UCSB - 10 page writing sample?

[merry night wanderer]

So I'm applying to UCSB, and it's honestly one of the schools I'm most excited about - I love cognitive literary studies and philosophy of mind, and they're stellar in that regard. But their writing sample is "suggested 10 pages." Could someone speak to how they're approaching this, or how they did approach it, if they made it in? 

It just seems as though it's hardly any time to get to the heart of things - I have a 12 page version of my paper that makes my core argument based on the text, which I'm using as a basis, but it doesn't showcase my theoretical and methodological position within today's scholarship at all. In this form it's just another argument about evil in Christabel - it doesn't get to the cognitive science/phil of mind/affect theory twist, which is why I'm into UCSB in the first place. I'm wondering if I shouldn't just drop the 20 page version on them anyway. 

Edited November 5, 2019 by merry night wanderer

[Indecisive Poet]

12 hours ago, merry night wanderer said:

I'm wondering if I shouldn't just drop the 20 page version on them anyway. 

I think this is a bad idea. My understanding is that it's usually perfectly fine to go under the limit but never to go over. It might suggest to them that you haven't read their website or that you can't follow instructions – but worse, they will probably stop reading after page 10, especially because other applicants will have followed instructions.

Can you condense your paper to 10 pages and talk about the paper in your statement of purpose? You could use a few sentences there to explain that it's an excerpt and discuss how the full paper fit within current scholarship in your field.

[Cryss]

I agree with @Indecisive Poet

I've heard a little spillage is OK, like if you took 11 pages instead of 10. But 20 seems like way too much for that page limit. Any way you can either put a more appropriate 10-page excerpt you want from your larger work and write a note explaining that it's taken from a larger work? Another option might be to just go with your current 12 page paper, maybe do minor trimming, and explain your theoretical and methodological position in your statement of purpose in less words. The third option, which is probably the hardest, would be to just write an entire new 10 page essay based on your longer one that summarizes everything you want to showcase for this school specifically, but in much less words. 

[merry night wanderer]

You're both probably right - I think the word 'suggested' is just tripping me up a little. I think I will summarize parts, and then possibly cut out the review of scholarship section, hmm. That just makes me nervous because - well, I need to demonstrate I know how it's being discussed!

[Indecisive Poet]

20 hours ago, merry night wanderer said:

You're both probably right - I think the word 'suggested' is just tripping me up a little.

I just looked at your original post again and saw that you wrote "suggested." Oops! In that case, I should think 12 pages would be perfectly fine – I wouldn't worry about condensing it to 10. But I definitely wouldn't go any higher, and I maintain what I said about 20 pages probably not being a good idea. 

[kb88]

You can also email and ask them. They are there to help you put together the best application.

I found UCSB's 10 page limit to be peculiar. They may actually want to read the whole thing and get tons of apps, which is why they have such a small limit.

Still, 10 pages is more like an undeveloped conference presentation than a polished PhD writing sample.