Sources

[yank in the M20]

Ok, then a question for you all - say you have 3 potential essays to submit as writing samples.

#1: Uses current sources (2000s to present), is well-written and concise (12 pages), but is primarily analysis of one text (a Shakespeare play through the lens of critical/performance theory and psychoanalytic theory).

#2: Uses older sources (1960s-80s), is more long-winded and complex in style (15 pages), and addresses a primary text in the scope of a wider, speculative, theoretical lens (ok ok, it's poststructuralist/Lacanian study of Joyce, to clarify).

#3: Uses a mix of current and older sources (1960s-2000s), is broadly speculative, experimental, and somewhat complex in style (also 15 pages), and addresses a large scope of texts by one author using a wide theoretical lens (psychoanalysis. linguistics, and gender/identity performance) and is in my opinion, a somewhat shaky and contestable point of view.

Which would you choose? The one that uses mostly current scholarship but is less theoretical/experimental/original than the other two? Or one of the more experimental ones that use a wide range of theory, but risk this being dated theory? (If it helps, I have my MA so I feel demonstrating solid grasp of theoretical conversations is necessary, and topic doesn't matter much since I'm split between two subjects and I'd rather use whatever is strongest. And for anyone concerned about the reception of these, my past professors have graded all of these equally.)

Thanks in advance for any answers to my shameless plea for help!!!

If the papers are close in quality, I'd chose the one that is closest to the time period in which you want to work. You've got Shakespeare and Joyce, very disparate. We've had this discussion on other threads, but I applied to a few schools last year and didn't get in and the only one of the three to provide feedback, Duke, said that my writing sample (a chapter of my dissertation on Romantic lit) didn't match my prospective time period (Modernism), arguing that how would Modernist scholars be able to judge if I'm doing original scholarship in Romanticism and vice-versa. Just my two cents.

As for sources, for my 20-page paper I have about 30. Of course several are intertexts by contemporaries or by the author I'm writing on and I am looking at Freud's theories on traumatic neuroses and shell shock so at least five are just because bits of his writing were published in different places, though I'm dealing with the same argument. And a number are historical, which would be less of an issue for any contemporary scholars out there or anyone working more abstractly with theory and not really working to situate their texts in a particular time period. To me the number of sources to match the number of pages that user_name mentions sounds like a pretty good rule of thumb, though I'm guessing less sources will be expected of people coming from undergrad? They might want to see you engage with some theory and criticism, but mostly just to show that you can, and really wow them with your close reading of the text(s). Wildly inaccurate surmise of mine? Perhaps.

[lolopixie]

It's that thing with the beads on it that you use to count numbermaths.

http://upload.wikime...hoty_abacus.jpg

Oh! Thanks for the clarification! I just thought they were called the things I used to play with in the pediatrician's waiting room - didn't know they had a purpose other than 4 year olds pretending the beads are cars. LOL.

[Timshel]

Okay, this is probably a dumb question, and a little off topic, but when they give you a page requirement, say 10-15 pages, should that be literal pages, including the Works Cited page, or should that just be the pages of text, not including the 1-2 pages of your sources.

And yes, I am getting to that point where I can't make any decision on my own.....

[lolopixie]

I'm taking 10-15 pages to mean length of paper excluding the works cited. I hope that is right because my sample is 15 full pages. I actually need to trim a litte to get 4 lines off the 16th page.

[Grunty DaGnome]

Usually, if you're over, they just won't read past the page limit. NYU says this on their website. I believe so does Columbia.

[yank in the M20]

I've also assumed that the Works Cited does not count. And for the one Uni that requires two samples, I'm putting both Works Cited pages at the end in case they stop reading beyond the 25.