按照国外学术惯例，推荐信应该由推荐人书写，而被推荐人一般不能了解推荐信的内容。推荐人有义务公正、客观地陈述关于被推荐人的事实，也可以加入自己的主观判断和分析。国外的推荐信就如法院判案中证人提供的证词，是庄严、有公信力的文书。因此推荐信在国外的申请审核过程中发挥重大作用。在中国，我们并不流行书写“推荐信”。因此，当教授接到学生书写推荐信的请求的时候，他们都未能认真处理。国外多数录取官对中国学生为自己书写推荐信一事都有了解。部分学校录取官不会花时间去阅读中国学生的推荐信（虽然他们依然要求学生提交这个信件作为申请材料的一部分）。有部分有经验的录取官则利用推荐信这个机会观察中国申请人的心理素质。因此，“中国申请人推荐信”不重要的说法并不正确。 一封优质的推荐信，不但有机会让录取官了解申请人的英文书写水平，也有机会给录取官留下特别的印象。试想一下，如果99个申请人都喋喋不休且恶心地在推荐信上自我褒奖，唯独一人能够提供客观的信息和中肯的评价，录取官定不会把这位特别的申请人归类为平凡。

以下是一位DiySmart B类客户提供的推荐信。信中内容由学生独立书写，并未经过DiySmart顾问任何加工和修改。以下样本文书内容用于陈述中国DIY申请者在书写推荐信时易触及之误区。文中评论代表DiySmart顾问对原文中重大错误的分析。该评论并未包含文中所有需要修改之要点，因此文中未被点评之处并不一定就是无误。

 

Dear Sir or Madam:

It gives me great pleasure to present this recommendation letter for my student XXX so as to help you assess his application for acceptance into your graduate program.

As the vice dean of the College of Mechatronics and Control Engineering (CMCE), I am busy with many college affairs and teaching. There are hundreds of students in CMCE, however, XXX is one among the several undergraduates that I am familiar with. Apart from his frequent active contact with me, I think his good qualities such as diligence, creativity, and persistence also impressed me much.

推荐信开头用于交代推荐人与被推荐人关系。这一点可以说是常识。进一步来说，推荐信首段需要回答一个核心问题：“这份推荐信有多大参考价值？”就是说，我们应该在推荐信中第一时间交代推荐人究竟有多了解被推荐人，究竟推荐人的角色对于评估推荐人的素质有多重要。我们可以很简单地回答这个问题。例如我们可以直接说：“我非常非常非常地了解推荐人”，也可以说：“我已经认识推荐人4年！”这些内容都是一种交代推荐人资格的写法，但具体效果如何，我们需要根据申请人的情况进行分析。在文中，推荐人是副院长，这个职位具体的作用是很模糊的。国外的教授可能不清楚这个副院长究竟在学校是干什么事情的。也可能不太明白为何这个副院长那么的忙但却之了解几个学生的情况，也大概不很清楚为何被推荐人要与被推荐人“频繁”沟通。另外，国外当教授的起码有博士学位，也就是说有发表并且懂学术原则的学者。这些学术人士说话一般注重严谨、明晰。段中用词明显有夸张或者失实的成分。例如，“frequently”, “several”, “many” 这些词都不会在国外学术论文中常出现，除非他们真的能准确表达作者意图。如申请人不能注意这些推荐人形象问题，那么就首段就暴露了推荐信作者的真正身份，也就确认了录取官心中对中国申请人的猜忌。

 

He is aggressive and tries every possibility to search an opportunity for his dream, and that can explain why I had known him just when he entered CMCE. It was a lecture he and other Student Association members hold and I was one of the invented teachers to give a speech. When the lecture was over, he came up to me and expressed his great will to learn robotics and such things. I was surprised because few freshmen can have this clear objective and courage, so I suggested him to come to my office some other time and we could talked more. That was the beginning of our relationship.

很多申请人觉得有必要把事情的前前后后交代清楚。例如，与学生是如何认识的，首次认识的时间地点背景，为何会认识这些问题都写个具体，并且要故事化，甚至传奇化。其实，推荐信中很多背景细节是不需要交代的。例如，一个来自美国的访问教授，到中国授课，认识了个学生并且帮这个学生写推荐信。这个来自美国的教授不会把来龙去脉都交代清楚，他只会告诉读者他推荐学生的资格有多厚。又例如，一个新闻系的学生因为某种原因混到数学系去拿了一门课，然后推荐这学生的数学老师也没必要交代为何一个新闻系的学生会来上课，因为这些内容与被推荐人的素质无关。 因此本文作者用一段的边幅去陈述与学生首次认识的故事是不合理的。

I felt the responsible to practice his willingness, so after our first talk I lent him a Boe-bot robot which is an excellent educational kit for learning robot and some essential books. I thought it was a challenge for him not only because he had no related knowledge that time and all the instructions are written in English. However, after several weeks I found that he had proceeded well and could exhibited many functions under the instruction. Indeed I had planned earlier to introduce Boe-bot into our education, so his exploration including some papers he collected and a final report gave us much assistance for the preparation to the program.

除了之前已经提及过的问题，本段的主要问题是“素质概念不清”。当读者看了这一段陈述的内容后，我们清楚推荐人是尝试表扬被推荐人的某个方面，但不很清楚具体是哪个方面。在推荐信中，我们希望达到的效果是：录取官看完信的内容后，能够把某个别的素质字眼与申请人关联起来。例如，申请人小明？他是个有研究能力，敢于挑战传统的人。普通推荐信的效果见此而已，其他目标都是不实际的。因为录取官实在要看太多的文书了，他们不可能看完长篇累赘的一篇文书后还清楚记得具体细节。我们要做的就是要把一些有用的优势灌输到录取官的印象中，使之对申请人产生支持倾向。

It is the course Circuit Analysis, which is fundamental for his major and I teach these years, that gave me more chance to know him better. Through those classes, I found out that he was also outstanding in some aspects. For example, when all the students read the textbook we designed which is written in Chinese, he read those more classical which are written in English, so he had the perspective more international. He also presented creative ideas I like. There was no doubt about his behavior on his classes which can be proved by the final exam, and he got an A.

本段提出被推荐人有“creative ideas” 但文中陈述内容并不支持这个观点。我们把这些没有实例支持的观点称之为“naked statement”。除非推荐人的公信力实在强大，否者这些泛泛而谈的评价都不会被录取官重视。另外，以“下课找老师谈话”，“认真读书”，“读很多书”，“积极提问”等为推荐信素材的文章都是很常见的。这些文章大概也不会给申请人带来消极影响，但其积极作用也不会明显。

 

During last academic year or his third college year, he had worked for me as teaching assistant. He did an excellent job which helped me a lot. From his work I could see him a responsible and efficient man. In the first semester, he also created a team for a competition called the Freescale XXX Cup University Design Competition, and I was the director of the team. Through discussion I could say that he had tried his best, including registering as few courses as possible in the beginning of the semester in order to leave more time for it. Although he had made obvious success, it was a pity that he did not step into the last round. However, he said that he did not only aim for the competition, he wanted to learn through this process, and he planned to continue working on it because he thought he had not finished it. I am happy to see that.

推荐信的取材很重要。有些内容、评论推荐人是不应该说的。因为说着这些内容会反映出推荐人的态度不够公正。一个偏帮学生的推荐人的声明，容易被录取官否定。例如文中提出的内容明显有向学生倾斜的嫌疑。勉励性的评论或者赞赏在推荐信中不但没有积极作用，反而会暴露了推荐人不够中肯的心理，因此推荐人的态度必须由始至终都是公正、客观。

XXX, China’s first and ultimately most successful Special Economic Zone, attracts a steady stream of elite of this country. As the only comprehensive university in xxx, XXX University possesses her unique advantages and draw lots of excellent students nationwide every year. His admission to XXX University can account for in certain extent his ability, because we may recruit only several students from his province, which may have 300 million National College Entrance Examinations takers. Now, he wants to take another big step and apply for your graduate program, which may be more difficult. I therefore lend him my support and would appreciate your favorable consideration of his application.

推荐信最后一段一般用于总结推荐人的优劣势，以及提出推荐人对被推荐人将来在学习、工作的预期。该段是推荐信不可缺少内容。不但标准推荐信格式要求如此，心理上，最后再重复一次信中要点，总结推荐人观点可以帮助录取官记住推荐人的观点。

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以下内容为DiySmart顾问帮助客户修改的版本。文书中格式，和客户隐私内容已被删去，因此文书内容并不完整。

 

I write this reference letter for student XXX in my capacity as the vice dean of the College of XXX. Besides researches and teaching duties, I’m taking charge of education affairs of our undergraduate program. XXX is one extraordinary student from the program and I also taught him one course in Circuit Analysis; as a result, I know him very well.

XXX is a self-motivated person who took initiative for his goals. My first contact with this student was in a seminar on Dynamic Control System in which I was invited to provide a speech to a group of eager young mind. When it was over, XXX approached me and expressed his experience and ideas in applying what I mentioned in robotic technology. I was totally surprised by his roughly designed scheme and I had to ask for his name and program interest, then I realized that he was just a freshman. I felt like to help him in pursuing his interest so I arranged to have a Boe-bot Robot Project Kit lent to him as an encouragement. A few weeks later, we met again, and I realized that he has fully studied the student guide and explored many functions of the education tool. He is able to learn independently without a teacher.

Circuit Analysis is a fundamental course for engineering students, all undergraduate students in our school must finish this course for graduation. In a classroom of more than one hundred students, XXX was able to distinguish himself with his talents and intelligence. In class, he was usually the one who took the first action to respond to my questions. His projects and assignments were perfectly accurate, and some of them were delivered to me from my TA because he believed I should personally evaluate XXX’s effort for extra credits. XXX likes to communicate with me for engineering topics. For not being intrusive, he only walked with me to my office after lectures for opportunities to share his ideas and experience. Other than being thoughtful, XXX is also an honest person. Recently, he refused an ……

XXX is currently the strongest student from our undergraduate program. ……