Here, somebody asked the question at Quora, "Should I put 'PhD' after my name on the cover of my book?" Top answer:
Serious academic books rarely if ever include the author's qualification on the cover. I suppose it's a bit like saying "Trust me, I'm a doctor" - it makes you look shifty. A book should be judged on its content, not the author's educational status, which can be indicated in other parts of the book.ADDED: Overheard at Meadhouse:
The trouble with advertising your qualification upfront is precisely the one you have indicated: is it relevant? is it even a proper degree? (Let's face it there is no shortage of dodgy PhDs out there.) I work in a library, and I have found that PhD or MD or whatever after the author's name on a cover is an almost certain sign of a book to be avoided.
"There, I made a post out of your idea."
"What was my idea?"
"I just wrote a whole post. Read the post!"
"I have to read your blog to know what my own ideas are?"
Posts
97 comments:
"the world's most dangerous man"
OK, progs consider anything they dislike "unsafe," but other than that, after almost four years in office, what makes Trump "most dangerous"?
How is Trump 'dangerous'? We've heard enough fear fantasies to fill a month of programming on the WE Channel but they never seem to come true.
Not the same thing but in my work I am always wary of someone that introduces themselves and adds their title, which is usually Vice President of this or that in the organization. Raw status assertion and a power play.
I suppose that Mary Trump is attempting to credentialize herself to assert the veracity of her story. But she's a family member, that is enough to make her an expert. Of course, hers is one person's story about the family, Trump can simply say some or all of it is false.
As an aside, keep the Meade House dialogue coming, it is quite entertaining.
Any use of an honorific indicates need for an honorific (I say this as a PhD myself.
To extend the comment's wisdom: any sentence that contains words like "studies show" should be avoided.
I roll my eyes at people who have PhD in their twitter ID. Seeing it on a dust jacket forces me to put the book back on the shelf.
"How my family created the world's most dangerous man."
Isn't that often used as a heroic accolade, in terms of the entrenched establishment he disrupts or threatens?
Like the "Most Dangerous Man in Show Business" or...
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers is a 2009 documentary film directed by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith. The film follows Daniel Ellsberg and explores the events leading up to the 1971 publication of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the top-secret military history of the United States' involvement in Vietnam.
How my family created the world's most dangerous man
Self-importants much?
World's MOST dangerous man. MOST dangerous. More dangerous than the leader of Iran. More dangerous than the leader of Russia. More dangerous than John Wick!
We're #1! We're #1! U.S.A, U.S.A.!
This from a "highly educated" individual. Must be "highly educated" right? They have a "PhD" after their name! All credentialed and shit.
Clearly she means "most dangerous" to all the wrong (or would that be "right") people.
On the plus side it’s far less shifty than appending “Esq” after your name.
PinHeaD.
"You can trust me. I'm not like the others."--Howie Carr.
Always makes me smile.
Only 3 initials!
Ha, child’s play.
More, must have more.
Here in Center Mass, I'm seeing several large (4'x 8') yard signs for the Republican Senate candidate Shiva, MIT PhD. He's happens to be a yuuuuge conspiracy nutter like Alex Jones.
Serious academic books rarely if ever include the author's qualification on the cover.
Credentialed, not accomplished.
There is a person I interact with, in person when I go to corporate, and e mails several times a week. I see they do a fair amount of administration work. Approving expenses, loading training material, housekeeping details for big meetings. The weed science/chemistry,managing damage claims, assignments, I don't see their name attached. The email signature identifies as PhD. While the person is professional, and knowledgeable, I have given up calling them for questions, because they don't return my call. My peers, some with no degrees, none with post grad credentials, return my missed call even if I don't leave a message. I assume the difference is not so much education, as work ethic. Must of my peers spent their life in sales and service. Success to us means returning a phone call, not picking up an additional credential.
There is an ophthalmologist practicing in Lake County Illinois who puts PhD on everything; letter head, business cards, website. Wasted more than $300 with him. Also see Jill Biden, now employed as a zombie keeper,
I see the "facts" in the hit piece, are crumbling. The person she claimed took the Presidents SAT is dead, and didn't meet the President until they were both in collage.
That increases to zero, the number of tell alls that have landed a single fact.
Instapundit for a while was a regular source for articles like “Sooper Doooper credentialed scientist, winner of x number of Nobel Prizes says COVID is an overhyped hoax!”
OK, I exaggerate, but when an article leads with credentials, and not the argument itself, I don’t bother to read it anymore, having fallen for that “one cool trick” too many times.
without Mary's PhD in the title could this development have followed?
Trump Could Possibly Have His College Degree Revoked Following News He Paid Someone to Take the SAT For Him
Of course putting "world's most dangerous man" in the title is over the top hyperbole. Must be a family trait.
I remember watching with friends once a movie that was about “The Most Evil Man in the World... The MOST Evil!” That was the hero’s stated ambition, and when he said the second part, he would jab a finger in the air. I don’t remember much about the movie, but I know that the line “The MOST evil!” with the hand gesture became a joke with us for a long time.
BTW, any US president can be said to be "the most dangerous man in the world.” Sometimes the feckless ones, like Obama, cause as much evil or more than the dumb, but energetic ones like W.
If your book reflects your area of "expertise", then you should indicate your educational credentials.
The point is not to impress the public. The public is not usually considering such a book. It is for other "experts" or those who are studying to be experts. In the field of Psychology there is a Psy.D. equivalent that reflects practical training rather than empirical research expertise. I would not typically consider a book in an area such as neuropsychology from an author with a Psy. D. degree.
Another day at Walden Pond with a high speed internet connection. What if the power goes out? You will need a back up Power supply .
My wife does not blog, Meade. I have no idea what to think.
"I have to read your blog to know what my own ideas are?"
A married man who wishes to keep the peace quickly learns to always consult his wife to find out what his own ideas are.
Traditional guy, Esq. sounds great. I think It means that I read the magazine
Has Trump assassinated American citizens via drone with no open oversight or judicial process? Perhaps he's significantly increased our military presence in a wide variety of countries? Perhaps he's responded to minor attacks on us with huge death counts to the citizens or military of a hostile foreign country? Maybe's he's drawn red lines for the use of chemical weapons and then not enforced it?
Maybe he's delivered huge sums of cash ( Literally $1.3 billion in total) to a hostile foreign country by secret airlift and without congressional approval or oversight, at the same time american hostages were released, thereby violating generations of US policy of not paying for hostages?
I used to be a "fellow" of the "Royal Society for the Arts and Manufactures"
It has a great history going back in the mists of time to 1860 or so. Sometimes confused with the older and more exclusive Royal Society for Science of Newton et al.
This entitled me to put FRSA after my name on my business card. I thought it added some pizazz.
Problem is, nobody in the US had ever heard of the RSA.
so I let my membership lapse. No pizzazz, no reason to spend a couple hundred a year.
John Henry
Two men I can think of as candidates for 'world's most dangerous man' are George Soros and Bill Gates. Although I suspect there are some whose names we may never know who are even more dangerous.
BTW, having been raise by an uncaring parent and a distracted, overworked one, or maybe it was vice-versa, I kind of resent this. It’s so unfounded in experience. People overcome these obstacles all the time, they are not an immutable life sentence of suffering. That is so simplistic, like a cartoon villain maybe, suitable for psychoanalysis of fictional characters like "The Grinch” at best.
If she was cut out of the family inheritance, but still managed to go forward and get a PhD, getting sympathy from the public for her own mistreatment seems a big stretch.
Jill Biden is not a PhD.
She is an EdD. Considerably less work, scholarship and academic rigorousness required than a "real" doctorate.
John Henry
I pointed how thats a bunch of bunkum
"If your book reflects your area of "expertise", then you should indicate your educational credentials."
Yes, but in the author bio., not in the title. In the title it looks pathetic and needy, and pretty much guarantees the degree is in some soft or bogus field.
Push here, Dummy
Piled higher and Deeper
On twitter, anyone who has "Esq." in their user name is a douche. In life, anyone who uses "Dr." but isn't a practicing medical doctor is a schmuck, and anyone who insists on using "Ph.D." regardless of the field is insecure and of weak character.
Wince said...
"How my family created the world's most dangerous man."
Isn't that often used as a heroic accolade, in terms of the entrenched establishment he disrupts or threatens?
Whenever I hear a phrase like that, I think of Paul Schaffer and The World's Most Dangerous Band.
"Serious academic books rarely if ever include the author's qualification on the cover. I suppose it's a bit like saying 'Trust me, I'm a doctor' - it makes you look shifty."
Apparently you haven't come across the books (plural!) by DOCTOR Jill Biden,
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/administration/jill-biden
Jill put the "f" in phony.
Does anyone outside of academia think a PhD is a credential?
Medical doctors(aka real doctors) put the honorific up front, where it gets noticed. And sometimes after the name, too, just to make sure you didn't miss it the first time. My wife the doctor told me that.
>>"How my family created the world's most dangerous man"
Bullshit.
Everybody knows the world's most dangerous man is Mister Neutron.
Who, you will remember, is infinitely the most dangerous man in the world. He really is!
“On the plus side it’s far less shifty than appending “Esq” after your name”
Shifty? It means in this country that you are an attorney admitted to practice law. I sometimes find it pretentious, but see it far less often than I see MD, or even PhD after someone’s name, when it is not directly professionally related communications. I know several people who have included one or the other in their email addresses. I find that pretentious.
My problem with putting Esq by your name is that professionally, you use a more descriptive title, such as “Patent Attorney” or “Attorney at Law” to identify yourself. BUT, legal etiquette requires that whenever you address other attorneys, that you append “Esq” after their name, unless they deserve a more prestigious honorific, such as “Hon”, “Gov”, “Sen”, etc. If there is a list of people, you figure that those without some honorific (such as those I just listed) by their names to be paralegals, etc. Which is to say that you typically don’t use “Esq” for yourself, but it is usually required for other attorneys. That, is for the US. Dealing with foreign associates, I was most often addressed as “Dr”. Unless you are talking about the Germans - one friend of mine would always take his sabbaticals in Germany, where he would inevitably be addressed as “Professor Doctor, Doctor, Lt Col”.
Still, if I had written a book where my qualifications were important, I would probably include either JD or Esq. I just double checked - Dr K appended “MD, FACS” to his name for his “War Stories” book, because the book is directly related to both of those qualifications. On the flip side, Andrew Branca has Attorney, and neither Esq or JD, on the cover of his “Law of Self Defense” book.
All I have to know is when the book is published and motivation. In this case it's a political hit piece scheduled for right before the Orange Man bad election.
No one wants to read a book about me. Certainly no one wants to read a book about what my sister remembers about me. But, boy,let's hear the dirt about Trump.
Any one else suspicious that words on the pages are slanted?
"I have to read your blog to know what my own ideas are?"
That prompted a genuine morning chuckle.
I thought of Jill Biden right away, too. In an era of the Lockdown Riot, waving your credentials is a desperate attempt to reclaim some of your shredded authority.
I agree. Signed, JML, BUS, MSSM, MSES, Rated Navigator, Certified PM, Contract Specialist Level III and the most important tag of all: Retired!
I suppose that Mary Trump is attempting to credentialize herself to assert the veracity of her story. But she's a family member, that is enough to make her an expert.
But she wasn't a "family member" in the sense that would suggest that she knew all of the ins and outs of the immediate Trump (R. Pres.) family. I see my nieces and nephews several times a year, speak with their parents (my siblings) somewhat more than that, but not nearly enough for them to know what goes on in my household. The main source of her "knowledge" would be what she was told by her alcoholic, disappointment-to-the-family father and whatever snark she got from her divorced from her drunk ex-husband mother, two sources with plenty of motivation to spin history to cast themselves in a favorable light (which, as a PhD in psychology would surely be aware).
"When incidents of plagiarism in campaign speeches and during his time in law school came to light, his campaign was soon suspended.
"My intent was not to deceive anyone," Biden wrote at the time. "For if it were, I would not have been so blatant."
Well I guess Biden's Law Degree needs to be revoked for Plagiarism?
I am sure the niece has a copy of the canceled check Trump paid the guy, with "Paid to take my SAT" on the memo line.
If Trump paid, he would have gotten the best. I never heard he got a 1550+ SAT, has anyone released his score?
Howard said Here in Center Mass, I'm seeing several large (4'x 8') yard signs for the Republican Senate candidate Shiva, MIT PhD. He's happens to be a yuuuuge conspiracy nutter like Alex Jones.
I feel like I've seen Shiva run for office in each of the last few elections, last time as an independent?
I'd take "the world's most dangerous man" as a great compliment. Not sure whether it was author's intention
Earnest Prole said On the plus side it’s far less shifty than appending “Esq” after your name.
Appending "Esq." in communications makes privilege review much easier when responding to document requests in litigation, particularly with electronic documents. That is the only reason anyone has ever advised me to use the appendage.
I Insist on being called Esquire, my privilege as a gentleman.
Obviously, if your book is about a medical topic than you'd better put MD or Doctor in your book cover. Otherwise, I agree. Its not just that its "Shifty" its that Academia is such a clownish Joke, even a PHD from Yale means ZERO. IN fact, I'd probably think "Oh, he's a PHD from Yale. That means he's a left-wing goober writing propaganda".
bTw, can we stop calling PHD's "Doctor" ? i don't know who started this, or why people keep doing it. "Doctor" should be reserved for MD's. People we have respect for. I don't have any respect for a "Doctor" of Women studies. Or Mary Trump.
iowan2: "I see the "facts" in the hit piece, are crumbling. The person she claimed took the Presidents SAT is dead, and didn't meet the President until they were both in collage.
That increases to zero, the number of tell alls that have landed a single fact."
Maoists dont need "facts" to conduct an "investigation".
See: Steve Uhr.
That girl; may, or may not, make a pile of money from the left. Not to mention, all the National Review staff.
I am quite the bookworm myself, but except for self-help psychology (where the author is trying to establish credentials) or books of academic interest, I can't recall any books with "Ph.D." after the author's name.
Justin Addison: My father was an MIT PhD.
Jed Clampitt: Stop worryin’ about what your Paw done.
Apparently Dr. Jill Biden has the type of degree that most people wouldn't deem appropriate to use 'Dr.' She has an Ed.D. not a Ph.D.
I have a friend who has a Ph.D in hard science from Stanford. I only call him 'doctor' when I'm breaking his balls. Nobody ever calls him 'doctor' except maybe at some academic conference or another.
If Trump would buy a high SAT score, why not buy a PhD?
I’m not accusing her of that. After all, who would spend good money on a clinical phrenology degree just to become not a real doctor?
The only thing I ever put PhD on was my CV. Even my business cards didnt have it- only my job title.
She also gives a diagnosis of Trump's mental state while never having a personal examination of him. So we are being asked to give credibility to someone who explicitly violates the ethics of her chosen vocation. Orange Man Bad covers a lot of lapses in ethics and morals.
the book's about Austin Powers?
This is an unusual situation where it is helpful for the reader to know her qualifications. Otherwise most readers would discount her efforts to diagnose him.
Trump was hired to be the most dangerous man to the right group of people.
Bug, meet feature.
The J in Donald J Trump stands for "just the most dangerous man in the world".
How is Trump 'dangerous'?
Less social justice zones (elective wars/man-made conflicts) created, saved, and progressed than his predecessor. Reduced [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] immigration reform, too. More witch trials, warlock judgments, trials by press, protests, and other acts of civil and criminal behavior from conception and evolving. He supports labeling Fetal-Americans as babies and judging them as worthy of life - the anti-Nazi, anti-Progressive.
That said, judge a book by its certifiable author and the content of her writing.
All Republican presidents are literally Hitler.
soooooo..
You can make Simon and Schuster rich +
I've actually struggled with this, as a PhD myself. Anecdote: When I worked for a large public health non-profit I was having a devil of a time getting our Chinese colleagues to answer my emailed questions. However, I then started putting my degree in my signature line (don't remember if I used "PhD" or "Dr." in some form) and they immediately became much more helpful.
One of the biggest shots in the field of my PhD (archaeology) also never or rarely used his degree and told me it was something people should apply to you, not something you apply to yourself.
I've asked people ("lay-people" if you will) what they think and some say it looks pretentious while others say it's something I earned and should use.
So I still dunno. I try to use it situationally. In published papers, of course, the PhD goes in; a couple of books I've edited, it's left out. Professional reports I also use the "PhD". In most of my email correspondence, I just put it in parentheses after my name -- "Anthony Smith (Dr.)" -- just to put it there, but hopefully in something of a humbler fashion.
PHD after the name Trump is important in to separate a trained psychologist niece from her "crazy old uncle."
Some rules are made to be broken.
steve uhr said...
This is an unusual situation where it is helpful for the reader to know her qualifications. Otherwise most readers would discount her efforts to diagnose him.
Hilarious. Credentialism gone insane. Like "Doctor" Jill Biden.
"Otherwise most readers would discount her efforts to diagnose him. "
Her conflicts of interest regarding being supposedly cut out of the will by her grandfather and the pain and obvious hate of Trump due to having her own father die early of substance abuse discount her efforts to "diagnose" him well enough.
So PhD stands for Panderer Has Dirt.
Trump has certainly proven dangerous to the loathesome gang of State-fuckers that Joseph Sobran dubbed "the Hive." That has turned me from a lukewarm supporter t5o an active fan.
Blogger mikee said...
Medical doctors(aka real doctors) put the honorific up front, where it gets noticed.
Those are usually chiropractors or naturopaths.
A dangerous man who loves America. For me "that's storybook, man."
He scares all the right people, and that's long overdue.
There are many important reasons to get a PhD. If you are a consultant you can charge more, so certainly put it on your business card. If you don't have a PhD in Statistics you can only be a lower level analyst in Pharma companies, because they can't risk a failure of a major drug trial due to flawed design. Hiring a PhD only crew can insulate you and prevent firing if the trial fails.
Unreadable font. Also, having her name the same size as the book's title looks terrible.
The facts about this woman are terrible. She received many hundreds of thousands of dollars and real estate, possibly millions, from her grandfather's estate and has defamed and smeared him and the rest of the family for decades.
Andy and Barney are checking into a Mt. Pilot hotel and the clerk says, "Sheriff, you are in room 6 and Doctor Fife, you are in room 7".
Andy: "Doctor Fife?"
Clerk turns registration book around, "Says here Barnard Fife, MD."
Barney: "Mayberry Deputy".
The only thing I ever put PhD on was my CV. Even my business cards didnt have it- only my job title.
I use it when writing job recommendations.
"bTw, can we stop calling PHD's "Doctor" ? i don't know who started this, or why people keep doing it. "Doctor" should be reserved for MD's."
You have it backwards.
The title "doctor" started with learned professors, notably at the University of Baloney in Italy, to certify how very learned they were. These sages gradually co-opted the treatment of injury and disease from barbers and witches, although it took them centuries to surpass them in efficacy, and a few more to do as little harm.
We should use the term "physician" instead of doctor. After all, many healing doctors are not MD's (dentists, ostepaths, etc.), and this will distinguish any of them from the kind of doctor that don't do nobody no good.
She wasn't even born until the president was an adult.
Anything in that book is either 2nd hand or greater hearsay, or made up bullshit.
Char Char Binks, Esq. said..."bTw, can we stop calling PHD's "Doctor" ? i don't know who started this, or why people keep doing it. "Doctor" should be reserved for MD's."
You have it backwards.
The title "doctor" started with learned professors, notably at the University of Baloney in Italy, to certify how very learned they were.
The Ph.D. title (Doctor of Philosophy) began in Germany in the 17th century, although the French referred to top experts in their fields as "doctors" 500 years earlier. It has mostly been an academic designation.
A doctorate is awarded to lawyers and physicians, but a doctorate in Philosophy (Ph.D.) is awarded to academic researchers in the hard and social sciences.
>>Which is to say that you typically don’t use “Esq” for yourself, but it is usually required for other attorneys.
Bingo! Give that man a cigar!
--gpm
For the lawyers here:
What is the legal standing of the appellation "esquire"
Does it mean that only a lawyer can use it? As only a licensed doctor can us "MD"
Or can I, NAL, call myself John Henry, Esquire?
Assuming I am not using it to imply that I am a lawyer.
Some might object that I am not a gentleman either. But that's just opinion.
And are female lawyers like Ann "gentlemen"? Or is there a feminine equivalent.
John Henry
John Henry Esquire
We should use the term "physician" instead of doctor. After all, many healing doctors are not MD's
Do not call surgeons in England "Doctor." It is an insult. MD is only for internists and requires additional study, much as we do with specialty board exams. The British medical degree is MB CHB, meaning Batchelor of Medicine and Batchelor of Chemistry. A surgeon in England is called "Mister." Something like 75% of NHS physicians now are "South Asians," meaning African or Indian. South Asians seem genetically more susceptible to SARS2 and 8 British physicians died.
Titles and credentials, always fun.
Because I worked in academe and had "faculty rank and status" (which is to say "we'll call you librarians faculty but that means you have to be like us real faculty for even less than we make") I got called Doctor a lot by laypeople--but I am always at pains to refute the charge.
I have no dog in the MD/PhD fight, except to say I am not bothered when non-MDs are called Doctor--they were there first.
A few folks insist on calling me Professor--at least I actually was one of them.
I never listed or mentioned my credentials in any correspondence when I was working, only my academic rank and job title of Curator.
Narr
It's just a cooler word for overseer
Mary L. Trump, Td$
Dear Esq: Please take your shifty lawyer jokes like a man. You presumably chose your own profession.
In the 1960s the University of Alabama, Law School, changed the official title of their law degree from LLB, Bachelor of Laws, to JD, Juris Doctor. Graduates were complaining about the perceived lower status of their degree, plus everyone else was doing it. LLB had been their law degree since 1872.
I don't know when Masters degrees in law started but my daughter has one, from an other school, plus she has the JD as well. Her email just says 'Partner' and gives the law firm.
"What is the legal standing of the appellation "esquire"
Does it mean that only a lawyer can use it?"
I sometimes call myself Char Char Binks I ANAL, when I want to seem more impressive.
"And are female lawyers like Ann "gentlemen"? Or is there a feminine equivalent."
They're called esquirellas.
The only useful places to use your PhD is conferences and making restaurant reservations. I, however stopped attending the former and COVID-19 took care of the other
They're called esquirellas.
Bas'ball been bery good to them!
600000 copies have been shipped.
Hate sells, and the brainwashed Left (54% of US) is buying.
readering said...
600000 copies have been shipped.
7/10/20, 3:01 AM
Nobody is saying you don't pay your whores.
1. USING TITLES ON BOOK COVERS
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To the question, "Is there a rule . . . never read a book that has PhD on the cover," I'd say that if there is such a "rule" I'd question who wrote it and why. I'm not one who follows anonymous suggestions from who-knows-who just because someone labelled them "rules." I use my critical thinking to decide whether three-little-letters matter or not when I choose my readings.
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In the case of the book used as an example, the three-little-letters matter, because they tell potential readers that the author writes not only as a relative but as someone with extensive professional experience in psychology. If Mary's Ph.D. was in building bridges or rocket science then it wouldn't be relevant to the topic of the book.
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2. THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN THE WORLD
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To those who believe Trump is not more dangerous than certain dictators or autocrats in other parts of the world, I say: dangerous does not mean evil. Dangerous means "able (or likely) to cause harm." Trump is THE most powerful person in THE most powerful country. Give me an example of someone who has more power! If you can't, then Trump is the person with the most power to cause good or harm, whatever he wants to. Please don't assume that words are used to attack!
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3. REPLY TO CRAIG
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Craig wrote "Hate sells and the brainwashed left is buying." Craig, your comment is inaccurate for three reasons (that pretty much cover every word you said):
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a) It's not only "Left" people who are brainwashed. Read about "confirmation bias" before you use the term brainwashed so lightly man. Also, explain why many "Right" people believe conspiracy theories that have been proven to be fantasy just because a figure of authority said so without any prove whatsoever. If that's not brainwashing then, what is?
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b) Yes, I agree that hate sells. What I disagree with is your assumption that the ONLY reason why someone who is not pro-Trump would buy this is hatred. That's an unfounded (and actually hateful) assumption. I am not a Trump supporter, and I read this book to better understand the man behind the title, not to fuel hatred. And it actually worked--I feel more empathy for what he goes through, on a personal level. I actually encourage you to do the same, and read about "Left" leaders NOT to criticize them, channel your inner hatred, find ammo, or feed your ego and prove you're right and those who differ are wrong, but just to understand where others are coming from and open your mind.
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4. REPLY TO NICHEVO
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What does your vulgar and stupid comment have to do with the conversation dude?
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Joe
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