Now that I am teaching courses with 300 students, I am getting so many reference requests. So here it goes.

• When you write to ask a recommendation letter, give all necessary info. It is irritating when someone says “I got courses from you, would you write a reference letter for me?” when you can also say what courses you got, what grades you got, or how I know you, your GPA etc, so I can return an answer immediately, without unnecessary communicaton. Imagine there are 20-30 students asking for the prof’s time.
• Now that I am at it, please start your emails directly stating why you are writing. No need for the now infamous line: “I hope this email finds you well”, which btw does not really have an equivalent in Turkish, so it is all the more unnecessary.
• Once I accept to write a letter, I give a guideline and a sample letter (with my letter-head on top) with parts highlighted (to be replaced), and ask for a draft from student, basically a file that lists the necessary info, and is named by your name. Some students send me a totally unformatted document and some parts missing or typos remaining. Hımm, no need to say that this does not leave a good impression. Please do your best to understand the guideline and reduce back-and-forth emails when everyone is so short on time.
• Finally, my forever suggestion: Be good in at least one subject and have at least one prof who would write a good letter for you. No matter how small or niche, if you are very good in something, you can choose to follow that path and you can be good at what you do and also like it more because probably you liked it in the first place (which is why you are good at it, and vice versa).