How to compose a great recommendation letter? I was asked to compose a recommendation/reference letter for a Computer Engineer that works as a Researcher in the Research Center I am supervisor. I don't know if Academia is the right site to post , but since the nature of the job is Research and people involved "Research Engineers", I believe is the right place.

So, I need to write a great recommendation/reference letter, but the problem is I have never written a letter of this kind before. I've seen many of them, and even more on the web but the problem is that they all look "copy-pasted" and not written in a way that would make me believe that the author of this letter really spent time on it, believing in the skills of his employee and really wanted to recommend them.

I've already written the letter, the best I could and I will like to ask about some parts of it, how they sound and if they could be any better.


As a first paragraph, I wrote who I am, the position I have in the Research Center and what is the purpose of this letter:


  My name is... I am a ...
  The purpose of this letter, is to serve as a reference to my cooperation with Mr ...

In the second paragraph I wrote about the position of the person (Research Engineer) and for how long he worked with us:


  Mr. X  joined our team in the X Research Center as a full-time Research Engineer under an ongoing X month contract...


At this point I don't know how I could point out better the fact the the person was under a normal full-paid contract and not just given a "European Grant" to work with us. I wrote they were full-time, but still there are many people that join programs after studies that work for a few months as Engineers in Research Centers. In this case, I want to stress that they were working as a normal Research Engineer, especially chosen for skills and paid a normal salary for the position as Engineer. Maybe add something like "full paid contract"
In the 3rd paragraph I wrote under what framework the person worked (European project) and a few words where and how they were involved. I didn't want to go into great details here as I believe this stuff could be easily read from their great CV. Is it wise to describe exactly what he did (Names of real-life applications that was part of developing etc). I pointed out that they deeply involved in what they did, how well they integrated with the rest of the people and how motivated they were and that they actively contributed in the project. Anything else I could add here?
As a last line I would like to show that I can't recommend them enough, but without getting "too excited". I want it to be serious, I want it to leave no doubts. Also since the person is young and is interested in continuing with post graduate studies, or working as a Researcher or even getting a computer engineer position in a private company. Is it okay if I mention all of them? Usually we recommend someone for one type of position. But this position, working as computer engineer doing research (aka Research Engineer), leaves no doubt that he would be great as a PhD student, as a researcher or as a software engineer. So I wrote:


  For all the aforementioned reasons I would like to highly recommend X, as a strong candidate for future postgraduate studies, research and employment offers.



What do you think about it? How could I make it better and is there something I should change? If you don't like some part and you give me an alternative please point out why you don't like the part, as some times its a bit of personal taste and not that something is wrong. Would be great, if you could post some examples of letters you composed or parts of them, or an example from the web that you consider great.
There was a good link that I'd found on this topic, while applying to graduate school:

Advice to Graduate School Recommendation Letter Writers

The above link is a pithy list of points to be kept in mind by new letter writers. As a summary, I'd like to highlight some sections of it that I've found repeated in other such articles as well:


  Be Concrete
  
  If you take away just one piece of concrete advice, let it be this.
  
  The single biggest problem with most letters is that they are filled
  with abstract generalities and infinitives. If we don't know you or
  your institution, we can't judge what any of these statements mean
  relative to our standards. Always consider the illustrative anecdote:

Due to deadline pressure, I asked him to grow a pumpkin in just one month. As you know it takes over 100 days to grow a pumpkin, but over the weekend he devised a new method to accelerate their growth. On Monday morning I arrived to find not just a pumpkin but a steaming, flavorful pie. 

  
  Anecdote about acts of raw coding are only so helpful in understanding
  research potential, but they're better than nothing (see the section
  on Corporate Letters, below). An extra book or paper they read, and
  demonstrated understanding of (again, be concrete about why you
  believe this), goes a long way.
  
  Corporate Letters
  
  An important special case is the corporate letter: when you, the
  letter-writer, work in industry and have no academic affiliation. Many
  corporate letters (like many academic letters, but more so) tend to be
  vapid, clearly written in a different culture and for a different
  audience. Unless they actually did academic research with you, here
  are some suggestions for improving them.
  
  A common mistake is to focus on teamwork. This is important even in
  academia, but often this is the primary focus of the letter, which
  makes it less valuable. Of course we care about it, but it's secondary
  to their technical skills.
  
  
  Tell us if they learned something particularly quickly, mastered a
  complex technology, or solved a problem others were stuck on. Give
  us a paragraph of details.
  If you have a concrete reason to evaluate research potential, do so concretely. Otherwise, don't bother.
  Give us a brief bio-sketch, including educational qualifications.
  4.Put the applicant in context, and tell us the context. It's fine to relate it to your own student days, or to your experience hiring students.
  E.g.
  
  Compared to the students I studied with at Cucumber and Melon University, and the ones I now recruit from there, I would put him in
  the top 10%.