Anyone else having a hard time choosing a writing sample?

[jriveracal]

Anyone else's prospective writing samples shit? 

No? Just me? 

I have only 2 options for my writing sample and both of them are papers I wouldn't feel comfortable submitting and I don't even know how I would fix them.

Which one would you use?

I have one "ethnographic" shitty paper that is pretty much just me going out and then writing about how I saw X sociological theory played out here when I saw this happen, and Y sociological theory play out when I saw this happen, along with some census tract info describing the community. I'd have to add a few pages. No idea of what. Maybe a lit review?

And another paper that is long enough but pulls a sample of domestic violence NGO's and the countries they are found in and then I compare them to when The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) treaty was enacted and then I bitch about how the law is meaningless without any sanctions imposed for those who don't cooperate with the guidelines in the treaty to protect women and how we need these NGO's to essentially be the backbone of implementing this law....but these NGO's focus on victim blaming instead of reforming the perpetrators of the crime sooo that's dumb [I legit don't really have a meaningful conclusions].

Those are basically my two papers in a nutshell. Which would you use? 

As I wait for anyone kind enough to respond, I will just be here crying over the fact that I turned down the opportunity to do an honors thesis. 

[Warelin]

@jriveracal: Which of the two papers more closely relate to what you want to study in Grad school? Use that one.

[high_hopes]

Another possibility is to write a new paper or significantly revise one of these papers. If you are near a university and have the money you could take a course this fall with a significant writing component and explain to the professor that your paper for the course will be used for a writing sample for your grad school applications.

[qeta]

@jriveracal I'd vote for the ethnographic paper because it contains original data. Adding a lit review sounds like a good idea too. It would pad out the paper and make it stronger by allowing you to situate your study in relation to existing theories on the topic.