and medieval studies. A professor I don't know emailed to say that if I wanted academics to respond to my request, I should remove this signature.
I know that it is slightly unusual to sign my academic related emails thus. I know that it is also slightly unusual for someone to have the same email address for their personal and their academic correspondences. So far I have not encountered any problems in this respect. I have had academics (two of them) approach me and say that they enjoyed my blog. I am sure there are some who don't think it's appropriate but have never said anything. For this reason I am appreciative of the fact that a stranger took the time to remind me of the possible implications of my signature.
So I guess my question is - is it an acceptable thing to do? Why yes, and why no?
For myself, I like to think that it is not necessary to divide up my personality into my personal side and my academic side. My academic studies is not so much my work but an on-going love affair not only with the subject but with the people involved (occasionally a tumultuous relationship) - perhaps for these reasons (unarticulated until now), it has never occurred to me that I should maintain a 'professional' personae.
Though I am willing to concede that for others the standards and expectations are different - and that my penchant for mixing the two may occasionally misrepresent me to other academics. If you are reading this and you have an opinion either way, please feel free to leave me a comment. I'd be most interested in knowing your thoughts on the issue.
Yours sincerely,
Angela
-------------------
Addendum
I have received a reply from the professor in question and it transpires that she was offended by the presence of the term 'dick jokes' in my previous blog post, 'The significance of the thing...'.
I feel that I must justify my use of the term. My main interest is in late medieval Scottish 'low' comedy, especially the writings of William Dunbar, and in particular, The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy. As you may already know, Dunbar, as well as being a poet who could compose 'high' style verse dedicated to the Virgin, was also fluent (and I would argue, obviously took delight in) 'dick jokes.' One of my favourites occurs in The Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo, 'Bot soft and soupill as the silk is his sary lume' (96).
I hope that taken in context, one would find the term 'dick joke' slightly less abrasive. My actual blog post reads (how strange it feels to quote myself!): 'The good thing is that I'm dealing (once again) with sign theory. At least it's a subject which interests me (though not as much as laughter and dick jokes, bless)' - by which I meant that I am currently putting my dissertation on the flyting on the back burner, and working on a paper on semiosis in the Middle Ages, and on my paper on digitisation. Hence 'dick jokes' comes with 'laughter,' i.e. Dunbar's 'low' comedy.
Of course instead of 'dick jokes' I could have chosen a slightly more delicate term, such as 'low humour.' However, I must firstly admit that I am, in circumstances of personal interaction, known mainly for my forwardness in discussing sexual matters and/or bodily functions, and for the coarseness of my language. I am sure many of my academic peers have found it fitting that I should be drawn to Scottish flytings. If my coarseness offends you, I can only offer my apologies because it was certainly not my intent. If further justification is required, then I would cite the fact that I feel on intimate enough terms with my academic interest that it seems natural to refer to it with the same degree of flippancy as that which is exhibited by the text itself.
One last thing: I don't actually think I am 'very' interesting. I think I'm probably pretty average in most respects, perhaps except my penchant for coarse language. The reason why I have 'Read my blog. I am very interesting' in my signature is because I thought it would be funny (obviously some may disagree). After all, putting my blog address there at all is a bit of shameless self-promotion, so why not go all the way? In reality it's probably meant to be read as an example of my sense of humour which is far from universal.
14 comments:
As one of the respondents, my thought related to the signature (which in general I think is quite harmless) was to wonder whether you were really working on the project you claim to be. Particularly given that the URL for the survey was a number, I had the thought that the whole thing might be a phishing scam or some other sort of electronic misbehavior. Perhaps naively, I think list members would be reassured by a .edu email address.
That said, I completed the survey, and wish you well in your project. Since your institution presumably does provide a .edu email address for you, though, you might consider adding it to your signature when you're posting to academic lists.
I do agree that separating academic and personal identities should not be a requirement; professional success should not be an act of impersonation. Many of us use our professional email addresses for personal contacts for that reason.
Dear Anonymous,
Thank you, first of all, for completing my survey! I am ever so grateful for your contribution.
There are a couple of things in your comment which I wish to respond to.
Firstly, the URL, indeed strange because it's a string of numbers - but for a reason (and thank you for the benefit of the doubt). I could have used an on-line survey service such as Survey Monkey, but because I happen to have resources available to me (the server on which the survey is hosted belongs to my father, and the survey was written by a programmer who is both a friend and a contracted programmer for my father's company), I decided not to rely on a 3rd party mechanism to do my research. I am marginally weary about free services on-line, for various reasons I don't have time to discuss at the moment. I did wonder if it was possible to make the URL less strange, but time/energy/resources got the better of me. Also - Survey Monkey does not seem capable of handling if-then question set ups - so I could not direct the flow of questions based on if a respondent had answered either yes or no.
As for the .edu email address, yes I do indeed have one. I think it's something like ox.ac.uk or ell.ox.ac.uk (undoubtedly more convincing than gmail.com). However for the reasons previously cited I chose to use my gmail address. Yet in future posts to medieval listservs I will endeavour to post from my academic email address so as to not appear as though I am part of a phishing scam. Thank you, and thanks to the professor who originally emailed me, for pointing this out. As you may be able to tell listserv for academic purposes is a new development for me. The mistake of a newbie is how I plea.
Lastly: thank you for confirming that I am not required to separate my personal/academic selves. Though I have found out that the professor who originally emailed me was mostly offended by the term 'dick jokes' in one of my posts. I have added an explanation of the term to the blogpost to which this comment is attached.
Thanks for your well-wishing. Either I will be able to knock this paper dead, or it'll knock me dead. I hope it's the former.
Best regards,
Angela
I too completed your survey. Although I was initially cautious about the URL, I found the questions unlikely to be from a phishing scam, etc. They were clearly related to the digital humanities, so I was not overly concerned.
You may have greater success attracting respondents if you provide more context for your project and more information about yourself in your email message. Remember: although many of the people whom you hope to convince to respond to your survey are users of digital resources (at the very least, they subscribe to an academic listserv), they probably have not grown up with the technology. Consequently, they are not comfortable when someone blends his/her academic and digital identities. it is more of a generational issue than anything else.
I was not bothered by your signature or email. However, I have worked extensively (both in terms of research and teaching) on the topic of cyberculture and realize that my students have a greater comfort level with the "unprofessional-ness" (I prefer the term "informality") of a digital identity than I do. Nevertheless, I would not be surprised at all if you receive little response to your survey from academics less experienced with digital resources, etc. They will likely be somewhat suspicious of your request for all the reasons you have heard so far. I presume that you want responses from academics of all levels of experience with respect to digital resources. Consequently, identifying yourself more fully (i.e. providing a .ac.uk email address) would probably help you to attract a broader sampling of respondents.
Good luck!
I found your signature silly and vain. Remember, humour is such a subjective thing that you can never be sure others will find something as entertaining/amusing as you do.
Getting a good reputation doesn't come from telling people you're interesting. It comes from showing you are through your academic work.
I think your use of coarse language shows a fundamental lack of respect for the person/s you could be addressing i.e it's fine to quote from a text that has expletives, but to use them yourself in describing the work points away from an educated mind, and instead suggests a teenage-like and very immature desire to shock or try to grab attention.
You say you're not aiming for that, so it might be time to try and think through your words and actions, and how they might be received by others. The irony is, in these acts of what you see as 'shameless self promotion' you might actually really be doing your career harm, and could be remembered for all the wrong reasons.
Dear Anonymous (number 3),
Firstly thank you for your comment. I just wanted to respond to some of the interesting points you brought up.
I do agree that humour is very subjective. This is part of what fascinates me about my research. In my persona life, I've more or less come to the conclusion that I will express my self with my particular sense of humour in the hopes that others may find it entertaining. If some find it 'silly and vain,' I hope they will simply concede that it is a matter of taste.
As for getting a good reputation - I have neither the desire to acquire a reputation as an astute scholar nor as an interesting individual (I reiterate that my statement "Read my blog. I am very interesting" is meant to be an attempt at humour). Though I welcome others to formulate their opinions about me.
As for your comment that coarse language is derived from a desire to shock and grab attention - I must thank you again for providing this bit of insight. Once again your particular response is part of the reason behind my interest in coarse language. If you should return to this post, may I ask you to clarify exactly why you believe that it "points away from an educated mind"? Do you think, for instance, that the form of expression absolutely determines whether it can be reflective of higher education? Or is this more of a tendency which you have deduced from your own observations rather than a general rule of thumb?
As for your assessment of it being a 'teenage like' tendency - I find this one difficult to respond to as I suspect it may have more to do with your assessment of me than with coarse language in general. If that is not the case, can you clarify why you think coarse language is specifically a teenage trait? In my personal experience I have heard some of the choicest 'coarse' language not from teenagers but adults. I personally find that them both colourful and interesting - though again, this is a highly idiosyncratic matter of taste.
As for your last paragraph, I feel that I must clarify again: the purpose and means of my self-expression is not directed at furthering my career (I assume you mean academic career - which is not necessarily the career which I will pursue). Secondly, I find it interesting that you conclude on the possibility of my being 'remembered for all the wrong reasons.' Perhaps what you think of as the wrong reasons are not 'wrong' to me?
Again, my aim in self-expression is never geared towards how others may or may not remember me. Surely there will always be those who think better of me than others? To have some remember me for 'wrong' reasons does not seem to be a negative outcome - it seems like an inevitability which I am perfectly happy to accept.
Lastly, I must enquire as to whether you intended to come across as condescending, or whether I'm simply reading too much into your tone?
Thanks again for your comment,
Angela
Dear Anonymous (number 2),
Thank you so much for completing my survey. Once again, I am ever so grateful for your contribution, and even more grateful that you took the time to respond to my blog post. It's both a rewarding and exciting experience to converse with voices from the void.
From your suggestions and those of others I have gained some important insights in how to post a professional and not too suspicious message to a listserv. Once again I plea the ignorance of a newbie, and perhaps also the pressure of time, which resulted in my drawing up a quick email and firing it off without sober second thought. As you rightly mentioned, more contextualization would have given recipients the ability to form a more informed judgement about my academic credentials (which, as a mere graduate student, I regret to say, are rather thin on the ground).
As for the possibility of it being a phishing scam: to be fair, it would have been one of the more elaborate phishing scams I have encountered. I've seen plenty with people pretending to be investment bankers from various countries, though none posing as graduate students in medieval literature! It would be quite original, in my opinion.
To me, the most interesting point you raise is the fact that those who may not have grown up in a digital context may be less comfortable with the 'informal' blend of 'academic and digital identities.' I couldn't agree more, and obviously as one who falls into the other category, I failed to take that into account. I hesitate to call it a 'generational' issue though, for fear of offense (and for fear of making a gross generalization). This is also why I took the suggestion (from a professor), that the age section of my survey should offer a choice of age ranges rather than just expecting participants to enter a number in response to 'How old are you?'.
Incidentally, my cousin, who is at least a decade younger than me, won't speak to anyone online unless they have a webcam, 'because it’s weird.' I guess that’s a whole new generation of digital identities being formed, with a whole separate set of expectations. But I digress.
Your thoughts on the issue has generally lead me to wonder whether an increasingly digital communication environment in which everyone may have multiple digital 'selves' will lead to significant changes in interaction and self-conception? Surely the answer is yes. (I wish I had funding to do a degree in answering this question!) Also, this 'informality' which you observed in terms of blending different aspects of identity – I wonder if that will develop into a general trend?
Incidentally, the reason why my handle is Pseudoangela is because I have always felt that my digital 'selves' will always be a mere metonymy of myself as an individual. I guess it's another one of my idiosyncratic expressions of humour. I'm uncertain as to whether anyone has picked up on the implications of 'Pseudoangela' as a hint at the fact that I am continually representing myself (and perhaps, as Anonymous 3 suggests, putting my foot in it), but always only adding to a digital paper-mache figure. I live in an interesting age of self-representation.
Finally, I wished to flag up the fact that so far all the respondents to my blog post have decided to post as Anonymous. This poses a practical difficulty as I now have to number each one; it has also made me wonder as to the motivations behind concealing one's identity. Normally if I wish to make an anonymous post on someone's blog (which I almost never do: most of my posts link back to my own blog, so any reader can have a sense of who's speaking), I would sign off as 'Pseudoangela.' I do not mean to suggest that anyone wishing to post to this blog must reveal their 'identity' – but merely that adopting even a handle 'for the nones,' may be more convenient.
Thanks again for your post. Together you and the other two anonymous respondents have provided me with much distraction from my work but made an otherwise routine morning much more intellectually stimulating – for that I am grateful.
Best regards,
Angela
Dear Anonymous (number 3),
For you:
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Don't read my blog. I am dreadfully dull.
http://thepseudopod.blogspot.com
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Do you suppose more people will find that funny?
All the best,
Angela
Hello--I'm attempting to complete your survey, but it seems to be hung upon "sending request" at section 5, the "enter an address for an exercise?" bit. I initially said yes to an e-mailed exercise, have tried backing up one page and saying no, and conclude now that it's a temporary server or bandwidth issue.
I have a meeting to attend, so I suppose I'll find out in a few hours whether PHP-based surveys can be picked up later or whether there's a session cookie that'll expire.
+1 to the online legibility issue: I see no reason to slice away all personal aspects from professional ones, but it's a good idea to be conscious of how others will perceive one and to decide how much adjusting you feel like doing. I do observe uni-affiliated individuals (mostly postgrads) posting to scholarly listservs from Yahoo! and Gmail accounts.... Some read .edu as a measure of credibility, IMO, which strikes me as particularly interesting given that .edu has nothing to do with manner of affiliation (first-year undergrad, staff, etc.).
Dear skg046,
Thanks for participating in my survey! I just had a go myself, and it appears to be functioning normally. Hopefully when you return to try it it will A. remember the answers you had provided and B. allow you to complete the survey. If not, please flag up the problem again, and hopefully I can get my programmer to sort things out.
I wholly agree with your point about awareness for 'how others will perceive one' and how one must 'decide how much adjusting you feel like doing.' This whole incident has been one unexpected lesson in self-representation and how I frequently manage to put my foot in it. It's been both constructive and humbling (not to mention frustrating at times). Though I must admit that I don't see myself changing much (on a fundamental level) because of it, my future posts to listservs will definitely be more 'professional'!
Also, interesting that you should mention the fact that .edu is in itself not a guarantee of academic credibility. To make matters even more complicated, from my understanding, sender's email address can be masqueraded as anything@anything.anything - given the know-how and a little effort.
Part of my reflections in this paper I am working on is about the shifting markers of authority and how we as digital readers can (or can't) distinguish information from infauxmation. So the .edu tangent kind of feeds into that.
As ever - it is a pleasure to converse with voices from the void. Thanks again for both your contribution to my survey and to my blog.
best regards,
Angela
Thanks for your reply. The survey has reached its final confirmation page. Something in my response broke the PHP, apparently, since said page includes "Got a packet bigger than 'max_allowed_packet' bytesinsert into computer_literacy ( [q1,...q43] )" (I've shortened the q1,q2,... list here) and shows a great many escaped backslashes.
Re: sender spoofing, yes, but to my knowledge it's harder to do that with listserv/listproc/mailman software. (You might consider dropping "sendmail helo" [sic] into a Web search.) It's far easier simply to sign up for a free account somewhere, which brings us back to why some consider .edu a mark of credibility. :)
Dear Skg046,
Thanks for letting me know about the problem. I just checked on the results and it turns out that some of the answers have been truncated to \\\\\.
Oh how I wish high-tech were as easy to use as low-tech!
I will get onto fixing that tomorrow. Or rather, I will beg my programmer to fix it tomorrow. Shame that a lot of the results are incomplete!
Oh well. :(
best regards,
Angela
The very fact you're having to ask the question shows you realise that the blog tag was unprofessional. It's not appropriate to promote yourself in this way- not in academia, or in any profession.
In putting a request out on a list serv, you are asking others to do you a favour- to give up their time in responding to your query and completing your quiz. The onus is on you to be polite and deferential, not 'funny' or boastful (how some may read the comment about being interesting- and the revised tag about it being dull), or rude/use coarse language. Why provide a link to something that you know full well may not meet everyone's approval- what is the point? Remember, listservs go all over the world, and to the inboxes of some of the most eminent scholars in the field. Irritating them, or coming across as flippant is not going to win you the approval you seem to crave.
Dear Anonymous 6,
Thank you so much for your comment. Once again I am overwhelmed by the fact that strangers have taken the time to respond to my quries. As you rightly mention, I have requested and favour, and you have complied - for that I am grateful.
There are a few things in your comments which I feel require some clarification on my part. My apologies if I had not made them clearer in my original blog post.
Firstly, the fact that the title of the post is 'Unprofessional?' does not stem from any 'realization' on my part. Indeed, the title is meant to be a question (note question mark), intended to solicit a range of opinions and responses. My original sense of the issue was that it is not a strict professional or unprofessional matter because I fundamentally do not conceive of myself as being divided into professional/unprofessional sides - especially not in terms of my academic work. I reiterate that for me, this degree is part of a (perhaps life-long) love affair with particular aspects of medieval literature. As such, it never seemed appropriate for me to adopt a 'professional' stance, as it were. I realize that this is a great divide between my personal perspective on my academic path, and that of undoubtedly professional, and as you say, perhaps even eminent academics who may be on the listservs. Though I sincerely hope that they would not see my 'unprofessional' attitude as offensive and/or an attempt to undermine the seriousness which they very rightly bring to their field of work (especially if they visit this blog, and read the profuse outpourings of explanations which I have engaged in through the last few days).
In other words, though I would not consider my own approach to academic work as 'professional,' I have a great deal of respect and appreciation for those who do. I would, however, like to reserve the right to treat my academic 'work' in an informal manner (otherwise 10 hour days at the library may just be the death of me), without causing affront to others.
As for whether it is appropriate for one to promote oneself, humorously or otherwise, in any profession - I would have to say I disagree with you on the matter. What is a CV (or resume) if not a carefully constructed form of self-promotion? I feel that it is merely couched in a different rhetoric from 'Read my blog. I am very interesting.' Another example which springs to mind would be an author on a book-tour: surely one would expect an author to promote themselves along very similar lines? Some of my friends are professional entertainers, and send out video promos of their shows to various agencies and festivals. I would have to say that their degree of self-promotion far exceed my own (which, in any case, really was only a feeble attempt at humour on my part), and is entirely appropriate to their profession.
As for your observations about my post to the listserv as a request - I could not agree more. I reiterate the fact that I am grateful for those who filled out my survey, and also for those (such as yourself) who took the time to look at my blog and post a comment.
I hope that the bulk of my e-mail, which is, in my opinion, the more important part as compared to my signature, was both polite and deferential. As a new-comer to listervs, I was slightly uncertain as to the degree of formality with which I should approach such a community. 'To whom it may concern' seemed too impersonal, and 'Dear colleagues' would appear to put me on the same footing as eminent professors (which I am obviously not). In the end I opted for a fairly (to my mind) neutral 'Hello everyone.' In the email, in several places, I note my gratitude and appreciation for the help I assumed I was about to receive. My gratitude and appreciation remains unchanged.
So, in response to your observation I would have to say that in my opinion I was polite and deferential. I apologize if it appeared otherwise.
Then we come to the problem area of my signature. Perhaps this is something which I conceive of as being the 'colophon' or the marginal fabula of a manuscript, where a little bit of individuality is permissible? (the scribal note of 'Explicit secunda pars summe fratris thome de quino ordinis fratrum predicatorum, longissima, prolixissima, et tediosissima scribenti; Deo gratias, Deo gratias, et iterum Deo gratias' comes to mind.)
Because, as I have previously mentioned, I do not separate my personal and my academic email addresses, I have a signature which appears more personal than professional. It had not occurred to me that this would be an affront to others' professional sensibilities. I would like to also reiterate the fact that it was not intended to be boastful, though to those who do not know me personally, I can see how it could be construed as such. Secondly, I really must clarify that I did NOT include rude or coarse language in my signature (OR my original email). Even someone so informal and irreverent as myself would consider that unacceptable.
As for rude language on The Pseudopod: to those who have ventured out of the safe confines of my email by following a link I provided (which is obviously not an academic link), onto my personal blog, and found 'rude language,' I have two responses:
1. Offensiveness takes many forms and comes in varying degrees. I do not consider 'dick jokes' (as it appeared in my blog post) to be rude language because it is a fairly accurate description of what I study, both in terms of style and content, and because in its original context, 'dick jokes' was not aimed at anyone as an insult.
2. If you are reading 'dick jokes' on my blog, then you are reading my blog. My blog is not a professional blog (nor does it make any claims to be such). Instead, it is a mixed representation of many aspects of myself as an individual. As such, I can only say: 'Blameth nat me if that ye chese amys.' My blog (as many would be glad to confirm) is not compulsory reading for anyone.
As for why provide a link which may not meet everyone's approval: again, the link is a standard signature to my emails. It is a link to my blog which I consider to be an extension of me. I do not think it necessary for me as an individual to meet everyone's approval. But more importantly, it was not provided purposefully as a bait for academics, but attached automatically by my trusty Gmail settings. If anything, my fault is in not removing it - as I certainly did not intentionally put it there specifically because I was posting to a listserv. Subtle differentiation, but one I felt I must make.
I do agree, however, that though I as an individual need not meet everyone's approval, I should approach self-representation to a particular group of professionals in a more considerate manner so as to not cause them offence in any way. This I consider a lesson learned.
Lastly, I cannot agree with you observation that I crave approval. If the fact that I have taken time and care to respond to each anonymous (or named) posting to my blog, it is because I truly appreciate the input of different view points and value the time and energy which each person has expended in responding to my queries. In continuing this dialogue I do not seek approval but am merely compelled by the belief that each person deserves a sensible reply.
If, through this dialogue, those who criticize for me for being undereducated, coarse, silly and vain, or downright rude, should change their opinion of me, I would of course be gratified to have their better estimation. However, if I were holding out for universal popularity I should never have left the house this morning (to paraphrase Dumbledore loosely). So, no, approval is not what I am craving; though approval is something I would be gratified and flattered to receive, the lack thereof is not something I lament.
At the risk of repeating myself ad nauseum, thank you again for your comment. It is gratifying to converse with those with like opinions, but much more stimulating and educational to spar (a term which I use without antagonism but with appreciation) with those who differ. Without meaning to flatter myself, if you should have occasion to return to my blog, I would enjoy more of your opinions and insights.
Sincerely,
Angela
Dear Angela,
I love your blog! I love dick jokes to!
Sincerely,
Famous Academic
Post a Comment