[Hitler as a TA]

It's even funny for those who understand German and therefore know what he's really saying.

This clip gets remixed a lot, but I've never actually seen the original movie. What's happening in the scene, out of curiosity?

[Do you let students use laptops in discussion sections?]

I've never allowed laptops, save for the last two or so weeks of class when we're workshopping. (I teach composition.) The entire class suffers if participation is crippled.

Also, I've made printing the readings out in hardcopy optional in the past, but don't anymore. Experience has taught me (and the directors of comp have confirmed the same) that they simply won't read as carefully on the screen as they will if I ask them to print and annotate.

[When during Graduate Career to Start Presenting at Conferences]

Wow, your field is not like mine. Our conferences are peer-reviewed and a paper in a conference proceedings is a "real" paper (that counts toward tenure evaluation and everything). We generally have to get camera-ready versions of our papers in at least a month or two before the conference. On the plus side, that means that nobody's up finishing a paper the night before a conference. Though they might still be finishing their slides. I highly recommend getting your paper done early.

I think the best time to start presenting at conferences is ASAP (or at least, as soon as you have work worth presenting). Don't be afraid of national or international conferences - in my experience, people are friendly to the kid who's just starting out. I think your idea of developing conference papers from your seminar work is a great one.

The review process depends on the conference, in my field. The flagship conference—Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), it's huge—does have a highly selective peer-review process, but because we don't publish proceedings (which I have a beef with, but that's the way it is) and because of the sheer number of submissions, the review process as of now rests only on proposals. Other conferences I submitted to as a lit student only asked for abstracts. There are some out there that do ask for full papers, but in English, my limited experience thus far says that they're less common.

I've found the same to be true as well, that more experienced scholars are very kind and supportive of graduate students.

All of my conference presentations (and my one publication) have so far developed from seminar papers, in one way or another. I think it's a great way to make seminar papers really go the distance. Often I use conference or special issue CFPs to help me think of a project, and work toward that goal even when I'm writing the seminar paper.

[Is getting a PhD worth the stress?]

I also felt overwhelmed and burnt out at the end of undergrad, and unsure of what I wanted to do or whether I wanted to do the PhD. I took two years off and it was the best decision I made, in terms of my academic career. (Also, the more I talk to colleagues who have gone straight through, the more I hear them tell me they wish they'd at least taken a year off before starting their graduate degrees.)

You cannot [successfully] apply this year if you're feeling this unsure and uncertain. Take time to explore your interests. Read. Attend a conference. Take a class as a non-degree student.

[Who should LORs be addressed to?]

Just to clarify, when you ask to whom it should be "addressed," are you asking who should be addressed in the opening salutation of the letter itself? Or you asking what goes on the outside of the envelope?

To answer the first question: My letter writers either wrote "Dear Colleagues" or didn't include an opening salutation. The answer to your second question is usually on the website, but the DGS is the safest fallback if it's not expressly indicated.

[Art vs.academia]

Are you interested in creative writing programs or professional writing programs? They mean very different things (e.g., creative = poetry and fiction; professional writing = business and technical writing).

If the former, my program at the University of Cincinnati is one. You might look around at other PhD-granting creative writing programs (Poets & Writers just released a ranking earlier this week), as such a degree is usually a sign that they welcome creative-critical crossovers.

[Transfer Question ... Regarding Financial Issues]

I'd first ask about getting funding where you are—go directly to the administration yourself, and also try talking to faculty who you think will be sympathetic. Faculty can sometimes be really helpful allies in fighting for something within a department, and you indicate that you seem to get on well with them.

How many years do you have left in your program?

[Publication question]

If I'm remembering correctly from my days in publishing, you can usually expect to hear back from a peer-review process within 3 months. I'd probably wait at least one more month before checking in.

[Admission and GRE,TOEFL scores besides other academic details(Graduate).]

Your question is very unclear. If you're just asking what it takes to get admitted to graduate schools in general, you should read this thread very carefully:

[Academia.edu]

I have one, though i's not that interesting to me because there aren't too many people on it (yet...more seem to be joining as time goes on) so I don't spend a lot of time on it. But I do actually like the Google search alert feature.

I uploaded one of my papers but it's no big deal, since my paper is published in an open-access electronic journal.

[What's Your Style?]

Sometimes, it sounds like an almost endless chatter filled of nonsense and drivel more than a smart conversation between expert readers. One of my friends, who is working at the CERN, often says that 90% of what researchers are saying there is nonsense and that groundbreaking ideas come out of this chaos. However, he's talking about potential Nobel Prize winners, not your typical grad-students. I'd save the conversations for the conferences and prefer the students to ask questions in class rather than giving opinions.

I disagree. Of course class shouldn't be filled with endless chatter, and that people should speak up for speaking's sake. But under expert guidance, some of my most challenging and rewarding moments in class have been after hearing my peers say really, really smart things or participating in a dialogue with them. But, to each their own.

[Which sample!?]

How (realistically) doable would it be for you to revise the first paper, the one that fits in with your proposed area of study, and add in a theory section? I did something similar last year: I took an existing paper and added about 3 or 4 pages of theory to the opening and did lighter revisions throughout the analysis (tying it into the stronger theory foundation).

But if you think that the paper would just need to be drastically overhauled and completely rewritten in order to represent your best work—or if you know that you won't have the time to do it—then it's best to go with your strongest work.

[What's Your Style?]

Yes. Listening is an important component that makes seminar a dialogue. Which should be the goal.

[How many classes do you usually take?]

In addition to being expensive, I'm not entirely convinced RS is the best mode of learning a foreign language for purposes other than becoming proficient in casual conversation. IMO (and I like the program), if you're learning the FL in order to read, know its grammatical structure, or translate scholarly work, RS isn't going to be of as much use as a classroom approach.

[What's Your Style?]

I've always been the silent type. It was difficult to attend seminars in which 20 to 25% of the grade is based on participation. Engaging with others may be the best way to learn, but it's certainly not the only one.

I think it's important to remember that engaging doesn't only mean speaking in class. At least, I tell my students this when I talk about the requirements for their participation grade. I also try to reward thoughtful listening.

[Comparative Lit vs. Traditional Lit Program]

Erm, on second thought, don't quote me on that...my info comes from browsing this past thread:

[Comparative Lit vs. Traditional Lit Program]

I'm not authoritative on this, but I've heard that comp lit programs prepare candidates well for comp lit programs (but they have trouble cross-marketing themselves to traditional lit programs). Something to consider, if it's true.

[Extracurricular Activities on CV]

I agree with you, which is why I said RELEVANT extracurriculars. "School musicals" would not fall under relevant to most programs. But as the chair of the Graduate English Association (a relevant extracurricular), we held many workshops for students on what to put on applications, CVs, and how to get into PhD programs, and they have all said that you can put them on if they show commitment to the field or add to your application in some way.

I think the difference here is that something similar to this example would fall under "Service" on a CV. Other groups that can be construed as extra-curriculars in undergrad (like honors societies) can get listed under honors/awards.

I think my advice to the OP would be to avoid adding a section called "extra curriculars" to your CV and instead think about whether these activities can be spun and put into sections like "Related Professional Experience" and "Service." Such a move helps show the committee why they should care about your membership in these groups; if you find that you have trouble spinning these experiences into categories like professional experience or service, then it might mean that these experiences aren't relevant to your future career as a graduate student and shouldn't be listed on the CV.

If you do decide to list on your CV anyway, you only need list any officerships held and dates.

And last: if the application form asks you to list extra-curriculars, then by all means list them on the application itself.

[Subfields in Rhetoric and Composition?]

Two Espressos: don't know if you're still thinking about activism rhetoric, but the most recent issue of Rhetoric Society Quarterly was apparently a special issue on activism rhetorics: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rrsq20/current

[SOP length?]

fuzzylogician is spot on. the SoP should be a "forward-looking" document, so your goals, interests, and career plans are the place to expand.

[Cancelling the GRE score]

I'd be surprised if anyone cared. If nothing else, it shows that you knew that something had gone wrong taking it the first time around (and were confident enough that you could do better at the test under better conditions that you were willing to commit to a retake).

[SoP vs. Personal Statement, little work experience (professional master's)]

You're welcome! As to your question, it's a good one, and I guess I'm not the person to answer it (hopefully another professional program applicant will stumble on in).

My instinct would be to go with one or two "primary" interests and flesh those out, and then mention your other interests more briefly. Since the SoP is entirely devoted to your goals and interests, I think it would be best to give them a bit of "meat," here.

[Masters at Undergrad Institution or Good School?]

Standard advice for those going into academia (especially the humanities) is not to pay for a degree if you have a funding opportunity. You're not really doing any of those things, BUT, choosing the school with funding, even if it's not as good, would give you more career flexibility (what if you hate law school?). $0.02

[Rhet/Comp Programs focusing on Environmental Rhetoric?]

Not sure how helpful this is, but an old thread from last winter/spring lists programs rhet/comp applicants on the board had on their lists, and lists their research interests. You could maybe see how their programs look to you:

[Thoughts on Preparing Future Faculty Certificate Program]

I started the certificate in the first year of my MA, also thinking it could strengthen my applications. I'm still not sure how much it helped, but it doesn't hurt to try it out. You could always start the certificate and then not completely finish it, if you decide your time would be better spent elsewhere. (I didn't end up finishing it before the end of my MA, for instance.)

I talked up my participation as evidence that I am really serious about my pedagogy and want to have cross-disciplinary discussions about it as well. Some of the opportunities have been more useful than others. For instance, if yours is the same as ours, the job search seminar gets rave reviews and the mentoring opportunity is great. It's also been nice to network outside my department (both with students and our CET&L).

The teaching effectiveness seminar I took (not sure, again, if this is universal to PFF??), on the other hand, was only marginally helpful. While it was nice to take a second look at my teaching philosophy statement before PhD apps and get some other perspectives and talk more about course design (something we didn't really cover in teaching practicum in my department), I quickly realized that I wasn't the ideal audience for the class, having taught 3 quarters of comp with full instruction responsibility, received both theoretical and practical pedagogy courses in my department, and knowing that I wanted to teach in my future career. Most of the others in the room had never taught a course, or only had grading duties, and half the room was sort of there to figure out whether they wanted to teach at all (or go into industry). Techniques like backwards design and scaffolding (which I'd thought intuitive, since comp instructors are already forced to think in an outcomes-based way) were either a revelation to or resisted by much of the class, at first.

I'm not sure whether my experience is typical of what you can expect at your own university, and I'm not even sure I'd dissuade you from doing it anyway. But I thought I'd let you know that my experience has been a bit uneven, and that if your program has good teaching support for GTAs already, there's a good chance you're going to get the same (or better) teaching-training within your program.