waitingforoffer Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 I submitted a co-authored paper and its really dull--without any theory and literature review content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msright Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 me 2! in my opinion, most committee seldom read the ws, how can they read hundreds of papers? maybe they will read the ws when they have difficulties to make a chioce among several applicants based on the other materials. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewurgler Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 I would say the writing sample is hugely important, and they definitely read them for everyone they eventually accept. A faculty member at Penn I have been in contact with says it is incredibly important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samoth Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 I submitted a co-authored paper and its really dull--without any theory and literature review content. I considered submitting a co-authored paper too, and I was told by the admissions office to make sure that it is accompanied by an explanation (written by the other author if he or she is a professor) about what your personal contribution to it was. I understood that they do read it, but they're interested in which of your skills it exemplifies. I'm sure this differs between universities, but if there's no explanation of your contribution to the article maybe you should ask the other author to send an email to the department you applied to about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waitingforoffer Posted February 5, 2009 Author Share Posted February 5, 2009 I considered submitting a co-authored paper too, and I was told by the admissions office to make sure that it is accompanied by an explanation (written by the other author if he or she is a professor) about what your personal contribution to it was. I understood that they do read it, but they're interested in which of your skills it exemplifies. I'm sure this differs between universities, but if there's no explanation of your contribution to the article maybe you should ask the other author to send an email to the department you applied to about that. I will be the first author but the paper is still under preparing for journals. It has been rewrite for at least 8 times and finally---the theory is ironically deleted from the draft... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misterpat Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 me 2! in my opinion, most committee seldom read the ws, how can they read hundreds of papers? maybe they will read the ws when they have difficulties to make a chioce among several applicants based on the other materials. Um. WS and Statement of Purpose are the most important parts of your apps. They read hundreds of papers by taking their time and having a whole team of people doing admissions. They're going to pay your tuition and give you tens of thousands of dollars in stipends over the next half-decade or so, I think they'll want to learn all they can about you. To the OP, why would you submit a paper you didn't think was good? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tritonetelephone Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 Last year, I submitted a paper that was interesting but not very professional (gender norm violation assignment). This year, my paper was much more technical/professional but not as "fun" - something I did for my grad quant methods course. I'd bet money that they prefer technical/professional, no matter the content (as long as it's sociological). Something that more closely resembles what you'd be doing in graduate school, that is. And I am also of the opinion that they do read the writing samples, at least of their top 25% or so applicants. If you're GPA and GRE scores are too low to make the first cut, I don't think they'll bother. Someone posted something a while back that was an Astronomy professor talking about how her department does admissions... wish I knew where that was. EDIT: Found it! http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmi ... dmissions/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BodyStudiesPhD Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 Something to consider - it is their job to read and write. This is what they do every day of their lives. They're good at it, do it well, and do it quickly. They read everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waitingforoffer Posted February 5, 2009 Author Share Posted February 5, 2009 Um. WS and Statement of Purpose are the most important parts of your apps. They read hundreds of papers by taking their time and having a whole team of people doing admissions. They're going to pay your tuition and give you tens of thousands of dollars in stipends over the next half-decade or so, I think they'll want to learn all they can about you. To the OP, why would you submit a paper you didn't think was good? I submitted that paper because my interested area is the cultural studies/cultural sociology.I find I should try hard to explain the behavior of the subcultural groups and finally adding cultural theories like Bourdieu or Frankfurt school seems irrelevant to the whole paper. Maybe social-economic analysis is better for a WS with "unprofessional" content such as subcultural groups. Now I got almost 5 rejections Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misterpat Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 Did you have any of Hebidge's theory in there? He seemed omnipresent in subcultural works I'd read. There were a few grad students doing that stuff at my UI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waitingforoffer Posted February 6, 2009 Author Share Posted February 6, 2009 Did you have any of Hebidge's theory in there? He seemed omnipresent in subcultural works I'd read. There were a few grad students doing that stuff at my UI. Hebidge is quite important in the British tradition of culture studies before the mass culture finally seems can incorporate any highly stylized subculture into commodities or fashion products.I read his works the meaning of style(?sounds like this) and several papers on google scholar. However, my problem is, I am Chinese and do not quite understand the subculture descripted in the UK/US academic works.I use the Chinese data which seems have nothing to do the working-class culture in British or other paradigms based on the Europe experience. If I only place these works or theories into my paper and finally concludes that "but Chinese subculture is different so can not be explained by these theory, I will use my data to explain why..." Then it will sounds stupid because everyone knows that each sociological theory has its own presumptions and conditions...Anyway, these days I kept thinking about the frame of the subculture issues.(not for application paper but for my future writings) May be someone here can also give me some information or perspective.Thank you.Misterpat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctoraldude Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 ok .. now you guys are freaking me out - i submitted the first draft of a case study I prepared for my firm's thought leadership magazine - will adcoms go rofl seeing what i submitted ? :? (warning: person with non-soc background here !) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
migrationdude Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 No, chill out. I had a non-peer-reviewed published paper as my writing sample, that had pretty execrable style, and was based on a ridiculously small dataset (sample size of 55). So far, so good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewurgler Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 Don't freak out--I had a honors thesis from another discipline, basically a theoretical analysis of a contemporary issue. The writing sample is going to vary HUGELY in substance--what they are looking for is 1) that you can form and argument and carry it throughout the whole thing 2) that you can write at a level they can build on 3) have a basic understanding of sociological principles and methodologies. Remember, they want moldable clay, not a finished product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctoraldude Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 thanks, that helps. I could have submitted a paper, but it is so completely unrelated that i instead chose to submt something more related, though data-light ! :| and congrats ewurgler & migdude - great admits already ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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