Statement Of Purpose question on citing papers (either my own, or others' published works)

[arcturus]

Hi,

I am applying to PhD programs for Fall 2014, and have the following dilemma while writing the Statement Of Purpose (SOP):

I am structuring my SOP as a sequence of some research experiences (either projects or industry stints) that are relevant to the program I am applying to, and also proposing the questions I would like to further explore in my PhD.

For example: "... I investigated A and we found B. I would like to see how this would generalize to situation C; can it perhaps benefit from the recent results in D theory?..."

Questions:

1. MY OWN RESEARCH: I would like to know, when I talk about my own research, should I cite my paper like this: "...I investigated A and found B [1]..." and in the end give the link to [1] (like in all standard citations)?

   OR, Should I not have any citations in the SOP, and leave it up to the committee to figure out from my resume which publication corresponds to which research project?

2. PAPER THAT'S STILL IN PREPARATION: If the answer to previous question is yes (i.e., yes, I should cite the papers), what do I do for a paper that's still in preparation? The coding/algorithm etc is done, but the paper is still being written. I do not want the committee to think that the project is not good enough, and was just left incomplete, but I want them to know it's in prep. How do I do this? Cite at the bottom, saying 'In preparation'? Or does this look too desperate?

3. CLASS PROJECTS: What about citing class projects? So yes, there ARE some class projects I worked on that we didn't even think of publishing, but they were good research projects because we implemented ideas that were new to us and we learnt a lot. Anyway, can I cite these as 'Class projects, not published, but can provide report'? Or something like that?

4. CITING OTHERS' PAPERS: Finally, if I am referring to 'some recent breakthroughs' in the field and talk about using some of those results to answer research questions I am proposing, should I cite them, even if they are by professors from other universities and departments ? I mean it's obvious that all the major breakthroughs wouldn't be from every uni I am applying to. Would it look bad if I am applying to, say, UWashington, and cite several recent breakthroughs by professors in UWisconsin, UMichigan and Columbia?

Thank you all very much for reading!

[TakeruK]

In my field, we don't normally cite papers in our SOPs. If we cited specific papers, then we are getting way too far into the detail of a project in the SOP. An obvious exception is when a prompt tells us to be this specific. Other than that, if you have to cite a paper, then I think it might be going too deep.

 

To answer your questions.

 

1. Own papers -- I detailed my research experiences and at the end of each paragraph, I just wrote "We published the results of this work in [Journal Name]." I did not provide the full citation since I put the full citation in my CV.

 

2. For papers in prep, I did the same thing as above, but wrote it as "My collaborators and I are currently preparing a manuscript on this work for submission to [Journal Name]." There is no full citation for this so I did not include it anywhere else. But, I did include papers that has been accepted for publication but just not published yet in my CV.

 

3. I think you should just mention class projects. The purpose of a citation is to enable a reader to find the source, and it's unlikely that they will be able to do this. I don't think you need to mention that you can make the paper available, since I think they will ask if they are interested. But if you do, perhaps you can add that as a footnote, or put the paper on your website and provide the link to the webpage as a footnote.

 

4. It will definitely not look bad to cite papers from other places. Collaborating and learning from others is the whole point of academia! However, see my comment at the beginning of the post about citing work. If you choose to cite the work, I would be careful about is to make sure there isn't a controversy about the work you're mentioning. Also, make sure that the work isn't published by a rival lab/group to the group you are trying to apply to.

[arcturus]

Thank you very much for your comprehensive reply. I do not wish to say 'We published it...' because I feel it kind of breaks the flow of my essay. 

 

You also raise a valid point- you say that if I do have to cite a paper, then I am probably going too deep into the topic in my essay. However, isn't the SOP (for a PhD application) supposed to be a statement of my research interests? I am citing papers because I want to talk about current results and how I propose to work on them. Is this no-no? 

[TakeruK]

I think you should discuss the general topic of what you want to do research in. But citing a paper is going to deep, in my opinion. However, there are lots of different ways people want to approach SOPs so there is no single right answer. 

 

But to explain my opinion, I could use an example from my field. In Astronomy/Planetary Science, one possible topic of research is the contents of atmospheres on exoplanets. However, the profs on the admissions committees will be profs in the Astronomy/Physics/Planetary Science departments. That is, probably very few of them will know the details about research in exoplanet atmospheres! So, I think it would be too "deep" for a SOP to cite the latest results in exoplanet atmospheres. What I think the student should do is to mention their interest and perhaps explain the general concepts in language that another person from the same field (but not studying exoplanets at all) can still understand. I also don't think citing papers is useful since it's unlikely that the profs will actually look up and read these papers. I guess it is possible that citing a paper can demonstrate to the few profs that are studying what you study that you are up to date with the literature, but I think if you do a good job of explaining what you want to do in general terms, it would show that you really know what you are talking about too. But again, different people have different methods!