Help me pick a writing sample

[Pallas]

One of the writing samples I've considering using for my applications is technically a group project. I wrote the whole paper myself and did the majority of the research, but I consulted with a teammate on which sources to use, and shared my thoughts on the experimental design with them. This is probably the best writing sample I have because it's original research that's related to what I want to study, and I have some ideas about where I want to take it in editing, but I'm hesitant to use it because of the perception that it's not mine. Suggestions?

 

For the record, I do have other research projects that are I could use, but they're outside my subfield.

[fuzzylogician]

Several thoughts. First, you should submit the best paper you have, regardless of subfield. If the paper is in your field, there should be someone on the adcom who can read and evaluate it. The goal is to showcase your research and writing ability; having a writing sample in your subfield is secondary to showing your best work. Second, you should probably contact schools about this issue and ask about their policies. Collaborative experimental work is relatively new in some subfields of linguistics and policies might be vague. You don't want your application to be discarded or suspected because your writing sample is the result of a multi-author project. Third, if/when you contact schools, you should make it clear that you are the first author and main contributor on this work, and you did the actual writing of the paper. The whole point of the writing sample is to showcase your own abilities, so schools might be legitimately concerned that you are submitting something that doesn't really reflect that.  

 

Assuming that this paper is your best work, is there a professor writing you a LOR who will be able to describe your contributions to the project and attest to the fact that you contributed as you describe in your post? If so, I would suggest a combined approach: write a short description of your role in the paper in a footnote in the beginning of the paper, outlining what you did and what the other team members did, and ask a recommender to also address this in their LOR. That is, do your best to explain exactly what your contributions were and how this paper reflects your research and writing abilities. 

 

Since you are applying to linguistics programs, this may be a little bit tricky. Depending on whether you apply to theoretical or more applied/experimental programs this situation may be more or less unusual for them. Some programs don't have a lot of experience understanding how experimental projects work and what it means when there are multiple authors on a paper. For theoretical projects, we normally just assume that everyone contributed equally, but contributions that merit authorship on experimental papers can be very different, as I'm sure you know.  I myself am a theoretical linguist who also has experimental projects, so I've had similar concerns as well. I've opted to submit my multi-authored experimental work as a writing sample in the past (for job applications, not grad school, but the considerations are similar), and I know that my letter writers address my contributions to these projects in their letters. I can tell you that it hasn't been a problem for me, though I always have the chance to submit more than one paper so I additionally submit some singly-authored work and my dissertation. It's seemed to work so far, so I am guessing that if your letter writers explain that the research and writing were primarily yours, and the schools you're applying to allow it, then it should work out ok. Honestly, though, if you have another strong paper that is singly-authored, I'd consider submitting it just to save yourself the headache and doubts. The field needs to be educated, but at this point you just want to get accepted to grad school, not teach everybody how experimental work is done.

[Pallas]

Thanks so much for the reply -- although as a point of clarification, these papers were written for classes rather than as publications, which seems like it changes things significantly (I'm sorry -- this is what happens when I internet on far too little sleep.)

 

But for what it's worth, I'm interested in psycholinguistics, which is actually part of why the problem arises. I definitely want to choose a paper that shows I can design an experiment, and ideally a paper that shows I can do that in the context of language and the brain. However, the other term-long research papers I've done aren't focused on psycholinguistics, but instead fall in more purely linguistic areas that aren't obviously relevant to what I'm interested in studying. So I'm stuck between the relevant-but-technically-shared paper where I did the majority of the work and we turned in separate papers, and less-relevant papers that are entirely mine. Since the programs that want writing samples are primarily linguistics, it's not necessarily inappropriate to do something more linguistics-related, I just think it makes my application less cogent.

 

Also, the papers I think make the strongest arguments for my ability to do research weren't written for classes I took from my letter writers. I tended to pick people I worked for rather than people I had only taken classes from, which were the stronger letters but sort of leaves my writing sample to stand on its own aside from any explanation I want to add myself.

[fuzzylogician]

I see. Although I understand wanting to submit something that is closer to your proposed research interests, I think a better (=safer) strategy is to submit a paper that is not the result of a joint class project. If you had someone who could explain the situation in a letter, I would be less concerned. But as it stands, I think you can't ignore the eventuality where people aren't sure that the paper really reflects *your* abilities. If you need to let the paper speak for itself with no support from faculty, I think the best bet is to submit a strong theoretical paper, and to talk about your experiences with psycholinguistics in your SOP. Mind you, this might be a better strategy regardless of this complication, if you are applying to mostly theoretical departments, both because it'll be likelier that (more) people will read and appreciate your writing sample, and because it might do a better job showing fit -- that you can do good theory work that fits this theoretical department and you also have experimental interests that mesh with their psycholinguists'. Anyway, just a thought. I think this is an unusual enough situation that you should get advice from your LOR writers, they may have other opinions altogether.