When faced with the task of ranking a multitude of applications, any committee will pay special
attention to what “hurts” an application. An excellent proposal, if it is full of typos, will sooner
or later be penalized. And an otherwise excellent application can be shot down by one
ridiculously short or uninformative reference. Please remind a professor/manager who writes a
reference for you that s/he should address “Academic Excellence”, “Research Potential” and
“Communication, Interpersonal and Leadership Skills” (see below) individually. It is strongly
suggested that each of these 3 headings appear in the reference letter. Your referee should be
given the present document in order to know what is looked for under each of these headings.
Finally, it is crucial that the correct reference forms be used. Please be sure to visit NSERC‟s
site, read their guidelines and download the right forms.
For NSERC
1) Academic Excellence
a. Your GPA makes up a good part of this score. NSERC has a specific way of computing it.
And it differs for PGS-M and PGS-D awards. You need not worry about it: we compute it.
b. Your score also takes into account whether you have already won awards/scholarships. List all
your awards (name, duration, amount) and make it clear whether they are institutional (i.e.
decided at the university level) or external/provincial/national (decided outside the university).
You get more points for external awards than for institutional ones. Ask your referees to possibly
comment on the prestige of such awards.
c. Duration of studies is taken into account: if you took “too long” for your last degree, you are
penalized.
2) Research Potential
a. Previous research experience should be detailed: research projects, research aspects of jobs,
etc. For doctoral candidates, the summary of previous or on-going research is crucial. You must
be able to explain the nature and significance of your work in layman terms.
b. If you have publications, list all of them! They will be taken into account. You need to make it
clear for each one whether this is a presentation limited to the university, a workshop paper, a
conference paper, or a journal paper. Do not list papers that have not yet been published (even if
you have submitted them): you get points only for those that can be verified. Page numbers
should be included whenever available. And it is crucial you indicate whether the venue of
publication was refereed or not! Finally, be aware that NSERC asks that presentations NOT be
considered under research ability but rather under communication skills!
c. Please ask your referees to comment on the quality and impact of your contributions. Each one
of your two references will give you points if it addresses why you have good research potential.
They should not just make the claim but support it. That is, they must comment on what you
have done in terms of research and why they believe you would be apt at diligently completing
your proposed research. This is where your referees should talk about your judgment, timeliness,
originality, initiative, autonomy and enthusiasm for research.
d. Most importantly, pay attention to your proposal. It must be understandable for someone who
is NOT in your domain. Be careful to:
i. Scope the problem: what are you trying to do exactly?
ii. Demonstrate some knowledge of the literature: references to papers do this!
iii. Hint at what method you want to use to solve your problem. Another way to see this is to
ask yourself how you will know your results pertain to the problem and are to be verified.
iv. Hint at the importance/significance of your proposed research.
Obviously how much you can write depends how far along you are in your graduate studies. In
other words, expectations are much higher for a doctoral student than for a master’s candidate.
Still, a vague proposal on some ill-defined topic will likely hurt you. You should ask your
potential supervisor to review your proposal.
Also, plagiarism of any sort within your proposal will essentially kill your application. Your
proposal is about YOU explaining what YOU are planning to do. Don‟t copy from Internet or
from anyone’s grant application, not even your supervisor’s.
Finally, NSERC makes it clear that your proposal is to use plain language. If it is overly
technical, it is likely you will score low not only for this category but also under
“Communication skills”.
3) Communication, Interpersonal and Leadership Skills
a. Each one of your two references will give you points if it addresses both you oral and your
written competence. It’s one thing to say your English is good. It’s another to support that claim
by pointing to publications and teaching assistantships, or by commenting about
works/presentations you will have submitted to the individual writing the reference.
b. Each one of your two references will give you points if it addresses:
i. Your ability to interact smoothly with others (e.g. teamwork)
ii. Your ability to assume responsibilities (within or outside of the university). For example,
volunteer work, or membership in some association is viewed favorably under this category.
c. The overall quality of your application in terms of English will also be taken into account. Be
sure to have it proofread by someone who can verify syntax and semantics. It is also
recommended to ask someone who is not in your domain if they can understand the gist of your
proposal. List your presentations here, indicating in what context (university research group,
workshop, conference) they were given. Refer back to your publications: they definitely indicate
good writing abilities.
Remember, if you (or your references) don’t talk about something, then you can’t get points for
it.
Put another way, omitting relevant information does penalize you! For example, you should be
mentioning all relevant information about your communication, interpersonal and leadership
skills in your application, so that referees can comment on that.
It is advisable to ask a referee upfront whether they feel they can write a positive reference letter
for you or not: if they cannot, try to find someone else. And if your supervisor cannot give you a
positive reference, discuss the issues and perhaps reconsider applying.
The bottom line is that you should necessarily supply your application to your referees in order
for them to write good references. In fact, you should not hesitate to point out to your referees
what you’d like them to emphasize as it simplifies their life.
Remember that you must supply the names and email addresses for your referees in your online
application and NSERC will inform them on what steps to follow to complete the forms. Your
referees will have access to your online application.
You must supply originals of your transcripts to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral affairs
before the deadline date. When completing your application you will be asked for the name of
your “University Designate” this is Leslie Main and the email is leslie.main@carleton.ca.
We urge candidates and referees to spell-check and proofread their submissions. For example,
missing words, or having a reference for NSERC recommend the candidate for OGS, can hurt
considerably the evaluation of an application. Generic references are not a good idea. Special
attention should also be given to consistency between application and references. For example, it
looks bad to have a referee praise a student for an A+ in a course in which, in fact, the student
got a B.
Check when your COMPLETE application must be submitted online! Don‟t miss that
deadline.
Good luck!
Leslie Main Co-ordinator, External/Internal Graduate Awards Phone: 613-520-2600 ext.
8349, leslie.main@carleton.ca