{"id":881,"date":"2006-12-05T10:36:12","date_gmt":"2006-12-05T10:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2006\/12\/05\/for-reference-purposes\/"},"modified":"2006-12-05T10:36:12","modified_gmt":"2006-12-05T10:36:12","slug":"for-reference-purposes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2006\/12\/05\/for-reference-purposes\/","title":{"rendered":"For Reference Purposes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Female Science Professor has a post talking about types of reference letters<\/a>. Much of what she says is fairly specific to letters relating to prizes or promotions, but some of her comments are perfectly applicable to the junior faculty job search letters I’ve been reading by the bucketload lately.<\/p>\n

Particularly worth noting are her categories of good letters:<\/p>\n

\n

OK to good letter of reference: clear statement of how well (or not) the reference writer knows the person in question, and opinion with examples regarding research quality or potential in the context of the field.<\/p>\n

Best: The above, but with some examples or descriptions that make the person in question stand out in some way. If a committee is reading hundreds of these letters, they really can all start to look the same after a while, so the really well-composed letters stand out.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n

She doesn’t have a category for my least favorite type of reference letter, though. What I hate more than anything else is the “Confirmation of Employment” letter, which is distressingly common. These tend to go something like this:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

I am writing this letter in support of Generic Q. Postdoc, who is applying for a position in your department. Generic was a student in my Physics 723 class a few years ago, and handed in all of the work on time, as far as I can remember. <\/p>\n

Generic’s thesis was done with Professor Distinguished H. Grantwriter, working on the Obscure Problem in Other Field. I am sure Dr. Grantwriter will describe Generic’s role in the project in detail, but I think I remember Generic giving a seminar about the work that was pretty good.<\/p>\n

Since graduation, Generic has gone on to work in the lab of Professor Notable T. Researcher, and I have not followed the results. I am sure, however, that Generic will do just fine at your institution, wherever that is.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,
\nProf. Distracted K. Betterthingstodo<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I have no idea what the people on the other end of these letters are thinking, either the letter writers, or the candidates who asked these people for a letter. This doesn’t help the candidate a bit, and can actually hurt in that it takes up space in an application folder that could be used for letters that would actually be useful to the search committee. And believe me, every little bit helps– we’re closing in on 250 applications for a single tenure-track position, and with those numbers, a single recommendation can make or break an applicant’s chances.<\/p>\n

If you’re a faculty member, and somebody asks you for a reference letter, ask yourself whether it’s likely to read like the above. If there’s even a chance that it will come out that way, just say no<\/strong>. Tell the candidate to ask somebody else, who can write a better reference than that.<\/p>\n

If you’re applying for jobs, and looking for people to write references for you, ask yourself whether the letter they write will end up looking like the above. If there’s even a chance that it will come out that way, ask somebody else<\/strong>. You don’t want that letter in your file.<\/p>\n

If you’re a grad student or post-doc, ask yourself whether you can come up with three people who will write better letters than the above. If you can’t, get to know more people<\/strong>. Start a collaboration with somebody in the next lab over, or at least strike up a conversation with them. You’re going to need at least three letters from people who know something about your research, and who know you as a person. If you’re not absolutely certain that you can get three such letters, start cultivating some people who can write them for you. Yes, this requires you to take time away from the lab and actually speak to another human being, but if you can’t handle that, you don’t belong in academia.<\/p>\n

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The Female Science Professor has a post talking about types of reference letters. Much of what she says is fairly specific to letters relating to prizes or promotions, but some of her comments are perfectly applicable to the junior faculty job search letters I’ve been reading by the bucketload lately. Particularly worth noting are her… Continue reading For Reference Purposes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}