How do I sign a (formal) email?
My email client includes a signature beneath the text of my writing. Currently it is of the form:
------------
John Doe
Acme Widget Company
123 Elm Street
Metropolis, USA
phone:222-555-1212
email:jdoe@gmail.com
When I write an email, how should I sign this? For a formal letter, it feels too informal and a little bit redundant to sign with just my first name, and very redundant (because of the signature field) to sign with my first and last name:
Dear Prof. Foo
Please help me solve 1 + 1.
Sincerely,
John Doe
------------
John Doe
Acme Widget Company
123 Elm Street
Metropolis, USA
I have also seen emails where the name is left off, and the signature is all that remains:
Sincerely,
John Doe
Acme Widget Company
123 Elm Street
Metropolis, USA
Are there any formal conventions for signing such a letter? What other approaches exist?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/4376. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
2 answers
Get rid of it!
Clear communication is easiest when you have a high-signal-to-noise ratio; your signature is noise.
Caveat: if you are certain the person you are emailing actually needs it.
If in doubt, link to your company's page: contact
Or, link to your professional profile.
If inadequate, create and link to a private hcard or text file.
This is best done via a service like Dropbox or Google drive's share via private link feature and coupled with a custom URL shortener.
If you must use a URL, ensure it is small but obvious
linkedin.com/in/jhfuller vs https://tinyurl.com/ljhtn7o
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/10272. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Do you have the option of turning the signature block off on an individual email? that would solve the redundancy problem.
You can also style your sig block so that it's obviously autogenerated (different color, smaller size), and then sign with your first name. I have seen people just sign with "sincerely" because their name is in the sig block, but I personally find that a little lazy.
Informal emails I either don't sign or I sign with my initials. (which then occasionally leads to response emails addressed to my initials ["Dear LGI,"], which I find amusing.)
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