navy, your colleagues will understand that you can't write a negative letter. We all know the secret language of rec letters. The rule is, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. That's what a short letter means. One day you'll get to write a letter for a strong student and send it to the same place. Then all will be right with the universe. Until then, you have to write this letter in the secret language, unless you can find a way to slip in something like,
"I think his dissertation is vaguely about X, at least that's what the last draft seemed to say. This surprised me because the previous draft was about Y, but X is interesting, too. Well, good luck with your search."
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Posted by Sienna to academicsecret at 8/30/2006 08:09:29 PM
