runonsentence

I can say with about 99% confidence that free feedback—especially from those IN academia like professors or fellow students—would be more helpful. And also, did I mention, free? I paid my friends in beer. I think it was money much better spent.

But this logic doesn't hold: why apply to any school if one wouldn't want to accept an offer, even if it was extended? That's, at best, a wasted application fee.

I had no idea what I wanted to research when I started my master's. I had gotten as far as, "I think I want to focus on Romantic poetry," and I was vaguely thinking I wanted to connect literature to music, but nothing more specific than that. In fact, I ended up switching subfields entirely (to rhet comp). Anyway, my point is that the master's degree is the perfect time to find narrower interests and explore options—I wouldn't worry about specifics going in. If a lack of focus makes it hard for you to find classes that interest you, that's one thing, but I think you're going to find that your first year will really change the way you think and help you find a direction.

The admissions process is a crapshoot, and if you hear one piece of advice over and over again on this board, it is that fit is the most important component of your application—and it's true. If you've researched the heck out of Cornell and think it looks like the ideal culture with the ideal research focuses for you, then you may have a shot. There are plenty of stories around here of people with imperfect GPAs, or of people from run-of-the-mill state schools who got into their reach schools. I know it's not the answer you're looking for, but you really won't know unless you try. You should always have at least one or two reach schools in your application pool anyway.

This just came to my attention: http://www.mastersinwritingprograms.com/ This consortium is in the process of assembling a comprehensive index of MA and MS programs associated with rhetoric, composition, writing studies, and technical and professional writing. I'm not sure whether they'll be indexing more than just the names (so they may not list which programs have MA funding and which don't), but it'd be a good place to start nonetheless.

That would actually be really amazing. Intros on the first day could involve name + skill they would bring to the class's fight against a zombie army; this could tie into a lesson that applies theories from your class to the zombie apocalypse. (Again, fun or silly = win, in my book. One of my faculty mentors had a lot of success gearing a writing class [desktop and online publishing] toward creating professional documents for a fictional zombie apocalypse company: http://www.civildefensesolutions.com/)

I've tried and liked all of the following. Some take longer than others, depending on how much time you want to take with your icebreaker. (I like to keep the syllabus-reading to a minimum, since students won't really absorb much of it anyway on the first day.) In general, I've found the greatest success with games that are a little bit silly. If you have a smaller class (25 or less), the Name Game makes introductions a little more interactive and fun(ny?), and as a bonus you'll know everyone's name by the end of the first week. Have the students stand in a circle. Pick a student to go first; you will go last, to be a good sport. The first person just says her name, the second person says the first name plus her own, the third person says the first name and second name plus her own, and so on until you have to say every name in the room. Pair up students into twos. Ask volunteers to list ten most often-used interview questions on the board (e.g., hometown, major). Then tell students they need to interview their partner without using these questions. (I have them come up with ten new questions between them, then interview e/o.) Two truths, one lie. Students introduce themselves and tell us three things about themselves: one is true, and the other two are a lie. (E.g., "I just ran a half-marathon last month, I love chocolate, and I play the violin." The middle one is my lie, the other two are true.) The class guesses which detail is the lie. Give a bit of instruction with this, though ("Remember that this is a classroom and that I'm your teacher, when you're choosing your truths and lies...", or, "Your lies don't have to be outrageous, they can be silly" or something). The first time I tried it, without such prefaces, my students were trying to make the class guess whether or not they were 18-year-old mothers, had gotten out of drug rehab, and had beaten up a teacher before; with instruction, I've had less memorable responses and better success. "Standard" introduction where you go around the room one-by-one and say (1) your name and (2) one interesting detail about yourself.

Glad it helped! And you may be surprised—perhaps your professors remember you better than you think they do.

From the quick description you give, it right now mostly sounds like your orientation has inspired you to pursue these research interests. (Maybe that's not true, perhaps they have a bigger impact on your research, but that's the sense I'm getting so far, something to keep in mind as you think about articulating this.) That, to me, would be more of a judgement call; your best course of action might be to ask someone to read a draft of your SoP and advise you as to how disclosing it comes off to them. That is, ask your reader if it seems like an important detail that builds a picture of you as a candidate, or if it feels like extraneous personal information. (Depending on the statement you write and how you disclose the fact that you identify as LGBTQ, this could go either way.) I do understand the desire to truly represent your identity to someone, and that sexual identity isn't as easily marked by name as, say, gender, ethnicity, or nationality. But my personal opinion is to keep the SoP as much about your scholarly identity as possible. As to what "direct" impact might look like: for example, if you chose to disclose your sexual identity so that you could explain how you incorporate first-hand observations, or how you approach topic Y from a different viewpoint than most others in the field and use it to gravitate towards fringe researchers A, B, and C, that to me would seem highly relevant and a "direct" impact on your research.

The way I see it, you're not so much "trimming down" as recasting your thesis into a new genre. Your purpose and audience are going to change: instead of demonstrating your knowledge and research for a committee, you're making an argument that fits into a larger conversation for the academics reading the journal. What kind of argument feels doable to make and adequately back up? If addressing two of your thesis questions still gives you an overly long lit review that you just can't figure out how to trim down, then maybe address one question. Keep in mind that most journal articles tend to have very brief lit reviews. Choose a journal and, as natsteel suggests, note how articles are generally structured in the journal—you can outline, annotate, reflect, whatever it takes for you to pay attention to how the authors have put their writing together. Tailoring your article to a journal in this way is a must: editors expect you to know your audience, that is know their journal and the kinds of articles they like to publish.

Submit your strongest work.

It shouldn't be an issue, but if you're worried then I agree that you should contact the grad secretary. It's been my experience that they're incredibly helpful and friendly if you give them a polite phone call or email, especially since you'd be doing it before the busy period (near deadline).

I would treat it exactly as you would treat mentioning an ethnic background or nationality. That is, I would suggest you only mention personal information of any kind if you can establish a direct connection to your research, and if you think it's so important that leaving it out wouldn't fully communicate what kind of work you plan to do and what kind of applicant you are.

That makes quite a bit of difference, that you completed an MA in lit. Now it makes more sense to me why you want to ask him. If you think this writer can speak to how you performed as a lit student overall and how he sees you taking your skills to poli sci, then by all means ask him. But do think about how effectively he can write such a letter, if he's primarily familiar with your prose (not your critical thinking, research, etc.). If you have doubts as to how well he can speak to skills you can market as transferrable to Poli Sci, ask the other Poli Sci professor (option 3).

The Wcenter listserv might be a good place to pick up some names—you can either join, or look through the archives: http://writingcenters.org/resources/join-the-wcenter-listserv/

I heartily agree with this, and it's a good articulation of the approach I took in my own SoP as an MA-holding applicant. In the sage words of my DGS: if you already knew exactly what you were going to write your dissertation on, you wouldn't be applying for PhD programs. IMO, your purpose isn't so much to present a specific project you plan to complete, but to identify questions, directions, and interests that will guide your thinking. (For example, in my SoP I talked about how I was interested in continuing to learn about public rhetorics and in applying it to the first-year composition classroom, and mentioned why I thought it would be valuable; I didn't get much more specific.) However, there might be others out there who took approach #1 and found that it worked for them? As to mentioning specific professors: it is definitely a debated practice, and you'll find proponents among grads and faculty alike for both sides. I'm on the side of hesitating to name drop. (This is the advice I received on this count: "Suppose you’ve found faculty you would like to work with: what if they’re not around anymore, or one of them got drunk and fell into my Christmas tree? It’s so easy to get the tone wrong. You are on safer ground, if you want, to indicate that you know what is the strength or focus of a program.") I didn't mention specific professors except for the SoP I sent to my MA institution—because I knew the politics there and knew what was safe to say and what wasn't. I stuck with talking about the general ethos of the program, generalizing on some of the research being done among faculty there, and talking about why I would fit into it (e.g., "this program is invested in training teacher-scholars, and in my own research my pedagogy plays an important role in informing my theoretical thinking and vice versa...").

If you're still looking for some workshopping, I might be able to help. PM me.

I've never heard that emailing could be rude, myself. Email would be my suggestion, but you could always call if you felt like email isn't the right thing to do here. (Though I realize that calling might be difficult for you, if you feel socially anxious...but if you're trying to turn that around, it might be an empowering way to start trying to change!) I don't think that post is the way to go since they probably aren't in their offices much (if at all) over the summer and it could get lost in the campus mail shuffle during the school year. But if you do, I would NOT send ORIGINAL copies of any marked/graded papers—send photocopies instead. There are a lot of threads in this forum you should poke around in to see how others have assembled materials to help their recommenders. But before you send on a packet of materials, I would first send an email that introduces yourself as a former student ("Because I was shy in undergrad, you may not remember me, but I took XXX class with you and really enjoyed it..."). tells your prof that you're applying for grad school and why, and ask if s/he is comfortable writing you a strong letter of recommendation. Word it exactly like that so that your professor can take the out if s/he doesn't remember you well enough to write you a good letter. explains the reasons you've asked this particular professor to write for you. (If you're worried about a professor remembering you well, it will make it easier for them to imagine writing a letter for you if you can tell them what sorts of things you see them writing about. For instance, "I thought that my papers for your class really showed my understanding of XX theory..." or, "I thought that my participation in your course showed how passionate I was about the material and showed my potential for working with graduate-level ideas...".) tells her/him that if s/he can recommend you, you can send a packet of materials to them that includes the list of schools you're applying to, writing sample from her/his class, etc. by such-and-such date. If you send out a feeler email like this beforehand, it won't look presumptuous (like you expect them to say yes—which could be the reason you've been advised against emailing in the past). Good luck!

I would actually disagree with Sigaba's first point if he holds an MFA, as that's seen as a terminal degree for creative writing (though I'm not sure how well-known that fact is in fields outside English, so that may not help you much with a Poli Sci adcom, anyway). However, my question is, why do you think it's important to ask him? Is there something about your performance in his writing classes that you think speaks to your capacity for graduate work? Why ask him over a professor in your field? Three LoRs about your research capabilities and potential for successfully doing Poli Sci work would be better than two, and Sigaba's third point is dead on—your writing skills should be shining through your writing sample and even your SoP. Because this writer is outside your field, there should be a really strong reason for asking him to write a letter for you. (Besides the fact that he's famous. Especially because his fame probably won't be as impressive since you're not applying to English programs.)

While I know it's stressful to have things so up in the air, I know that at my department "fortune favors the brave" with summer funding. That is, while summer funding is primarily teaching, available through formal application and awarded to PhD students, I was able to scrape up some summer research money this summer (between my MA and PhD) because (a) I asked for it a few times and ( my mentor has my back. The number one thing I've learned in grad school is that it never, never, never hurts to ask about something. Especially when it involves you finding money to live on. Even if you think (or are dead sure) that the answer is no: if you ask in a polite way, the worst that they can say is...no. The second bit of wisdom that I've picked up: find a faculty member who will go to bat for you on stuff like this. Faculty excited about a student is how many friends of mine successfully negotiated for more money, scraped up summer work, and scored really awesome teaching opportunities. You might consider sticking through your new program the first year, to see if you can scrape up some summer funding after all. Ask around. Ask directly. Find faculty to back you up or lobby on your behalf. You never know what will happen. Then, IF you have trouble with summer funding and decide you absolutely can't afford to stay for the rest of your degree, you'll have more credibility when approaching faculty for transfer LoRs.

I've edited, revised, and continued to trim down from a longer paper the night before, but haven't yet reached the point where I write the night before. "Yet."

Not to derail the original subject of my own thread, but there's a lot of research in my field that shows that marking up every mechanical/grammar/usage error you see is pointless. Students won't learn from it, or (like you discovered) they'll get demoralized. I sometimes mark a handful of recurring issues, but usually I either tell the student to proofread as you do, or put a little "x" next to each line with an error and tell the student to go back over those lines to look for the errors themselves (and point out helpful portions of my textbook where they can look up comma rules, etc.). But of course, I'm working with assignments that students are required to hand back in again.

Yep, and while I don't have names, I know they're faculty, and this is at a national conference. This, of course, is not a plan I endorse or encourage anyone to emulate! But I think it helps put things in perspective if you're ever feeling jittery about a conference presentation.

I mean, I could be making an assumption about your program, as Strangefox reminds me. But in my experience, in order to get a stipend, you need to do something to earn it—this means teaching, assisting a faculty member with research, or impressing the committee with your smarts and research ideas to receive a fellowship. So, yes-ish. Definitely check with the DGS.

Thanks for the clip, truckbasket—always love me some Stephen Fry. If further study of Fry's message is of interest to anyone, Patricia Dunn recently wrote a book on grammar rants, which I saw her talk about at this year's CCCC. It asks students to critically—and rhetorically—examine grammar rants and the assumptions behind them, in order to get them to build an awareness of what kinds of writing choices work with what audiences.