Some Advice on Writing an SOP

[danieleWrites]

First, my credentials. Well. I can spell my own name, though I don't usually know exactly how old I am. I'm within a year or two, but I'm usually wrong until I've done some subtraction. I teach composition and like to write calculus equations on the board when I take classes in poetry writing. But, here's my real credentials: consider what is written herein in conjunction with what the various instructions on SOPs that you've read have said, with the requirements the program you are applying to has put forth, and with your own experience as a writer. Do you think I know what I'm talking about? Should you pay any attention to it? Is any of it useful?

 

Second, I'm not going to give you a formula for what the standard SOP is like, or a list of things the various thousands of admissions committees will be looking for. There are plenty of prescriptions on the internet, many of them written by professors who have presumably gotten sick of badly written SOPs.

 

Third, I'm not promising that SOP writing be easier after this. It'll be harder, actually. I'm not promising that you'll get in to any place you desire, or that there is any one best thing to put in the SOP to get noticed. That would be totally impossible. Each discipline has its own needs and values, as does each university, each department, and each faculty member on the admissions committee (adcomm). There is no one size and it doesn't fit most, let alone all. There are conventions (use Standard English, for one), but other than include your research interests, I won't advocate that any one thing is strictly necessary. I leave that up to the more knowledgeable.

 

The advice:

 

First thing is to deeply understand that you should write an SOP for each program. Most people take this to mean write one master SOP and then tweak as necessary to make the one SOP applicable to each university (U of A becomes U of B, Professor X becomes Professor Y). You can do that. You can be very successful doing that. You most likely, really shouldn't do it.

 

The next thing to understand is the SOP's purpose. Why do the adcomms want to see SOPs? Shouldn't transcripts, letters of recommendation, and a writing sample do it? After all, transcripts and samples show the actual scholarship and the letters verify it. The SOP isn't for showing scholarship off, or to act like a resume, or anything. So why do the adcomms want an SOP? Why are the SOPs one of those make-it-or-fail things? What is the SOP's purpose? In job hunting terms, the SOP is like a cover letter. The cover letter is to make clear connections between the resume and the job ad. For you, its primary purpose is to make the adcomm offer you admission with full funding. For the adcomm, its primary purpose is to help them see how you would fit into their program (make connections between their program and you). By fit, I mean do they have faculty (or enough faculty) in your area of research interest that can advise, mentor, supervise, and/or committee you through the program to get your degree? Do you have the kind of understanding of the discipline, your research interests, and their program that would make you successful? Do they have something to teach you? Offer you? What can you offer them? They want to brag on you as much as you want to brag about them. If they offer you admission, will you be a good scholar? A good student? Here is the most basic question the SOP should answer: What is it about you that makes you a better prospect than everyone else who's applying?

 

Understanding the SOP's purpose, in practical terms, means that you will know what to put into it and what to leave out of it. And how to phrase it.

 

So, with the purpose in mind, there comes the question: what should you put into it and leave out of it? What format should you use? (MLA? APA? Is footnoting okay?! What about citation?!) Should I stick in a personal story that everyone seems to recommend, except for the half that don't? My research interests? The story about why I got on F in that one, very important class? I'm not going to answer those questions because I can't. Every discipline and department is different. I will give you an answer you won't like: research. Find out the requirements each program you're interested in has for the SOP, think of the SOP's purpose: and now research.

 

Research is one of the basic keys to writing an SOP. It's no different than the writing sample you'll be including in your application packet. For each program you apply to, do some research. How much research you need to do depends on a lot of things, the least of which is your personality. More research does not automatically mean a better SOP. Less research doesn't automatically mean a better one, either. What makes the right amount of research? The ability to craft an SOP that is specific for the program that you're getting into. Here's some ideas (not an exhaustive, inclusive list of what to do) on what to research:

• The program itself. Look at the recent graduates and, if possible, read their theses and/or dissertations, at least in part. The acknowledgements can give you an idea about the program's culture. The introduction can give you an idea about what kind of scholarship the program produces and expects. It will also, and this is very important, give you an idea as to how the program uses language. If you speak to them in their own language, that helps your case. You've likely done this, if not, seriously, you should have done this. Look at the program's website and read it all. What kind of classes are offered for both undergrad and grad. Who are the faculty, the tenured, the assistant, the visiting, the emeritus, and the graduate students. What kind of ties to the community (both academic and their local town) do they like to talk about? Do they talk about how their graduate students are working with community partners? Do they host conferences? What happened at the last one? This gives you a taste of the program's culture.
• The faculty. All of them that might be on the adcomm and the ones that are relevant or somewhat relevant to your interests. Crack open JSTOR etc. and search for recent faculty publications. If you're basing your interest on a faculty member on the interests they've got listed on the site and a reference to them in an article from a decade ago, or worse, only their reputation, you don't have a strong basis to establish clear reasons why they have anything to offer you. Read their recent publications, see who they name drop in terms of theory, other faculty, and so on. Make a list of what each faculty member can offer you in terms of research, not just the ones that are directly related to it. If you're into studying apples, but Dr. V works with oranges, think about how Dr. V's work might help you out. Take notes when you research. Each program has a bunch of people, and you're likely applying to multiple programs. It's easier to refer to notes than to go back and look it up all over again.
• What's happening in the field with your current research interests, if necessary. This is so you can situate your research interests in the discipline, and then situation your research interests in the program. You can just tell them what you're research interests are and leave the situating to them, but you can lose that chance to sell yourself as the best amongst the rest.

Research you. Yup. You. Scribble out some lists or paragraphs or whatever that inventories you. Who are your influences? Who are the theorists you keep coming back to? Who are the theorists you loathe, mock, and/or ridicule? What are your research interests in general and specifically and anywhere in between? Some SOPs will need to be more general, some will need to be more specific. Length restrictions, what you found out about the program, the faculty, the state of the discipline, and so on, can alter this for you. What kind of scholar are you? Student? What's the difference? How do you manage your time? Stress? Health? Do you expect to bring your dog? Do you have health issues? Do you have any academic things that are a negative? If you do, how negative are they? It's easy to see that as an either it's entirely bad, or it's somewhere in the huge good category, but some things are negatives that need to be addressed for certain programs, while other negatives can be ignored, or you should discuss with the one relevant letter writer so they can address it. While Sam ultimately received a C in the Research Methods course, the grade doesn't reflect the actual scholarship as Sam fell ill during the mid-term and consequently failed it; my course policies do not permit re-taking the test. What are the good things about you? Not just the grades, awards, publications, and presentations, but also the character traits. What are you weaknesses? Don't do the job interview baloney, my greatest weakness is my perfectionism. Of course, the important, probably ought to be on the SOP questions: why grad school? What will you do with the degree you want? Why are into the research you're into? Why that particular school? Why are you worth admission and funding?

 

Research the assistanceships. Some SOPs will want you to write a bit about teaching or research with assistanceships in mind. So, do a bit of research on what these entail in the programs you're looking at. What do they do and how do they get it? Have you done assistanceships in the past? If so, what were they like? Do you have a teaching philosophy? If not, make one. Have you done anything that can be discussed in terms of the assistanceship? I taught kung-fu to white belt children, so I have teaching experience. I was part of the state herpetological society and went out to help them with their field counts twice a year. I learned that licking petrie dishes is always a bad idea, no matter how much they resemble pistachio ice cream.

 

Research SOPs. You're doing that, right? Go on to forums (like this one) and read the SOPs people have posted and then read the responses. Look particularly at SOPs in your discipline or related disciplines. Psychology might look at other social sciences. Physics might tell the joke about the Higgs Boson and Sunday mass. Bear in mind that the people responding to and/or criticizing the posted SOPs are likely not on an adcomm. Some have been  or will be, but it's not likely they'll be on the adcomm you're hoping will like you best. However, you can start to get a sense of what SOPs are like. What format is it in? Does yours look like everyone else's? Do you have the exact same opening sentence as half of the people hoping to get into a program in your discipline? I've always wanted to be a librarian since those wonderful, summer days I spent in my (relative of choice)'s home library. 

 

So, to take stock. First, understand the purpose. Second, research. A lot. Let the purpose of the SOP guide your research efforts.

 

Next, get the specific requirements for the SOP from each program. Make a list of similarities. If they all ask for a statement of your research interest, score! One sentence fits most! Most of them will be of different lengths and will have different ideas of what specific information they want. Most won't tell you enough, aside from length and one or two "should have" things. They mostly won't tell you if you should use APA or if you should footnote, or how to format it. Single space? Double space? They will tell you whether it should be on paper or what kind of file format to use. I have only one suggestion: consistency. Okay, two suggestions: unless otherwise specified, don't include anything other than the SOP. No bibliography or footnotes. If you quote or paraphrase someone, cite them in the text the way they do it in the average newspaper article. As Scooby says, "Ruh-roh!"

 

Now, start writing. Create something of a master SOP, or a set of master sentences for the SOPs. Some things should be in every one of them, like what your research interests are. Because length requirements are different for each program, you should work out more than one sentence or set of sentences for each thing you plan to put into more than one SOP. Have a more detailed explanation of your research interests and a more concise one. Even though this might be central and, perhaps, most important to the SOP, you don't want most of a short SOP taken up by one thing. Make these sentences do extra duties. If they can explain not only why you're into what you're into, but also why it's significant to the discipline/program, and how the program factors into it, bonus! The more functions one sentence can serve, with clear, readable logic, the more room you have in the length requirements to bring in other things. Think of this master SOP as more of a set of sentences you can hang on the individual SOP's unique structure. A flesh and skeleton metaphor can work here. You can order all SOPs at this point, you'll probably want to put research interests in the middle or toward the end, rather than in the first sentence, but the key here is that the skeleton of the individual SOP and most of its flesh will come from the needs of the program you're writing it for, not from some predetermined formula. No generically applicable, master SOP that has a few tweaks here and there.

 

Here's the thing. The SOP is one of the most important documents you'll write in your life. It's not something that should be done in a few hours, after looking at the program website and spending some time on the net searching for a how-to-write-an-SOP-guide. It takes work backed by research. The readers can tell quite easily how much research you've done on them by the way you structure and write your SOP. They can tell if you're sending out a generic SOP to several programs because it will be too general. You can't change faculty names in and out, along with a detail or two that makes it seem tailored to the program. The individual SOP should be tailored from the beginning. Some sentences won't change much, so you can pre-write them. But how they fit into each SOP, the reasoning you'll use to try to convince the adcomm that you're the best applicant, and the perspective you'll take all the way to the words you use should be done with the program in mind. It shouldn't be generic. Even if it doesn't seem noticeably generic to you, that doesn't mean that the adcomm won't notice it. They read many, many SOPs every year. People who read SOPs develop a sense about the generic, the cut and paste work.

 

How to name drop gracefully, or bring up the theory and histories and whatnot you're working with when there's only a teeny amount of space for everything? That's a bit easier than it might seem. It's not in the explanation; it's in the usage. If you can use the relevant theories and people and methodologies correctly in a sentence, you don't have to show the adcomm that you know how to use them, or how they're related, by explaining it. Trust them to have enough education to make a few connections for themselves when it comes to the discipline. Example: Novels such as Twilight exemplify how Marxist alienation can be applied to childbirth. My research interest lies in the alienation of women from the product of delivery in Modernist American fiction, such as Faulkner's Sound and the Fury. (Huh, I wonder if that would really work?) Two sentences and I've referenced theory, period, history, relevance for today, and some methodology (it's literature, not science). Use it, don't explain it.

 

If possible, have a professor you know read the SOP to your preferred school and give you some advice. They know more than most other groups of people. If not possible, your current university's writing center can help, or other people who are familiar with the field, or with writing. Your high school English teacher or your English major buddy can probably say something about your grammar, but might not be as helpful as expected. Example, in English, the convention is to speak of historical people in present tense. Shakespeare writes, "To be or not to be," because he thinks it is the question. History has kittens. Shakespeare has been dead for centuries, he can't write! Past tense! Shakespeare wrote, "To be or not to be," because thought it was the question. Someone in the field is preferable!

 

Finally, a word about my real credentials. The adcomm is going to do to your application what you've just done with this post. They are going to judge your credentials (your ethos, trustworthiness, veracity, credibility, knowledge, and so on) based on the impressions they get of you from what you've written. So, be knowledgeable about you, your field, and the program, and use that knowledge well.

Edited December 21, 2013 by danieleWrites

[heyz123456]

Just would like to say..

 

THANK YOU.

 

Google did not provide such a realistic approach to what the expectations and requirements are at having a good SOP.

[Loric]

Actually in English you talk about Shakespeare in the present tense because you're discussing an active analysis of the text and the relationship between the reader and the attempt to convey meaning. Which really is a bit silly because Shakespeare wrote plays.. or rather, his plays weren't even written down at first. They were simply performed. Later they were scribbled down.. so the manner of conveyance (which dictates the meaning) is often entirely left out of literary analysis of his work. Bad lit major, bad bad lit majors! *newspaper across nose* Stop trying to make theater into literature!

 

And it was said by a character in a play.. it's not Shakespeare's voice, his opinion, etc.. Just so we're clear.

 

But why bring this trivial difference of opinion up? Because it illustrates that different fields, departments, etc.. have different ways of seeing things. A lit department would probably be fine with such statements, but anyone who has studied Shakespeare as theater academically is not going to let that slide. The stripping down of scripts into mere words on a page is a sore point for most theater practitioners. It's generally seen as the murder of an artform and a contributing factor in the decline of public performance.

 

So be careful of even your most innocuous statements.. though the OP would likely not be happy in a theater program who believed such things. Thus a rejection would be a favor, despite the desire for acceptance.

[biotechie]

DanieleWrites, this is lovely! I hope the admins or someone can pin this so that more people can learn from it. Your advice applies to fields outside of your own as well, and I wish I had seen something like this when I was writing my own from the beginning.

 

This is actually similar to what I did for my SOP (and research statement) in the biomedical sciences for last year's application season. I sat down one day over the summer and wrote down all of the things that I felt told people who I was, how research had molded me into a scientist in ways classes could not, and how I believed I was passionate about science in one document. Then I started a review of my research experience in another, and a statement of diversity experiences in a third. Once I got started, the writing became easy. I ended up tweaking and organizing each of the documents so they stood alone as 1.5 page documents, but once I got to my applications, I found that I could rearrange, edit, and rewrite within the documents to get a finished product for the school. It was fairly stress-free even though every school wanted a differently organized SOP (and sometimes also a research statement), and I'm really glad that I did it that way.

 

The importance of discussion of theory is debatable, but I don't think I've seen someone NOT discuss it. I discussed bioethics and public science outreach, so technically I hit on some theory as well.

[danieleWrites]

But why bring this trivial difference of opinion up? Because it illustrates that different fields, departments, etc.. have different ways of seeing things. A lit department would probably be fine with such statements, but anyone who has studied Shakespeare as theater academically is not going to let that slide. The stripping down of scripts into mere words on a page is a sore point for most theater practitioners. It's generally seen as the murder of an artform and a contributing factor in the decline of public performance.

Thank you for proving my point.

 

So be careful of even your most innocuous statements.. though the OP would likely not be happy in a theater program who believed such things. Thus a rejection would be a favor, despite the desire for acceptance.

As you would not be happy in an English department, which finds hasty generalizations and the concept of "words on a page" as unpalatable as you seem to find literary approaches to Shakespeare. Less so, perhaps, since hasty generalizations are a sign of poor abilities with rhetoric. Thus, we are all very pleased that you are not in English. Though, I have done fine in theater.

[Loric]

Thank you for proving my point.

 

As you would not be happy in an English department, which finds hasty generalizations and the concept of "words on a page" as unpalatable as you seem to find literary approaches to Shakespeare. Less so, perhaps, since hasty generalizations are a sign of poor abilities with rhetoric. Thus, we are all very pleased that you are not in English. Though, I have done fine in theater.

 

I'm going to hastily generalize that whatever involvement you thought you had in theatre was trivial, laughable, and at best superficial.

 

And in contrast if you'd like to go check out the books I've written from your school's library I can PM you the ISBN's.

[fuzzylogician]

DanieleWrites, this is lovely! I hope the admins or someone can pin this so that more people can learn from it. Your advice applies to fields outside of your own as well, and I wish I had seen something like this when I was writing my own from the beginning.

 

Done! This is a great post. I think it's abundantly clear that this post is trying to be general, and it gives some great advice that everyone should read. Of course you should know the conventions of your field and you should use the appropriate language, formatting, structure, etc. conventions that apply in your field. But doing research about the program and about yourself is important no matter what field you are in, and I think DanieleWrites does an excellent job explaining how to go about it.

[danieleWrites]

I'm going to hastily generalize that whatever involvement you thought you had in theatre was trivial, laughable, and at best superficial.

 

And in contrast if you'd like to go check out the books I've written from your school's library I can PM you the ISBN's.

Sounds like fun. Please do. If you have anything related to rhetoric and pedagogy, that would also be appreciated. Comp programs just never seem to understand the value of oration, yanno? Teachers of public speaking have so much great stuff, especially on ethos.

[TakeMyCoffeeBlack]

Actually in English you talk about Shakespeare in the present tense because you're discussing an active analysis of the text and the relationship between the reader and the attempt to convey meaning. Which really is a bit silly because Shakespeare wrote plays.. or rather, his plays weren't even written down at first. They were simply performed. Later they were scribbled down.. so the manner of conveyance (which dictates the meaning) is often entirely left out of literary analysis of his work. Bad lit major, bad bad lit majors! *newspaper across nose* Stop trying to make theater into literature!]

 

They most certainly were, just likely not in a complete script (since that would take forever and cost a lot of money). They weren't just recorded twenty years later for posterity (well, they kind of were) based on memory, written pieces already existed. Shakespeare didn't dictate extemporaneously to the leads, and the leads, no matter how good their memories, did not just jump on stage having heard it from Shakespeare.

[TakeMyCoffeeBlack]

That is to say nothing of the idea that written theatre shouldn't be categorized as literature. An argument could be made for performance theatre, but the way we see a play and the way we read a play are often very different.

[Loric]

Ugh.. Just stop talking until you take a theater history class or at least google it.

[TakeMyCoffeeBlack]

Ugh.. Just stop talking until you take a theater history class or at least google it.

 

Actually, everything I wrote was because I have taken theatre history classes (for four years, in fact). I changed course when I decided I didn't much care for the people who actually do theatre. I'm glad to see the personalities haven't changed much.

[Loric]

The Kings Men wrote/published the first folio. Otherwise all there was were the foul papers which were used to produce the cue scripting.

 

What you read today as "Shakespeare" in literature is a complete fabrication. No such written thing existed when the plays were performed.. and they were created to be performed. Acting as if the literary analysis divorced from the performance has any validity is just academic masturbation.

[Loric]

I'll hand you tubes of paint.

 

Now go on, tell me how you know ALL ABOUT Picasso and Monet and Manet.

 

C'mon, from the tubes of paint. Or better yet, an account of seeing their paintings in a museum from several centuries ago that tries to explain the experience to you. C'mon, tell me how you're an expert.

[TakeMyCoffeeBlack]

The Kings Men wrote/published the first folio. Otherwise all there was were the foul papers which were used to produce the cue scripting.

 

What you read today as "Shakespeare" in literature is a complete fabrication. No such written thing existed when the plays were performed.. and they were created to be performed. Acting as if the literary analysis divorced from the performance has any validity is just academic masturbation.

 

There's a logical issue in your assertion. You're suggesting that what we read as Shakespeare "is a complete fabrication" (which is an absurd statement in itself, as 1.) there's evidence to suggest that the first folio is a compilation of cue scripts, actor's scripts/notes, and perhaps Shakespeare's own notes - and even if it were just a cue script and much of it were (is) fabricated, that does not make it a complete fabrication), which should then divorce it from performance (which is not what good Shakespearean scholarship does) and permit it to be evaluated on its own as a literary piece. 

 

What about later theatre? I don't think anyone would have much trouble placing Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams within their respective literary epochs. 

 

I agree with you that written theatre needs to be evaluated within the context of the playwright's intention for it to be performed, but the idea that we can't consider theatre literature is a bit absurd, no?

[TakeMyCoffeeBlack]

I'll hand you tubes of paint.

 

Now go on, tell me how you know ALL ABOUT Picasso and Monet and Manet.

 

C'mon, from the tubes of paint. Or better yet, an account of seeing their paintings in a museum from several centuries ago that tries to explain the experience to you. C'mon, tell me how you're an expert.

 

For someone so sure of your own intelligence, you do take an awful lot of pride in an absurd comparison (e.g. having studied theatre history for four years - which by no means makes me an expert, nor would I ever claim as much! - vs. picking up tubes of paint). 

[TakeMyCoffeeBlack]

Look, Loric, I have no doubt you are extremely qualified on the topic, especially in comparison to me. But there are facts and there are opinions. As far as "theatre as literature" goes, there isn't much "fact" to go on. For that matter, there isn't much sure "fact" to go on when it comes to the source of our contemporary Shakespearean texts before the first folio.

[Loric]

There's a logical issue in your assertion. You're suggesting that what we read as Shakespeare "is a complete fabrication" (which is an absurd statement in itself, as 1.) there's evidence to suggest that the first folio is a compilation of cue scripts, actor's scripts/notes, and perhaps Shakespeare's own notes - and even if it were just a cue script and much of it were (is) fabricated, that does not make it a complete fabrication), which should then divorce it from performance (which is not what good Shakespearean scholarship does) and permit it to be evaluated on its own as a literary piece. 

 

What about later theatre? I don't think anyone would have much trouble placing Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams within their respective literary epochs. 

 

I agree with you that written theatre needs to be evaluated within the context of the playwright's intention for it to be performed, but the idea that we can't consider theatre literature is a bit absurd, no?

 

Fine, if you go around insisting we view great music and orchestrations as visual art with dots on lines. Cuz that's what it is and what explains it, right?

[Loric]

Look, Loric, I have no doubt you are extremely qualified on the topic, especially in comparison to me. But there are facts and there are opinions. As far as "theatre as literature" goes, there isn't much "fact" to go on. For that matter, there isn't much sure "fact" to go on when it comes to the source of our contemporary Shakespearean texts before the first folio.

 

Well that's part of the whole point of why I mentioned this.. You're going to run into very well educated people who might not share your beleifs, or rather, become very offended when you offhandedly remark about something that is not your area of expertise.

 

Same SOP in front of a literature prof.. probably ok.. if it passes the theater history or script analysis professor (who are often recruited to read applications of the english dept, btw) you're going to royally piss them off.

[TakeMyCoffeeBlack]

Fine, if you go around insisting we view great music and orchestrations as visual art with dots on lines. Cuz that's what it is and what explains it, right?

 

Here's the problem with your analogy: theatre is visual performance just as much as it is text on a page. One can analyze opera from a strictly musical perspective (and many do). The best scholarship will not forget the performance part of its analysis, but that does not mean that it can only be examined as a performance piece. The same goes for theatre. Why is it that many playwrights are also poets and authors? Well, probably because they create their plays with attention paid to the literary elements, just as much as the staging potential.

[TakeMyCoffeeBlack]

Well that's part of the whole point of why I mentioned this.. You're going to run into very well educated people who might not share your beleifs, or rather, become very offended when you offhandedly remark about something that is not your area of expertise.

 

Same SOP in front of a literature prof.. probably ok.. if it passes the theater history or script analysis professor (who are often recruited to read applications of the english dept, btw) you're going to royally piss them off.

 

Then say this, because this is useful advice!

[Loric]

That's what i said and people got all snippy.

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

Only 12 likes? 

[danieleWrites]

That's what i said and people got all snippy.

I wasn't going to reply because your point is important and me sniping is counterproductive to the purpose of the thread. But I've been thinking about this for a few months and I'm at the tail end of a paper, which I am procrastinating hard on. My judgment isn't what it ought to be. Still, I think I do have something productive to add, rather than just being snotty for the sake of being snotty. I also feel that what I'm going to say is likely going to come across snotty, anyway. It is not at all my intention to start an argument, or continue an old argument, or whatever. It is my intention to draw attention (if anyone has any interest in this) to the rhetorical implications of the way the discussion played out.

It's not what you said; it's how you said it. It's not what I said; it's the way I said it.

Tone matters. I wasn't as invested in paying attention to your point as I was in reacting to your tone. I don't know why you chose to phrase yourself the way you did in your initial post, nor what you intended to have people do with your post. I do know what happened. Reaction, not deliberation. And this is why I think it's important enough to address, instead of letting sleeping dogs lie. With most of the writing we do, we have no idea who is on the other end and how they will take it. I'm not concerned with the rights, the wrongs, or the indifferents of the discussion itself. It is what it is. (That fact that all of the snotty barbs essentially expressed agreement on the basic claim is cake.) I am about the whole what can I learn from this cliche. And since this is a thread ostensibly about how to write something important, of a persuasive nature, I think the whole what can I learn from this cliche might be of use.

The general point of this, and why I thought it important enough to risk stirring the pot all over again, is: a key part of the rhetorical art is phrasing oneself for a desired result on the part of the reader. Rhetoric is inherently manipulative (which is why politicians use it as a dirty word). Sometimes people make rhetorical choices deliberately and sometimes they don't. And, intentional or not, rhetorical choices exercise limited, um, control (for lack of a better word) over a reader's response. It's the reader's choice to think, react, be offended, laugh, or whatever. However, it's the writer's choice to consider probable reader responses when making writing choices.

Writing is a social relationship, which means it's all about choices made by the writer and, if there are any, the reader.

Hm. That'll cover it.

[ShadowFairy]

This is a great thread. It's a shame that not many people post more on here as opposed to making the same threads over and over.

 

I am in need of advice for writing SOP's when mentioning why I am interested in the department/why is it a good fit for me: should I include specifics about some of the research (by faculty, ofc) in the department I'm applying to? And how specific should I be? Would it be considerate to mention facilities which you would like to work in and have been quite knowledgeable about for some time? Maybe mention a paper that really garnered my interest by one particular faculty member?