Dr. Mark Paradis

← Student Resources · Last updated: August 2026

Whether to ask me

A reference letter is only useful if it is specific. A letter that says you attended, participated, and earned a good grade tells an admissions committee nothing they cannot read off your transcript, and readers of these letters can spot a thin one instantly. So the real question is not whether I am willing, but whether I have enough material to write something that helps you.

I am usually well placed to write for you if:

• you took at least one course with me and earned a B+ or better;
• I can remember specific work of yours — a paper, a presentation, a research project, a contribution in seminar;
• you took the course recently enough that my memory and my records are still good, generally within the last three years; or
• you worked with me in a sustained way outside a single course — a research project, a supervised paper, a methods project you saw through.

If none of these apply, ask anyway, but tell me plainly what you are working with. Sometimes the answer is that another professor is a better choice, and it is much better for you to hear that in October than to receive a lukewarm letter in January.

I will tell you honestly if I cannot write you a strong letter. This is not a rejection of you as a student; it is me protecting your application. Please take it in that spirit and ask someone who knows your work better.

Timing

• Four weeks' notice before your earliest deadline is what I ask for.
• Three weeks is the absolute minimum I can usually accommodate, and only if the letter is not for a competitive scholarship.
• Less than three weeks and I will very likely say no. This is not obstinacy — good letters take a couple of hours each, and October through January is when everyone's deadlines land at once.

Two timing notes specific to graduate applications. Canadian graduate program deadlines cluster in December and January. Scholarship deadlines come much earlier and catch people out: FRQ doctoral and master's competitions fall in late September and early October, SSHRC doctoral around mid-September — and because your university sets its own internal deadline ahead of the national one, yours may be in late August. Check your department's internal date rather than the national one. Work backwards from the earliest of those and add a month.

How to ask

Use the contact form or email me at the address for the institution where you took my course. Ask the question directly, in one message, and include enough for me to answer it. Something like this works well:

Note what that email does: it reminds me who you are and what you wrote, gives me the deadline in the subject line, asks for a strong letter, and offers the materials rather than dumping them on me before I have agreed.

What to send once I have said yes

Send all of this in one email, as attachments, at least three weeks before the earliest deadline. Every item here is something I will otherwise have to ask you for.

1. A deadline table. One row per program: institution, program name, deadline, how the letter is submitted (online portal, email, upload link), and whether the request will arrive automatically from a system. Order it by deadline.
2. Your CV or résumé.
3. Your transcript, unofficial is fine — it reminds me of your trajectory, not just my course.
4. Your statement of purpose or personal statement, even in rough draft. This is the single most useful document you can give me, because it tells me what story your application is telling so my letter can support it rather than contradict it.
5. A paper you wrote for me, if you have it. It lets me quote and describe your work concretely.
6. A short note on what to emphasise — three or four sentences. If the program is quantitative and you did well in my methods course, say so. If you overcame something specific during the term, tell me; I may not have known.
7. The course and term you took with me, and your grade.

Portals, forms, and waivers

Most applications send me an automated request once you list me as a referee. Add me as a referee promptly after I agree, and tell me which email address you used, because these messages land in spam with some regularity.

Waive your right to view the letter when the form offers you that choice. A waived letter is read as candid; an unwaived one is quietly discounted. This is standard practice and it is in your interest. Many Canadian portals do not offer the choice at all, in which case there is nothing to decide — it comes up most often on American applications.

I write letters in confidence, which means I do not share the text with the student. I am happy to talk with you about what I plan to emphasise.

Reminders and follow-up

Please send a short reminder one week before the deadline, and again two days before if you have not seen the letter marked as received. I would genuinely rather be reminded than miss it. A reminder is not nagging and I will not think less of you for sending one.

Afterwards, tell me how it went. I like knowing where my students end up, and if you need letters again in a later cycle, an updated file makes the second round much faster.

Things I cannot do

• Write for a student I do not remember and have no record of working with.
• Write a letter after the deadline has passed, or backdate anything.
• Write a general "to whom it may concern" letter for an unspecified purpose. Letters are written to a particular program and are much weaker when they are not.
• Comment on or evaluate a letter written by someone else.
• Write a strong letter on short notice for a competitive award. If the timeline is very tight, tell me honestly and I will tell you honestly whether the letter I could produce would help you.