Offers advice and suggestions to educators on how to write powerfulletters of recommendation for students with post-secondary plans, and featuresfifty-two sample letters that highlight the special skills or qualities ofdifferent types of students.
Letters of recommendation are a part of every standard school or job application. As an employer, professor, colleague, peer, or friend, chances are that at one point or another, you will be asked to put a person on paper and every word counts. How to Write Successful Letters of Recommendation is your one-stop source for painting the perfect picture in just one short letter. You will learn everything you need to know about writing the perfect letter of recommendation that will get your friend, colleague, or student accepted or hired. The most effective letters of recommendation are accurate, succinct, descriptive, and powerful, and include realistic evaluations of performance and capability. With ideas about how to start your letter and topics to include, this complete guide will teach you how to do just that, as you construct the perfect letter from start to finish. Outlined in ten easy steps, this complete guide gives you the tools you need to write reference letters that your employees, colleagues, students, and friends will appreciate. This book is filled with tips and tricks for personalizing the letter and making your friend, student, employee, or coworker shine. With a word bank of powerful phrases and descriptive words, you ll have everything you need to make your letter stand out at your fingertips. Sample letters of recommendation are also included, along with explanations of why each one is effective and tips for replicating these letters in just minutes. You will learn about the different types of recommendation letters, from employment to academic to volunteer, and how to direct your letter to the appropriate audience. You ll even learn what to do if someone you haven t worked with closely asks you to be a reference, or how to deal with being asked for hundreds of recommendations at once. This exhaustively researched book will even teach you how to politely avoid writing letters for those people you aren t quite comfortable recommending. The Companion CD-ROM is filled with templates, examples, word banks, and worksheets, so that you can easily learn to verify experience, confirm competence, build credibility, and bolster confidence with just a simple letter. A recommendation is more than just a letter; it s often make-or-break in a candidate s application for school, volunteering, or employment. With the step-by-step instructions and writing guidelines in this book, you will learn how to write introductions; opening statements; the body, including a well-written, vivid assessment of character and work ethic; and a strong conclusion. This new book will also teach you how to appropriately sign your letter, and will provide you with tips of re-reading and editing it to make sure you gave an effective recommendation. We spent hundreds of hours interviewing high school teachers, college professors, employers, and more who have nailed the art of composing effective communications. With How to Write Successful Letters of Recommendation, your employees, colleagues, students, and friends will see you as their go-to source to helping them succeed in their next big venture.
The definitive career guide for grad students, adjuncts, post-docs and anyone else eager to get tenure or turn their Ph.D. into their ideal job Each year tens of thousands of students will, after years of hard work and enormous amounts of money, earn their Ph.D. And each year only a small percentage of them will land a job that justifies and rewards their investment. For every comfortably tenured professor or well-paid former academic, there are countless underpaid and overworked adjuncts, and many more who simply give up in frustration. Those who do make it share an important asset that separates them from the pack: they have a plan. They understand exactly what they need to do to set themselves up for success. They know what really moves the needle in academic job searches, how to avoid the all-too-common mistakes that sink so many of their peers, and how to decide when to point their Ph.D. toward other, non-academic options. Karen Kelsky has made it her mission to help readers join the select few who get the most out of their Ph.D. As a former tenured professor and department head who oversaw numerous academic job searches, she knows from experience exactly what gets an academic applicant a job. And as the creator of the popular and widely respected advice site The Professor is In, she has helped countless Ph.D.’s turn themselves into stronger applicants and land their dream careers. Now, for the first time ever, Karen has poured all her best advice into a single handy guide that addresses the most important issues facing any Ph.D., including: -When, where, and what to publish -Writing a foolproof grant application -Cultivating references and crafting the perfect CV -Acing the job talk and campus interview -Avoiding the adjunct trap -Making the leap to nonacademic work, when the time is right The Professor Is In addresses all of these issues, and many more.
""You Got Into Where?"" is the first college admissions guide written by a student who is fresh out of the college admissions process. Learn how I was admitted to schools like the University of Southern California and New York University with full tuition scholarships. The guide features copies of my admissions essay, writing supplement, and activities resume that I used to apply to college the fall of my senior year. Get advice on all the secrets of the admissions process from start to finish. ""I can't believe that a 17 year-old has written a college admissions books that is so well-written, clear and accurate. No wonder USC jumped at the chance to have her become their student. My sense of things is that mostly parents read college admissions books; high school students just don't want to take the time. Given what she says and how she says it, I truly believe that teens will rush to read "You Got Into Where?" It is well worth their time."" -Marjorie Hansen Shaevitz Author, adMISSION POSSIBLE
Learn how to write a persuasive recommendation letter that makes a DIFFERENCE! At top universities and colleges, the competition among candidates is fierce. Therefore, the quality of a candidate's application plays the key role. In this regard, the letter of recommendation is one of the most essential aspects of a student's graduate school application. Powerful letters of recommendation is the crucial factor in whether a student can be admitted into a graduate program. Therefore, writing a recommendation letter is a huge responsibility and should be taken seriously. Sometimes, it is helpful to look at sample letters of recommendation to see exactly how they should look and to become more familiar with the content, tone, and style of an influential recommendation letter. This book offers 100 sample letters of recommendation for master and PhD candidates. The sample letters are provided by university and college professors for their students, with various academic backgrounds. These letters helped the candidates gain admittance into their desire programs in esteemed universities around the world. Write the right words and avoid pitfals of ceating a letter of recommendation Whether you are offering a recommendation letter or requesting it, this book can help you to be more familiar with the content, tone, and style of an influential and powerful recommendation letter. If you're a graduate candidate, examples of strong letters of recommendation can help you understand how to get the best letters yourself from your teachers. If you're a college professor, the examples in this book will inspire you to support your students strongly as they apply to graduate programs. For every graduate student and teacher's bookshelf!
From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together
Seasoned classroom veterans, pre-tenured faculty, and neophyte teaching assistants alike will find this book invaluable. HHMI Professor Jo Handelsman and her colleagues at the Wisconsin Program for Scientific Teaching (WPST) have distilled key findings from education, learning, and cognitive psychology and translated them into six chapters of digestible research points and practical classroom examples. The recommendations have been tried and tested in the National Academies Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education in Biology and through the WPST. Scientific Teaching is not a prescription for better teaching. Rather, it encourages the reader to approach teaching in a way that captures the spirit and rigor of scientific research and to contribute to transforming how students learn science.
Crack the code to college admissions and help students craft the ultimate statement of self-identity and get into their school of choice with this groundbreaking guide from America's College Counselor. On average, an admissions committee takes seconds to decide whether to admit a student. They must sum up the student in one sentence that will tell them if a student is going to be a good fit for their program. What is the best way to transform this admissions process from a stressful, pressure-cooker arms race into an empowering journey that paves the way to the best individual outcome? Written by a college admissions insider turned consultant, Soundbite guides parents and students through the admissions process from start to finish. Armed with her knowledge of how the system works, Sara Harberson shares tried-and-tested exercises that have helped thousands of students gain admission to their school of choice. The soundbite, her signature tool, presents an opportunity for students to take the reins to craft their ultimate statement of self-identity and formulate their own personal definition of what is best. With this soundbite in place as their foundation, students achieve maximum impact when they present themselves to colleges. In doing so, the tables are turned: the student's fate no longer rests on a soundbite composed by an admissions officer. Instead, the student employs their own soundbite to define themselves on their own terms. Soundbite shifts the way we talk about the admissions process—from "Getting You In" to "Getting the Best You In."
"Admission Possible "doesn't just describe college admissions--it shows exactly what to say and do every step along the way from freshman through senior year of high school, using fully illustrated examples and checklists.
Aimed at college and university students in all major fields of study, this book covers everything one needs to know about how to apply successfully to graduate school in North America.