Referencing Writing Sample in SOP

[Emelye]

This might sound like an odd question, but here goes... I'm using my undergrad honors thesis as my writing sample for M.A./Ph.D. apps because it represents my best work and provides a general idea of the kind of thing I'm interested in researching further in a graduate program. However, now my entire SOP seems taken up by discussing my process/background related to my thesis and using that to talk about my future research plans. I think it's working because it lets me showcase my strengths in a very cohesive way, BUT I'm worried that it's going to seem redundant since I'm giving them the actual paper as my writing sample. That writing sample is also the one and only publication on my vita. So... am I trying get too much mileage out of one paper, or could it actually demonstrate focus? I'd appreciate any input on this!

Thanks,

Em

[lyonessrampant]

Yes, definitely reference your SOP, but rather than detailing your methodology, foreground the questions you asked in the paper and your argument aka thesis. Then that lets you set the stage for what questions you want to expolore in your graduate work. Before you speak specifically about your paper, you should introduce your research interests, ie., subfield and specific areas in your subfield, theory (if it's relevant), and then you use your paper to show your awareness of the conversation in your field and how you are contributing to it and hope to continue to contribute to it. Writing specifically about your paper, in my opinion, shouldn't take more than a paragraph or so. After your paper bit, I would recommend you write your fit paragraphs addressing things like why this school? why its resources? why its faculty? etc. Basically, I'd recommend an intro, research interests identification, sample link, fit, conclusion as an overall structure for your SOP. Good luck!

[runonsentence]

Yes, definitely reference your SOP, but rather than detailing your methodology, foreground the questions you asked in the paper and your argument aka thesis. Then that lets you set the stage for what questions you want to expolore in your graduate work. Before you speak specifically about your paper, you should introduce your research interests, ie., subfield and specific areas in your subfield, theory (if it's relevant), and then you use your paper to show your awareness of the conversation in your field and how you are contributing to it and hope to continue to contribute to it. Writing specifically about your paper, in my opinion, shouldn't take more than a paragraph or so. After your paper bit, I would recommend you write your fit paragraphs addressing things like why this school? why its resources? why its faculty? etc. Basically, I'd recommend an intro, research interests identification, sample link, fit, conclusion as an overall structure for your SOP. Good luck!

This.

The SoP should be a forward-looking genre, so you don't want to get mired up in discussing your writing sample for one entire (very valuable!) page. I think that I talked about my writing sample in about a paragraph (maybe it was even 3 or 4 sentences). But what you could do very profitably is to connect your paper with your "fit" as a scholar for that school: that is, explicate the lenses, approaches, questions and other meta-considerations you took with your thesis to your scholarly identity and the kind of work you'd envision doing there.