Excerpting for a WS?

[zhzhzh]

Hi friends!

I’m planning on submitting a part of my thesis as my writing sample and I was wondering how much I need to reformat and edit down the excerpt. Do I need to rewrite it as a stand-alone paper with an introduction and conclusion? Or is it okay if the sample ends without a final conclusion, so long as I make clear that what I’m submitting is an excerpt? I’m pretty new to this and don’t have any friends who are applying to English lit PhD programs, so I’d love to hear any thoughts!

[Cryss]

1 hour ago, zhzhzh said:

Hi friends!

I’m planning on submitting a part of my thesis as my writing sample and I was wondering how much I need to reformat and edit down the excerpt. Do I need to rewrite it as a stand-alone paper with an introduction and conclusion? Or is it okay if the sample ends without a final conclusion, so long as I make clear that what I’m submitting is an excerpt? I’m pretty new to this and don’t have any friends who are applying to English lit PhD programs, so I’d love to hear any thoughts!

You might want to read and re-read individual school specifications for their preferences, but I've seen a few schools say that doing this is fine, as long as you put a note stating that the sample is part of a larger work (maybe even a sentence or 2 description of the larger work).

[zhzhzh]

Thanks, that’s helpful! I’ll check those reqs again. Some schools are frustratingly vague but hopefully a few will be more specific.