<p>If a student is competent in their research, comes to office hours often, and does well in a professor's class, will that professor write them a good recommendation letter despite the fact they never really socialized or engaged in "small-talk"? Or does a professor have to know about every little aspect of your personal life and vice-versa in order to write a good recommendation letter for graduate school?</p>
<p>If they know your name when seeing you, know what classes you’ve had with them, have an idea of how you did in the class, and spoke to them a couple of times I’d say that’s fine.<br>
Knowing their research means nothing unless you’re doing it with them.</p>
<p>By their research do you mean the student’s own research of the professors’?</p>
<p>The better you know the professor, all else being equal, the better the recommendation you’ll be likely to get. Will you get one that is still sufficiently good even if you have never talked to the professor in a personable way? I think so, but it depends what kind of standards you have for the letter.</p>
<p>usually the things that inhibit us we tend to be unsatisfied about. assuming you’re not talking so much to your professor is inhibiting to you for the reason you are worried about, which it may or may not be, then I think that would make you feel not completely contented about how you acted - or rather didn’t act - towards your professor. That is, you would wish you had maybe talked to him more so you wouldn’t have to worry about the recommendation being worse off because you didn’t.</p>
<p>If you do wish this then I would say that would be an admission to not being satisfied with your circumstances, the circumstances being that you never talked to your professors in a causal way.</p>
<p>And If the reason for the circumstances is something along the lines of - I find it hard to talk to professors casually - then this is really the thing the person would be unhappy about, the cause of the circumstance.</p>
<p>Or, you might just think its stupid that a professors knowledge of your personal life, and yours of his, can enhance a recommendation so much, and identify the cause of your circumstances as a messed up system.</p>
<p>I’m sure you would get an acceptable recommendation if the professor knew your name and had a general idea of how you work in his or her class (or if it’s a big class, what your grades were), and if you went to office hours a couple of times. They might ask you a bit about your plans when you ask for the recommendation but you don’t have to already be best friends with the professor. Maybe that would net you a better recommendation, but most people’s are probably not like that.</p>