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Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

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Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#41

Post by ssizn »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #27
anovikov wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that will be politically incorrect to discuss in detail and will drive us way into downvoting territory...

Why? GP made some pretty bold claims on some nationalities( "Romania has too many issues with minorities" ). I expect some clarifications for those claims on what those issues are, so I can tell if knows what he's talking about and got right info from reputable sources or if he's just puling stuff out of his ass based on stereotypes and FUD he read on the internet. Without any details or sources, such comments should…

And if you put details and sources you get flagged too. It’s a waste of time to discuss this kind of stuff.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#42

Post by curiousgal »

rmind wrote: post #9

I have to say "Eastern European" is a quite poor and unhelpful generalization nowadays. It is ethnically and linguistically diverse: Slavic, Baltic, Finno-Ugric, Romance (Romania) as well as Albanian and Hellenic. It is religiously diverse: Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim and even the bastions of irreligion/atheism (Czechia and Estonia). There are significant cultural differences, especially comparing the more…

Now you know how I feel reading all those articles about "Africa".

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#43

Post by SeanLuke »

rmind wrote: post #9

I have to say "Eastern European" is a quite poor and unhelpful generalization nowadays. It is ethnically and linguistically diverse: Slavic, Baltic, Finno-Ugric, Romance (Romania) as well as Albanian and Hellenic. It is religiously diverse: Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim and even the bastions of irreligion/atheism (Czechia and Estonia). There are significant cultural differences, especially comparing the more…

This isn't a very helpful observation. By Eastern European, I presume he means the former Soviet Bloc. It has nothing to do with ethnicity, language, or culture, and everything to do with the lingering effects on organizational and academic behavior imposed by communist and totalitarian regimes. From Romania to Lithuania, this impact can have a remarkable consistency.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#44

Post by dan-robertson »

aliqot wrote: post #20
izacus wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that is really relevant for the post as written though, what were you trying to say? I had a lot of experience working across mentioned boundaries and the post is very spot on with cultural differences between US and most cultures in Eastern European region. I'd also argue that Germans/Austrians easily fit into the same generalization and would benefit from reading it.

>what were you trying to say I see this type of behavior a lot as of late, especially on HN. Mostly when someone says "I donated to X charity" then inevitably a brave contrarian comes out of the wood works to say that they could/should have done XYZ

I basically read it as a polite way of saying ‘I can’t work out how this comment relates to the article (which it should) and I would like to give you the opportunity to expand on the connection or restructure your comment to be related to the article instead of using the heading as an excuse to talk about some distantly related thing you care about.’ I could be wrong though.

I think it tends to give better results than just arguing about whether something is on topic and the parent commenter probably does have some more specific things they could say about Eastern Europe here.

I don’t believe I’ve witnessed something exactly like your example though I’ve seen plenty of disagreement on this site. I don’t think that’s what happened here.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#45

Post by azekai »

oblio wrote: post #39
wirrbel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A common reaction is: It cannot all be positive. Or, as a colleague of mine put it: "When I first interacted with americans, they were smiling so much I suspected they were trying to trick me in some way".

Quoted post unavailable.

We are? I suspect many of us are trying to trick ourselves as much as everyone else.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#46

Post by bobthechef »

wirrbel wrote: post #16
arka2147483647 wrote: post #5

This also has the other side that an American style cv, for example, might be seen as "too positive" from eastern European perspective, and thus be ignored. That is; you read 10 CV's, all go through the roof of your superlative scale, therefore you ignore all of it, or consider all candidates as more-or-less equal and/or mediocre.

A common reaction is: It cannot all be positive. Or, as a colleague of mine put it: "When I first interacted with americans, they were smiling so much I suspected they were trying to trick me in some way".

No post body was provided.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#47

Post by nottorp »

wirrbel wrote: post #16
arka2147483647 wrote: post #5

This also has the other side that an American style cv, for example, might be seen as "too positive" from eastern European perspective, and thus be ignored. That is; you read 10 CV's, all go through the roof of your superlative scale, therefore you ignore all of it, or consider all candidates as more-or-less equal and/or mediocre.

A common reaction is: It cannot all be positive. Or, as a colleague of mine put it: "When I first interacted with americans, they were smiling so much I suspected they were trying to trick me in some way".

As an Eastern European, those permanent Hollywood smiles where they bare their teeth make me think of a dog threatening me :)

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#48

Post by bobthechef »

ghaff wrote: post #36
Ekaros wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda also reminds me of star ratings. For USA it seems 5 star is average. 4 star is bad. Where as in other parts 5 star would be stellar.

I'm fine with giving, say, books on Amazon a 3 or 4 star rating if they were basically "OK." But, yes, in a lot of contexts, anything other than a 5 star rating is considered bad and everyone knows that fact so more than a few "only" 4 star ratings and the Uber driver gets kicked off the service, the AirBnB owner loses their superhost status, or someone misses out on their bonus.

No post body was provided.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#49

Post by udev »

I appreciate the author's intention to help.

But I can't but be annoyed by his stance that "I am at Cambridge", therefore the way I prefer things to be formulated is the correct, universally accepted way.

What's wrong with honest, no-nonsense recommendation letters? Why is flattering and positive language a requirement?

I am sure the author knows how to differentiate "you are doing brilliant work" coming from his mother vs coming from the leading researcher in his field, and interprets each version accordingly.

Similarly, what stops him interpreting "this is a good, promising, student" differently, depending of where it comes from?

--

And I agree on another point with the author, yes it is "excruciating" to read recommendation letters, and also, it is "excruciating" and soul-crushing to write them if you are not used to telling white lies, and it is also "excruciating" as a student to deal with getting one, especially in institutions where the professor-to-student power distance is much higher that in western universities.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#50

Post by badpun »

oblak wrote: post #38
jenny91 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody counts Finland as part of their definition of "Eastern Europe".

A guy from South Africa once made the same argument about Sweden. Whether he was right or not, geographically speaking, does not really matter. We all know what everybody means. Nordic good, Eastern bad. Sadly, it's mostly true.

Geographic middle of Europe is somewhere in Poland. Seeing that Sweden is distinctly north of Poland, it makes total sense to count it as Northern European country.
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