Thanks for the thoughts on this. Let me introduce one more factor in all this.
At some level, writing a letter of recommendation is also a statement about yourself, especially in cases where the people reading the letter at the other end know you. So you don't want to do a really obviously poor job, because you don't want the people at the other end to think that you're not taking things of this sort seriously.
Also, you would be doing future students a disservice by being too enthusiastic about students who don't deserve it. You don't want to dilute the weight of your recommendation.
All that said, you also don't want to be the single source of grief for a student.
But that statement is probably pretty dumb, after all, if this student had been more motivated and serious about his work and wouldn't have been the type to want to cut corners all the type then I don't think I'd be here writing about the case in the first place.
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Posted by Navy Blue Blob to academicsecret at 8/29/2006 09:48:57 PM
