Requesting Letters of Recommendation

Faculty members are asked to write many letters each year, and it can be hard to keep track of different deadlines, formats, and other information. To facilitate this process, please follow the guidelines below when emailing to ask for a letter.

Guidelines

1. Email Prof. Waters to see if she is willing to write a letter for you. It is best to include any pertinent application materials (Writing Sample, Research or Teaching Statement, articles or chapters, etc.) she may want to reference as she writes your letter(s). In addition, please CC Prof. Waters’ assistant, Jess Viator (jviator@fas.harvard.edu).
2. If Prof. Waters agrees to write your letter, Jess will share with you a standard application list template via Google Sheets**. The greatest benefit of sharing this information via Google is that you, Prof. Waters, and Jess are able to share ownership of materials, resulting in the most up to date information being available to all parties.
3. Fill out the application list template, noting all positions or programs to which you are applying. You should continue to update this list as new positions and/or programs are posted, or as you decide not to apply for certain positions and/or programs for which you had originally intended to apply.
4. As letters are sent/submitted, Jess will mark them as sent on the application spreadsheet, providing you with up to date information regarding the status of letters.

Timeline

Please give Prof. Waters as much advance notice as possible when requesting recommendation letters.   

**If you do not already have a Google account, you will need to create one. If you would like a Harvard affiliated Google account, you can sign up at g.harvard.edu.