Writing Samples 2015

[Dr. Old Bill]

Last year there was a great thread about what various applicants were doing for their Writing Samples. Given how quiet Grad Cafe has been over the last while, I figure it might be interesting to talk about our plans in that regard (current acceptees can feel free to chime in, of course!)

 

I'm currently finishing up a paper that examines the structural anomalies of three of Shakespeare's sonnets, and proposes that those anomalies were more likely intentional than erroneous. I took a great seminar course last year wherein students were allowed to write their papers on any of Shakespeare's sonnets from any perspective. I wrote papers on two of the "misfits" (99 has fifteen lines, 126 consists of six heroic couplets, and 145 is in iambic tetrameter, rather than pentameter), and am in the process of writing on the third and assembling a single cohesive paper on the topic. It's going to check in at around fifteen to seventeen pages, though includes an appendix and a works cited section that will probably spill over on to two pages.

 

My Statements of Purpose discuss my interest in "historical prosody" or the "history of the lyric," with a particular focus on the evolution of sonnet form. I think (hope!) that the SOP and WS work well together, in light of my graduate interests. It's a bit harder to work out a WS that is truly transhistorical, which is part of why I am grounding it (and my SOP) in the early modern era, even though my interests are a bit broader than that (despite my love of all things Shakespeare). I'll be working on a 20-page paper this fall on the subject of contextualizing Edwin Arlington Robinson (an American poet from the late 19th to early 20th century), but I have recently decided to focus all of my applications on historical prosody, rather than hedging my bets on later eras. Having said that, I'm hoping that if and when I'm accepted, I'll have the opportunity to do more formalized study on both angles.

 

So what are the rest of you working on in that regard? I should also mention that I would be happy to do a WS exchange by the end of this month if anyone is interested (after that I'll be uber busy until the new year, alas, and may not have the time to do a good job of it).

 

 

[unræd]

I'm using a paper I wrote for a graduate Old English seminar I sat in on last spring. I'm done with all the piddly editing, but there are a couple of paragraphs the prof whose class it was for would like me to add, and they'll require a bit more research. It's currently 18 pages (not including works cited, or the material I have to add)--which is a fine length for most places, but which I'll have to cut down to twelve (12!!!) for NYU.

 

It's not on a topic related to the more specific theoretical interests in my writing sample, but it is on the narrow historical (Anglo-Saxon, obviously) period I intend to focus on--and is the best, longest thing I've written, plenty of language work, etc etc. I'd also be very much interested in an exchange, and hope to be all done with it by the end of August, as well!

[Dr. Old Bill]

Sounds great, Unraed! Although yowza on the page count for NYU. That's ridiculously short, and doesn't really make a lot of sense -- the page count is longer than for most undergraduate papers, yet shorter than for most seminar / conference / graduate papers. Perhaps their tacit desire is that many students will write a fresh paper for their own edification...

 

Yale's requirements are surprisingly short as well, being between 10 and 15 pages. I contacted them about wiggle room on the page count, since mine might wind up a little longer with the appendix and works cited pages, and was told rather plainly that "the point is not so much to count as to remember that your readers have a great many other pages to read!" I can't really argue with that. So I simply replied with a "thank you" and said that every page would be a joy to read.

 

 

Unraed: PM me when you've got yours done. I was hoping to have a strong draft of mine done today, but it'll probably be Monday or Tuesday, as I'm out of town for the next three days.

[littlepigeon]

My WS will be part of the MA thesis I wrote this spring, which covered the problem of consolation in Pearl and Chaucer's Book of the Duchess. The thesis itself is upwards of 30 pages, so I'm just going to use the section on Pearl, as it's far more coherent and well-written than the Chaucer portion. Here's where I could use some advice...

 

Some programs state that if you're submitting an excerpt from a longer work, you should just provide a brief paragraph explaining the context for the excerpt. Others don't provide any such instructions, though will often note that excerpts are fine to submit for the WS. In your opinion(s), should I *just* submit the body of the Pearl section itself--that is, without either an introduction or conclusion--and just provide the context for those missing parts alongside the WS? My original plan was to amend both the intro and conclusion to reflect the move from talking about two poems to just the one....but I obviously don't want to have to put more editing time towards the WS than is truly necessary. (I'm already going to have to do a bit of editing on the body of the paper, just to revise a few things I didn't have a chance to fix before I submitted the thesis a few months ago.)

 

Sorry if this post/question is a bit scrambled...and I realize I'm not providing you all with any concrete writing to work with. Nevertheless, your thoughts on this matter would be appreciated!

Edited August 7, 2014 by felibus

[unræd]

Some programs state that if you're submitting an excerpt from a longer work, you should just provide a brief paragraph explaining the context for the excerpt. Others don't provide any such instructions, though will often note that excerpts are fine to submit for the WS. In your opinion(s), should I *just* submit the body of the Pearl section itself--that is, without either an introduction or conclusion--and just provide the context for those missing parts alongside the WS? My original plan was to amend both the intro and conclusion to reflect the move from talking about two poems to just the one....but I obviously don't want to have to put more editing time towards the WS than is truly necessary. (I'm already going to have to do a bit of editing on the body of the paper, just to revise a few things I didn't have a chance to fix before I submitted the thesis a few months ago.)

 

Sorry if this post/question is a bit scrambled...and I realize I'm not providing you all with any concrete writing to work with. Nevertheless, your thoughts on this matter would be appreciated!

 

Didn't seem a bit scrambled at all, Felibus! I think NYU is the only school I'll be having to edit mine down for (but once again, I stress "think"--my initial thought, with Wyatt's Torch, was that Yale can deal w/ an extra few pages, but perhaps that's mistaken?) and they specifically say "don't send an excerpt, but edit down," etc. But I'm curious how to navigate this, too!

[Dr. Old Bill]

Well, for what it's worth, I'll be sending Yale my main WS, which will end up at around 16-18 pages (i.e., more than 10-15!). It may sound a tad arrogant (I hope not), but I think my writing style is quite readable. I use "big words," of course, but I think it's important to remember that no matter how dry the material may be, there's no need to make how one writes about the material dry as well. My point being that the person at Yale I referenced above simply indicated that they get a ton of papers, all of which must be at least partially read through, and that is the reason for the page count. I suspect that they'd be happy to read engaging essays that are a bit longer. Of course, we're all English folks here, so pretty much everyone can probably make the same justification, so...take these thoughts with a grain of salt!

[jhefflol]

I'm still bouncing between a paper I did on the construction of a patriarchal society on the island in The Tempest and one I did on sexual politics in Reformation theater. I might stick with the former, as I spent way too long on that paper. It's the only paper I've written that I'm actually very proud of and shows the caliber of work I can produce. All of my other term papers have been finished with a time strain due to unforeseen circumstances that always seem to pop up near the end of the term. Funny how that happens, isn't it? I consider The Tempest paper to be my love child and I've presented it as well, which means I have versions of the paper that are 19 and 11 pages.

My only concern for this paper is that I wrote it during my first semester of grad study and I do feel that I've grown a bit. While the general topic is pretty obvious, the paper received positive feedback and was met with curious questions at the conference where it was presented. I'm taking a Shakespeare seminar this semester so maybe I will start my term paper early and just use that if I'm happy with it.

[Dr. Old Bill]

I'm still bouncing between a paper I did on the construction of a patriarchal society on the island in The Tempest and one I did on sexual politics in Reformation theater. I might stick with the former, as I spent way too long on that paper. It's the only paper I've written that I'm actually very proud of and shows the caliber of work I can produce.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that the paper should generally be in sync with your SOP. So if you're looking at, like your signature says, programs in transatlantic and gender studies of the 17th - 18th centuries, a paper on patriarchal society in The Tempest sounds like it could work well, but might need a bit of tweaking to make it even more suited to your potential line of study. I haven't read your paper, but I know The Tempest quite well, and I can already imagine that approach, as you mentioned. Indeed, you might want to find an even more specific angle to address in it, if you haven't already (a novel theory about why Ariel is androgynous could be interesting). Good luck with it!

[hunterjumper]

Right now, my WS is a paper I wrote last semester for a modern Af Am drama class. It discusses the use of dirt and grime in two 21st century plays by the same author, and it's probably some of the best writing I've done. I'm still playing around with it, because the playwright, though a Pulitzer winner, is still new and I am unsure if I should just stick to a paper discussing the 19th or 20th century to be safer. Oh, the application season indecisions!

[Poiple]

My writing sample is loosely related to my theoretical area of interest but it seems as if it's less English focussed than a lot of those discussed above. My WS is a close textual and queer analysis of British Women's Weekly magazines. I actually won an international award for this paper, and it's been published, so my advisor said it really should be the piece to use, but I'm concerned about syncing it coherently with my SoP. I'll be doing a lot of tweaks to make it more relevant, I think!

[unræd]

One thing to keep in mind is that the paper should generally be in sync with your SOP. So if you're looking at, like your signature says, programs in transatlantic and gender studies of the 17th - 18th centuries, a paper on patriarchal society in The Tempest sounds like it could work well, but might need a bit of tweaking to make it even more suited to your potential line of study. I haven't read your paper, but I know The Tempest quite well, and I can already imagine that approach, as you mentioned. Indeed, you might want to find an even more specific angle to address in it, if you haven't already (a novel theory about why Ariel is androgynous could be interesting). Good luck with it!

 

 

My writing sample is loosely related to my theoretical area of interest but it seems as if it's less English focussed than a lot of those discussed above. My WS is a close textual and queer analysis of British Women's Weekly magazines. I actually won an international award for this paper, and it's been published, so my advisor said it really should be the piece to use, but I'm concerned about syncing it coherently with my SoP. I'll be doing a lot of tweaks to make it more relevant, I think!

 

Wyatt's Torch's advice is, as always, good, but I'd recommend checking with your advisor, rather than us, to see if those tweaks are necessary given the quality of the paper--published, award-winning--as it stands. I've struggled with this same dilemma--my writing sample is focused on texts in Old English, which is the field I want to work in, but my SOP is specifically focused on a set of theoretical issues that my writing sample doesn't touch. While I'm still mildly concerned about that, I was more worried about it before I spoke to one of my professors about the issue. He's often sat on the adcomm on my university and is usually tapped to write the funding applications from the department to the Graduate School, and he said my worries were absolutely misplaced, since the writing sample and personal statement are used (at least by the adcomms he's served through in his career) for very, very different purposes.

 

In brief, he said the SOP is used to determine three things: professionalism (departments' major fear being investing in someone who washes out), a clear academic trajectory (what work you've done, the research interests you intend to pursue, and how the former informs the latter), and that you have a "sense of the field"--that you know what kinds of research questions are being asked in your subfield, and that you can ask ones that are interesting and relevant to where the discipline currently stands. The writing sample, on the other hand, is used much more basically as, well, what's in the name--a sample of your writing. It should indicate that you can make an interesting argument, sustain it, and engage in a critical conversation w/ other scholars in the process, and the one basic criterion to be used in selecting it is that it's your best work, period. Yes, it should be focused on the literary period you intend to work on (because it will, at least at some schools, be given to that area faculty to read) but beyond that it does not need to be a perfect example of the kind of research you outline in your SOP--especially since most applicants haven't done that research yet! I have another prof who said much the same thing--she gained admission to the most competitive medieval studies program in the country (they accept four applicants per year out of a couple hundred) with a paper on, of all things, a 19th-century topic, but she submitted it because it was her best work. (Gotta say, though, there's no way I'd be ballsy enough to do something like that, myself!)

 

So if your paper is on your basic historic period, check with your profs to see if tweaks are necessary, or not. While this advice is based on conversations w/ faculty who are intimately involve in both the profession and admission decisions at a large research university, it is, like Wyatt's Torch's, that of someone who has not been admitted to a program. The person you should most listen to--assuming they're relatively connected/involved in the profession, understand the dismal situation in the humanities, etc--is your advisor, not us! 

Edited August 13, 2014 by unræd

[Poiple]

unræd thank you for your response, it's a great help knowing I'm not the only one with these dilemmas I'll probably end up making just minor changes to my WS and focus my energy on getting a decent statement of purpose, as I definitely think this is the area that needs the most work from me. If only the dreaded GRE wasn't hanging over my head as well!

[SilasWegg]

What about programs that require a writing sample with original instructor's comments? Iowa requires this and I'm not sure how to proceed. I'm sending everybody else a condensed and excerpted chapter from my master's thesis on Melville but this is neither coursework nor does it have instructor's comments. Could I have my thesis director throws some red ink on there for me and send them that? Seems odd...

 

The other problem is a lot of my coursework (and some of my best writing) has been in areas other than C19 American. For example, I have a killer reception history of a late C18 British poetess with nice commentary but this might misrepresent my research interests. Of course I have some C19 American stuff to send but this was earlier on in my training and not at all my best work. 

 

Also, is it ok to exceed these super short page limits by a few pages? CUNY Grad Center says 15 max. Do you think it would be unreasonable to send them an 18-19 page writing sample (the one I'm sending to everybody else).

 

Now, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge how absolutely insane and discouraging this process is. 

[jhefflol]

Thanks for all of the feedback! That my paper doesn't even touch the idea of transatlanticism is something I've been struggling with as well. I don't see how I can add that in to my paper at all and keep the integrity of my argument. I'm going to meet with my advisor the first week of school because I'm THAT anxious about the whole process. My advisor only knows the basic premise of my paper but had warned me that the thesis seems fairly obvious. I like to disagree, as during my review of literature for this paper I read nearly every work of criticism on The Tempest for the last 20 years or so, some even further back. Yes, I am crazy. I feel more confident about my paper because the professor whose class it was originally for was that notoriously difficult professor that every university seems to have. And he gave me an A. I'm more concerned about my writing style though. My style seems to be pretty simplistic usually, but I've been advised to make sure that my papers read like prose to maintain interest through the entirety of the argument. I have never been a creative writer so this is something that I struggle with.

[Dr. Old Bill]

What about programs that require a writing sample with original instructor's comments? Iowa requires this and I'm not sure how to proceed. I'm sending everybody else a condensed and excerpted chapter from my master's thesis on Melville but this is neither coursework nor does it have instructor's comments. Could I have my thesis director throws some red ink on there for me and send them that? Seems odd...

 

Ah yes. I remember stumbling across that on Iowa's page in my first swath of research. It is odd, particularly given that some applicants will be writing a work from scratch, while others will be assembling it from more than one paper. It's a very exclusionary practice on Iowa's part, and probably turns off a lot of potential applicants. They also stipulate that the paper should have been "originally written for a class," which probably cuts 1/3 or more of potential applicants. Quite silly, in my view. In this instance, I would touch base with the Director of Graduate Studies directly and explain that your work will be an excerpted part of your thesis, and you'd be happy to solicit your professor's comments if need be. I'm guessing the DGS will get back to you and say "don't worry about it," but if you are anything like me, the prohibitive nature of their admission stipulations would prevent me from applying (and I happen to know one of the English professors there to boot!).

 

 

 

The other problem is a lot of my coursework (and some of my best writing) has been in areas other than C19 American. For example, I have a killer reception history of a late C18 British poetess with nice commentary but this might misrepresent my research interests. Of course I have some C19 American stuff to send but this was earlier on in my training and not at all my best work.

 

Well, even within this thread you can see that there are some slightly different schools of thought on this matter. Most of what I have read and heard (lots of it has been on GC, mind you) is that your SOP and WS should closely match. But as Unraed intimates, if your work on the subject mentioned in the SOP is far inferior to your work in another genre, it's probably best to defer to your best work. You may want to contextualize it in your SOP though. Perhaps a line like this would suffice: "Since this research focus is a recent development for me, I have yet to scratch the surface on an academic level. As a result, I believe this writing sample on [xxxx] is representative of the quality of my work, if not the precise nature of my graduate interests." Or something like that. You know, just something that tells them why your writing sample is about an 18th century British poet (avoid using the outmoded term "poetess," by the way), instead of a 19th century American figure.

 

 

 

Also, is it ok to exceed these super short page limits by a few pages? CUNY Grad Center says 15 max. Do you think it would be unreasonable to send them an 18-19 page writing sample (the one I'm sending to everybody else).

 

Another case where you should probably contact the DGS to be sure. Are all of the pages pure content, or do they include works cited pages, appendices etc.? If the former, I think 18-19 would probably be too long. If the latter...well, referential matter is usually not considered in the overall page count, but the DGS (or even an assistant in the graduate office) would be able to tell you definitively. I've had to contact a few program offices about this kind of information, and they're usually quick to respond.

 

 

 

Now, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge how absolutely insane and discouraging this process is.

 

Ha! I completely understand that sentiment. I have to admit though, that as crazy as it sounds, I kind of enjoy the process! I mean, it's a major pain in a lot of respects, but I get the "little kid excitement" that Felibus mentioned in another thread (and the "Christmas with the possibility of chainsaws" feeling espoused by Unraed) when I think about how in seven months, barring a complete shutout, I'll be mapping out the next five or six years of my life, preparing to finally get paid to learn what I love, and ultimately teach what I love, and be surrounded by people who are mature and focused etc. So the nitty gritty details are annoying, and the process is long, expensive, and definitely laborious...but the end is SO much bigger than the means to the end that I don't really mind.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Wyatt's Torch

[queennight]

Ha! I completely understand that sentiment. I have to admit though, that as crazy as it sounds, I kind of enjoy the process! I mean, it's a major pain in a lot of respects, but I get the "little kid excitement" that Felibus mentioned in another thread (and the "Christmas with the possibility of chainsaws" feeling espoused by Unraed) when I think about how in seven months, barring a complete shutout, I'll be mapping out the next five or six years of my life, preparing to finally get paid to learn what I love, and ultimately teach what I love, and be surrounded by people who are mature and focused etc. So the nitty gritty details are annoying, and the process is long, expensive, and definitely laborious...but the end is SO much bigger than the means to the end that I don't really mind.

 

:') Cheers to keeping the dream alive! Great motivation, Wyatt.

[queennight]

In terms of the writing sample I'm planning to submit, it's for a third-year course that I took in my last year of undergrad. It focuses on the 20thC American poet Wallace Stevens (one of my favorites) and how his work intersects with certain philosophic theories. I had to tear through a couple hundred of his letters in order to find the appropriate references, and I am aware of how insanely esoteric my paper is ; I'm just hoping that it's so specialized that it might peak interest. My SoP is basically on the exact same idea - how Romanticism/early Victorian literary theories intersect American Modernism, more specifically in regards to poetics.

[unræd]

Ha! I completely understand that sentiment. I have to admit though, that as crazy as it sounds, I kind of enjoy the process! I mean, it's a major pain in a lot of respects, but I get the "little kid excitement" that Felibus mentioned in another thread (and the "Christmas with the possibility of chainsaws" feeling espoused by Unraed) when I think about how in seven months, barring a complete shutout, I'll be mapping out the next five or six years of my life, preparing to finally get paid to learn what I love, and ultimately teach what I love, and be surrounded by people who are mature and focused etc. So the nitty gritty details are annoying, and the process is long, expensive, and definitely laborious...but the end is SO much bigger than the means to the end that I don't really mind.

 

I'm out of up votes for the day, but besides: the forums would only have allowed me to up vote this once, which wouldn't have been nearly enough.

[jhefflol]

This is kind of off topic, but didn't you say you were near Toronto, Wyatt's Torch? I've been doing research on CFPs and I noticed there is a huge conference in Toronto next year with CFPs in about every discipline imaginable. Have you heard anything about it? I'm thinking about submitting a few abstracts.

[Dr. Old Bill]

This is kind of off topic, but didn't you say you were near Toronto, Wyatt's Torch? I've been doing research on CFPs and I noticed there is a huge conference in Toronto next year with CFPs in about every discipline imaginable. Have you heard anything about it? I'm thinking about submitting a few abstracts.

 

Nope -- I'm not (I'm Canadian, though from Vancouver), but Queennight is! Maybe she'll chime in on that front. I might be interested in that conference too.

[SilasWegg]

Wyatt are you in Fredricksburg? I'm in Richmond. Would you like to study for GRE subject test sometime? Maybe compare writing samples? PM me!

[jhefflol]

I found the info on cfplist.com which is an incredible resource I'd like to pass along if anyone is interested:)

[queennight]

Nope -- I'm not (I'm Canadian, though from Vancouver), but Queennight is! Maybe she'll chime in on that front. I might be interested in that conference too.

Is it at UofT? I've literally been flooded with emails about conferences here so I'm not sure exactly which one you're referring to! If you're talking about the UofT Graduate Conference, I know that it's in May normally and they have opened it up to other universities to submit as well. I've never been!

[Krystal]

The WS is what has me the most nervous this application season. I've really enjoyed reading through this post so far - it's been very helpful! Thank you, everyone!

 

I am a bit on the fence about my own WS. I'm trying to choose between two different papers. One is on morality play appropriation in Middleton's Women Beware Women and how the aesthetics of the form evolve (or, rather, fail to evolve) in the play because Middleton's characters explicitly replace moral authority with secular authority. The other is on the exchange of women in four early modern plays (amongst them The Tamer Tamed and Henry VIII) read through the lens of a few theoretical frameworks - such as Levi-Strauss, Rubin, Irigaray, and Zelizer. 

 

While both of these papers align perfectly with what I'll be discussing in my SOP, I'm finding it difficult to choose between them. I wrote the piece on Women Beware Women as part of my undergraduate thesis, and my writing has changed drastically since then. I am revising this paper at the moment. It is a paper I really did enjoy writing and I think it has really great potential. On the other hand, I wrote my exchange of women paper in graduate school. It definitely needs to be revised as well, but it does more closely reflect my more recent writing style and my ability to sustain graduate-level thinking  - though I think my overall approach does fall a bit short (which is where revision will help, definitely). Like the former, I really did enjoy this paper as well. There are pros and cons to each of these, naturally. Does anyone have any feedback on what to do in this situation? Have you found yourself in a rut like this?

 

Thanks in advance, wonderful people! 

[Dr. Old Bill]

Well, both papers seem to match up well with your SOP and propsed course of study, so that's obviously a good thing right off the bat. To my non-adcomm, non-admitted, non-graduate eye, it strikes me that your second, paper, the one on female perspectives in early modern plays, sounds more adcomm-friendly than the other given the programs you are applying to. Theoretical approaches are like catnip to a lot of professors, and historical women's studies applied to literature is definitely the kind of subject that appeals to a large swath of professors as well. The first paper focuses on one play in particular, which might be a little too narrow. Then again, the biggest factors seem to be that it matches your stated interests, is well-written, and piques the interest of one or more adcomm members. Two of those things are wholly within your power, while the third can be largely in your power if you do enough research into POIs at the various programs you apply to. Personally, I tailor my SOP to each institution, with the third (or fourth) paragraph being almost completely dedicated to fit with the program and various professors. This seems to be what most (but not all) folks do, and it just makes sense.

 

Ultimately you may find it more beneficial to use both writing samples in tandem, depending on which one seems to mesh most closely with a given program. Just make sure your papers are interesting (particularly the first ten pages), well-argued, well-written, and dovetail with the interests of various POIs at your chosen programs.

 

Good luck!