how did you choose your WS?

[indalomena]

Really struggling to choose what to send for my writing sample, and I'm wondering what criteria my fellow lit applicants used -- beyond the obvious. I have three papers to choose from, all chapters from my MA thesis, which all work as stand-alone papers and are basically ready to send as they are. I can't choose between them as far as quality is concerned, I'd say the whole thesis is my best work to date, and each chapter is an equal part of that.

So, not sure what to prioritise. One of the chapters is more engaged with current scholarship than the others, showing more understanding of my field. One is more literary than the others -- that is, it focuses more on poetry and has much more in the way of critical analysis. And the other contains a lot of original and impressive manuscript research, but isn't focused on literary texts -- rather intellectual context.

I don't have an instinct on this. I like them all for different reasons. My supervisor inclines towards the one with manuscript research, though acknowledges that there are fewer literary sources there. Any input welcome!

[Grunty DaGnome]

I was going to say trust your advisor, but then I noticed you are in the UK. Are you applying to American schools? Your advisor might be less in tune, but I suppose that isn't necessarily true.

I can suggest applying to WUSTL, if they seem like a good fit for your research, as they have a tremendously large page limit for their writing sample.

I think no one is sure what to submit, because every University is different. You are lucky to have so many good samples. I would say --- without knowing anything, just like everyone else --- try and fit your Statement of Purpose to the individual programs and then choose the sample that seems to best demonstrate the intersts you described. That is, if one of your programs is stronger than others for poetry, submit the poetry focused text to them, and the intellectual context section to the program that emphasizes theory more, etc.

[lolopixie]

Programs are looking for your research and critical abilities, at least US programs, so I would not send in the manuscript portion as it doesn't sound like that portion focuses on that. While each chapter may be stellar and standalone, they will not show the whole of your scholarship.

I am using a chapter from my thesis that could have been standalone, but I edited it to pull from an earlier chapter that showed the research and worked it into the critical analysis of the chapter. I would recommend using the critical analysis chapter, and making sure to show the research that you did for it. You may have to tweak it and work other portions of the thesis in there. Thesis chapters, while probably the best work you have compiled, are tricky for submission.

[Sparky]

Programs are looking for your research and critical abilities, at least US programs, so I would not send in the manuscript portion as it doesn't sound like that portion focuses on that.

I generally agree, because you never know who (i.e. faculty member of unknown and random subfield) will end up reading your writing sample. BUT, if you do history of the book, or anything medieval, be *sure* to highlight in your SOP (and have your advisor/other LORs point out!) your mss/paleography experience. That's a huge thing for HB and medieval.

[indalomena]

thanks for the advice

Thanks Sparky, and yes, I was going to mention -- I'm in early modern, and the fact that I've done manuscript work shows a lot about my research ability. Firstly, the fact of hunting down this particular manuscript, which hasn't been edited and hasn't been looked at in this context at all, was a challenge in itself, and shows I can navigate the labyrinthine bureaucracy of this particular library/collection. And then there's the fact that it's late sixteenth century and I wouldn't have been able to decipher it without my paleography classes. I also suspect that the grade I got on the thesis owed a lot to evidence of independent archival scholarship.

I think it might be best to submit this chapter with either the introduction to the whole piece, or with another chapter (I've just noticed it's actually really short, only 10 pages, and the manuscripty one is 16..)

Finally, do we know if pictures and bibliography count in the page count? Sure hope not...

[Loimographia]

Pictures and bibliography count, to my knowledge. It's a hard cut-off: they usually print out the first 10/20/50 etc pages of the document and dump the rest. I guess they just really don't want the 20 page appendix to my 40 page paper

[ecritdansleau]

So, not sure what to prioritise. One of the chapters is more engaged with current scholarship than the others, showing more understanding of my field. One is more literary than the others -- that is, it focuses more on poetry and has much more in the way of critical analysis. And the other contains a lot of original and impressive manuscript research, but isn't focused on literary texts -- rather intellectual context.

I don't have an instinct on this. I like them all for different reasons. My supervisor inclines towards the one with manuscript research, though acknowledges that there are fewer literary sources there. Any input welcome!

Based on this very limited description, I feel like (especially if your focus is very historical) the third option with "original and impressive manuscript research" sounds the most promising. You say there are "fewer literary sources" but this seems to suggest the focus is not entirely removed from literary concerns. Also, part of practicing historical research in literature is using your unique literary analytic skills to bring out new readings of nonliterary texts. Ultimately you have to go with your gut on what best represents you, but based on what I know of early modern scholarship (admittedly, this is not my area; but I've taken courses in it and like it quite a bit) the third option sounds very appropriate, and probably most impressive and exciting for adcoms/POIs to read. Also, it likely showcases that your personal initiative, that you really make something of the opportunities you get/and make for yourself, by going out of your way to get access to this manuscript. I think it sounds great.

Also, you can probably mention in your statement that the other chapters focused on current scholarship, and poetry reading, in order to give them a more balanced sense of your research interests. Try to put yourself in the place of the adcom: of the three chapters, which would you like to read the most/get the most out of as a scholar of early modern scholarship?

Edited December 11, 2011 by ecritdansleau

[pinkrobot]

Pictures and bibliography count, to my knowledge. It's a hard cut-off: they usually print out the first 10/20/50 etc pages of the document and dump the rest. I guess they just really don't want the 20 page appendix to my 40 page paper

Yikes! Have others heard the same? If so, would you mind mentioning what/who your sources are for this information? Thank you! I ask because I've been scouring department websites for answers to this question and I have found none, so I've been operating on the assumption that the works cited does not count towards the page count (based on the general rules at my undergrad, where "20 page paper" meant 20 pages of writing).

[indalomena]

Based on this very limited description, I feel like (especially if your focus is very historical) the third option with "original and impressive manuscript research" sounds the most promising. You say there are "fewer literary sources" but this seems to suggest the focus is not entirely removed from literary concerns. Also, part of practicing historical research in literature is using your unique literary analytic skills to bring out new readings of nonliterary texts. Ultimately you have to go with your gut on what best represents you, but based on what I know of early modern scholarship (admittedly, this is not my area; but I've taken courses in it and like it quite a bit) the third option sounds very appropriate, and probably most impressive and exciting for adcoms/POIs to read. Also, it likely showcases that your personal initiative, that you really make something of the opportunities you get/and make for yourself, by going out of your way to get access to this manuscript. I think it sounds great.

Also, you can probably mention in your statement that the other chapters focused on current scholarship, and poetry reading, in order to give them a more balanced sense of your research interests. Try to put yourself in the place of the adcom: of the three chapters, which would you like to read the most/get the most out of as a scholar of early modern scholarship?

Thanks for the perspective. This helped me to realise that there are certain things I can do now that I couldn't do straight out of undergrad. If I ask myself what chapter best represents the progress I've made and the new things I've learned over the last year, it is the one with the manuscript work. That's the chapter I could never have written a year ago. I couldn't do much with it for Northwestern, but for my December 31 deadlines, I can cut it enough to add one of the shorter chapters, and show my range and a wider variety of skills.

pinkrobot, I assumed exactly the same, because in all my work up to this point, the word count has been inclusive of footnotes but exclusive of bibliography and figure captions. *sigh* So confusing that things are done by pages and not word count for the US, too much ambiguity!

[wintergirl]

Yikes! Have others heard the same? If so, would you mind mentioning what/who your sources are for this information? Thank you! I ask because I've been scouring department websites for answers to this question and I have found none, so I've been operating on the assumption that the works cited does not count towards the page count (based on the general rules at my undergrad, where "20 page paper" meant 20 pages of writing).

Ditto. My WS for at least two schools would be over length if they count images (all at the end of the paper) and works cited pages. And I submitted those applications ten days ago.

[indalomena]

Ditto. My WS for at least two schools would be over length if they count images (all at the end of the paper) and works cited pages. And I submitted those applications ten days ago.

I put my images at the end too, thinking that it's better that they get left off than my glorious and lucid (well..) prose. There are certain things the universities are VERY clear about (no creative writing, for example), and including/not including bibliography/page count isn't one of them. So I'm not worrying too much ...

[Strong Flat White]

I can't remember which school it was, but I was recently on a website that explicitly said not to worry about works cited/bibliography/appendices/etc in the page count, meaning that what seems to be the main default assumption here (that page limits refer to bodies of text only) gets at least one case of institutional exoneration. If I find that school again, I'll post the link here, but for what it's worth I it's totally reasonable that if a school caps the writing sample at 20 pages, then you can feel good about submitting your 20-page sample with its 1.5 page (or whatever) works cited section... even if that means that your paper is page-numbered all the way up to 22...