Hi,everyone! My student is applying a master programme of Translation Studies. Her first major is Law and she took English as her second major. However, she wants her career related to English not Law studies. Below is a recommendation letter i wrote before. I want to refine not only the content but also the grammer, logic and so on, to help her succeed in her application. Any suggestion and advice would be appreciated very much!
1. In what capacity have you known the applicant?
I first met xxxxxxxxx in fall 2010 before I taught her American Literature. She was the first undergraduate among her fellow students coming to express her desire to participate in a research project. In the beginning, I was worried that she could not conduct the research well and thus only assigned her some relatively easy work. However, her passion and intelligence altered my previous views afterwards. She actively involved herself in our discussion and got along with graduate students very well soon.
2.Please provide us with your overall assessment of the applicant and his/her potential for success in graduate study
To whom this may concern,
I take great pleasure to write this recommendation letter furnishing my evaluation of xxxxxxxx's academic aptitude for your reference. xxxxx has long been interested in your graduate program in Translation. In my teaching career, I have come in contact with lots of college students taking English as either first or second degree as well as graduates. However, xxxxxxxx stands out as a very extraordinary one with her learning capability, personality and what is more, her academic spirit.
She came to my office very often to discuss questions and her ideas of the research with me; some of them were very brilliant ones. Most impressively, she completed the translation of an article I assigned to her in only one month. Faced with an over 10,000 word-long and elusive article clipped from Times Literary Supplements, she surprisingly was the first to hand in her translation even before all my graduate students did. The translation of some sentences vigorously proved that she has spent more than sufficient time pondering and refining her target language. More than just finishing translation, she sought advice from me to make her translation as perfect as possible and tried to reinforce the theory she had learned before. She has shown her strong perseverance and talents----which I'd rather call it academic spirit in face of various difficulties.
Besides her strong writing and analytic capacities reveled in the research project, her good proficiency in oral English can be never neglected. She was very courageous and not feared to make mistakes as she delivered her oral presentation with full confidence. In the first class when I invited students to introduce themselves in platform, she put up her hand without any hesitation. She said, at that time, her motto was "The only thing to feat is to fear itself". Over the time when I taught her American Literature, I found her show great interest in exploring the translation of American poetry. She liked comparing different versions of translation as well as expressing her own ideas without reservation. She never felt shy to share her own translation with others in class and modestly accepted various suggestions. Her bilingual background and her earnest study in English certainly have built solid foundation for her to handle my tasks successfully.
After all, no one is perfect. xxxxxxxx has her weak points. She sometimes would be too serious even with a trifle. I hope she could strive to correct her weakness. In my experience with xxxxxxx, I was impressed with not only her outstanding intelligence but also her ambitions and persistence. I am firmly convinced that xxxxxxx will be a successful student in your program that she desires to enroll in. So I would like to support her firmly in her quest recommendation into account when considering her application. I would greatly appreciate if you decide to accept her as she wishes.
Yours sincerely,
I liked your recommendation Ietter, but I think you can read this pdf, its very useful mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/documents/equality/HHMI_WriteReference.pdf
This one can also be useful for you homes.cs.washington.edu/~mernst/advice/write-recommendation.html
