Between Fields

You might consider a Small Group Instructional Diagnosis (sometimes called a Midterm Chat). Here's an example of a format from my institution: http://ctlt.illinoisstate.edu/consultation/midterm.shtml You can do this without a dedicated SOTL center, if you can get colleagues to help you. The difference between this an evaluation is that the facilitator helps students get to consensus on what they need from you to do better and what they themselves can do to improve their performance.

From what I've seen, Digital Humanities and Film Studies are often only tangentially related--leading digital humanists actually tend to specialize in the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries or earlier, as that's the material that's currently in vogue to make available online. Largely, digital humanists are self-taught, in terms of coding and digitization techniques, because there aren't agreed-upon best practices in the field (which is a catch-22 because many of them are self-taught). They're content area experts who have learned DH to take that content to a wider audience. I had one class in digitization of archival materials in my English PhD coursework, and it was a lot of fun. Think about it in terms of what you'll want to teach after your PhD and what department you'd see yourself in. With the English PhD you're getting a lot of experience in composition and have generalist English positions available to you. With a Film Studies PhD, you're limiting the number of positions you could reasonably apply for.

I just got back from presenting at Lavender Languages & Linguistics in DC. It was a lot of fun, even given the record coldness of the city itself and spending 6 hours waiting in ORD. I'm also going to present at CCCC in Houston, which should hopefully be a little warmer.

I think your best bet would to check the minimum scores required at each of the institutions you're looking at (not the department). If you have to, ask the graduate school. A bad GRE score could keep you out of the university on a technicality, when the department might not really care. Even if they like you, someone would have to stick their neck out for you to override the university's minimum requirement, and in some cases that's not even possible. From a department-specific standpoint, though, it doesn't really matter if your other qualifications are good.

I had a funded MA at an either unranked or low enough that it didn't matter (at least for graduate school) university, and got into a funded PhD program. There's hope.

I mentioned two professor's names in my SOP. I'm in the middle of my second year and haven't ever worked with either of them. I'm friendly with one for department governance stuff. I haven't met the other one, because she has been on a leave of absence for family reasons since before I even applied. With that being said, I still have a great research fit with the department and am getting to do exactly what I said I wanted to do.

We're doing phenomenology (sigh) in my literature seminar right now. She's having us read Martin Heidegger, Jean-Uale Sartre, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel levinas, Julia Kristeva, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Wilhelm Dilthey and Paul Recoeur, though those last two are interested more in hermeneutics.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but perhaps your ignorance of the landscape of academia is what led you to pursue a half-funded PhD in the first place. No one should pay out of pocket for a PhD in any subject.

I have a basic signature for most replies and a more elaborate signature for specific audiences, or when I'm talking more as my administrative role or my student government role. I also use the larger signature with students to cut the "Where is your office?" email out of the chain. I do include my email address because some of the ways that my emails get to students use a no reply email address. I also do a fair bit of emailing to people outside the university, and I think the more formal signature is expected more in the business world. I definitely agree that your student role should be emphasized, as it's the most important. I have seen many, many graduate students (mostly master's students, doctoral students seem to get it better) put the degree they're going for after their name. It irks me. I've also seen graduate students being creative with their titles "Graduate Instructor" instead of "Graduate Assistant," which also irks me. Internal: Name Doctoral Student & Graduate Assistant Department of X External: Name Doctoral Student & Graduate Assistant Coordinator Title Here Graduate Student Government Title Here Department of X | University of X email@email.edu | Office: Office Number | Phone: (XXX) XXX-XXXX Pithy, Inspirational Latin Phrase

That's not totally true--I'm going to a family wedding in September and have to pay for my room a week out, but, yes, most online booking services only require a partial deposit or no cash up front.

So, there is a graduate student conference in my field, in my sub-area at a university and department that I was admitted to and didn't attend. Would it be awkward to submit a paper? Has anyone ever had the experience of being on a campus you declined, in the context of presenting? I'm pretty confident I could write a passable abstract, but is the vita line worth possible side eye?

It's worth considering, though, that in this case "standard" doesn't mean that "A" is the minimum grade assigned for graduate courses, it means that work less than "A" quality just isn't acceptable at the graduate level. By not meeting the standard, you're sending a red flag to whomever's looking at your transcript. A "B" definitely signals extreme displeasure with a graduate student's work. Perhaps it's slightly different when schools have the A- and B+ available to them--my university uses straight grades.

I don't think having both an MA and an MAT would look bad (prima facie), but an MAT isn't likely to help you in PhD admissions in English if you're not intending to make Secondary English Education your concentration of study. None of the people in my PhD program in that track have an MAT or MAE; they all have MAs. You did mention that it's an online program, though, and that might raise a flag or two, unless it's from a reputable university. In a lot of ways an MAT, MAE, or MEd is kind of a terminal professional degree for teachers. The preparation you'd be getting in a program like that would not naturally lead to a PhD in English. Having worked with HS English teachers, I can definitely say that it's not the sort of job you can do as a fallback. You have to be really committed to it or it's going to eat you alive, with all of the standardized testing and other administrative hoops that you'll have to tolerate in the public education system. If your goal is to teach college, apply for PhD programs. Like I said, the MAT won't hurt you, but it probably won't help you, especially if it's an online program where you're not really going to be able to cultivate new references. Is your British MA taught or researched?

Programs in WGST/GS/Women's Studies don't do subject-based research, for the most part. The work these departments do is just like in an English department, and most of the faculty will probably be housed in that field. Rhetoric does do more human subject research, but it's rare to do that before the master's level. None of the fields you mentioned do "lab" work. You'll be fine on that end. The evidence of "research" you would present would be conferences you've presented at. Writing papers for courses wouldn't be evidence of independent research, but you could use that in your writing sample.

The NAS is a conservative think tank, so I'd take any article from them with a considerable amount of salt. (There are threads in this very sub-forum that I would take with similar amounts of salt, if you're thinking about rhet/comp.) I don't know of specifically-cognitivist departments, but you're likely to find at least one or two professors in any department offering rhet/comp who might identify that way. Most compositionists study things from several different perspectives. I generally see myself as something between an expressivist and cognitivist and attend Illinois State. I was also pleased with the faculty at Bowling Green State University when I got in there. The U of Arizona and Miami of Ohio programs are also really good.

I've worked in admissions for graduate studies before. As long as you got your degree from a regionally-accredited university (which if SNHU stands for Southern New Hampshire University, it is), you should be OK. Is there anything on the transcript that says the majority of your courses were completed online? I don't think you would have to mention that in a statement of purpose, though if you're in Seattle and went to SNHU they might figure it out. It's the accreditation that matters more than where you were actually sitting, and getting strong references from faculty will be more important for you, I think.

Just know that I had a minor conniption before responding, re: your last paragraph, and will make the following bullet points in a not unfriendly way: Empirical research in any field is necessarily constrained by the rhetorical situation in which it is performed and the ways in which the data are constructed into a narrative (see Bruno Latour). The objective/subjective dichotomy is perpetuated on a truly objective state that does not currently exist in scholarship. The effectiveness of writing is entirely driven by qualitative factors. Research in writing is empirical and qualitiative but that does not mean that it is less valid or legitimate than quantitative data sources. Qualitative data are complex and complicated and messy, but so is quantitative data until it is stripped down to its statistics and presented in a journal. Trying to make rhetoric and composition into science or to make it mathematically-sound is a fool's errand because that sort of data fails to represent adequately the complexity of writing in the way that it is often presented. It leads to single-score, Pearson-branded, ETS-endorsed psychometric hogwash. The majority of scholarship in rhetoric and composition is driven by studies with actual students. Even the most practical, pedagogical papers generally refer to the scholar's own students and their responses to a proposed intervention. It's definitely a data-driven field. Are you interested in cognitive approaches to writing, i.e. psychometrics, or a cognitivist approach, i.e. an examination of writers' processes? Looking at process is pretty standard in the field now. The process vs. product debate is pretty much settled in most corners, anyway.

So are you teaching your students to fish or are you giving them a bucket of fish? I very much doubt that your fellows are trying to get students to walk away from their labs without understanding key concepts in order that they might (purpose) dock them points. Rather, a method that helps students figure out the answers instead of "spoon feeding" them the answers often leads to (natural result) homeworks that aren't perfect. But is that the goal? To get perfect scores on the homework, or to actually learn the material? It sounds like you're teaching to the test, essentially.

Coming from a field that a book a week is kind of slow in in some courses, I firmly advocate in a triaged approach to graduate readings. There is no way that you can read every word on every page every week. Scholarly books aren't really meant to be read in the same way that novels are--read the introduction and the conclusion in full and the introduction and conclusion of each chapter, then focus on reading one chapter in depth (or two if it's a longer book) that relate to your actual interests. Once you've done that, summarize what you've read in one single-spaced page. Spend 3/4 of it on the book as a whole and the last fourth on that specific chapter you read and don't let yourself write more than that one page. Focus on summarizing the author's project. It should be more than enough for a discussion. In general, though, this imposter syndrome thing is totally to be expected for someone new to graduate school. It's just a matter of finding the tricks that work for you.

Hi, Klonoa! Welcome to BloNo! There are two complexes for graduate students--one is newly acquired (not new construction, but the university just bought it) and the other is a little further from campus. I haven't really heard much about them, other than that they're OK. Not great, but not terrible. ISU isn't like a lot of other big universities in that there's not much in the way of on-campus housing. Most students live in private dorms or regular apartments. It's likely that you can find something cheaper and better off campus next year. You'll have more of a social life than you imagine. Master's students go out pretty frequently, but less than undergrads and more than PhD students. Uptown Normal has several good bars and they're pretty busy on Wednesday (lol... undergrads...) and Thursdays, but things shift to Downtown Bloomington for the weekends, which also has several good bars. I like going to Uptown for lunch because it's basically an extension of the ISU campus, and it's pretty convenient to grab drinks there after a seminar. I did my MA and undergrad in a small town, so it seems pretty good, but YMMV if you're from a large city. The gay bar downtown, The Bistro, is fun. The town itself is nice. It really feels like a college town and the town supports the university pretty well. Things are safe and there are several historic areas that are fun to walk through. The Constitution Trail is one of the area's best assets, which makes it really easy to bike or walk without fear of getting run over. There's not a lot in terms of attractions around here, but being so close to Chicago kind of makes that moot. The Amtrak station is in the same building as city hall and the bus depot, right in the center of Uptown. The train ride to Chicago isn't bad at all and drops you right in the Loop at Union Station. I haven't gone south to Springfield or St. Louis but I know a number of grad students who live in Springfield and Lincoln who take the train up for classes and haven't had problems. Not having a car isn't a huge deal in this city as your Redbird card gets you free rides on the bus and it goes to all of the major big box stores out on Veteran's Parkway.

I know several people who came back to grad school after that long. There's definitely hope for getting in touch with old professors. Without that, yes, it's probably a good idea to take courses as a grad student at large or to take a few undergraduate courses to build up some relationships. I would wager that for a successful MA admissions season, you'd need at least one academic willing to write for you. Professional references aren't bad, but the committee will be interested in your scholarship and interests. I assume references would work the same way as in a business setting; they're people the university could contact if they're thinking about admitting you. I'd still say you'd want at least one academic for that job.

That's probably true, yes. It looks like the same advice has been given to the same poster before, though.

I don't feel like this is actually radically different in English--sure, thinking about grammar is low on the list of priorities during the composition process, but if the piece of writing you hand it at the end of a seminar isn't polished and lucid (which means that it's spelled correctly and uses at least some version of standard academic grammar), you're not going to be happy with your grade. While rhet/comp scholarship doesn't advocate a lot of pedagogical effort being spent on grammar, the graduate-level version of English retains a strong bias towards finished pieces of writing. In a 20+ page paper, I might have a few homonym mistakes or something on that order because of the speed at which it was likely written, but I can't fathom turning in something that would have a significant grammatical or spelling issue. The difference is that a professor is likely to be annoyed by these errors, but they're not going to result in that letter grade change in most cases, at least not in the 40 hours of graduate-level English I've been in. If the argument is superficial or (ahem) stupid, that's what's going to get you into grade trouble. So, it's less clear-cut in terms of grade penalty, but the stigma is still there. (It does get a little more complicated in some cases, because certain English professors encourage linguistic diversity, so allowing students to write in something that isn't Standard Academic English, but in the language that they actually speak (AAVE, Spanglish, etc.), on some occasions, but even that is countered by the argument that the language should be tailored to the journal you're submitting to, and there aren't many that go for that.) EDIT: Re, my other posts: I was operating under the assumption that OP is in English or Rhet/Comp, and my advice was given in that vein, because that's where this topic is located, but I see now that she might actually be in some other, related discipline dealing with being a francophile. Mea culpa.

I'd definitely recommend the Lunsford and Lunsford CCC article "Mistakes are a Fact of Life." It's more about your second point--to spoil their conclusion, student writing has been getting longer and more complex since the beginning of the 20th century, rather than shorter and more error-filled. The sorts of errors are just changing. Due to my need not to make claims without backing them up, I also found an MS thesis that has a pretty solid literature review on the review on the issue of grammar instruction, on ERIC here: "The Effectiveness of Teaching Traditional Grammar on Writing Composition at the High School Level" by Gina Jaeger. But enough thread hijacking with scholarly who-ha.

Sorry to double-post, but this came through after I was done with my other post. There's a lot here, but I'll try to talk about a few things that I thought was important (and take your comment in good faith...). What bhr is mentioning is a long-standing conversation in rhet/comp wherein scholars attempt to find the efficacy of direct grammar instruction. Essentially, 100 years of research has shown that spending time with students and beating grammar into them does not actually produce better writing in the long-term. There are other, better ways of spending class time that make transfer easier and have real impacts on students. The reason that rhetoric and composition doesn't make inroads into the Ivy League is because those schools are generally still heavily-dominated (in their English departments) by literature scholars who don't see the value in this approach, and many other approaches that rhet/comp thinks are valuable.