SOP and Research

[Cesare]

If you have completed several (ok fine, 5-6)  research projects how many should you discuss in your SOP and how much detail should you go in? And how much room should you leave for discussion about future research you would like to explore? 

[fuzzylogician]

Think of the SOP as future-oriented and a way to explain fit (=what you want to do should hopefully be something the program you're applying to can support you in doing). A good balance might be 30% past, 70% current interests and future plans + fit. Describing 5-6 projects in detail sounds like a bit much to me; there are ways of getting around this - for example, by having some details in your CV. You can also mention several projects that together contributed to the development of some interest or skill that are useful for you now. I'd only go into details for two, maybe three projects. Even when doing so, the goal should always be to show how what you did is relevant now and in the future, so explain what you did in the context of what it taught you, the interests it sparked, how it changed your perception of your field, helped re-formulate a research question, etc. It's ok to propose to continue or expand on a current interest in your SOP, too. The important thing is to always make sure what you're talking about explains the future and not just the past. 

[TakeruK]

I don't know if this is a difference in field, or I just did my SOP incorrectly, but I did spend a lot of time in my SOP discussing my past experience to motivate my future plans. I wrote 4-5 sentences about each of my past projects (4 of them) and why I chose to get a BSc and then a MSc afterwards. All this took just over 1 page and then I spent the remaining 0.5 pages discussing the future. 

 

I don't know if I did it right but my goal was to demonstrate that I am a suitable candidate for their department by showing examples from my past that fit. So, instead of e.g. saying that I am a hard worker, I showed them examples of what I had worked on and the positive results. Instead of saying that I have a lot of experience in "theory X", I showed them all the ways I had worked on this before. Instead of saying that I am responsible and thoughtful about future plans, I showed them my train of thought as I decided to move from one project to another, sometimes in very different fields, but always advancing me towards my goal. 

 

In the last 0.5-0.7 pages, I made an argument about why the school I'm applying to would be a great match for my experience and my goals, with the intention that the history of my past experiences would support these statements. I only talked very very briefly about future plans and only in general terms. I did not discuss any potential research problems or projects at all. One of my main interests in my PhD is to gain experience using telescopes, so most of my "future plans" and "good fit" statements involve discussing how University X's facilities would help me do this. I also gave a list of 3-5 names of people that interest me. I ended the SOP with a few sentences summarising what I wanted to get out of a PhD (observational skills, experience to become an independent researcher).

 

Again, I don't know if what I did (i.e. the opposite ratio of what fuzzy stated) is more common for physical sciences, or if I just did it all wrong and somehow still made it into the schools I wanted. Or, maybe this shows that the SOP style/format does not matter that much at all?

 

However, I still feel pretty certain that one shouldn't discuss future research plans (in the style of a research/grant/funding proposal) in a SOP though. You shouldn't get so technical that you need to cite previous studies as a background and discuss a specific problem to solve. I also think that if you discuss a specific research question, then you might limit yourself too much. But if you try to bring up 3-5 research questions then you either won't have time to develop them all, will write for too long, or will sound unfocused. 

[fuzzylogician]

However, I still feel pretty certain that one shouldn't discuss future research plans (in the style of a research/grant/funding proposal) in a SOP though. You shouldn't get so technical that you need to cite previous studies as a background and discuss a specific problem to solve. I also think that if you discuss a specific research question, then you might limit yourself too much. But if you try to bring up 3-5 research questions then you either won't have time to develop them all, will write for too long, or will sound unfocused. 

 

Definitely. I don't think you need to develop a proposal in a grant-proposal style at all. For many places that would be construed as narrow-minded and not open to growth. Instead you want to define some areas of interests, possibly in the form of several related broad research questions or topics that you are interested in. Ideally, the past projects you describe feed into these interests and if they do (and you clearly demonstrate it), to me that counts as part of the present/future portion of the SOP. The past portion is really background about things that are done and over with -- classes, projects that are not continued or relevant now, "how I first learned about my field" (if you feel the need to add such an opening paragraph). In poorly written statements, things that could be made relevant to your present and future goals are described as past events without any demonstration of how they are relevant now. 

 

For most things, however, I think that you can and should tie them into your present and future goals, so they may be describing something in your past but you use it to demonstrate things relevant for now and later - e.g. that you are a hard worker, that you have experience in X, that you've actually thought through and understand what it means to study for a PhD, that you have seriously given thought to the questions that you say that you are interested in, that you've developed the skills to study them, that you can formulate some (general) questions that your field is interested in and aren't too narrow or extremely broad. If you do those things in that way -- always keep an eye on the present and future goals and link past events directly in that way, I count that in the present/future portion. Part of what that means is that it may not always be important to describe every detail of every project, but rather pick and choose and make a strong case for yourself by concentrating on just parts of projects -- e.g., concentrating on skills you learned from a project whose actual topic is not relevant to your proposed studies, or talking more about the questions and what you learned from them if, say, you had a project that failed or just ended but made you think about something that you've since become very interested in. 

[Cesare]

Thanks for all of the advice. I am still struggling with talking too much about my past research work (I've decided I am only discussing the 2/3 that most relate to the schools I am applying to), but I may be applying to European schools as well and I already have a research proposal, so I am not sure if that future work that I want to do should be mentioned in my US SOP. The issue is that my research question is a bit original and I am worried that it may hurt my application. At the same time, this research topic ties in my research interests together wonderfully and without it I feel like I will come off as unfocused. The research that I am interested in is a result of a finding in previous research, which will be the writing sample that I am turning in. 

Edited September 20, 2013 by anxiousphd

[fuzzylogician]

I think there should be a way to describe the research question(s) you are interested in without actually spelling out the details of the specific project that you have in mind. You're in a good position to think about this, since you've already written a research proposal that tackles some of the specifics. From that, what you want to do (and this is hard!) is step back and define a broader question or issue that your project is a special case of. You then open your SOP with defining this broader issue as your interest, introduce your previous work and writing sample as one way in which you've pursued this interest (and that helped develop it in your mind), and then you sketch how you want to continue pursuing this idea in your graduate work by briefly spelling out some portion of your proposed project. You don't need to go into too many details to show that you have a broad research interest and that you can think of case studies of that interest. 

 

I've recently done this for job applications, where defining a broad theme with examples of specific ways you've studied it (and how you'll expand on it in the future) is absolutely essential. Whatever project you do during your graduate career should really be a case-study of something larger, just one instance of a whole set of questions you have in mind. If you can do something like that on a small scale now, I think that has a very good chance of being noticed by professors as a mature proposal by someone who will be able to succeed in this business, so to speak. 

[juilletmercredi]

I was selective about which experiences I shared.  I had had 3-4 research experiences and wanted a 40/60 split, so I only talked about 2 of my research experiences in any detail and then only with the purpose of explaining where my interest in my field came from and how I learned the skills I needed to succeed in graduate school.  I only had 500 words, so I had to be choosy.  All of my research experiences were listed on my CV, so they knew I had more.

I spent the last 60% discussing why this program was a good fit for me, who I wanted to work with, and discussing a potential research topic (this program asked students to specify a potential dissertation topic).  I definitely agree that this should not be technical - I spent two sentences on my future research interests and this potential dissertation topic, exactly zero of which actually made it into my real dissertation. I spent my last paragraph discussing future goals.