TheWiggins

Thanks for going out of your way to tear down someone else’s work for the sake of tearing it down. I appreciate it. I sure feel sorry for anyone who has to work with someone who is so acidic. It’s a good thing my career won’t be defined by a random person on the internet who is judging a paragraph as if it were a whole statement. Bye!

Hi - thanks for the message. As I’ve mentioned to a few others, I purely posted a paragraph so others could see what the beginning of my statement looked like. It belonged to a thread where someone asked what goes in a statement. I just wanted to show what I did. Thanks for being the third person to say that I have been overly offensive. That is your prerogative. I did not ask for help on that paragraph, thanks.

Hi - thanks for commenting, I appreciate your time. So, there’s a few responses to your comment that I would like to make below: I am not telling anyone that my approach is the right approach (if that is how it game across, then I didn’t communicate myself clearly). I was trying to say that it is important that you locate people to work with who have a similar approach and vision to how one envisions their project. I happen to believe that the people I applied to work with have a similar approach, and this why I think my opening statement is going to be receptive to those particular people who read it and those particular departments. Second, you mentioned that my comment about networking was classist. If that was, then I was in the wrong, however it is naive to think that someone who is either admitted to a program or is trying to be admitted can change the culture of the Academy. Networking matters and in some cases does make or break someone’s application. For example, the University of Chicago’s PhD program matriculates a very small number of applicants (no shock). Now, one criteria that a school like UChicago uses, which by the way is a school that has an admission committee which is slightly different than say a UC where the agreement of a professor to work with you by in large can seal the deal. Not fully, but just about. Anyway, at Chicago the excitement of a potential advisor might have about working with you is important and can help. One think admissions committees at a place like UChicago think about is the actual chance of a student coming if we extend an offer letter. Because Chicago sends someone a letter and they end up declining and going somewhere else, that letter doesn’t get recycled to someone else - that spot is dead. A big tool that advisors and committees use is they try and make an assessment on the applicant’s likelihood of coming. Yes, it is classist however it is Academia - networking matters and in admission plays a crucial role. If you don’t network - bummer that is just a disadvantage that is emblematic of academia - a place that is often exclusionary. As to my paragraph - that is okay if you share a different opinion than me on it. I was not openly asking for critique. I sent it out so others could see what an example is. If they like it - sweet, if not- that’s okay. They are free to make their appraisal and do what they want with it. Also, becuase we are in a forum of good will, I don’t appreciate the micro-aggression which subtly compares my writing to a high school student beginning to write an undergraduate essay. I don’t think that is what this forum is for and I don’t think that has any place here. I think you can comment without being mean.

Thanks for this comment. So a few things I just want to mention. First, I appreciate your best wishes and your time commenting. I think as most prospective doctoral students should, I reached out to at least several faculty members in the department and have had extensive conversations with them, so they are aware of the fields I want to dip my project in and why. This was established before the SOP was written. Second, again because you could not see the whole statement, the very first sentence of the next paragraph states what those sub-fields are and immediately dives into the project and what it is really about. It was designed so that the last sentence mentions that the project is wide reaching, and then the next paragraph talks about how and why. So, I respectfully don't agree with the appraisal that unless you mention sub-fields off the bat in the very first paragraph, the statement goes into the "no" pile. If this was the case, I would have never have gotten my Master's and many others would not have gotten their PhD's. Second, that's okay if we judge writings differently, but I don't think the tone tells anyone what to do. It is a part of what I see my project being and again, the project would not have been green lighted in interviews before the actual writing of the SOP if faculty members were not receptive to the philosophy of how I saw my project. Also, if an academic department does not have the same approach to history that you do, in the sense that they don't share the same approach of how historical scholarship should be approached, chances are that is not the department for you. No matter what you study (but, especially in the humanities), if a department does not value your academic philosophy and faculty members do not think along the same issues that you do in similar ways, those are not the right people to be working with.

Replying to TsarandProphet Hi - I am not surprised that the metaphor does not make full sense as you are only able to see the opening paragraph to a statement of purpose. Now, the heartbeat metaphor is intended as an impactful hook to quickly get the eyes of admission officers in graduate application review committees. As far as what the specifics of historical sub-fields, actors, or lived experiences - well again, that would make sense if you could read the entire thing. The metaphor comes from a literary giant Raymond Carver - this idea of looking into the past to listen for the heartbeats is a philosophical overture about how I think historical scholarship should and ought to be conducted. This project that begins with this paragraph ultimately discusses maritime experiences of early modern books and readers - it is about creating a interdisciplinary project that explores the fields of ocean history, history of the book, intellectual history, and transnational history. Again, you would have no idea about this because only the intro is there. The metaphor is there to provide grounding - basically, to look for the "heartbeats" of historical actors is the basis for conceiving of doctoral project that is truly interdisciplinary - I believe the last sentence mentions this rather clearly. I believe that in a statement of purpose for a doctoral program, you want to distinguish yourself from other applicants. Diving into your research is very abrupt and fatigues the eye - if you can start with hook that frames the discussion carried out in the SOP, but also differentiate yourself as a budging scholar with an academic vision, then you are doing the right thing in my opinion. Of course during the progression of your program, naturally, your project and focus will shift, however, I think it is important to be able to express in your SOP that you have an idea and philosophical background on where you want to root your project. Then again, not everyone likes one's writing as is the normality of academic exchange.

For the question of how to write an impactful statement of purpose - here is my attempt.

There are a lot of interesting things others have written on here. I just finished my MA in medieval studies at UC Irvine and am waiting out my 2021 PhD apps (UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, and UChicago - Brown and Columbia didn’t take anyone but otherwise would have applied there - ). I am waiting out the time as a 7th grade history teacher! A strange time to be 24, but hopefully I can get back in school soon. Waiting sucks, but waiting to start something you’ve wanted since you were in high-school is hard.