LSE Recommendation Letter Example: Anthropology student to platform governance (Score 92)

To the Admissions Committee MSc Technology and Public Policy London School of Economics and Political Science I write in support of the applicant's candidacy for the MSc Technology and Public Policy at LSE. I supervised the applicant's independent research paper during the final year of their undergraduate programme, which meant I reviewed and commented on weekly methodology memos over approximately twelve weeks. That sustained, close contact gives me a reasonably clear picture of how they think, how they handle criticism, and how ready they are for rigorous postgraduate work. The applicant came to the project with a digital ethnography background — strong on interpretive depth, less practiced in the discipline of causal argument. What I noticed early on was that their initial memos were analytically rich but tended to treat observed platform behaviour as self-explanatory. In one memo examining content-moderation patterns across two social media platforms, they drew a causal inference about algorithmic amplification from a set of user interviews without adequately accounting for the structural features of the platforms themselves. When I pushed back on this in our meeting — asking them to separate what the data could actually support from what they were inferring — they did not deflect or simply revise the wording. They came back the following week with a restructured argument that distinguished between ethnographic observation, platform design documentation, and what remained genuinely uncertain. That willingness to disaggregate a claim rather than smooth it over is not common at undergraduate level, and it is directly relevant to policy analysis work, where the cost of overstating causal certainty can be significant. A second moment that stayed with me came later in the project, when the applicant attempted to incorporate a small quantitative component — a structured content analysis of platform governance announcements — to triangulate their qualitative findings. They had limited prior training in quantitative methods, and the first attempt at coding and aggregating the data was inconsistent. Rather than abandoning the exercise or treating it as decorative, they sought out methodological guidance independently, revised the coding scheme, and produced a modest but defensible analysis. The final memo was careful to frame the quantitative element as corroborating rather than conclusive. That kind of epistemic honesty about the limits of one's own methods is something I try to teach and rarely see executed this cleanly by a student working across disciplinary boundaries. The applicant's written work is clear and well-organised. Their memos were consistently easier to read than those of most students I supervise, partly because they have an instinct for structuring an argument before writing it rather than discovering the argument in the prose. That said, I would note one area where I think further development is needed: their framing of the policy implications of their research was at times underdeveloped. The analytical work was sound, but translating findings into actionable or institutionally legible recommendations is a skill that requires deliberate practice. I raised this in our final supervision meeting, and the applicant acknowledged it directly. I expect this is precisely the kind of gap that structured postgraduate training — particularly a programme that integrates technology governance with policy process — is designed to address. In terms of fit, the applicant's combination of platform analysis experience, applied work on governance documentation, and demonstrated capacity to work across qualitative and quantitative methods maps well onto what I understand the MSc Technology and Public Policy to require. The programme's emphasis on evidence-based policy and the governance of emerging technologies is a natural extension of the questions the applicant was already asking in their independent research. I recommend the applicant with confidence. They are intellectually honest, methodologically improving, and motivated by substantive questions rather than credential accumulation. I am happy to discuss any aspect of their work further. Yours sincerely, [Date]