RSMALLS

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Full disclosure, one has only been accepted and the acceptance notification did not come until after a few of the apps were due. The other was heavy on secondary sources but light on primary sources. What I sent was a chapter of my thesis. At the time, I felt it was stronger, but realized after the fact that it was not as strong as I would have liked it.

Perhaps some of you guys are in a similar boat, so this question may have some currency outside of myself. I am currently an M.A. student applying to Ph.D. programs in U.S. history. I did not get the quality of help on my writing sample from my advisors that I was hoping for. I was also very negligent. In short, there are a number of typos in the sample, and it is not as strong as it should be. I do, however, have two peer-reviewed publications under my belt. One in an online database for scholarly "encyclopedic" essays of 25-30 pages. The other being in a scholarly state historical journal of some repute. I also have a verbal GRE of 167 and a writing of 5.5. The question is: how valuable are my publications in terms of demonstrating my writing ability? Will they, in anyway, outweigh a poor writing sample?