Hi. Just a quick query about something I struggle with.

I'm applying for PhDs with deadlines throughout January, earliest deadline being the 3rd.

My 2 referees have already written me references for a course from which I got rejected a couple of months ago. Two questions:

1. The courses I'm applying to are similar to that one, but a bit different - I previously applied for a machine learning course but am now applying for 4 computational neuroscience courses, plus another machine learning course. Do they tend to just copy+paste references, or would they write new ones? Just wondering because I feel I may have left it a little late, I'm hoping they can just paste the same references in for the 5 universities I'll be applying to and be done with it.

2. Would it be discourterous if I just sent them the reference requests without e-mailing them first? I did e-mail them last time, wondering if it's necessary I do that again, or if that would bother them.

Many thanks

They will copy and paste as tailor as appropriate. As they have already written one reference, it wouldn't be too much effort to write another, but they probably won't be very happy to have to do it over Christmas.

Email them first, because to be honest if I got random reference requests now over Christmas I would ignore them until I start back at work in January, unless the person had pre-agreed with me that I would do it, or I was feeling really bored/generous one day.