<p>One of my recommenders did not understand the secretive nature of this process and asked me to review his letter of recommendation. To my chagrin, he had copied and pasted sections (admittedly quite generalized eg. good scientist, ambitious etc) from a different letter of recommendation that he wrote for another individual. A female. Some of the pronouns in his letter were feminine “she” “herself” “her”. How common do people think it is for letters of recommendation to include these kind of errors? How detrimental do you think this is?</p>
<p>I personally believe it was very careless and disingenuous of your professor to get the pronouns wrong if you are male (and not female)! You may want to get another professor to write a recommendation on your behalf.</p>
<p>This is somebody who I work with for several hours everyday and has a very high opinion of me. Nobody is in a better spot to evaluate my professional abilities. I am concerned that this phenomenon is very common. I would be shocked if every letter of recommendation in use today wasn’t derived from the single precursor lor that once existed.</p>
<p>Most LORs are copied and reused…probably even found on the internet!</p>
<p>Yeah but getting the gender wrong? OK, i’m sure it happens a lot, but at least try to be discreet about it.</p>
<p>Is it too late to get your professor to correct these errors?</p>
<p>No, it’s not too late. He asked me to review the letters for grammatical and spelling errors. I do this for anything that he writes (he is indian). I suspect that this will probably happen though with my other two letter writers who do not need the help of a native english speaker to write a letter.</p>
<p>
I think it’s actually something of an evolutionary relationship rather than a precursor-postmitotic cell relationship. Sometimes some of the words change. :D</p>
<p>Ouch!</p>
<p>One of my professors wanted me to write the LOR for him and send it to him for signing.
I told him that wasn’t possible because of the disclosure waiver. He then wrote back to me telling me that this was too cumbersome of a process and decided not to go ahead with the whole thing. Sigh… </p>
<p>Luckily, my supervisor agreed to write an LOR for me. My adviser recommended I user her as a reference because of the four year time gap since graduating. I digress. </p>
<p>The point is: most professors will take shortcuts. Seldom do we come across instructors who are smitten by us to the point of dropping everything to write a uniquely brilliant recommendation. With class sizes getting bigger by the year and with the immense workloads on the shoulders of our professors- you’d be lucky fi they remembered what you look like, let alone your name. LOL</p>
<p>Oh, and as a person who’s native tongue isnt English- the easiest thing to master in English is the use of pronouns (compared to Arabic anyways). I would expect a little more effort on behalf of your professor. Besides, most Indians speak English better than most Americans!!</p>
<p>“Besides, most Indians speak English better than most Americans!!”</p>
<p>lol, not this Indian. Anyway, I suppose it is all moot. It will happen or it won’t. </p>
<p>I know that my PI has done this routinely in the past (has you write your own letter and signs it) for medical people. He isn’t doing that with me though. I don’t know if I should feel honored or scared. For a field that depends so heavily on the mentor relationship, this is sure an impersonal way to do all of this.</p>
<p>I think a healthy dose of both feelings should do you good! I would say feel honored- he is willing to go through the trouble of writing you the letter himself. Maybe he has genuine things to say about you. </p>
<p>I would venture to say that it was a good thing you had cultivated a strong relationship witht his particular professor otherwise things could have turned ugly!</p>