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knp

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Everything posted by knp

  1. I can't see why not! I guess maybe you shouldn't make a whole big thing about it, but a lot of an SOP is supposed to be about your future research trajectory; I think these spring courses would clearly fit under that umbrella.
  2. Honestly, if he's not going to write you one anyway and you didn't already mention it, can you ask him specifically to recycle the old one with slight updates, rather than write you a new one from scratch? Only you know how easily offended he is, but if he's a nice dude it might at least be worth asking. I tend to have rather informal relationships with my professors, so I could get away with this with a couple professors for sure. On the other hand, I know I'm an outlier, and there are other professors where it would be a Very Bad Idea. So just raising the idea to see what you think.
  3. Just anecdotally, when I worked in an alt-ac institution, I think we had one or two recent college graduates who were employed there get small things published. But that's because we had "an institutional library, colleagues willing to read and provide critical feedback on your work, and funding for travel primary sources worth working on held in the institutional collection." Those resources really are all important for producing publishable academic work, and enrolling in a master's or PhD do both seem more likely ways to access them than being employed at a tiny random museum/academic institute in a weird part of the country.
  4. knp

    Terrified to Tears

    Honestly, this might just be me, but I tend to be more impressed with my less prepared classmates in any given setting. They're not coasting on polish and shine; the admissions people saw talent in their work, even in its less polished state. Personally, I'm now a decent writer, but at the time I entered Richy Richperson College at age 18, I had once written and had my mind blown by the process of writing a paper that was three and a half whole pages long. Taking writing classes with various shiny Toby McPrivateschools as my classmates was not really fun, so I empathize. But I got through it, and so can you! I can't deny that the learning curve is medium steep, but don't give up, because you will start to get it and that's really satisfying. Also, I am a fast reader, but I can't even a little bit get through an academic book in one sitting if I want to try to read the whole thing. As mentioned earlier, you learn how to focus on reading for argument and for what's most relevant to you: see post #7, and there are whole threads somewhere in this subforum dedicated to just the subject of how to read efficiently in grad school.
  5. Is a dietary code that much stranger than any other way to practice a religion? As an atheist, I find religious dietary restrictions and the act of prayer about equally unintuitive, but am not surprised that others find meaning in either.
  6. You would be applying to the MAT this fall? That sounds like a fine idea, but I don't understand why you couldn't also apply to PhD programs. Your plan might make sense if you apply to the MAT and to a bunch of PhDs and strike out of all the PhDs, so you decide to enroll in the MAT and apply again for PhDs during your program. But if you're an attractive applicant to some PhD program already, why not find that out before spending a year enrolled in a different master's program?
  7. Not so much for explanations, but just for a lot of practice, I used this website http://www.majortests.com/gre/quantitative_skills.php. Got my quantitative score up 4 points, to my target.
  8. FWIW, I found the GRE way easier than the LSAT. When you compare the reading comprehension sections, I found that the GRE's version was slightly but distinctly easier than the LSAT's. And personally, I thought that the critical reading LSAT sections were murder in a way that nothing on the GRE approaches.
  9. @Rising_star Right? I don't particularly like how backpacks look, even the nice-ish ones, but as someone who's had three spinal surgeries with potentially more down the pike, that bit of Kelsky's advice can particularly go lick a cactus.
  10. Fair enough. I meant for the nuance to come in in Z, but I still think correct/incorrect is a helpful way to begin thinking about these questions. Then, when you (a really struggling writer) can write a simpler essay, you can expand to the more nuanced version that will unlock even higher scores. On the other hand, I ain't a professional!
  11. What do you mean by "research"? Have you ever written a paper with an original(ish) argument based on some set of primary and secondary sources? Or have you just done assignment-type essays, responding to prompts like "please compare Text A and Text B and how they relate to the themes of this course"?
  12. Sweetheart, what do you think I can say about this new one when you didn't even fix your most basic comma/period use issue? In English, you must use a space after punctuation!
  13. Basically, (one) introductory formula for one of these essays is "The position stated in the question is correct/incorrect because of X and Y. Now let me expand upon that slightly with my own argument, Z." So, "Governments should not provide financial support to cities for cultural reasons, both because governmental support is an inefficient way to preserve culture and because, in fact, rural areas preserve more of a nation's common culture. Cities and rural areas are both integral parts of the nation, but because cities are more exposed to change, rural areas preserve more common culture." Then you give one body paragraph to supporting X, another to supporting Y, and in the conclusion wrap it up by, if possible, returning to a brief mention of Z. This is but one formula, but I've always found that having my introduction be exactly two thoughts long, and usually two sentences long, worked for me. So: Claim is correct/incorrect because of Reason 1 and Reason 2. From this we can see that My Argument is the correct interpretation.
  14. knp

    Winter is Coming

    Depending on how cold the winter is and how much stuff you have already, some winter stuff goes on sale surprisingly early. Whenever I need a new coat, I make a habit of getting my winter coats in late November or early December, when you can usually start to find them half off or more already. I especially trawl post-Christmas sales for winter gear, but that is probably too late for your first year. In really cold cities, I've always needed a lighter winter coat (that can go down to 25 degrees with a ton of layers, but is mostly useful when it's in the 30s and 40s) and a heavier one (down to the bottom of where you live, which for me was usually about 0; I have no subzero advice). Other people have advised you to wait to do a lot of shopping until you get there. Personally, in the past, I have held off on purchasing some of the heavier stuff not only until living in the new, colder place, but until temperatures start to drop and you can find things on drastic sale. I've had friends have good luck with stuff on sale as early as September, for last season's models—which should be fine, because winter gear doesn't change that much—but I think my point is that you should be able to find a good portion of your items on sale, rather than feeling like you have to pay full price on everything.
  15. Lots of work for you to do, I'm afraid. This might be a three; I'm afraid it might be a two. It certainly isn't a 1, because you answered the question in more than two sentences, but it isn't very fluent. I assume English isn't your first language? Your argument is simple, but pretty solid, so I think the biggest improvement you could make would be to work on the mechanics of your writing. Some pointers, mostly illustrated in my edits above. 1) Learn how to punctuate and capitalize correctly in English. Nouns are not capitalized except for proper names (the names of specific people and places, like Sarah or Australia or Lake Michigan). Commas follow words, not spaces. Not: commas follows words ,not spaces. Also not: "cars,Bike,Trains", but "cars, bikes, trains." 2) Make sure you use the correct words. TRANSPORTATION is an entirely different concept than transition, and it's a big red flag that you used that wrong word not just once, but twice, in one paragraph. 3) Make sure all of your sentences are complete, with a subject and a verb. 4) Where possible, reduce repetition. Half of your essay's paragraphs begin with "By invention," "By invention," and "By using"; that's too much of the same sentence structure. Good luck!
  16. At first I wondered whether ED's post was too harsh, although I didn't say anything because I loathe internet fights. Then, however, I did a forum search for Francophile1's posts. It turns out that Francophile1 has been posting topics about their confusion and difficulties with what they want to do regarding graduate school for about a year and a half (I didn't go back any further), and that ED has posted helpful, kind things on a good number of those topics. For those thinking there was too much being read into the original post, I'm guessing that's because of the longer forum history here. OP has often wondered here whether they should get a second masters, or which of three or four disciplines' PhDs they should apply for, and has been posting about consistently struggling in this master's for about a year. In that context—and I say this as someone who is currently still working out of school because I need to prod my jumbled grad school ideas into coalescing—the advice that they might need some more time to think about what academic path, if any, is right for them, seems right, if not very helpfully delivered. I thought unræd's take on it, that these struggles could mean that OP has not yet found the best match with what they want to study, seemed useful. It could be just a writing problem, which is what I responded to with my original post. On the other hand, it could be a bigger question of what the OP wants to study, like I am dealing with in my own life right this minute.
  17. I will pop in to point out that the world is urbanizing, not dispersing. Per the UN, "The world is undergoing the largest wave of urban growth in history. ... UN projections show the world's rural population has already stopped growing, but the world can expect to add close to 1.5 billion urbanites in the next 15 years, and 3 billion by 2050." I still think your point about other spaces, especially cyber space, being important is right on, but the premise that the world's population is dispersing is not right. That said, I have no idea whether factual stuff affects AWA scores or not, and your essay builds decently off of the mistaken premise. Just watch for typos, like "inhabitable" for "uninhabitable."
  18. How many full drafts are you doing per paper? However many you manage to get through normally, I'd budget time for at least another two more (another three or four might be ideal). If the issue is more macro with what you're studying, as others have suggested, this won't be helpful, but trying them out will give you more information about whether it really is a narrow writing problem or a bigger mismatch between you and what you're studying. Doing more drafts with a hypercritical eye—aided by others' past comments, any writing resources available to you on campus, and at least three days between some of your drafts—is basically the stuff of a self-run writing bootcamp. Another suggestion: have you received any As on long, graduate level essays? In general, I've found that I can see a huge difference between graduate level A- and B-work in my own writing. (Caveat that I only have an undergraduate degree, but I'm speaking from some grad-seminar experience). Try to apply what worked in the better essays to the worse ones. Since it's the summer, improving your own past efforts might help. Read a lot more academic essays, too. What works about them? How do they use evidence? Make outlines of their arguments and how they develop through the essays. Model your work on your favorites.
  19. As someone who had a couple years of Latin at one of the public schools that was equipped to offer it well, I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this. I chose Latin because it seemed more challenging than French, but just two or three years later, Latin was replaced with Japanese. I had a fairly circuitous route to getting to the culture I now study, and I still wonder a bit whether I might have liked doing East Asian languages instead. Even though I'm not Latin's biggest fan, I oppose prohibiting Latin from serving as a language requirement. Some public high schools can offer it well, and I don't think we should say that Latin cannot count as a language requirement. Do I think it's the best use of resources? Not really. Do I think that, because it isn't spoken, we should prohibit it from counting? Also no. Although I think that Latin should never be the only language offered, I think it can have a good role to play in the language mix offered at a high school. It would have been awesome if my high school had offered Cantonese (!), but that may not always be possible. If the choice my high school faced was between offering both decent Latin and decent French on the one hand, or on the other hand offering extra sections of French, I think having Latin was the right choice. Latin was way better for me than French would have been, so I'm glad it was an option. Latin really does help with learning other languages, too, even languages that you probably would not find in many high schools. This is a big point in its favor: you can't offer every difficult and useful language in every high school, e.g. all the different varieties of spoken Arabic, but if a student wants to learn one of those in advanced, university coursework, Latin will give them a nice boost. For my work, I've had to learn a language outside of the Indo-European family, and Latin has been a huge help. With my Latin background, I am much more familiar with the different ways for words to take on meaning -- and specifically, very comfortable with semantic principles besides pure word order -- so, at least so far, Latin has helped me find this other language more intuitive than most of my classmates do. That said, the fact that Latin isn't (and probably shouldn't be) taught as a spoken language in high school is a huge disadvantage. For my work, I have, in fact, ended up having to know French. I don't have to know Latin. My French is now okay, and I can read Spanish and Italian, too. But I pretty much can't speak any languages besides English. If I had started out taking high school French, I wouldn't have chosen this career that requires it. But I do wonder if not starting to learn a new spoken language until I was in my twenties permanently crippled my ability to master the ability to speak foreign languages. I've only been taking and practicing French for three years now (and a bit on and off), so I hope this worry will end up being moot. That said, reading and writing come much more naturally to me than speaking does, and I have to put at least part of that on Latin.
  20. Did posts #12 and #14 not answer that question? I don't understand what other information you're looking for.
  21. I use Zotero, although it does not let you annotate PDFs, if that is important to you. It lets you organize things into lots of subfolders in a way I find generally sensible and intuitive, and a decent tagging system. It doesn't have a starring system, but I use a "favorites" tag as a solid workaround. It's free and open-source, so occasionally it's a little more glitchy than I think paid corporate projects tend to be (I use a lot of foreign-language works, and have issues with capitalization about 1/3 of the time, which has been my biggest problem). Its equivalent "Cite While You Write" feature is really good, though. It has a Word plugin—I don't know if or how well it works with other text editors—that lets you move things around amazingly. I always use footnotes or endnotes, rather than in-text citations, and the Zotero links all talk to each other and update according to what the other ones do. So, for instance, if I am citing Book Longtitle: The Practice of Academic Titles Always Having Colons in Them twice in a row, it'll make the second note an "ibid." for me automatically. If I decide to change the order, the notes will flip, too, so that the second note is always an "ibid.", and I don't have to spend a lot of time doing that. Its primary notetaking feature is "notes", which are simple text boxes that attach to a bibliographic record. They're basic, but pretty effective. The search feature is solid, except that it won't show you where in a note your search term shows up, just which note it attaches to. My one concern is I don't know how often/whether it backs up: I have pretty much uploaded my entire brain into this program through various notes on things I've read, so I need to figure this out myself. Like many of these things, it has a bit of a learning curve, but I personally figured it out in about two days and have never looked back.
  22. When responding to the GRE issue prompt, you need to state an argument. Based on this prompt, there are two umbrella categories into which every response will fall. 1) "To understand a society, you need to study its cities." 2) "To understand a society, you do not need to study its cities." Right now, your essay is in camp 1. Neither of those is a sufficient thesis, however: you can't just restate the prompt, or restate the opposite of the prompt. You need to have a because. "To understand a society, you need to study its cities because [reason or reasons]." "To understand a society, you do not need to study its cities because [reason or reasons]." For instance, to fill in the reasons, you might say ""To understand a society, you need to study its cities because they are hubs for finance and technology, and both of those things affect a whole society." Right now, your introduction just has "To understand a society, you need to study its cities." I think your essay will improve when you think of one or two reasons for your thesis, and then make sure the essay focuses on them, from the introduction through to the conclusion. A way to check how each paragraph relates to your argument is to take the first sentence of each paragraph and use that just as an outline. In most essays with clear structures, this will create a coherent outline of your argument; if you do this and you don't get a good outline, that helps you figure out what to fix. The GRE favors essays with clear structures (sometimes overclear) so this should help. For example: So, 4 is a good example of how the first sentence tells you what your paragraph is going to be about: here is a counterargument one could make (which you are going to then counter). 3, on the other hand, leaves a reader less clear how this relates to what cities tell us about a society. Hope that helps!
  23. Here's a few more questions to think about: do you want to get a history PhD in order to become a professor of history? If so, have you investigated how hard it is to get a tenure-track job, and how that gets exponentially more difficult the further down the rankings your graduate school is? For example, I looked up the University of Miami, which is ranked #80 on the USNWR history rankings. Miami history graduated 5 PhDs in 2012; of those, the department website lists the placement for three. One became a visiting assistant professor at the University of South Florida for one year, but now seems to have left academia; the other two joined private high schools' history departments. Most of the schools you listed as possibilities are ranked better than that, but be warned, wherever you go, it's dire out there. (I believe one's forum privileges are revoked if one does not make a doom-and-gloom "BUT: JOB MARKET" post once every other month or so.) A question I've been pondering, but I think would also be helpful for the OP: what do more experienced posters think is the ideal level of specificity for a SOP? Without having gone through an admissions cycle, I don't want to pontificate.
  24. We all go through this life one moment at a time; that's one reason we procrastinate, because Future You can take care of it, while Present You slacks off. Right now, you need to trust Past You. You did your research then, and made the decision that was best for you. You are capable of making good decisions for your life, right? You're an adult, you haven't gotten this far without some ability to make choices for yourself. Past You weighed all the options and made an informed, responsible choice. Other people's opinions: whatever. Trust Past You's decision.
  25. 15! That's so many. Man, this process is going to be expensive.
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