We all know the story about how people in the US ought to read recommendation letters from people in the UK. The UK norms for recommendation letters tend towards understatement, and so US readers should not read UK recommendations as lukewarm.
But what would you suggest to someone in the US writing a recommendation letter for a UK audience? Should one adopt the UK norms (thereby making the recommendation letter more in line with the UK standard), or should one write as if one were writing for a US audience? Do UK readers of US recommendation letters expect the bloated praise, and so would read a more tempered letter as lukewarm? Please advise.
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4 comments:
Many North American referees are asked by their students to submit letters in batches, where the schools to which a student is applying form a batch. Batches for NA students are primarily composed of NA schools and with a sprinkling of UK ones. It is plausible to assume that letter writers in such a situation will write one letter per batch, and modify that letter slightly according to school.
Because most of the schools in a NA student's batch will be NA ones, and because modulating the tone of a NA-directed letter for a UK audience is substantial work, the norm for NA referees is, no doubt, to use NA-style praise even when submitting letters to UK schools. Consciously deviating from this tacit norm will unfairly disadvantage your student, so you should probably not alter your letter, given the likelihood of the norm.
I don't think the question is about a rec let for a student.
Yeah, we expect bloat and so when we get to see the letters, we read between, around, over and above ... the hyberpole, all the while wearing patronising smiles and shaking our heads while muttering 'oh our over-excitable colonial cousins ...'
So, don;t worry about it - we know how OTT you guys can be.
But I say 'when we get to see the letters', as some 'human resources' depts at UK universities insist that only those on interview panels are allowed to read letters of reference and then only after the interviews have been concluded. So their evidentiary force is obviously much diminished.
Crazy? Yes indeed but remember, we gave you english!
Actually we didn't *give* them English we lent it to them expecting them to return it. But they mangled it so much we didn't want it back...
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