Invitation letter asking a professor to serve on the thesis committee

Language Corner
1
Hi everyone,

I need to write a formal letter to ask for a professor, whom I do not know very well, to serve on my dissertation committee.

May you help me check if the following letter is sufficiently humble, polite, but straight to the point?

The sentence that I am not sure if it is grammatically correct and reads well: "I am writing to humbly request your service and expertise to serve as an ``External Expert’’ on my graduate committee."

I would very much appreciate your inputs.

NG.

****************************

Dear Professor _____________,

My name is NgLausanne. I am a newbie at the englishforum.ch

At the recommendation of my advisors, Professor AdrianLondon and Professor Niamhie [kidding, I am picking some forum veterans], I am writing to humbly request your service and expertise to serve as an ``External Expert’’ on my graduate committee.

My advisors and I believe that your knowledge and insights would be very valuable and would greatly enrich my work.

My private defense is scheduled around early December 2013 and will take place at EnglishForum.

My thesis is entitled “Essays in Whatever” and is comprised of three papers:

• Crap 1;

• Crap 2;

• Crap 3.

I attach below a copy of each paper and my resume for your reference.

I am grateful for your time and consideration and I very much hope that you will be able to accept my request.

Sincerely,

Me.

***************************

2

Looks okay to me. I’d just finish off with “Yours sincerely” rather than “Sincerely”, the former is the correct form.

If you can give an exact date for your defense that may help if he’s a busy person.

3
Can you 'accept a request'? and 'is comprised of' sounds odd too. Where is DB and where are the other experts when we need them?

4
I don't know what it's like in your graduate program. In academic environments I've worked in, external experts tend to meet one or both of the following specifications: works in a field very closely related to your thesis. In which case you've probably met them at conferences and such, no? or at least read some of their papers - and either they or their students have probably been reading yours! is a good colleague of one of your advisors. In which case said advisor should have prepared the way a little and your request won't come as a shock.

Guess what I'm saying is, don't sweat the lingo too much. It almost certainly won't be the deciding factor. (Longbyt's right though, it should be "comprises" rather than "is comprised of", and requests are usually (hoped to be) granted, not accepted. Also, if your defense really is scheduled, you might as well give the date. If it isn't scheduled yet, maybe write "planned for" instead.)

Good luck!

5
Thanks Medea Fleecestealer and Longbyt for your suggestions.

How about this correction:

****************************

Dear Professor _____________,

My name is NgLausanne. I am a newbie at the englishforum.ch

At the recommendation of my advisors, Professor AdrianLondon and Professor Niamhie, I am writing to humbly request your service and expertise to serve as an ``External Expert’’ on my graduate committee.

My advisors and I believe that your knowledge and insights would be very valuable and would greatly enrich my work.

The private defense of my thesis is scheduled in the first week of December 2013 and will take place at EnglishForum.

My thesis is entitled “Essays in Whatever” and consists of three papers:

• Crap 1;

• Crap 2;

• Crap 3.

I attach below a copy of each paper and my resume for your reference.

I am grateful for your time and consideration and I very much hope that you will be able to accept my invitation.

Yours sincerely,

Me.

***************************

6

Yes, “comprises” instead of “is comprised of” would be better; I missed that one.

Longbyt, you’ve just requested the help of the experts. Do you think they’ll accept? Of course you can accept a request.

7
I think I would say 'fulfil a request'. Or, as MathNut says 'grant' but I certainly wouldn't say 'accept'. I'm not saying it is incorrect though.

8

Yes, that’s better. One more suggested change if you’re sending all this as snail-mail:

“I enclose copies of the papers and also my resume for your reference.”

If e-mailing then change to “I attach copies of the papers and also my resume for your reference.”

9
It is done. I wish to thank all of you for your great help!