Responding to my offer, I have been approached by 18 students on the TT job market asking me to comment on their cover letter (12 male and 6 female). Here's a quick reflective thread of what I have learned. 1/
First, it is exciting to read all about the excellent and diverse work that ABDs are producing. Our discipline is heading in a positive direction. 2/
Your cover letter is not a research statement. It is unnecessary to go into very technical details of ur design. It is more important to show the bigger picture (research interest, research questions, methodological approaches, teaching priorities, productivity, recognition). 3/
Many students spend more time on describing method (“I use unsupervised machine learning techniques”) than on the argument on substantive question. That is a problem. 4/
Similarly, too often students describe their methodological approach in opening statement before or instead of their substantive domain. Please don’t do that. 5/
Some students over claim (“I use original data” when data is clearly in public domain), and *too many* use hyperbolic adjectives (“my path-breaking research”). Please avoid this tendency; my advisor (Macartan) recommended I delete all adjectives back in the day. 6/
When moving from describing one diss paper to another or one chapter to another, it is important to show how papers and chapters are connected. Most students don’t do this. 7/
For example, you can start a paragraph by stating “while this paper shows x, it leaves open the question of y. I thus address y in a new paper that …” obviously this is just an example; there are other ways to connect the dots. 8/
Teaching is *important* in our line of business; writing “I can teach courses in comparative politics at graduate and undergraduate level” denotes absolutely zero info. Be more specific about what you are excited teaching. 9/
If you know what future research you intend to undertake post dissertation, you may want to mention this in 2-3 sentences. 10/
Only 1/3 of those approaching me are women. I was hoping the distribution would be more balanced. Others are free to reflect on why this was the case. 11/
Reading the drafts, I realized how ill-positioned I am to advise to students who are applying to teaching universities and liberal arts colleges. 12/
I hope I was at least somewhat helpful to the students who approached me. Thank you for entrusting me with reading your early drafts. fin/
