Some of you may be aware of a neat little feature the good people designing email programs came up with a few years ago to help you save time. It’s called a signature, and it saves a good 0.5 seconds per email. It’s not unlike the rubber stamps people once used when they didn’t have time to sign all their letters. Or so I’m told.

At lesser institutions, perhaps students use this to attach their name to the end of an email. But, here, a name is simply not enough. Standing alone, a name is a slippery thing, so undefined. It’s only a step away from abstracting your entire life into a number.

A horrible specter it would be, to only refer to yourself by a name, unqualified by any title or description. But, never fear — sensing that one line, two lines, six lines, might not be sufficient space for a venerable Stanford student — the prescient beings that drafted this feature knew well enough to permit us to include various and sundry facts about ourselves. No longer must the signed name stand alone; it is accompanied by a retinue of qualifications.

Not to mention, it’s simply a matter of free expression.

However, I must don my advisory hat (it’s felt). I think we have exploited this feature beyond the bounds of reason, sense, or even sensibility. We’ve taken it not just too far, but altogether in the wrong direction. Some people — you know who you are — publish only a slightly abbreviated version of their resume as a signature. Here’s the deal: 99.99 percent of people you will be emailing do not care that you were a “Dance Marathon Participant, 2007” or a member of the rock climbing club. In fact, they will probably think you are sort of ridiculous for including all this crap about yourself. Take this from one who knows: as a card-carrying member of the Bay Area Sons of Norway and a Dance Marathon, non-participant, 2010, I asked my friend who vaguely resembles Martha Stewart what the proper etiquette was on including such feats. She replied, curtly: “Just no. And pass the pastry bag, will you, dear?”

Lest you think I’m out to kill all the fun, I do not mean to suggest we should reduce the number of lines of personal biography on our emails. This appendage is too important to excise. Like a malfunctioning liver, we should simply switch out the deficient style of email signatures for a flashier type. I simply and boldly suggest changing the content. Truth be told, listing whatever clubs you are in and what your major is does not do a great job of describing who you are. And, so far as I am aware, this is not supposed to be the place for your resume. There are, so far, no rules for what exactly should go beneath your name. My suggestion? Actual biography. Not your statistics. Take mine as an example:

Before: Emily Hulme, Stanford University, Class of 2011, B.A.S. Candidate, Daily Columnist, Amateur Playwright, Art Affair Attendee, Sigma Chi Enthusiast.

After: E. Hulme, A Kindred Soul, To All Who Might Study, at Stanford and also, a Sparkling Water Connoisseur, Who Has More Info Available on her Twitter, and Never Uses Awkward Smileys in Texts.

Naturally, to get your point across, I think it is rather imperative to retain the structure of the antiquated form. It has a certain poetic quality. Indeed, it may very well be that Greek lyric originally derives from these fragmentary biographies. I think you will find this a form of narrative that just pulses with life. Experiment, and watch as your very essence bubbles up through the disjointed phrases which tell your story better than any list of titles ever could.

Again, it’s all about the freedom of expression.

Armed with one of these signatures, maybe your professor won’t know that you are an Exec for any given organization or a Hum Bio major. In exchange, he’ll know you are either 1) stupid or 2) a hilarious maverick who enjoys sparkling water. But, I would not spend too many nights tossing and turning worrying about the former. Progress, as you know, demands risk, and this is a risk well worth taking. One day, you can tell your grandchildren about the time you walked uphill both ways in the snow with no shoes to sit down in front of the computer screen and deleted the most boring possible account of your life you could ever imagine and created a whole new version of yourself, more accurate and more colorful, to show the world that you truly are more than just a tired formula.

Emily would like to thank the illustrious Samantha Penabad for inspiring this column. Send other inspiring thoughts and/or SNL clips to [email protected].