4 ms·
Do you think a recommendation letter is a more objective and better evaluation of what someone actually did? That there is less embellishment, less subjectivity
by glofish 7y ago
Do you think a recommendation letter is a more objective and better evaluation of what someone actually did? That there is less embellishment, less subjectivity in it than a scientific paper that was meant to reflect on your work as a scientist.
I would expect that recommendation letters heavily favor some individuals for subjective reasons.
- knzhou 7y agoAs does hiring when a Googler goes to some other company. Nobody is going to see their commits. They have to go on their word, their technical skills, and their references.
- glofish 7y agoThe fact that there are other instances when people make subjective decisions is not quite relevant in this instance. We are talking about the case when authorship on a scientific publication is insufficient evidence that someone had any contribution whatsoever to the paper. So that one needs a recommendation letter, in addition to the authorsip, where the recommendation letter would presumably state, this individual did actually do some work and is not just cruising.