fuzzylogician

Listen, the language you use is exceptionally flowery. Even if you talk like that in your daily life (which I doubt), I would highly recommend toning it down here. This is supposed to read like a professional document that talks about your research plans and career goals, it's not a romance novel. For what it's worth, this reads to me like you're insecure about your formal training and you're trying to cover that up with language that you think makes you sound more sophisticated, but it's not working. I'd say you are indeed distracting your reader, but not in a good way. It's hard to follow your ideas and understand what actually matters out of all those many many details. Instead, you want to be clear and concise. Only spend time on the parts that really matter. Second, as TakeruK remarks, there is too much past and not enough future here. I feel like you're giving me too much information and at the same time not enough. You name drop a lot, you mention particular lectures by title and you cite some works that aren't clearly important enough to take up all this space. It's unnecessary and it's distracting. I counted 12 paragraphs of past/background info. You need to have no more than 3. Get it down to 300-400 words, so that you have another half of the essay to devote to your future goals. Not every course you've ever taken deserves a paragraph. Devote one paragraph to self-training, books, lectures, whatnot, and choose wisely -- do not cram everything into there. The goal is just to get the point across that you're driven and find ways to get the training you need in lots of different places. Other things can go in your CV and I'm sure they will be in your letters. The last four paragraphs are basically without helpful content, and so is the first paragraph. Condense and/or cut those. Whole paragraphs that discuss studying one particular topic/course you've studied must go. Devote one or maybe two paragraphs to internships and research you have done, so maybe one paragraph for your thesis, and one for one other experience of your choice. Spend less time telling us the names of the people you work with and citing the work you read, and more time telling us what you did, what you learned from it, and how it connects to your current research interests and why you want to go to grad school. That is it, stop there. Otherwise it's too much information. Now, once you have that, spend some time talking about why specifically you want to go to grad school. If you're going into physics, I assume you're applying for a PhD. What specifically interests you, and excites you enough that you want to study it for 5 years? Why does it matter? What kinds of questions do you want to study? These questions should naturally evolve from your past experience. You should be able to tie what you've done to what you hope to do. This should be at least one paragraph, maybe two. Be detailed and specific. This is one place to be very professional and not flowery. Finally, you need to explain why you chose school X. Who do you want to work with? What other features attract you to that school? Also, what are your longer term career goals? Give us at least a glimpse. Aim for less than two pages of written text overall, or around 750 words give or take. So, this second part of the essay should be about the same length as your now-condensed background part. Make sure you have a good balance.

I don't know any way around that. The emails always come from the system itself and go directly to the recommender, you don't act as a go-between once you've supplied the email address. The best you can do is provide them with a list ahead of time, send the emails in close proximity to one another, and send another email once you're done to let them know what emails they should be expecting, in case anything goes missing.

Listen, you're an adult. You made a choice to study a certain field for your BA. Maybe you were pressured into it, but you are an adult and you made a choice, and you have to live with the consequences. I am not American and didn't do my BA in the US. My degree also allowed for no classes outside the department, so I understand; the situation you are describing is not nearly as unusual as you seem to think it is. So I really wish you would stop blaming outside circumstances for your choices, because it's just not helping. You are at a certain place in life as a result of a set of circumstances, some of which you had a choice over (which degree to study) and some of which you might not have (the structure of the degree at your university). So is everyone else out there. Now what are you going to do about it? Stop complaining, and start doing something. You want to make a different choice than you made before -- great! But you also have to be smart about it. I think this conversation is now reaching the end of where it's going to be productive. I have said twice already that in my opinion you are not ready for graduate school, you are unlikely to get in, and if you do get in, I think it's unlikely that it'll make you happy. You can't choose a future life based on a vague "I was probably more interested in Archaeo like dinosaurs or paleozoology," you have to do the legwork to know at the very least what field you want to be in, and probably also more than that (subfield, particular specialization, future career plans), and you have to convince a serious grad school that can prep you for that career that you can actually do it. So I think you need to first do the legwork, and only then figure out how to pursue whatever you converge on. I think that otherwise you will be wasting your time and your money. But if you are set on applying, then good luck to you. I hope you are lucky enough to stumble into something you will love, because I don't think you are able to make an informed decision about it at the moment. But I still wish you all the best.

You are having so many negative thoughts, you are pushing yourself into a downward spiral. I absolutely hope you are seeking help from mental health services at your university to deal with it. You can have severe anxiety and be successful, and you can have serious doubts about your abilities and be successful. I repeat, you can be successful. But you have to fight and you have to want to work on yourself and get past this. And you need help to do it. I hope you are getting it.

Why read anything into it? The professor is being supportive, and that's a good thing. If it were me, I would bring up my idea and ask what she thought about it, then choose the one that I think would make for a better topic and paper. Having a paper that's a lot more work but is outside your area of expertise isn't necessarily the best choice. If it's so much outside your field that people won't be able to evaluate the paper and the prestige of the journal it's in, there is something to be said for getting the fastest and easiest publication. But if she's giving you a topic that could be a well-regarded publication in a respected journal in your field, why not run with it? She may be helping you with the topic, but you'd be doing the work.

Well, what do people normally do in your department? What does your advisor recommend? If you fail, can you take it again? Is there any reason to rush now as opposed to take your time and prep more later? Or does your advisor think you're basically ready now?

I was curious, since I know people who teach in Singapore things other than how to be a doctor or lawyer, so I searched a bit. Found this: http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/sea/research/archaeologyLab.html http://www.physics.nus.edu.sg/research/res_areas.html http://www.spms.ntu.edu.sg/pap/ So NUS has at least some archeology. It's not clear to me that you can do a full degree, but you could gain some exposure. Similarly with astronomy, NUS and nanyang have physics but maybe not a whole degree in exactly what you want, the relevant background and intro courses probably exist. So I'd be careful when you say that there is nothing relevant in Singapore. The fact that you didn't have exposure didn't mean you couldn't have. Also: https://www.coursera.org/courses/?query=archaeology&languages=en# https://www.coursera.org/courses/?query=astronomy&languages=en https://www.edx.org/course?search_query=archaeology https://www.edx.org/course?search_query=astronomy If you are serious about doing an advanced degree in a certain field, a good start is to get some relevant background. US grad schools will understand that you may not have had access to a full degree, but it looks very different if you say "I think I like X," and "I want to study X. My university didn't have a degree in X, but I took the relevant intro courses through department Y and studied further on my own through book Z/online course W/an independent study with V." One demonstrates actual steps toward preparing yourself to study X and could convince an adcom that you have at least some idea of what one actually studies in X, the other doesn't. I think at the moment you need to stop thinking about applying to grad school to start next year (you're probably already late even if you knew exactly what you wanted to do), and instead think about getting a job, learning to live as an adult and growing up a bit, and exploring more seriously options for what you might want to study next. Free online courses might be a very good way to do that while having a job.

Generally speaking, repetition isn't bad. If you have three LORs saying "he is a stellar student, the best I have seen in my 30 years in the department," that is not going to hurt you. More generally, though, you want your LORs to cover different aspects of your personality and scholarship. So for every major accomplishment you've had in school, it'd be good to have someone talk about it. If you have LORs from professors who've only known you one semester, the letter might be good but it won't be stellar. The letter you describe in your post is okay, but it certainly isn't glowing. So, do you need it? I would use the following rule of thumb: assume that there might be someone on an adcom who looks at your file with four letters, and decides to read just three, because that is what they asked for. They choose those three at random. If they choose your extra one at the expense of one of your "official" three, will that be just as good, or could that cause harm? If it would cause harm, don't submit the extra letter -- it's not helping.

Having several relevant POIs is important in every field. Whether it's important to reach out to them before applying varies by field, so you'd need to ask about what's done in yours. It's generally less important in fields where you're admitted to the department as a whole, as opposed to directly into someone's lab where you're paid out of their grant. But I'm sure there are also Humanities/Social Science programs where you need to have faculty's support before applying, or at least where it would be much harder to get into the program without it. So, short answer is, it depends.

I'm sorry, but it still sounds like you don't know what you want to study. Astronomy and Archeology are two very different fields, and it sounds like you have no experience in either one. You don't say if you are looking for a Masters or a PhD, but it seems very clear to me that you should not start a PhD. As far as MAs go, finding a funded program for someone with no experience or idea of what they want to do is not going to be easy. If you just want to study something fun, why not do a BA in something of your choosing, or take some enrichment courses at your local university? If and when you identify a career you want to pursue and there is an advanced degree that can get you there, then you can research what is needed to study it. That could involve anything from straight up applying now to taking a few extra courses or getting some research experience to doing a BA in the subject. No one here can tell you what course of study you should choose. We probably won't be able to tell you what particular schools to apply to even if we knew what field you are in, because that depends on your research interests (PhD) or career goals (MA), and what you wrote is too all over the place for a serious answer. Identifying your long-term goals and the course of action that will take you there is a long process, and one that you have to go through yourself to know that you're making the right decision. You can't out-source it to random strangers on the internet. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but you say you don't want to waste money, and based on what you've written so far I'd say that any application would be just that, until you actually figure out what you want to do with your life.

In that case it's not all that clear to me what the difference is between #1 and #2 for you. Of course you need to talk about your motivation, past research, and professional experience. That would happen under any structure of the essay. It's a relevant "theme," if you will. What I mean by theme-based is that you discuss what particular interests you have, your background in them, and why they are important, in some order that makes sense internal to the essay -- for example, from big question to small, or from theoretical to practical, or whatever it is. That could be in a different order than the one in which you discovered these interests or had your prior research experience, which is what I understand to be your "life story." That's all. The content shouldn't change either way.

I vote for 2. I don't need to hear your life story, I want to know why you want to study X at university Y. Tell me that.

I think you should choose the stronger letter. It sounds like in this case, it would be the letter from the affiliated assistant professor. I understand the importance of having a LOR from people who do philosophy, but if this person does research and has expertise within your area of specialization, then I think it's fair to say she has expertise in philosophy, don't you? Affiliations can be tricky things, especially in smaller departments or schools. What matters is not so much the official affiliation but rather what the letter can say about your potential to succeed as a graduate student in philosophy in general, and in your area of interest in particular. Sounds like the assistant professor has all the necessary background to have an informed opinion. Re: sending more letters than asked for, as long as they don't explicitly say not to go over what's allowed, and the application system actually allows it (some don't), I personally think it's fine to submit an extra LOR. However, only do it if submitting it will make your application stronger than it would be without the letter. There is no point in having the adcom read extra material that doesn't help your case.

It sounds like you're asking us what field to apply to. If you don't know that, we can't help you. You should only apply to grad school if you need to in order to pursue a career that requires this training. What are your career goals and what do you want to study in grad school? You need to at least have a field and sub-field in mind, and some idea of the kinds of questions you'd like to ask. You'd also need to demonstrate that you have the necessary background to study these questions (so, relevant past research experience, classes, etc.). Based just on the information you provide, it doesn't sound like you should be applying to grad school this year at all.

Yes.

Whenever I write a grant proposal, I do my best to cite and describe my relevant previous work. It makes for a better case that I can actually carry out the new research that I am proposing. What you are proposing makes no sense for a SOP or for a research proposal.

When applying for jobs, some application systems let you know how many pages your LORs are (though you don't see them, of course). Mine -- from 5 different faculty -- were all at least 2 pages, and most were 3. I have no idea how this translates to PhD applications and I'd never seen any of my letters, but I imagine there is some correlation, so letters might not be 3 pages because there isn't as much to write, but they are probably at least in the 1.5-2 page range.

Alright, I think we have had enough here. If you have issues with the moderating team, this is not the way to handle them. Attacking other posters is unacceptable. You have made your point in this thread and further discussion is not going to add anything new, so I am locking this thread. Notice that if we wanted to silence you, we would not lock the thread, but delete it. Discussion is welcome, but that is not what is happening here.

That's too bad about the professor. It's fine not to have the letter co-signed by the prof. You're getting a detailed letter from someone who knows you well, and that is a strong letter. If the prof had co-signed, it might have been given somewhat more weight, assuming that the prof is well-known and experienced and the postdoc isn't. That said, we can't quantify how much it would have helped, and again, the letter you'll have sounds like a good one. It doesn't look bad just because it's only from the postdoc.

Did prof #2 say 'no' because he doesn't know you well enough? If so, maybe there is a way to have him co-sign the letter with the postdoc, to make the situation better. Either way, I agree with what TakeruK said above: only include additional materials if they strengthen your application.

Professors can choose which materials to teach (so e.g., not every "Introduction to Linguistics" is the same), and that's entirely within their rights. You're doing a lot of analysis in your "contrastive linguistics/analysis" class, which sounds like it would within the bounds of the course, so I would not advise you to complain to anyone that you're not being taught what you should (or rather, what you want). If you have to take the class, you have to take it. You don't always get to choose to only take what you want or what you think is useful. Given all this, the best thing you can do is look for another way to learn the material you want to learn. Maybe next semester there will be a different instructor who will teach different materials, or there will be another course that covers what you want to learn. Or maybe there is a course outside your department that teaches some of the relevant skills. Or, if there are no courses, maybe you have to pick up a book and teach yourself. Look into doing that as part of an independent study with whoever the relevant professor is. In most programs I know, a student who takes initiative and tries to pick up a relevant skill isn't turned away. You just need to realize that as a graduate student you have to sometimes take the initiative; sometimes you have to teach yourself, sometimes you have to find your own resources.

That's funny, you responded to one line and ignored the entire two paragraphs that follow it.

So someone else did provide evidence? This has been said before so I'm not sure if you're really hearing what we're saying, but we are not talking here about copying words from another paper, we are talking about copying ideas. You can't use a detection software on that. It's not always possible to provide direct evidence that someone intentionally took someone's idea without giving them credit--that would require showing that they knew of the idea ahead of time but chose not to cite it, and usually your professor won't have that kind of knowledge. What is possible to show is that there is a similar enough (or identical) idea out there in the literature that you used in your paper, but you didn't cite the appropriate source. Despite your protests, I still believe that's what's going on here. I see no other reason why multiple professors would say that your are plagiarizing. If there is another reason, or some misunderstanding, you need to explain it. If you insist on not telling us what field you're in and what your professors actually said in the meetings with you, and instead that you did nothing wrong and everyone is out to get you, I think at this point there isn't much more that we can do to help you. Apparently you are right and everyone else is wrong, and therefore it would appear that you don't need any more advice.

You're still not giving us enough information, but my guess based on this is exactly as it was in my first reply: your paper contains some ideas that have been proposed in the previous literature that you failed to cite. Now there are two options: (1) you were unaware of this previous work and came up with the idea yourself. (2) you read the previous work but didn't cite it appropriately. Your professor seems to suspect something along the lines of (2), or perhaps a version of what GeoDUDE suggests -- that you should have known about this paper and cited it, and failing to do so means you didn't do a good lit review, which led to (unintended) plagiarism. Whatever happened, you do need to cite previous work, there is no doubt about that. If you came up with the ideas independently of this earlier work, then hopefully you can demonstrate that that is the case. At the very least, you could talk about the process of coming up with the idea. You're not fully in the clear, but as long as this is not a regular occurrence, you want to convey the message that you were just sloppy, but you are not a cheater. The fact that it hasn't been implemented(?) before (I'm not sure what you mean by "conducted") is a bit beside the point, if the problem is that the idea you're building on isn't cited correctly. Again, some guesswork here, because we don't have all the relevant information.

It doesn't matter that you applied before. I think it's unlikely that anyone will even remember your application, and I've never heard of an automatic rejection because the applicant applied in a previous year. If you're applying year after year without much change to the application, you might not get much attention, but since your application will be substantially different, I don't think there is any reasons for concern here.