StrangeLight

i'm applying for the PhD. thanks, that really helps. but it robs me of a few precious lines of text. goddamn. okay, good to know. i feared that was the case but i didn't want to believe it.

not really, but that's okay. ha! thanks for the answers, i'll move this over to the other thread. and congrats again canuck.

i thought saltwater slavery was a great book. rediker uses it in his atlantic history courses, it's on their comps list. pitt's department is a great place to do atlantic history or slavery and abolition. we've got a number of students working on this stuff and rediker's most recent graduate won an ACLS mellon fellowship and was offered 3 tenure-track jobs at excellent schools (two research schools with strong graduate programs and one top tier LAC). they have a really good success rate with this sort of work but it takes some real skill to please all those guys at the same time.

yes, good luck! moving this question over here: i have some dumb questions about the SSHRC application and i thought i'd ask here before i start harassing the SSHRC staff (which i will do plenty of once i'm waiting on results). when the instruction say that your name needs to be "within the margins" on every page, does that mean in the 3/4" margin space itself or NOT in the 3/4" space but inside that, in the text/body section of the paper? if i was thinking rationally i'd figure within the margins meant in the margin space rather than "inside" the margins/in the body, but i'm paranoid about doing something stupid with formatting and having my application tossed, so i figured i'd ask here. and when you get 2 pages for the personal statement but 5 pages for "bibliography and citations," does that mean i can use end notes and put them in those 5 pages or do i need to use footnotes/internal citations within the 2 page statement and give their full bibliographical reference in the 5 page biblio/citation section? i'm having a hard time keeping within the 2 page limit as it is, but if i need to use internal citations or footnotes as part of that 2 pages, i'm going to be in trouble. thanks for letting me spill this thread over into the 2010/2011 competition. and again, congratulations to the recent winners! amuna, have you done this before? you said in your 5 pages of citations, you start with citations, then with bibliography... that didn't really make any sense to me. page 1 and 2 are the proposal, page 3 is the end notes for your proposal, and then page 4 and 5 are the bibliography? is that it?

this happens everywhere in every field. in my own program, you work for 8 months but can choose to be paid over 8 months or 12. the people that pick 12 months really skimp and the people that pick 8 months get summer jobs at the gap. it's far from ideal but it's also far from unusual at many schools in many fields. make doubly sure that this won't be the same problem at school C before you let people at school A know that you're thinking of moving on. it's possible to leave but you want to do it without burning any bridges, so other than talking to your graduate director, you don't want to bring up the switch until you're sure you want to try to make it. what about switching departments? this is a lot easier than switching schools. if all your classes and your potential advisor are in another department, why not work there? also, do you KNOW that you could build your own project using those two scholars at school C? have they both confirmed this to you? or will you arrive at school C only to be told you need to pick one of the advisors and you'll have to write whatever they tell you to (which admittedly is still a step up, because it's closer to your interests anyway)? talk to them both about your concerns once you've talked to your grad director. make absolutely sure that school C will actually be different from school A in the ways you think they might be. this happens in every field too. when i arrived in my department, i was shocked to learn that almost everyone is very much a "social scientist" historian, and i'm firmly in the "humanities" historian camp. going through methodology courses i wondered if i was even in the right department, if i should jump ship to english or anthropology, but my advisor happens do history just the way i like to (which is the primary reason i wanted to work with her), and we're both pretty comfortable with going against the grain of the department. you can avoid the controversial (and non-controversial) positions of your department pretty easily as long as you and your advisor (when you have one) are on the same page. my department's also full of marxists, and while i'm a pretty leftwing person in my private life i had no intention of writing marxist history. you don't have to work the way most of your department is working as long as you and your advisor are on the same page about it. this definitely changes things. my recommendation is to tough it out until you complete the masters thesis in your second year. don't apply to schools for this cycle, wait until fall 2011 to apply for PhD programs with the idea that you'll have your masters in hand by then. it is fairly common for people to switch out of combined MS/PhD programs like yours and finish their PhDs elsewhere. this is the path of least resistance. when you do get an advisor, you can be up front about how you realized this department isn't really the best fit for you but you look forward to completing the masters with them anyway. finish the requirements for the MS and then reapply to school C. if you applied this cycle, i'd say you could get away with having all 3 letters from your undergrad, but it may be useful to have 1 letter from your current school to talk about your research capabilities as a graduate student. i'd recommend having 1 of 3 from your grad school even though you haven't known them very long. but really, i wouldn't apply to schools again this cycle. get their MS and get out. few people will raise eyebrows at it, but if you're reapplying for schools 3 months into your first grad program, it looks fishy. it's only 2 years, not 6 or 7. finish the masters where you are, all the while maintaining contact with people at school C and making sure their program is what you think and hope it is. then next year apply and the transition will be fairly smooth. good luck! and get some sleep! you'll make it.

wow, congratulations to the people who finally heard news! i have some dumb questions about the SSHRC application and i thought i'd ask here before i start harassing the SSHRC staff (which i will do plenty of once i'm waiting on results). when the instruction say that your name needs to be "within the margins" on every page, does that mean in the 3/4" margin space itself or NOT in the 3/4" space but inside that, in the text/body section of the paper? if i was thinking rationally i'd figure within the margins meant in the margin space rather than "inside" the margins/in the body, but i'm paranoid about doing something stupid with formatting and having my application tossed, so i figured i'd ask here. and when you get 2 pages for the personal statement but 5 pages for "bibliography and citations," does that mean i can use end notes and put them in those 5 pages or do i need to use footnotes/internal citations within the 2 page statement and give their full bibliographical reference in the 5 page biblio/citation section? i'm having a hard time keeping within the 2 page limit as it is, but if i need to use internal citations or footnotes as part of that 2 pages, i'm going to be in trouble. thanks for letting me spill this thread over into the 2010/2011 competition. and again, congratulations to the recent winners!

no wonder chem courses are so easy, reading comprehension doesn't seem to be too highly valued.

rebecca scott and ada ferrer are amazing. and really good people to boot. at michigan and nyu respectively. these are still top 10 schools and highly competitive. both also work on cuba. so if you plan on comparing US south to the caribbean, they're good people to work with. if you want to compare US south to brazil, i'd suggest tracking down stuart schwartz (at yale, which is also... top 10). but you'll need the range. in addition to tulane (which is a great school also with a stellar latin americanist group), i'd recommend pittsburgh (my digs). we've got sy drescher, who is getting close to retirement (as is schwartz), but is one of the big guys on abolition and the transatlantic slave trade. we've got pat manning, a world historian/africanist who is working on comparative slave trade stuff right now. and we've got marcus rediker, one of the best atlantic historians that just wrote "the slave ship" recently and is now working on the amistad rebellion. these guys are good for an atlantic history/slave trade comparison, but may be less suited to comparative slavery. if that distinction makes sense... but then we've also got reid andrews, who works on 19th and 20th century south america, so you'll get the late slave era (especially in brazil) from him, and he's one of the best brazilianists out there (and also just awesome). but those four guys... they're a clash of personalities a bit. you'd have some fireworks on your dissertation committee, but many people have navigated those conflicting egos successfully.

your age and life experience will actually be a benefit to you, not a hindrance. for history programs, having some real life experience and even a previous career is usually a good thing. one of the latin americanists that started my program at the same time as me is in his 40s and had spent decades working as a lawyer and law professor. i don't think anyone anywhere saw that as a negative, even though his undergrad degree was completed long, long ago, in another field, in another country (cuba). so don't worry about that. LA studies is a good springboard for a history program. you will want to apply to a range of combined MA/PhD programs and some terminal MA degrees. just cover your bases. the MA is where you'll learn to do history, you don't need to have those skills already. they help but they're not a dealbreaker. the more important skill to have is language proficiency, so if you have spanish but no history, you're going to beat prospective students with history degrees and no spanish. your GPA is excellent. no worries there. one place where you may legitimately run into trouble for your application is finding letter of recommendation writers from your undergrad that still remember you. you need 3 letters total and one of them NEEDS to be from your undergrad. in general, you want all 3 to be from people that have PhDs themselves and can attest to your research potential, but since you spent some time in the real world, someone with a graduate degree in law who can attest to your research work would be a suitable option as one of the three letters. if you can't really get these letters together, then you may need to do as others have suggested and enroll (on your own dime, unfortunately) in some graduate history classes at a nearby school. try to take one or two a semester in addition to working your regular job and build relationships with the people that teach those classes. they'll be valuable resources for your LORs. you might want to start a class this january and try to apply in fall 2011, or you may want to take classes in fall 2011 and spring 2012 and then apply in fall 2012. this might push your start date back more than you anticipated, but these recommendations are crucial to getting into grad school. also, some schools require that at least one of the letters comes from someone in your discipline (i.e. history). so since you have no history courses, you presumably know no history professors. taking a history class in a latin american topic this spring would be a good move. anywhere that's close to you. the classes only meet once a week, so a longer commute for the most appropriate class is worth it. beyond that, you look to be in good shape. when you do decide on schools to apply to, try not to limit it by geography too much. think about what, in particular, you want to study. US/mexican borderlands? race and citizenship in brazil? law in cuba? then look at who is at each school near you. if people work on the general field you're interested in (either thematically close or on the same country/subregion) then they're good places to apply. if you want to work on 20th century mexico and the only people at UC wherever do colonial andes and 19th century caribbean, then it doesn't matter how great your application is, they won't take you on as a student. you need to fit with their specialties a little bit, which will reduce some of your options on the west coast but maybe encourage you to look at the southwest or even the east coast. anyway, good luck! don't let the age thing deter you, some of the best students in my cohort are pursuing their degrees as second or third careers. the life experience is actually an asset, not a liability.

i meet with all three of my LOR writers individually whenever i go back to the town where i got my undergrad degree, so maybe once a year (i have friends but not family there so i don't go as often as i like). my undergrad advisor is friends with my current advisor and another professor in our field in my current program, so i think she gets updated a bit. i do talk to her on occasion about work through email, but maybe only a few times a year. another of my LOR writers talks to me all the time. we skype. my best friend is currently working with him on his MA so we also talk through my friend. they like to hear from you. even profs that didn't write your LORs like it. i've heard that prof. X got all excited when she heard i emailed and wanted to know what i was up to, and i didn't realize she even knew i went to grad school.

i don't think transferring really happens in graduate school. you can reapply to school C this cycle but you'd be starting over. maybe they'd take some of the credits you've already done, but you need to re-enter the admissions cycle. and you've gone from being a candidate who they wanted right away to one that is trying to escape a top program after 1 semester. you can't just submit the same application again either. well, you can, but you shouldn't. you'll need to include your graduate transcript at this new school and potentially some LORs from people at your current program (though not necessarily... you could re-solicit your old LORs). but you'll need to explain somewhere (briefly in your SOP or as an addendum to your application) why you want to jump ship at school A and why that SHOULDN'T be seen as a sign that you're unprepared for grad school. you'll need to convince them that funding and research opportunities are why you want to go to school C now, not that you didn't really understand what research was going to be like or that it's too hard to teach so much. you'll have to be delicate with your language when you explain your circumstances. people feel like they made the wrong choice in picking graduate schools all the time. it happens. you're not alone. they either make it work where they are or they reapply. the danger here is that school C may not give you the same offer a second time around. the funding package might not be as good. the people you wanted to work with might not have space for you in their labs or as their advisees anymore. you'll need to contact them and ask them (confidentially) if they would take you on in the coming year were you to reapply. are you going for a PhD or a combined MA/PhD? if it's the latter, my suggestion is to stick it out at school A for the MA and then apply to new schools for the PhD portion. that's a lot more common and it would only be one more year at the place that isn't quite fitting for you. also, it's early. very, very early. you're two months into your first semester of graduate school. there is the potential to get excited about other projects you hadn't considered working on last year. and TAing will get easier and less time consuming the more experience with it you acquire. so calm down. take a deep breath. meet with your graduate director and tell him/her all of your feelings. everything. spill the beans about the teaching seeming too time consuming, about the research not functioning the way you envisioned. the director of grad studies is there to help you and advise you with this stuff. they can help make your current situation work for you. the short answer is, you CAN'T transfer to school C between now and next semester. grad school doesn't work the same way that undergrad does. the earliest you could move there is next year, if you apply for their program this year. so you've got at least a full year at school A. try to relax, talk to counselors and your GS, and see if you can make school A work for you. it sounds like a great program and the only real problem is that you didn't really know what the work type or schedule was going to be like yet. it happens to all of us. we're all a little surprised at exactly how exhausting and time-consuming this stuff is. that part of it won't be any different at school C. what will be different is whatever your research project is, but again... to make it long-term as an academic, you'll need to work on more than one topic in your career. see if you can find a way to make your options at school A work. i promise that school C won't be nearly as different as you're hoping it will be. talk to your GS.

a few years ago when i applied to NYU for history, their funding package was $22,000 with a $2000 start-up bonus. this is before taxes. you can make that work, especially with a roommate out in bed-stuy, but it's not easy. i've heard (again for history) that columbia offers just under $30,000. i can't confirm the exact amount, but they do offer more. once you get passed your guaranteed funding package, though (4 years?), columbia becomes very, very competitive. i know a lot of grad students in english and history at both columbia and NYU that had to scrounge the city and fight for TAships or stand-alone teaching courses at other colleges in order to get their funding. so they teach at SUNYs or CUNYs or BC or community colleges in the city. they make it work and get by just fine, but there is the added stress of having to find your own financing. in short, i don't think you should cross them off your list of places to apply just because the money's tight. it's still doable. wait to see what sort of funding they offer you, if you get in.

did you ever get the chance to work with david weber? i loved his book.

14 is a lot. so is 12. a lot of people wind up with something between 7 and 9 schools. the thing is... you really, really want to personalize and tailor your SOP for each school. that means more than inserting one paragraph that mentions your potential advisor. look into their library's holdings. do they have sources you'll need? mention it. do they have an area studies center for your region? mention it. are there other professors that work on thematically similar concepts for different regions? mention them too. that level of personalization can be exhausting when you're doing it for 14 schools. so i'd cut back. looking back on my old apps from two years ago, out of the 9 places i applied, only 3 were really appropriate for the project i'm working on now. get picky. i'd recommend not applying to any school where you aren't already familiar with your potential advisor's work. i'm a big advocate of looking at the books on your bookshelf and building your school list that way. using that approach, i found that two schools in particular each had 3 historians in my field whose work i loved. i feel like that's a more organic approach to picking schools and if you're true to it, it'll narrow your list down a bit.

Monday 11:00-12:00 - undergraduate language class Tuesday 10:00-11:00 - meeting with the professor whose class I TA 11:00-12:00 - lecture for the class I TA Wednesday 11:00-12:00 - undergraduate language class 12:00-2:00 - office hours for TAing 6:00-8:30 - graduate seminar Thursday 11:00-12:00 - lecture for the class I TA 6:00-8:30 - graduate seminar Friday 11:00-12:00 - undergraduate language class 1:00-5:00 - I TA four discussion sections, 1 hour each, 20 students each the gaps on wednesdays and thursdays are long and usually unproductive unless i hide in the basement of the library. the TAing drains me of my will to live. i spend friday mornings preparing for discussion session and then have the same conversation 4 times in a row without a break. i go home, make dinner, maybe clean my apartment, and fall asleep by 10 pm. the really time-consuming stuff is working on my masters thesis and writing grant proposals.

are you writing a masters thesis? if so, try to get that published. in one subfield in my department, they pretty much expect us to publish our MAs and it's disappointing to them if we don't. you can only send an article out to one journal at a time, and they review it and accept or reject it before you can send it somewhere else. so your first place shouldn't aim too high (we're new, we won't be in flagship journals), but you want to pick a journal you've at least heard of. someone's online journal that's had two issues in 5 years is not a good choice. CONFERENCES. not every paper you write is worthy of publication. i'm not sure how it works for literature, but for history, articles need to be based on a lot of primary research. a term paper for a seminar just doesn't cut it. BUT those can be excellent papers to transform into conference submissions. even before you've written anything, send out 250-word abstracts to every conference that is even tangentially related to what you do. beyond lengthening your CV, conferences are a great way to network and talk to professors about what you do. you may decide to apply to their PhD programs, and they may remember that you gave the really interesting presentation on X in virginia last year. FELLOWSHIPS. apply for every fellowship, scholarship, essay prize, or whatever else that you are eligible for. this can be time-consuming but it's worth it. there's a hierarchy with fellowship and grant awards in academia. the people that get awards during their BAs and MAs get fellowships during their PhDs, get grants as professors, etc. also, these things usually come with money, and money is nice to have. RESEARCH. not sure how this works for lit students, but doing your own primary research/original scholarship is important. getting a research assistantship with another professor can also look good on a CV, and it's a source of funding. TEACHING. umm... this will build up your CV, but most PhD programs aren't looking for people with teaching experience. they're looking for future scholars. when you go on the job market, then teaching will be important, but just for the PhD? not so much. that said, having a teaching assistantship pay your way through a terminal MA is a big deal and worth having. but in that case, it's less about the teaching experience and more about being able to say "this school funded my MA degree."

holy crap, people are still waiting on answers from last year? wow. i've got my proposal to my letter-writers and now i'm just refining and tinkering and trying to cram the final version into the max. length. i'm applying from a US school so i get to mail it in myself, postdated for nov. 10. i feel good about the topic and my CV is pretty plump considering i've only completed 1 year of a masters program so far. i'm so insanely busy with other projects that i don't even have time to stress over this, which is actually rather nice. i'm sure in may, when classes are over and i've defended my masters, it'll be a different story. i'm gonna wear out the f5 button refreshing my email.

i went to three conferences this summer. my first ever, after one year in an MA program. at times i felt like i had no business even presenting there, but at the end of every single presentation, at least one person asked me for a business card. not for my name or my email, but for my business card. lots of grad students passed theirs out to me, to other students, and to professors. and no one batted an eye. maybe it's odd or whatever because i still wear tshirts, jeans, and flip flops to "work" everyday, but it's worth printing some just for conferences if nothing else. it's way easier than scribbling your name and number onto a scrap piece of paper that they'll lose before the week is out.

my department just took our offices away. we used to have a grad student lounge with 4 computers (only 1 ever worked) and a big conference table people only used for lunch, and then a section of cubicles. cubicles! only one desk in them, but 2-3 students per cube, so if someone else was already in there, you were SOL. no windows in any of these spaces, by the way. most of the professors don't have offices with windows and they fight over the few windowed offices that do exist. they've removed all of our cubicles and now we're getting a second conference table, i believe. i couldn't work in that space anyway, but a lot of people did their office hours in their cubicles. now it's just an open table and won't be very conducive to meeting with students. not quite sure what we'll do now.

great topic! i do a lot of work on my sofa, tv on mute, no music, books and notes spread out on either side of me, laptop on an ottoman in front of me. candles and incense burning on the coffee table, cigarette butts in a wine glass on the side table along with a lamp for light (never use the overhead light, it feels too sterile), a glass of water at the ready, and some ibuprofen. no food nearby, i can't work and snack at the same time. my cat is usually asleep on the sofa, lying on top of some of the books i need. i have a dedicated office space in my bedroom in a nook by the window but all it does is house my printer. i've worked at it maybe once in the last year. if i'm struggling with an outline or argument, i take some pen and paper into the bathroom. it's small, all white, and full of potted plants and flowers. i'll just sit on the floor and write out some stuff, away from the lure of the internet. if i'm reading a book or draft of a paper and don't need to use my laptop to make notes, i'll read in the bathtub. candles and incense and lots of bubble bath in a claw foot tub so i can try to convince myself i'm not really working at 9 pm on friday. it almost works. weather permitting i'll also read in the park. but just reading. i wouldn't be able to write there. again no music otherwise it'll distract me. even if it's instrumental i can't help but follow it. for all-nighters i go to a little greasy spoon diner that's open 24 hrs. all day breakfast, bottomless coffee for $1.75, and it's usually pretty empty other than the morning breakfast hours and friday and saturday at 2 am after the bars let out. it's great for people-watching and i can get a lot done there. no electrical outlets for my laptop, though, so when the battery dies, it's my cue to leave. ritter's diner in pittsburgh, if anyone's interested. plants, natural light, and scents make a huge difference to how i work. or how i feel in general. sitting cross legged or with my legs straight out is also important. sitting squarely at a desk doesn't really work for me, i feel too hunched over. morning (7 a.m. to 11 a.m.) and evening (7 p.m. to 11 p.m.) are my peak writing hours, reading can happen any time. i am my most useless between 2 and 4 p.m.

i don't think there are many jobs where you can write academic articles and books without having to teach something. but take heart: many of the most respected researchers don't give a rat's ass about teaching. the PhD really only trains us for research and teaching, heavy on the former, light on the latter. there aren't too many places i can think of that will employ a history PhD to research and write but not also ask them to teach. research institutes, the state department,...? museums hire PhDs, but they often like to see some focus on public history and some experience in museum work, and not a lot of us pick that up along the way to the doctorate. and i don't think museum gigs require much published writing, but i could be wrong. for me, the aim is to become a tenured professor somewhere. anywhere. west of the rockies or on the eastern seaboard would be nice, US or canada. but i'll take anything, really. i am maintaining my connections to news/documentary production (particularly research, writing, and editing) should i ever decide to retreat into my former "career." but the PhD won't help too much in that regard. my other back up plan is to be a writer for last call with carson daly. have you seen that show? he needs all the help he can get, they'll hire anybody.

man, i probably should've worried this much about my wardrobe in my first year, but i didn't. for the grad orientation and my first meeting with my advisor, i went with some black patent leather flats, some knee-length skirts, and 3/4 sleeve t-shirts/sweaters. maybe i kept that up for the first session of each class i took, but then i dropped the pretense. spent the remainder of the semester in jeans, t-shirts, cardigans, and either flip flops, some black clarks (that would look more professional if they weren't so worn out), or my beloved neon yellow/green/purple pumas. the transition to short sleeves after the first week meant professors could see my tattoos, but that didn't matter much. all it really did was mean that whenever i met a new prof, he or she would ask me about my tattoos before drilling me about my progress on my thesis. i do go a bit more casual than most, but i'd say tshirts/sweaters, jeans, sneakers, and a tailored pea-coat is a pretty common look in my department (history). as is jeans, flats, blouse-y top, cardigan. at the very end of the spring semester some girls break out the sundresses (usually plus cardigan, maybe with a wedge, often with just flats) and that seems youthful but professional enough. most save the dress pants, heels, and more "professional" flats for when they TA. but i can't imagine getting too dressed up for that after the first couple weeks. my sneaker fetish will not allow it.

ehhh... yes and no. my department did some hiring last year. they were looking for a world historian, which demands something broad, and a british imperialist, which doesn't necessarily demand anything other than british imperialism. yet some students, and some professors, asked the imperialist if he'd be willing to teach comparative imperialism, if he knew anything about french or spanish imperialism. he got all pissy about the question and basically said "no." it turned off a lot of people to him, but he also still got the job, which is a tenured position at a research university with a strong graduate program, so... i don't know. you definitely want and need your research to be specialized. if you do transnational history, that's still a particular specialization. with transnational work, you're looking at migration, at linkages, etc. you're not looking at everything possible about each of those places. when people hire historians, they want someone whose research is this one, concrete thing that could be turned into a book. but they also want someone who can teach world civ or US history or mod west or something. so... i'd recommend spreading your TA assignments around. teach outside of your field. you don't need to know the field to teach it. your job is basically just to make sure your students understand the readings. you don't need a minor field in world history to convince a job committee that you can teach world history. you need a TA assignment on your CV for world history. yeah... spreading around the coursework... i'd stick with however many fields your school demands. one major and one minor? do that. two majors? one major and two minors? then fine. you really don't have that many graduate classes, and you'd be surprised how often your major field (i.e. latin america) doesn't actually touch on what you study in particular at all. you need independent studies for that, which i strongly recommend taking. you're not really going to have the time to take classes that aren't at least thematically connected to what you already do. we're specialists. in terms of your enjoyment, maybe the renaissance man is the way to go. but in terms of employability, your research and coursework should be specialized. your teaching ability need not be, and should not be. just my two cents, based on colleagues' recent (successful) job placements and my department's hiring pattern.

i do think it will be difficult to jump back into the program after a year off. one of the students i started with last year is going to take a year's leave of absence for this coming year and there's the definite vibe around the department (amongst students and some professors) that she's not coming back. she really struggled, both with the type of work we do (history program) and with her deadlines. the only people i know who took a year off and then returned to the program are people who had babies. i'm sure there have been cases of people struggling and taking a break and then coming back and kicking ass, but i don't know of any personal anecdotes to that effect. i will say, though... i don't think holding an MFA is a prerequisite for any career. so if it stressed you out this badly and doesn't feel like the right fit, then don't do it. don't torture yourself through a degree you don't really need. good luck.

regarding using ILL instead of buying them, i'd like to amend that a bit. i know people that use ILL, and then if they find the book is really useful theoretically or in terms of their subfield, THEN they buy the book. after they've read it. so the ones you're going to pick up again are on your shelf, and the ones you aren't... aren't. for me, i bought the books beforehand. but i'd say over half the students in my class were ILLing and then buying the useful ones afterward, and it really worked for them.