Are they requiring a rubric?

[Maya584]

Hi everyone, 

I am finishing up one of my applications and one of the requirements is a sample paper. I have read their requirements and I'm confused about one part of their requirements: 

Your sample paper should be approximately 15-20 pages.  If you don't have a 15-20 page paper, please submit two smaller papers; i.e. submit two 8-10 page papers.  Please ensure that you submit a clean copy (no grades/comments included). Your writing sample does not have to be in your proposed area of research, but rather, should be the paper that you consider to be your best work.  Please ensure that your paper has a title page which includes the following information:  (i) course number; (ii) course title;  (iii) your name; (iv) course director's name.  Where possible, please also indicate the grade you received on the paper as well as a copy of the course assignment.

It says they require a copy of the course assignment, does this mean the rubric of the assignment, or the actual sample paper. My application is due in a couple days and I'm not quite sure what this means. I have contacted the graduate admissions before but they are really hard to get a hold of so I would like you opinions on what it means. 

Thanks a lot!

[khigh]

Sounds more like they want the question or instructions for the writing sample. They want to know what you were responding to.

[Maya584]

Hi khigh, 

Thats what I was thinking as well, I might just do that, it just seems a little weird to me since I havent seen any other applications requiring the instructions

[GreenEyedTrombonist]

Think of this more as they want the context of the paper. You would do something similar if you were submitting just one chapter of a thesis or one section of a conference presentation. They want to understand the context of the writing so they can evaluate it correctly (a paper for a class on a subject may look very different from an article on the same subject).

[Maya584]

Thanks for the feedback GreenEyedTrombonist ! I think your right, it'll be helpful for them, it just restricts the amount of options I have for papers that I can submit since I don't have the assignment outlines for most of my past assignments, only the ones that I have completed within the last few months. 

[fuzzylogician]

53 minutes ago, Maya584 said:

Thanks for the feedback GreenEyedTrombonist ! I think your right, it'll be helpful for them, it just restricts the amount of options I have for papers that I can submit since I don't have the assignment outlines for most of my past assignments, only the ones that I have completed within the last few months. 

It says "where possible". If you don't have the prompt, then you don't have it. They never said you can't submit the paper in that case. I'd urge you to submit your strongest sample regardless of whether or not you have the original assignment description. 

[rising_star]

To echo @fuzzylogician, I'd urge you to submit your strongest paper regardless of whether you still have the prompt. (Also, have you tried going online to access previous course websites? You may find that you have access to the prompt that way. Alternately, you could always email the professor, explain the situation, and ask if they'll send it to you. I definitely wouldn't have a problem doing that for one of my former students.)

[Maya584]

I agree with both @rising_star and @fuzzylogician  that I should focus on submitting my best paper but do you think they will look unfavourably on my writing samples if I don't have this additional information? I could try to contact the professor for the guidelines since all of our course information is available on a portal that closes at the end of the semester, and gets replaced with new courses so I personally don't have access to the old assignment guidelines nor have I kept a record of what marks I have gotten on my assignments prior to last semester. So even if I do get a course guidelines, I doubt I'll get the previous marks that I received. 

[fuzzylogician]

2 hours ago, Maya584 said:

I agree with both @rising_star and @fuzzylogician  that I should focus on submitting my best paper but do you think they will look unfavourably on my writing samples if I don't have this additional information?

I really don't. It was an "if possible" request, and I'm sure you won't be the only one who won't have the original assignment. To the extent that you can reconstruct ("it was the final paper, worth 50% of the grade" or whatever), I think that would be helpful. And if you can get details from the prof, that would be great too. I don't think you need to worry about it otherwise.