Writing Samples 2015

[Dr. Old Bill]

Actually, there are practical reasons for saving as a .pdf as well. Any formatting gremlins are basically eradicated. There was one early instance where I noticed a .docx I had uploaded had some issues. Word is notorious for that, really. You can look at a document in Word, and print it off, and it will all be fine...but when you upload it somewhere, something can go awry. So since then, I've just used CutePDF to essentially "print" to a .pdf file.

 

I was kind of fortunate with my WS in that I made it right around 15 pages, meaning that I only needed to augment it just a little bit for one or two applications. It never hurts to contact a DGS or Graduate Coordinator though -- one place says "Around 25 pages" but I checked, and they affirmed that they'd take 15-20 pages as well. It's much easier to chop than add, after all.

[lyonessrampant]

On the translation question, it is also common to put your English translation in the main body and put the original language in footnotes.  Unless you're doing close work with the original language (and it is also common to put short phrases or individual words in parentheses in the main text if referenced directly), an adcomm made up of people who don't read those languages is probably not going to spend the time checking or comparing all of your translations; they're going to want to get through it as quickly as possible since they have several hundred more to read potentially.  And even if someone has reading knowledge of one of the languages you're working with, it's true that languages get rusty and reading in English is always faster for a native speaker, so they're probably going to maybe check a couple translations and then just read the English only.

[__________________________]

Actually, there are practical reasons for saving as a .pdf as well. Any formatting gremlins are basically eradicated. There was one early instance where I noticed a .docx I had uploaded had some issues. Word is notorious for that, really. You can look at a document in Word, and print it off, and it will all be fine...but when you upload it somewhere, something can go awry. So since then, I've just used CutePDF to essentially "print" to a .pdf file.

 

I was kind of fortunate with my WS in that I made it right around 15 pages, meaning that I only needed to augment it just a little bit for one or two applications. It never hurts to contact a DGS or Graduate Coordinator though -- one place says "Around 25 pages" but I checked, and they affirmed that they'd take 15-20 pages as well. It's much easier to chop than add, after all.

 

As someone who's done tech support in an academic library for several years, this definitely should have occured to me.  One probably shouldn't expect grad school application portals to be any less sketchy than Google Documents.  Emailing the DGS about small quips like that is also probably prudent.  Good call!

 

 

On the translation question, it is also common to put your English translation in the main body and put the original language in footnotes.  Unless you're doing close work with the original language (and it is also common to put short phrases or individual words in parentheses in the main text if referenced directly), an adcomm made up of people who don't read those languages is probably not going to spend the time checking or comparing all of your translations; they're going to want to get through it as quickly as possible since they have several hundred more to read potentially.  And even if someone has reading knowledge of one of the languages you're working with, it's true that languages get rusty and reading in English is always faster for a native speaker, so they're probably going to maybe check a couple translations and then just read the English only.

 

I am doing close work with the original language, but for more general and less closely analyzed passages something like this might be a good idea.  I'll play around with unraed's comment of putting a translation in bracketts and combining it with this and see how it looks/reads.  I've definitely seen both methods used in books and journal articles... so, thank you!

 

By the way, does anyone think anything is wrong with using a WS that focuses on non-English language poetry for English programs?  Specifically Latin?  Obviously something in OE or ME would be fine, but the medieval paper I'm submitting will be primarily be focused on a Latin text.  I have another couple Writing Samples that I could use for English programs, but they aren't nearly as relevant to my primary field of interest.  I would think it would be okay, since a lot of English programs encourage applicants to be coming in with some competence in at least one foreign language...

[__________________________]

Oh and also, on PDFs -- you don't need to use an outside client or program to save Word Documents as PDFs (not sure what CutePDF is).  If you're using Word, you can totally select PDF as a file type when you do a "Save As..."

 

just sayin...

[unræd]

I am doing close work with the original language, but for more general and less closely analyzed passages something like this might be a good idea.  I'll play around with unraed's comment of putting a translation in bracketts and combining it with this and see how it looks/reads.  I've definitely seen both methods used in books and journal articles... so, thank you!

 

By the way, does anyone think anything is wrong with using a WS that focuses on non-English language poetry for English programs?  Specifically Latin?  Obviously something in OE or ME would be fine, but the medieval paper I'm submitting will be primarily be focused on a Latin text.  I have another couple Writing Samples that I could use for English programs, but they aren't nearly as relevant to my primary field of interest.  I would think it would be okay, since a lot of English programs encourage applicants to be coming in with some competence in at least one foreign language...

 

Same here--I really do need the actual OE and OS, at least, for my argument to make sense. But like I said, I did consider putting the untranslated text of secondary source quotations in footnotes, and I may still do that when it comes time to cut for programs.

 

In re your other question, it's a good one, but not one I'm qualified to answer. I mean, I assume your SOP for the English programs talks about the kind of work your hoping to do/have done with English texts, correct? And your undergrad degree's in English? Then I wouldn't think it's much of an issue since it's on your period, shows your approach, and is (most importantly) your best work, but again, I don't know. I will say that of my institution's three Medieval Latinists, two are housed in English and only one in Classics.

 

But again: what do I know? Honestly, if kidnapping and interrogating adcomm members wasn't a federal crime...

[lyonessrampant]

Since you're a medievalist, I don't think it is a disadvantage to not be working with OE or ME.  Since so much of the literature is in Latin, you'll need to be able to work with it, especially if you're doing anything having to do with religion or official records.  ME isn't really a worry since learning to work with it is something you can do independently, especially if you work with the more standard/London area dialect.  My undergrads read Chaucer (not all of CT of course!) in ME with the aid of notes, so I don't think an adcomm would be worried about that.  I would definitely stick to the writing sample you feel fits the most closely with the research statements you express in your SoP and displays your strongest writing.  Good luck!

 

Edited to add that I'm sure you can/do/have work with ME, not that you need to learn to do that!  And also that I assume you make links to English lit in your SoP or reasons why you're applying to an English program as opposed to a history or Classics program, for example.

Edited November 10, 2014 by lyonessrampant

[__________________________]

Sounds good, thanks everyone! I actually did read very close to all of the CT in undergrad -- my adviser likes teaching ME by throwing us straight into it. I think your undergrads could handle it! The course wasn't a broad survey course though, which may be what you're teaching. That woman is hardcore though, she had us read most of Malory's "Morte d'Arthur" and a good chunk of Chretien's Arthurian romances in an introdution to British literature. She's also an uncompromising feminist and one of my favorite people in the world, but I'm not sure how popular it's made her. I'm in a pretty quick paced OE reading group now that she'd like to continue doing in the spring even though I won't be working for/studying at the school anymore by then -- I think we're going to tackle Beowulf in the original (so excited).

Anyway, that same prof is going to read through my WS this week though, so I'll definitely brainstorm the issue of how to format translations with her and bring up all the wonderful points you all have made. I'm not that worried about English issue, but I was looking at it and thinking, "huh. I guess none of this is really 'English Literature.'" Then again that's something I can easily explain -- I'm interested in multilingual poetics, and this Latin poem of French origin is playing with OE poetics that I think worth exploring further in a future project, yadda yadda yadda...

unræd (switched to a tablet so I can bust out my Icelandic keyboard to finally spell your username right, ohhh yeahh), I'd be interested in trading writing samples at some point if you are... Mine's in last minute demolition and restructuring mode right now, but it will be back to normal by the end of the week(end), I think/hope. You may be passed that point though. ugh, two jobs, two language classes, a teaching assistantship, and a dark cloud of app deadlines and unemployment looming over the month of December hasn't lent me as much time for this as I would have liked.

[lyonessrampant]

This was the British survey.  Between asking them to read Christina Mirabilis untranslated (that wasn't a success; I'd forgotten how hard that text is and it was too early in the semester) and parts of CT, they certainly learned a lot!  There is also an extra credit option for them to memorize and recite 25 lines of CT in "accurate" ME, which is fun.  Your advisor sounds awesome, and I would guess you are very well prepared to be a medievalist as a result of working with her.  Best of luck to you!

[__________________________]

This was the British survey.  Between asking them to read Christina Mirabilis untranslated (that wasn't a success; I'd forgotten how hard that text is and it was too early in the semester) and parts of CT, they certainly learned a lot!  There is also an extra credit option for them to memorize and recite 25 lines of CT in "accurate" ME, which is fun.  Your advisor sounds awesome, and I would guess you are very well prepared to be a medievalist as a result of working with her.  Best of luck to you!

It sounds like a fun class, though I could see how that could bring about difficulties! . Thank you for your good wishes and input!

[unræd]

unræd (switched to a tablet so I can bust out my Icelandic keyboard to finally spell your username right, ohhh yeahh), I'd be interested in trading writing samples at some point if you are... Mine's in last minute demolition and restructuring mode right now, but it will be back to normal by the end of the week(end), I think/hope. You may be passed that point though. ugh, two jobs, two language classes, a teaching assistantship, and a dark cloud of app deadlines and unemployment looming over the month of December hasn't lent me as much time for this as I would have liked.

 

Would that this were not the story of all our lives!

 

Sure, whenever. Let me know--I was going to try to do some elaborate, Mae West-y "Why don't you come around and PM me sometime?" thing there, but failed.

[__________________________]

Would that this were not the story of all our lives!

 

Sure, whenever. Let me know--I was going to try to do some elaborate, Mae West-y "Why don't you come around and PM me sometime?" thing there, but failed.

 

 

maybe I will...

[Dr. Old Bill]

This resurgence of .gifs is all our cohort needed to resemble the awesome ones of bygone GC years....

[1Q84]

Soooo... how the heck does one do MLA format headings if it's not for a class? I've scoured the handbook and can't find any information on this and have settled with just

 

Name

 

Date

 

in top left hand corner, then the title center align and the usual page number, last name thing. It just looks so bare now.

[__________________________]

Soooo... how the heck does one do MLA format headings if it's not for a class? I've scoured the handbook and can't find any information on this and have settled with just

 

Name

 

Date

 

in top left hand corner, then the title center align and the usual page number, last name thing. It just looks so bare now.

 

Um.... I think that's just how you do it, at least for our purposes!

[Dr. Old Bill]

For what it's worth, I did (as an example):

 

MY NAME

CRITICAL WRITING SAMPLE

AWESOME UNIVERSITY

MONTH & YEAR

 

Top left corner, of course.

 

In my SOPs, I put "Graduate Admissions Committee" where the professor would normally go.

[zanmato4794]

I just have the title at the very top and my last name in the header. it looks pleasing, to my eye, and it allows you to get an extra few lines out of your page limit!

[hypervodka]

I emailed the director of Graduate Studies at Emory U, and he said, "All we need is a title."  So, that's something I encourage you to ask each department if it's important to you.

[Itharene]

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!

Might it be Suzan Lori-Parks? Remember a paper about the instability of meaning in her plays. Good luck in any case!

[unræd]

Hey guys. Question:

 

So, NYU has a really low page count--10-12, which means my 20 page sample's gonna need to be whittled down. They also post language on their prospective applicant page that says:

 

Please do not send a sample that exceeds the page limit with instructions to read only certain pages; applicants should instead edit the writing sample to meet the length requirement.

 

Now, my question. They obviously don't want you to send them 30 pages with instructions to read from the second paragraph on page 15 through the third paragraph on page 27. But do you y'all read that to mean that it would be inappropriate to give them an 11 page excerpt, with a note describing the argument beyond that point? Or do you think that means they want a complete paper in 10-12 pages? It turns on the meaning of "edit"--do they just want you to just cut things down for them so they're only being handed 10-12 pages of text, or do they want you to more substantially edit the larger work down so it's contained within that limit?

 

Thanks in advance!

[hypervodka]

Hey guys. Question:

 

So, NYU has a really low page count--10-12, which means my 20 page sample's gonna need to be whittled down. They also post language on their prospective applicant page that says:

 

 

Now, my question. They obviously don't want you to send them 30 pages with instructions to read from the second paragraph on page 15 through the third paragraph on page 27. But do you y'all read that to mean that it would be inappropriate to give them an 11 page excerpt, with a note describing the argument beyond that point? Or do you think that means they want a complete paper in 10-12 pages? It turns on the meaning of "edit"--do they just want you to just cut things down for them so they're only being handed 10-12 pages of text, or do they want you to more substantially edit the larger work down so it's contained within that limit?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

What ever excerpt you provide should be able to standalone, without it needing any further explanation. They want 10 to 12 pages of something complete (or, in your case, "complete"). I wouldn't compress the entire; I'd "crop" out everything but the most meaty argumentation.

[unræd]

What ever excerpt you provide should be able to standalone, without it needing any further explanation. They want 10 to 12 pages of something complete (or, in your case, "complete"). I wouldn't compress the entire; I'd "crop" out everything but the most meaty argumentation.

 

Thanks so much! Out of up votes, so I'll have to come back later to show my appreciation appropriately!

 

And I hadn't meant that I'd provide them a smaller section that wasn't coherent, self-contained, or that required further explanation--a lot of programs ask that if you submit an excerpt of a longer work, you provide a sense of its context.

Edited November 24, 2014 by unræd

[Dr. Old Bill]

Hypervodka may be right, though I would still be inclined to make it clear that material has been truncated. Even the classic

 

*   *   *

between portions might be worthwhile. While it's true that one can technically always cut down a paper, I still think it's important to show that you have done more work on the topic than what 10-12 pages allows for. In other words, it should be able to stand alone, but at the same time there should be an indication that it doesn't have to, if you know what I mean.

 

(For what it's worth, I would have a footnote or a square-bracketed sentence or two talking about what was removed from the original paper).

[unræd]

Hypervodka may be right, though I would still be inclined to make it clear that material has been truncated. Even the classic

 

*   *   *

between portions might be worthwhile. While it's true that one can technically always cut down a paper, I still think it's important to show that you have done more work on the topic than what 10-12 pages allows for. In other words, it should be able to stand alone, but at the same time there should be an indication that it doesn't have to, if you know what I mean.

 

(For what it's worth, I would have a footnote or a square-bracketed sentence or two talking about what was removed from the original paper).

 

I'm lucky in that it won't require me removing stuff from the middle--the paper breaks down into two roughly equal halves, and I'll edit/send along the first one. The other advantage of at least referencing (and a sentence in square brackets was my thought, too) what was in the other half is that it takes a decidedly different approach, and it'd be nice to gesture to that, as well.

[ProfLorax]

Trimming down a 20-pagers into a 12-pager follows a similar process as trimming down a seminar paper into a conference paper. Whenever I have to do that, I do the following:

 

1. I trim down the introduction, partition, background, and theoretical framework. In a 10-12 pager, those sections should take 2-3 (maybe 3 1/2?) pages. The new length also means that I get to my thesis statement (now one sentence) within the first page. 

 

2. Then, I look at my body paragraphs. I review my new intro and decide which body paragraphs/lines of argument contain the most "meat" in terms of supporting my thesis statement. Often this means I will keep three of four body paragraphs in a row that build upon each other in an important or significant way, then chop the next few body paragraphs.

 

3. I look for moments within the body when I propose new directions or incorporate new primary texts that aren't crucial to my new thesis. I then mercilessly chop them out.

 

4. I look back to my thesis statement. Now that I have drastically cut out my body paragraphs, I revise my thesis to fit my analysis. Usually, this means I have a more limited scope than my original thesis.

 

5. I condense my conclusion section to one paragraph. I modify it as needed to fit my new thesis.

 

6. I read from start to finish and add transitions/re-order paragraphs as needed so it appears like a strong, cohesive paper. 

 

Hopefully that helps! I also found this document, which explains in more depth the process of transforming a seminar paper into a conference paper: http://www.grad.washington.edu/gomap/via/nowacek-condense-paper.pdf. I think it will be useful for those who need to significantly cut down their writing samples!

[iwontbelyeveit]

This may have been asked already, but if my writing sample is an article I've published, would it be a good or bad idea to submit the published version (i.e. the article PDF)? Thanks!