Multilitteratus Incognitus

... No seriously! I swear! This will be the last thing I read and then I will start to write my literature review ;-) I am back up for some air.  When I originally made my plans last May to have the fall semester be the semester that I focused on the literature review part of my dissertation proposal I sort of envisioned a lot of reading.  Reading on the train. Reading on the weekends.  Reading while walking (through text to speech), reading while driving (also through TTS).  My goal was to put pen to paper (figuratively speaking) on November 30th.  Well, that date has come and gone and I still haven't put pen to paper yet.  And, I am still reading.  A couple of times I've actually come close to being done reading - having my "to read" folder on dropbox empty and all things read, skimmed, or otherwise evaluated for usefulness for my proposal.   When I've come down to 10 items somehow the folder magically populates again.  Well......

It's been a while since I've blogged, or at least it really feels like it.  I've had my nose stuck in (virtual) books trying to get through my literature review - but more on that on some other blog post. I came across an article on InsideHigherEd this past week asking whether or not letters of recommendation are really necessary . My most immediate context is admissions, given that that's part of my work at the university, but the people who gave their two cents also mentioned something I had not considered: academic jobs. I won't rehash the opinions of the people who wrote for the article, but I will add my own two cents, mostly from a graduate admissions perspective. I don't have a fully formed opinion on letters of recommendation for employment purposes, but I'll add my two cents as a prospective hire (in a few years when I might be done with my EdD :p) For admissions to graduate course of study, be it a masters program, a PhD program, or even a cer...