Writing Sample Length Requirements Confusing Expectations

[Abyss21]

One of the universities that I'm applying to says that the writing sample should be 15-20 pages but no longer than 5000 words. This makes no sense because 5000 words is approximately 15 pages and most of my MA papers are still between 15-20 pages but longer than 5000 words. Should I strictly adhere to the 5000 word requirement or allow myself to submit a longer paper as long as it is within the 15-20 page limit? I emailed the department asking for a clarification about this and received no reply so I'm looking to my fellow gradcafe people for advice.

That same university says that BOTH MA students and PhD students should submit a 500 word Statement of Purpose, which once again makes no sense for a PhD when every other university asks for a 1000 word one.

Finally, I had another question about length requirements for the writing sample: If the writing sample is supposed to be no more than 20 pages, does this include the Works Cited? Can I still submit a paper than is 20 pages in length but has a 2 page Works Cited (making the document 22 pages in total)?

Thanks in advance for the help!

[DBear]

On 2016. 11. 1. at 0:22 AM, ThePomoHipster said:

That same university says that BOTH MA students and PhD students should submit a 500 word Statement of Purpose, which once again makes no sense for a PhD when every other university asks for a 1000 word one.

Finally, I had another question about length requirements for the writing sample: If the writing sample is supposed to be no more than 20 pages, does this include the Works Cited? Can I still submit a paper than is 20 pages in length but has a 2 page Works Cited (making the document 22 pages in total)?

I've actually seen quite a few schools that limit SOPs to 500 words even for PhD applicants... I think that's a bit strange, too, but it seems to be a growing trend. Perhaps these schools want to see a more concrete and specific plan of research. 

I'm also curious about whether the page limit includes the works cited - a few of the people I've heard from told me to include the works cited in the page count and I've seen elsewhere in this forum that it doesn't count, the body of the paper should be 20 pages... 

As for your first question, I think I'd go with the word limit instead of the page limit since the word limit is more accurate when you take into account different line-spacing and font size etc. Good luck!!

[fuzzylogician]

- Adhere to the 5000 word limit. This school sounds like it is not interested in reading too much from each applicant. Longer papers than allowed will be noticeable and not appreciated.

- The 500 word limit is not as rare as you might think. Think of it as an exercise in distilling your ideas to their very essence. Personally, once I did that with my own ~850-word statement, I was actually very happy with the result (though the process itself was excruciating). Once I had the 500-word version, I ended up building on it and adding back just a bit more, for a roughly 650-word statement if there were no other constraints. In any event, follow the rules, even if it's hard.

- Again, given that this school seems to have minimalistic requirements, I would bet that they mean 20 pages all included. More generally, unless you are explicitly told otherwise, you should always assume that 20 means 20, not 20+whatever. If you are unsure, email to ask. If you don't get a reply, assume the stricter limit. It's better than breaking the rules because you made false assumptions. 

[Quickmick]

On 10/31/2016 at 10:22 AM, ThePomoHipster said:

One of the universities that I'm applying to says that the writing sample should be 15-20 pages but no longer than 5000 words. This makes no sense because 5000 words is approximately 15 pages and most of my MA papers are still between 15-20 pages but longer than 5000 words. Should I strictly adhere to the 5000 word requirement or allow myself to submit a longer paper as long as it is within the 15-20 page limit? I emailed the department asking for a clarification about this and received no reply so I'm looking to my fellow gradcafe people for advice.

That same university says that BOTH MA students and PhD students should submit a 500 word Statement of Purpose, which once again makes no sense for a PhD when every other university asks for a 1000 word one.

Finally, I had another question about length requirements for the writing sample: If the writing sample is supposed to be no more than 20 pages, does this include the Works Cited? Can I still submit a paper than is 20 pages in length but has a 2 page Works Cited (making the document 22 pages in total)?

Thanks in advance for the help!

The 5000 words bit might make sense. Often references are not included in word count...so you could have 15 pages at 5000 words, leaving you up to 5 pages for references. For these guidelines I wondered if my prospective schools just wanted to see if I followed the instructions, as I do not believe they have the time, or inclination, to read 15-20 pages from every applicant. You can run 'readability' stats on your writing to see % of passive sentences, Flesch Reading Ease, and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level...I wouldn't be surprised if admissions reads a couple/few pages and checks these (or some other) metrics to come up with a score for your writing.

I, too, had to craft a 500 word SOP for one app, and it was difficult for me. If I were making evaluations I would prefer 1000--but I am thinking in terms of reading one applicant's materials, not 100's. I felt my best SOPs were of the "1000" variety, with 500 being a bit terse and over 1000 a bit much.

In any case, I just followed the rules. Luckily I knew I would be applying a while ago, so in the spring wrote a paper for coursework that I was able to tailor to fit (it came in at 17pgs + references) so with a little tinkering fit the bill. Except for Cal, who wanted 10 for writing, yet was looser with SOP. I suppose there is always an exception...

Good luck.

 

[kadee]

I realize this is a bit old, but I'm wondering if you have any sense of what readers are looking for in terms of grade level/other metrics of your writing.  I ran my writing sample through the test here and got an average of 12.5 grade level (all tests averaged) and my personal statement clocked in at 13.1.  I'm curious to hear what you or others think you should be aiming for in your sample and SOP, personal statement, etc.

Edited December 30, 2016 by kadee

[Quickmick]

Interesting link @kadee, there are metrics on Word that you can enable--which are some of those on the link you provide. The Flesch-Kincaid score was higher on the link than on Word (I ran both), yet the reading ease score was lower on word. In any case, a Prof (and former adcomm) shared with me some info which seems inline with most of the metric "scales." Flesch-Kincaid: lower score = higher education with <30 the ideal, though my sample is 37-41 and the Prof mentioned above thought it was fine. The grade level stuff is pretty obvious except, as mentioned, the grade level score I got on the linked site was higher by a couple of grades then the Word evaluation. I am only pointing out that if an adcomm used the Word metric for ease of use, they might be seeing a different number than you think they are. One thing you didn't mention is passive voice count. There is a "meter" of sorts on the link you provided, but Word will tell you in percentage terms. Same fellow told me that <20 is OK...mine was at 12% and he thought it was fine. For a more precise number I would have to eliminate quotations, which I didn't do, though in % terms they shouldn't move the scores too much, except possibly the passive sentence count.

In short, I was looking for around 30 on F-K, the higher the better on grade level, and under 20% for voice. Hope this helps!

Edited December 30, 2016 by Quickmick

[kadee]

Thanks @Quickmick

I was low on passive voice and a bit over 40 on the F-K score.  I wonder how much this varies by discipline.  I am hoping as long as the writing I submit isn't on a very low grade level and is succinct that will be good enough.

[Quickmick]

2 minutes ago, kadee said:

Thanks @Quickmick

I was low on passive voice and a bit over 40 on the F-K score.  I wonder how much this varies by discipline.  I am hoping as long as the writing I submit isn't on a very low grade level and is succinct that will be good enough.

I think you will be ok. Some of that variability is just a product of the nature of the writing, though the PV thing is probably universal. For example Space counts 'unique' words, which might include terms that are common in a particular discipline but alien the the pleebs...dunno. If it reads well and is not on par with Curious George you will probably be fine. Really, all we can give them is our best and see how it goes.

[fuzzylogician]

3 hours ago, Quickmick said:

In short, I was looking for around 30 on F-K, the higher the better on grade level, and under 20% for voice. Hope this helps!

Wow, there go some things I never even considered when I was writing my SOP.* In the interest of past-me and anyone else who might freak out about this last part of the thread, it's fine if none of these things ever crossed your minds until just now. As long as your SOP flows and answers the prompt (what do you want to study? how are you prepared to study your proposed questions? why is Awesome U the right place for you?), don't worry about any other measures.

 

*though don't get me started on 'don't use passive voice' and similar misguided advice about "proper (style guide)" English. I rant about that enough in my intro to linguistics classes. 

EDIT: ok fine, I can't help myself. Here is someone else's related rant from just the other day: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=30043

Edited December 30, 2016 by fuzzylogician

[TakeruK]

I didn't even know these "scores" exist. I might be wrong, but I am pretty sure my field doesn't use them for SOPs since they are short enough. We don't have writing samples but I can imagine people skimming these and then using some metrics as part of the evaluation. 

I agree with fuzzy that absolute rules on "proper" English aren't a good idea. But sometimes I say this and then people misinterpret as meaning active voice and passive voice are both equally valid and you can just use whatever! I don't think that's true either. When I read my students' work (mostly first year grad students and senior undergrads), I mainly discourage the use of passive voice in the Methods section and the summary of results. It just sounds so boring and dry! I would much rather read "We obtained 15 images of the star with the ABC Telescope on 15 October 2015" than "On 15 October 2015, 15 images of the star was obtained at the ABC Telescope". In a long methods paragraph, eliminating extra words is a good idea!

Also, I encourage the active voice when writing things like proposals or application material because you want to emphasize your contribution to the projects you're discussing. (Sidenote: the term papers in the classes I grade are usually mock grant proposals). The active voice allows you to directly make the connection between you and the work. The passive voice is distant and impersonal. Not great for generating excitement about your work. 

Even so, I don't think this means that the active voice is the only good choice. But I guess if I had to advise someone who was new at this, I think that they would be better off using the active voice primarily, and then introduce/experiment with using the passive voice.

[akraticfanatic]

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to share the super confusing length requirements from Harvard's Philosophy program:

"In general, the writing sample should be at least 12 to 15 pages long, but no more than 40 pages; a rough maximum length would be about 25 pages."

What?! (The writing sample I actually submitted with my app was 20 pages...)

[TakeruK]

2 hours ago, shayhenckel said:

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to share the super confusing length requirements from Harvard's Philosophy program:

"In general, the writing sample should be at least 12 to 15 pages long, but no more than 40 pages; a rough maximum length would be about 25 pages."

What?! (The writing sample I actually submitted with my app was 20 pages...)

Wow, that is hilariously unhelpful and stereotypically academic, haha!

[GreenEyedTrombonist]

Lol! So, minimum 12-15, absolute max submitted is 40, but they'd rather it doesn't go above 25? Good job submitting 20  

 

Also, omg I may now become obsessed with this tool. I write for multiple audiences and have trouble gauging if I'm writing at the right readability level. Yay, quick tool to help me figure out if I'm in the ballpark.  

[GreenEyedTrombonist]

On 12/29/2016 at 5:22 PM, Quickmick said:

Interesting link @kadee, there are metrics on Word that you can enable--which are some of those on the link you provide. The Flesch-Kincaid score was higher on the link than on Word (I ran both), yet the reading ease score was lower on word. In any case, a Prof (and former adcomm) shared with me some info which seems inline with most of the metric "scales." Flesch-Kincaid: lower score = higher education with <30 the ideal, though my sample is 37-41 and the Prof mentioned above thought it was fine. The grade level stuff is pretty obvious except, as mentioned, the grade level score I got on the linked site was higher by a couple of grades then the Word evaluation. I am only pointing out that if an adcomm used the Word metric for ease of use, they might be seeing a different number than you think they are. One thing you didn't mention is passive voice count. There is a "meter" of sorts on the link you provided, but Word will tell you in percentage terms. Same fellow told me that <20 is OK...mine was at 12% and he thought it was fine. For a more precise number I would have to eliminate quotations, which I didn't do, though in % terms they shouldn't move the scores too much, except possibly the passive sentence count.

In short, I was looking for around 30 on F-K, the higher the better on grade level, and under 20% for voice. Hope this helps!

I just ran this on one of my SoPs and got a 14.3 grade level, 34.3 Flesch-Kincaid, and an 8 passive voice count. That does make me feel better about my SoP's in general.