1. Recommendation for Liana Notini
August 20th
, 2016
To Whom It May Concern:
I am very pleased to recommend highly Liana Notini for a position within your company. I
provide this endorsement without hesitation as Liana clearly stands out as one of the finest
students I have had the privilege of instructing and getting to know personally during my
teaching career. Liana was a student in three of my courses (Marketing, Fall 2013 semester;
Consumer Behavior, Spring 2014 semester; and Advertising and Promotions, Fall 2014
semester) and as such, I feel well qualified to comment on her intellectual ability, motivation,
and character.
Intellectually, Liana stands out in many respects. First and foremost, Liana’s academic
performance is excellent. For example, in the three courses that Liana took with me, her
performance placed her in the top two percent of the classes. This is noteworthy because
performance in these courses includes evaluations of written and oral communications (papers
and presentations), as well as exams. With respect to each of these measures, Liana
demonstrated that she is an exceptionally creative thinker, has strong problem solving skills, and
is very adept at applying the knowledge she gains in class to “real world” situations. In addition,
I would like to note that with respect to Liana’s communications skills, they are nothing short of
extraordinary. Her writing style is suburb; she articulates arguments in a very cogent and
interesting manner. Moreover, she is very poised and articulate in front of an audience and is
able to skillfully engage people when she speaks.
In addition to her strong intellectual and communication skills, Liana also possesses exceptional
teamwork and leadership abilities. For example, in my Advertising course, Liana was required
to work with three other students to develop a comprehensive campaign for a minor league
hockey team, the Adirondack Flames. In this group project, as well as other smaller group
projects that she worked on throughout the semester, Liana displayed a strong ability to work
effectively with a variety of different people. Her enthusiasm is contagious and seems to
naturally promote her as a leader. She does not, however, come across as arrogant or
overbearing, but instead is a very good listener and advocate of other people's ideas.
Aside from being a stellar student in-class, Liana is outstanding at working independently. For
example in my Consumer Behavior course, the capstone project entails having students write a
research proposal. Specifically, students are required to find a relevant theory from the social
sciences (e.g., social psychology, personality, behavioral economics, sociology, or anthropology)

2. and show how it can explain some behavioral phenomena. Here, students need to conduct a
literature review, develop hypotheses, outline an appropriate methodology to test their
hypotheses, explain their expected results, and offer a summary discussion of their study,
complete with future research suggestions. For her project, Liana applied tenets from social
psychology, sociology, and media studies to assess how social norms (e.g., norm of thinness),
perpetuated by both culture and the media, impact eating disorders. Further, using tenets from
organizational studies, Liana also examined how the structure of “positive youth development”
programs, which are designed to promote healthy body images, actually impact body image
beliefs. To examine these effects, Liana proposed an experiment whereby young females with an
eating disorder would be randomly assigned to one of the following four eating disorder
treatment conditions (whereby the treatment period was 30-days):
Full Access to All Forms of
Media (which promote cultural
social norms, e.g., thinness)
No Access to Any Form of
Media (no access to cultural
social norms, e.g., thinness)
Use of “positive youth
development” protocols; i.e., full
disclosure of numerical
information on weight scales,
nutrition labels, etc.
Condition 1 Condition 2
Absence of the use of “positive
youth development” protocols;
i.e., no access to any numeric
information
Condition 3 Condition 4
By assigning participants to one of the above four conditions, Liana’s aim was to determine both
the main and interactive effects of social norms (again perpetuated by both culture and the
media) and “positive youth development” program protocols (i.e., numeric information
disclosure) on participants’ recovery (assessed by multiple measures including body image
perceptions of both self and others, self-esteem, etc.). Based on her proposed findings, Liana
then suggested comprehensive strategies for how to improve eating disorder treatments so that
they are met with far more success than those commonly used today. To be sure, Liana’s
research proposal was one of the most comprehensive, well thought out, well written, and
methodologically sound proposals I have ever seen. I only wish she could have actually carried
out her study as I am confident that her findings would contribute significantly to the literature
on eating disorders.
With regard to Liana’s academic motivation, I would like to note that she is perfectionist, driving
herself no matter what the task. She is a hard worker and a self-starter, one who goes far beyond
the call of duty. She has shown a high degree of energy, an eye for detail, and she is a very
diligent worker.
Lastly, with respect to Liana’s character, it should be noted that she always displays the highest
levels of integrity and responsibility. She takes her work seriously, yet keeps things in
perspective with an extremely good sense of humor. Indeed, she is a true joy to work with!

3. In summary, Liana’s strong intellectual abilities, motivation, and character will help her to
succeed in whatever endeavor she pursues. And while I am sure that there are many talented
individuals in your applicant pool, I think it would be difficult to find anyone more motivated,
talented, and enjoyable to work with than Liana. Again, she has my highest recommendation.
Sincerely,
Christine Page, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Marketing
Department of Management and Business
cpage@skidmore.edu