Stories Make for Better Letters of Recommendation and Award Nominations

Letters of recommendation and nomination play an essential role in the distribution of many key positions, prizes, awards, and grants, particularly for early career nominees. There is very little scientific evidence about how to write such letters most effectively when the goal is to win in a competitive field. When writing a nomination letter, we believe a compelling narrative is a powerful and sometimes underused tool to make a more effective nomination. This article presents an approach to a narrative-centered nomination letter that places the nominee's achievements in the context of a simplified storytelling arc. We emphasize that effective letters use classic, well-understood tropes to allow readers to efficiently understand, retain facts about, and root for ongoing successes of nominees. We argue that this can be done without exaggeration or distortion and that providing a coherent tale, supported by evidence, is a crucial and distinctive component of effective letter writing.