How to Indicate Long Omission?

[Mathētēs]

The essay I plan to use as my writing sample is too long, so I am excerpting two sections to submit together. How should I indicate between the two sections that a large amount of content has been omitted? The new section does begin with a heading; is a note or punctuation also necessary? It doesn't seem that an ellipsis ( . . .) is appropriate, since several paragraphs have been omitted. What would you do? Thanks for your thoughts!

Edited December 23, 2009 by Mathētēs

[JustChill]

My advisors recommended to use an ellipsis because it's succinct -- there is no need to add more words, notes, comments, to something that is already long and wordy.

[fuzzylogician]

How large is the part you're omitting and does it contain anything relevant to the argument you're making in your paper? If it's only a few paragraphs you might not have to make any reference to them previously being in the paper. I sometimes edit out whole paragraphs when I write papers, no one really cares that they were there in previous drafts. If you're excerpting parts from a much larger paper you could write an abstract and explain where the parts you're submitting fit into the larger point you were making.

[mudlark]

If you really feel there's key information missing that will keep your reader from understanding your chain of logic, I think that a short note in square brackets and italics explaining what was deleted might do. Something like--

[Explanatory section on X, Y, Z removed from original for the sake of length]

[monkeefugg]

I had my entire Master's Thesis sent, with the section I wanted read clearly marked.

That way they have the entire work at their disposition, though I only ask them to read 20 pages.

Admissions Committees want to see that you have the ability to write a doctoral dissertation, so having the entire Master's Thesis in their hands will help, even though they will read but a small section of it.

In addition, if they want to peruse the rest (in the case that they are giving your application heavy consideration), they will be able to do so.

Of course, the school to which I am applying allows--even requires--a substantial writing sample for PhD applicants. This is not the case with most schools, so I'm not sure if sending 100 pages--even if it is marked--will irk the admissions people or not.

Edited January 22, 2010 by monkeefugg

[tarski]

My sample was only too long for a couple schools, so I did the same thing as the above: sent the whole thing with instructions for what to read on the cover page.

[natsteel]

I plan on using an ellipsis on its own line in between the paragraphs, i.e...

the last line of the paragraph.

[...] (centered on the line)

The beginning of the new paragraph...

Anyway, that's how I'm going to do it.

Edited September 10, 2010 by natsteel

[strokeofmidnight]

I had my entire Master's Thesis sent, with the section I wanted read clearly marked.

That way they have the entire work at their disposition, though I only ask them to read 20 pages.

Admissions Committees want to see that you have the ability to write a doctoral dissertation, so having the entire Master's Thesis in their hands will help, even though they will read but a small section of it.

In addition, if they want to peruse the rest (in the case that they are giving your application heavy consideration), they will be able to do so.

Of course, the school to which I am applying allows--even requires--a substantial writing sample for PhD applicants. This is not the case with most schools, so I'm not sure if sending 100 pages--even if it is marked--will irk the admissions people or not.

I wonder if the unspoken protocols for this vary from field to field, or even department to department? Several of the programs that I considered explicitly stated that they will not read writing samples that indicate "sections to read"...but rather wanted the applicants to commit to the cuts before submitting. When I spoke with professors about how to deal with my absurdly long writing sample (over the twice the desired length for some programs), I was told to cut as best as I could and submit what I have if it's within 20% of the page limit. For programs that require drastically shorter essays, I did cut out several sections of several pages each and discussed the omitted material in square brackets. My field, at least, would not have looked kindly upon ask directing the ad-comm on what to read. But then again, I suspect that these things work differently in other departments.