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A line from a letter last week: “In my own lab I plan to take full advantage of my acquired skills and use the XXX equipment to further investigate xxxx.” This kind of language is braggy and at the same … Continue reading
Category Archives: How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters
There is a kind of line in job documents that is technically blameless, but is so generic, so very much “stating the obvious” that it also completely pointless. This kind of line fills space while doing nothing to distinguish you … Continue reading
Today’s anonymous author is a tenured professor in the field of religion at a mid-sized Christian University. He has sat on and chaired numerous search committees for both faculty and administrative hires. He sees the enormous stack of applicants for … Continue reading
My book, The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. Into a Job, is available for pre-order from Amazon and Barnes and Noble! Pre-order price ~ $13.00 (paperback), $10.00 (Kindle or Nook). For bulk orders for use … Continue reading
In response to many requests, I am devoting today’s post to the teaching-centric letter. The absence of a post on this subject before now might seem surprising on a blog that purports to cover every aspect of the academic job … Continue reading
It is time that all of you grasped a simple yet profound truth of academic writing: adjectives are not arguments. Simply repeating the words: complex multivalent/multidirectional/multiplicitous unique diasporic transnational intersectional over and over in your documents, does not suggest that … Continue reading
I am always telling clients to stop “sounding like a grad student.” But the trouble is, clients don’t understand all the ways that they do this. Some are obvious. “While a grad student in the English Ph.D. program, I…..” is … Continue reading
This fall, a new phenomenon has emerged in job documents—the slash/dash addiction. I think, if you read the examples below (which are shared with permission of the authors), you’ll see the problem. In a way, it’s just another manifestation of … Continue reading
Previously I told you to banish the words “unique” and “burgeoning.” Here is a new set of painfully overused, excruciatingly tedious, annoyingly self-important, and frustratingly vacant words to be banished in 2014: Banish these adjectives: real-world (what does … Continue reading
If you have the words “a new perspective” in any of your job documents, get rid of it. It’s the tritest and most hackneyed of all job document language (that is not in the hyper-emotional-passion vein.) Who is not doing … Continue reading