Sample Letters of Recommendation

Sample letters of recommendation - provides several examples of effective letters of recommendation and tips for using them

Sample letters of recommendation can be quite helpful to someone who has to sit down and write a letter himself. Often it is easier to edit someone else's content than it is to start with a blank sheet of paper.

Different wording can be traded in and out from several letters of recommendation using your computer's copy and paste function to "slice and dice" a full letter together.

• Use as many examples as you can assemble. The more you have to choose from, the easier it will be to find exactly what you are looking for.

• Try to get at least a few samples that are the same type of letter you are trying to write. For example, it is more difficult to edit a sample letter of recommendation that is for school admission to derive a letter that is for a job application.

• Try to find samples that all use the same basic outline or flow. Different people structure their letters differently, so organizing the letters and getting the different pieces to "line up" correctly is often difficult. (See Letter of Recommendation Template)

• Likewise, be careful of changes of tone. Combining the wording from a letter that is kind of light and breezy with a more serious letter can be difficult. When possible, use several letters that were written by the same person.

• Check for grammar very carefully when you are done. The most common mistake that occurs when people slice and dice letters together is that they end up with sentences in which the subject and verb do not agree. They should both be either plural or singular. Another common problem is verb tense shifts; for the most part, all of your verbs need to stay either in past or present tense.

• Finally, (and this is probably most likely to expose your letter as a slice-and-dice job) make sure you use the right gender throughout your letter. If you are writing a letter for a female, be careful when blending in pieces from a letter written for a male.

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In addtion to advice, several examples are given on this website to highlight effective letter-writing - including a collection of letter samples. You can pick up a lot of ideas by reading through them.

Other examples are available on the Internet, but you get what you pay for: much of it is scattered, and slicing and dicing the pieces of letters that come from different places and written using different structures is probably more trouble than its worth.

You will most likely do better on your own. Use examples for ideas, but start from scratch with a clean sheet of paper, organize your thoughts, and go at it.

However, if that still seems a bit daunting, I can recommend the following resources to help. They are not free, but some are very inexpensive, and all are quite good.

• Letter-Machine.com - Out of all, this is the easiest and surest way to success. Letter-Machine.com is a letter generator - or electronic form / template - for letter of recommendation. You fill in the blanks, select the options you want, and press a button; the software does the rest. Very cool. Click the following link for more information: Letter of Recommendation Forms

• Letter of Recommendation Example Pack - Provides several examples of the various types of letters people generally need: job application, student admission, scholarships, personal, etc. All of the letters use the "success formula" we discuss here (see Letter of Recommendation Template), so they all have the same structure. This makes it relatively easy to cut and paste different sections together from several different letters to produce a coherent and professional letter. The package is in Acrobat (PDF) format, which virtually all computers these days can read (the reader is a free download anyway). You will be able to copy and paste what you need, so there is no re-typing. Click the following link for more information: Letter of Recommendation Example Pack