The reason that spurs most people to join a professional body like the IAP is the prestige which membership brings.
Increasingly the letters MIAP after your name are becoming recognised, and mark you out as the right kind of computer professional. But IAP members tend to be versatile individuals, and are often qualified in more than one field.
This can cause confusion as to the exact order in which their designatory letters should appear. Practices vary in different countries, and an individual can do whatever he likes (he shouldn’t, but the police won’t come around! – Ed) but the rules we follow in the IAP office are as follows:-
Some qualifications bestow a title which comes in front of the member’s name: Doctor and European Engineer come immediately to mind – Doctor and Eurlng. (If you are ordained ‘Reserved’ comes right at the front – comes from a ‘higher authority’!) Degrees come immediately after the name, starting with the most humble, usually a Bachelor’s degree (BSc or BA), and followed by the others in ascending order – MSc then PhD etc. next comes Chartered status – such as CEng, CMath and, who knows, one day perhaps CProg!
Next comes memberships of professional bodies, and these are printed in descending order!
But the real problem is deciding the pecking order of the various bodies, and then whether the varying grades of membership you hold within those bodies justify any further rearrangement of the order. For example, the BCS being the senior body, MBCS would come before MIAP. But what if you are MIAP (or even FIAP) and only AMBCS? This particular problem won’t arise very often. The more usual difficulty is when bodies operate in totally different fields. Then it’s anybody’s guess – however, the usual ‘rule of thumb’ is to give priority to whatever you consider your main profession.
Oh, and if you happen to be a Member of Parliament, you always use ‘MP’ whether or not you want to display any other letters you are entitled to!
From an article by Mike Ryan June 1998
Post-nominal Designatory Letters – a Discourse
Following the DG’s comments about post-nominal letters in Issue 26, I believe that it is worth pointing out that there are some “rules” about the “correct” order for these to be written.
1) Victoria and George Cross (where appropriate)
2) Knighthoods and Appointments to Orders (e.g. Order of the Bath)
a) by level/grade
b) By precedence of order
3) Other Medals and Decoration according to their rules of precedence.
4) QC/JP (if appropriate)
5) Degrees and Diplomas
a) In ascending order of grade (i.e. BSC PhD) expert for Oxbridge degrees which are normally written the other way!
b) Where two degrees are at the same level, in order of date of award.
6) Chartered Statii that carry post-nominals (e.g. CEng, CPhys, CMath) order of award.
7) Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Royal Academy (FRS/FRA) in order of award.
8) Professional Qualifications that give rise to chartered statii in the same order as 6 – this is quite important – particularly with CEng, which can be gained via a number of professional bodies – this rule identifies the body that awarded the registration.
9) Other Professional Qualifications.
a) By descending grade (i.e. Fellow, Member, Associate Member)
b) By chartered/other (Chartered bodies are placed before non-chartered!)
c) By professional relevance (most relevant first!)
d) By date awarded.
10) Members of Parliament (MP)
Note that
1) If a number of honours from the same order or university are held, it is correct to omit the lower ones.
2) If a number of degrees from the same University are held, it is permissible to omit the lower ones.
3) MP is *NEVER* omitted if applicable.
Thus, for example, my collection is:-
BA (Hons) (Open) Fellowships – IAP IMA BCS
Memberships – IMgt InstD
Chartered Statii – Chartered Mathematician via IMA
My primary profession is “Computing”, my secondary one is “Management” which gives rise to the following sequence:
BA (Hons) CMath FIMA FBCS FIAP MInstD Might
1) Degree
2) Chartered Status
3) Body from which Chartered Status derives
4) Fellowship Chartered Body
5) Fellowship Non-chartered Body
6) Membership Chartered Body
7) Membership Non-chartered Body
If my current application for CEng via the BCS is granted the post-nominal would just slot in between the CMath and the FIMA. It is actually slightly ambiguous, because it is possible to get both CMath and CEng via the IMA; but you can’t win them all ….
..and the DG Emeritus, who is a chartered Engineer, a member of the “civils”, and a Fellow of the IAP and the Institute of Demolition Engineers, would order them as follows:
CEng MICE FIAP FIDE if he view the computing side his primary profession,
Or
CEng MICE FIDE FIAP if the demolition engineering is the primary profession/
From an article by Alex Robertson September 1998.
