Unpublished Abstracts acceptable writing samples?

[samman1994]

Hello everyone,

I've started my application, and have come across the writing samples section, and had a few questions. All of my scientific writing from classes is relatively subpar (not much editing, low quality, etc.); however I have a lot of different abstracts from poster/conference presentations from my undergraduate research lab, including a paper I wrote regarding the entire project (I would only be submitting its abstract and not the whole paper since its over 20 pages). However, all this material is unpublished. Some of these abstracts contain specific project details though (site-specific residues responsible for dimerization for example), but others are relatively generic and don't say too much (e.g. for the paper, I simply state we solved the structure of this protein, found its dynamics, elucidated a mechanism, etc.). Regarding the paper, I could also submit just the introduction (again some sections are non-descriptive indicating structure and dynamics were solved, others are more detailed discussing structural changes observed in mutants at a site specific level). 

Are these acceptable writing samples? I'm planning on emailing my PI to ask permission anyways (since this is her research, and it is unpublished), but wanted to first make sure these are accepted writing samples in the first place. Secondly, should I submit the less descriptive or more descriptive samples (assuming my PI doesn't care)? The detailed ones aren't as specific as indicating entire mechanisms or specific data points, but do summerize a lot of our findings and observations. The generic ones do the same, but they are less descriptive.

E.G.

1)The protein X mutant displayed structural change around the entire mutation site, but no dynamic change except at the mutation itself and residue Y.

2) Through Experiment A we investigate how the structural and dynamic differences of these proteins affects their binding via two protein X variants

As you can see, #1 indicates exactly what protein we are working with, what changes were and were not observed at a site-specific level. #2 indicates an overview of what experiment we ran and why, but nothing really discussing our data. #1 is an excerpt from my introduction, whereas #2 is from the abstract of that paper. Again, assuming my PI doesn't care, what is a better indication of my scientific writing level? Which would be a better writing sample? 

Thanks ahead of time as always!

[fuzzylogician]

Abstracts are almost certainly going to be too short and not what admissions committees are looking for. Papers are more in the right direction -- but, if you submit something that's basically a summary of someone else's ideas and work, we're getting into a serious gray zone. It should be clear in such a case what part of the project is your contribution and what isn't, and if someone else has been involved in the writing/editing, that should be clear too (and frankly, in that case, I don't think it's fair to use such a paper anymore; but you may want more field-specific advice on this issue). On top of that, there are the questions of confidentiality that you mentioned, to be cleared with your PI. 

The purpose of the writing sample is to showcase you research ability as well as your writing ability. That is, your ability to (a) do science, and (b) communicate with your audience. Your paraphrases above are too far afield for me to be able to judge. But ask yourself, which one is doing a better job communicating the science? Both the research question and the setup, as well as the results and their importance? Maybe you need to create a new paper that contains parts of both of your existing papers, if neither one delivers on both counts. 

[samman1994]

The paper is about 90% my work, 10% work of the people before me. All conclusions on the paper are of my own, and I wrote the entire thing. In regards to editing, I have just been given feedback by others, all the editing and rewriting is of my own doing.