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Professors – Writing Letters of Recommendation – Be More Responsive and Less Stressed

1st April, 2010 - Posted by Meggin - No Comments

Being a faculty member nearly always guarantees that you will be asked to write letters of recommendation for students. These can pile up and they can take quite a bit of time and energy if not productively planned for. Put these five practices in place and you will be more responsive (and less stressed!)

Allot time for writing letters of recommendation. Very few of the ones you need to write are “quick.” Budget at least 15″ – 30″/letter, depending on the relationship with the student and the type of letter you are writing. Part of how we get behind on writing letters to students is we never actually plan the time to get them done.

Put the onus on the student (or colleague) who is asking for the letter of recommendation. It is reasonable to ask him/her to send you a Word document with the address, date, and other pertinent information already typed in. That is clerical work that you don’t need to be tending to. Note: Interestingly enough, there will be a few requests that never get you what you asked for and so you now have fewer letters to write.

Have the “requestor” actually write the letter. Clearly, you have the choice to go along with what the student submits to you, revise and edit it, or completely start from scratch. For most of us, editing is easier and faster than the initial composition so this can increase your productivity (as well as the clarity and specificity) of what you write. It’s a win-win situation. I’ve had students who understated their accomplishments so much that it was great fun to surprise them with what I had changed their letter into. I have never had someone who wrote a draft that wasn’t helpful in some way.

Set up basic templates for letters of recommendation. It’s not that you are writing the same ideas, by any means. However, there are particular ways that most of us open and close our letters of rec and even having those in place saves time and effort. You are trying to streamline the parts of the process that can be strreamlined so that you can spend adequate time on the very personalized portions.

When you are writing multiple letters for the same student, create the first letter and then do a “File | Save As” with a new document name and make the changes necessary. (e.g., a doc student applying for various jobs or fellowships),It feels (and is) fast and reasonably easy. Always make sure that you have verified that the name of the institution or fellowship is correct for each of the different letters you are writing.

Remember, it is an honor to be asked to write a letter of reference. Someone did these letters for you and it changed your life. You can do the same for others.

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(c) 2010 Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D. | The Ph.D. of Productivity(tm)