Letters of Recommendation at Online Universities

Letters of Recommendation at Online Universities Recently a reader asked: My bachelors degree is from an online university. How do I get a letter of recommendation? As a student in an online undergraduate institution, it is likely that you will never meet any of your professors face-to-face. Does that mean that you cant get a letter of recommendation from them? Think of it this way, does your professor have to know what you look like in order to determine whether you are graduate school material? No. All you need are experiences with the faculty member (in class or through advising) that illustrate your competence. That said, it is unquestionably more difficult to get these experiences without face-to-face contact in a traditional college setting. Who to Ask?How do you determine who to ask? Remember that faculty need to know enough about you to write a helpful letter stating that you will do well in grad school. Which faculty have you had the most contact with? Consider what classes youve taken. Have you had a professor more than once? An advisor who you have discussed your coursework with over several semesters? A thesis committee? Did you obtain a high grade for a lengthy and detailed paper? That professor, even if youve only taken one class with him or her, might be a good reference. Look over all of the work that you have submitted. Consider the papers with which you are particularly proud. What feedback did faculty provide? Considering the feedback, do you think this professor might write on your behalf? What If You Cant Find Three Faculty?Three recommendation letters can be hard to come by. You might find, for example, that one faculty member knows you really well, another knows you somewhat, and a third not as well. Graduate schools are familiar with the challenges of online learning but they still expect letters of recommendation that indicate that faculty know who you are, positively evaluate your work, and believe that you are a good candidate for graduate study. Many students who attend online institutions for their undergraduate work find that they can easily obtain a couple of letters but find it hard to identify a third faculty member. In this case consider non-faculty as letter writers. Have you done any work - paid or unpaid - in an area related to your desired field of study? The most helpful letter s are written by knowledgeable professionals in your field who supervise your work. At minimum, identify a supervisor who can write about your work ethic and motivation. Soliciting letters of recommendation is never easy. Never having met your professors in person makes soliciting letters much harder. Online institutions are more popular than ever and continue to grow in numbers. Graduate admissions committees are gaining experience with applicants from online institutions. They are becoming familiar with the challenges that such students face and increasingly understand the difficulties students experience in obtaining letters of recommendation. Dont fret. Youre not the online one in this predicament. Seek a range of letters that illustrate your competence. Ideally all should be written by faculty, but recognize that it may not be possible. Prepare for the possibility by cultivating relationships with professionals whenever you can. As with all aspects of applying to graduate school, begin early.

Lo and Behold!

Lo and Behold! Lo and Behold! Lo and Behold! By Maeve Maddox A football fan posted the following: I decided to watch the Duke vs Miami game and low and behold Duke is successful this year Naturally the â€Å"low and behold† caught my eye. Was it just a typo? I hopped on my search engine to see what I could find. Apparently a lot of English speakers write low for the lo of â€Å"Lo and behold!† Some of the misspellings I found were deliberate puns in headlines above stories about something â€Å"low,† like low oil prices, low calorie recipes, and low golf scores. More, however, seemed to be the result of not knowing that the word in the expression is spelled lo and not low. Here are some examples: Low and behold! (a blog title) Low and Behold (a 2007 movie about post-Hurricane Katrina) low and behold I have some pretty awesome DOMS in the mid region (exercise site) But low and behold, some four decades later (printed rap lyrics) Low and behold it worked out great I got a laptop in the mail (testimonial on marketing site) Autumn term will all be about the Old Testament and low and behold, we’ve worked out a complete program (university site in the U.K.) Low and BeholdHow Much Work Are You Willing to do? (headline on an author’s site) If you don’t count the exotic list of words acceptable for Scrabble tournaments, English has very few two-letter words. The fact that only about twenty are in common use may account for attempts to add a little body to lo by adding another letter. Lo may derive from the imperative form of the verb to look. It has been used as an interjection at least since Beowulf was written, but the tautology â€Å"lo and behold† dates only from the 19th century. Long before that, lo–in the sense of Look! See! Behold!– was used to direct attention to something about to happen or about to be said. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; (Song of Solomon, 2:11, KJV.) And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught/The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light. (Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Edward Fitzgerald translation.) The earliest OED citation for Lo and behold! is from a letter written in 1808. Bulwer-Lytton– he who gave us the novel opening, â€Å"It was a dark and stormy night,† used it in 1841: The fair bride was skipping down the middle..when, lo and behold! the whiskered gentleman..advanced..and cried- ‘La voil!’ (Night Morning II. iii. v. 144  ) Nowadays the expression is used both humorously and cuttingly. Tennessee Williams has Stanley use it in a tirade against Blanche: You come in here and sprinkle the place with powder and spray perfume and cover the light-bulb with a paper lantern, and lo and behold the place has turned into Egypt and you are the Queen of the Nile! (Streetcar Named Desire, scene 10). Modern novelists probably won’t find much use for the expression butâ€Å"Lo and Behold!† still has plenty of life in it for daily conversational use. People who use the expression in their blogs and online conversations may want to check the spelling. Historical novelists putting exclamations in the mouths of pre-19th century characters may want to stick to plain â€Å"Lo!† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Congratulations on or for?Rules for Capitalization in TitlesHow to Address Your Elders, Your Doctor, Young Children... and Your CEO