quoting stuff in the SoP

[Venetia]

Hi all,

I'm applying for an English PhD and I'm currently writing the SoP. I want to use a quotation and refer to a couple of articles/books that have been really influential, etc. How extensive does the reference have to be? Can I just put the title and author, or should I include publisher/year? At the moment I'm just including the first, but just wanted to see what everyone else did.

[LateAntique]

I mentioned my senior thesis in my SoP and two of the books that served as inspiration. I simply mentioned the author's full name and the title of the book.

[Maya]

I have been wondering the same thing. I actually want to mention a few different key ideas by several authors in one of my SOPs, and I'm wondering how to go about citing this stuff...in every other case obviously I would do full citations and then have a reference list/works cited at the end, but that will take up some precious space in the SOP! I already have too many words/pages as it is.

[JerryLandis]

I wouldn't cite anything formally. Think of your SOP more as a one-sided conversation about your intentions as a graduate student. Casually dropping the name of a scholar or book will make you seem like you can have impromptu conversations about academic publications and the ideas of relevant scholars, which I think would impress the person reading the SOP more than a formally cited point. If the department you are applying to really is a good match for you, the people reading your SOP should be familiar with whatever it is you decide to mention, without needing publication information, page numbers, and all that.

[Maya]

I wouldn't cite anything formally. Think of your SOP more as a one-sided conversation about your intentions as a graduate student. Casually dropping the name of a scholar or book will make you seem like you can have impromptu conversations about academic publications and the ideas of relevant scholars, which I think would impress the person reading the SOP more than a formally cited point. If the department you are applying to really is a good match for you, the people reading your SOP should be familiar with whatever it is you decide to mention, without needing publication information, page numbers, and all that.

Those are some good points. I guess one of the problems I'm having is that I wrote a research proposal for my LSE application, and I am using some of the sections of that proposal for my SOP for one of the U.S. schools; since the research proposal itself is thoroughly cited, it would feel strange just cutting those citations out when I'm basically copying and pasting some sections of the research proposal. I guess that all of the warnings about the big 'P'--plagiarism--really got me scared as an undergrad and grad student.

[hinesaj]

I, like some of the others in this thread, am including a couple quotations/ideas from other scholars when discussing works that have pushed me towards graduate study. I'm not planning on doing any formal citations--just making sure that I attribute the information to the proper author and title (and journal, if applicable). I agree with JerryLandis about this being a sort of "informal" academic discussion rather than a formal one with page numbers and footnotes.

[tarski]

I guess one of the problems I'm having is that I wrote a research proposal for my LSE application, and I am using some of the sections of that proposal for my SOP for one of the U.S. schools; since the research proposal itself is thoroughly cited, it would feel strange just cutting those citations out when I'm basically copying and pasting some sections of the research proposal.

I feel your pain: I've done two Canadian grant applications, both of which shared some content with my SOP, but they were expected to come with bibliographies while that doesn't seem to be the case for the SOP. I rewrote it as much as I could, and just named one article and its pretty well-known authors.

[LateAntique]

Here's how I did it:

The inspiration for the thesis came from Peter Brown’s Cult of the Saints and Robert Louis Wilken’s The Christians as the Romans Saw Them, both of which utilize classical sources to better understand the historical situation of the Late Antique. Both works are models for the kind of research I aim to do in that they cut across academic disciplinary lines.

I like the idea that this is a one-sided conversation. I mention the books here as casually as I would if I were discussing my senior thesis in person with the professors.

[Tam]

I don't think you need to worry about 'plagiarism' in this context. It's not plagiarism to discuss a work without giving a full citation; people do it all the time in non-academic contexts. Obviously you do need citations if you're doing academic work, but a statement of purpose is more like a letter or a discussion. I think it would look odd to have a full citation for something your audience would have heard of. (It's different if the work is really obscure and they'd need the citation to find it, but in that case, I'm not sure it belongs in an SOP anyway.)

[modernity]

We really need a sticky or something about these quotes in SOP questions, there seem to be a lot of them - and I think a lot of people are having similar questions! I wish we had a little reference section for stuff like that since some questions are very common.

[JerryLandis]

My thesis idea is also inspired by Peter Brown (completely different work though), how exciting. And I'm not applying to Princeton either.

[rising_star]

We really need a sticky or something about these quotes in SOP questions, there seem to be a lot of them - and I think a lot of people are having similar questions! I wish we had a little reference section for stuff like that since some questions are very common.

This is a great idea. I'll mention it to bgk.

[mudlark]

I feel your pain: I've done two Canadian grant applications, both of which shared some content with my SOP, but they were expected to come with bibliographies while that doesn't seem to be the case for the SOP. I rewrote it as much as I could, and just named one article and its pretty well-known authors.

When I applied, I used my grant application for my SOP, and kept the bibliography. I didn't count the bibliography towards the allowable word limit. I figured that they might not read it, but it couldn't hurt. So all of the quotes in my SOP had proper MLA citations.

[Maya]

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Edited November 15, 2009 by Maya

[bgk]

This is a great idea. I'll mention it to bgk.

Ask and ye shall receive. I've setup a dedicated SOP forum and listened to rising_star re: adding a writing samples forum too. We'll get around to moving exists posts over in time. But please start to use the new forums ASAP!

[modernity]

Ask and ye shall receive. I've setup a dedicated SOP forum and listened to rising_star re: adding a writing samples forum too. We'll get around to moving exists posts over in time. But please start to use the new forums ASAP!

Thank you!! I was tired of saying... "oh hmmm I saw a post just like this one...but I don't know where its gone to now..." This makes it much better!