Cover Letter for Writing Sample

[rems]

It was suggested to me the other day to include a cover letter with my writing sample. Is anyone else planning on doing this?

[justkeepswimming]

Nope. I thought about including one to briefly explain my thesis when I was just going to send in a chapter of it. I ended up significantly revising the sample, so I'm hoping the first few pages do the job that a cover letter would, and "preview" of the rest of the paper.

[waparys]

Nope. At the top of my first page (I don't even have a cover page) I have my name, email address and the date I originally wrote the paper with the revised date in parentheses. The subsequent pages just have my last name and page number on top. I considered keeping my email on every page just in case they got separated but I figured (and hoped) the odds of that were pretty slim.

[practical cat]

No. There's not much work that a cover letter would do that the first three pages of the new version don't already. (That it's become apparent to me that I have now said in 3 pages what I spent 30 pages on in my thesis is something I'm trying to ignore.) There's also a tiny bit of contextualizing in my SOP so it has all been said at this point.

[rems]

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions! I was skeptical of it because it seems like unnecessary use of page space.

Next question, is anyone using a writing sample that is a part of larger piece and using an abstract? I'm pretty sure this is what I'm going to do with mine instead of using a cover letter, I think.

[asleepawake]

I haven't heard this, but at a PhD advice seminar dealy at my campus recently, the professors advised that we format the statement of purpose like a letter. They said it doesn't happen as much with digital applications, but that it's still kind of expected or looks good. Thoughts?

Edited November 19, 2012 by asleepawake

[Dark Matter]

No cover letter and don't format the SOP like a letter.