A few quick formatting questions

[boomah]

Hi everyone!

I hope y'all are doing well with your applications  I'm finishing up my SOPs and writing sample in preparation for the December 15 deadline, and I had a few quick questions:

1. Some of my schools have a 25 page word limit for the writing sample and others have 20. Mine is around 23 pages. Would it be okay if I slightly tweaked the font or margins to fit these 23 pages into 20 pages? (Currently it's Times New Roman, size 12, double spaced, one inch margins).

2. SOPs: double spaced, right?

3. When mentioning potential advisors in the SOP, how do you name them the first time? 

a) Professor John Ferguson
b ) Professor Ferguson
c) Dr. John Ferguson
d) Dr. Ferguson

(assuming they're the only Ferguson in the department).

I know these are sort of silly things but I'd really appreciate any responses. Thank you!

[AP]

1 minute ago, boomah said:

1. Some of my schools have a 25 page word limit for the writing sample and others have 20. Mine is around 23 pages. Would it be okay if I slightly tweaked the font or margins to fit these 23 pages into 20 pages? (Currently it's Times New Roman, size 12, double spaced, one inch margins).

No. Seriously, no. It looks weird. Don't do it unless you've contacted the program and they told it's ok. Otherwise, stick to common formatting (1 inch margins, 12 Times New Roman, Double spaced. I *think* I used 1.5 spaced for mine bc I'm international and back home we use 1.5). 

3 minutes ago, boomah said:

2. SOPs: double spaced, right?

No, I don't think these need to be double-spaced. Check your program for instructions. My SOPs were 1.something for some reason. 

5 minutes ago, boomah said:

3. When mentioning potential advisors in the SOP, how do you name them the first time? 

a) Professor John Ferguson
b ) Professor Ferguson
c) Dr. John Ferguson
d) Dr. Ferguson

Use Dr. because 'professor' can be for people who are not Drs. (my students call me professor, but I am not a "real" professor). I don't see why you'd waste space with the first name but I also don't see any major difference. I used "Dr. Smith" but again, I'm international so I was not SO aware of rules. 

[Account6567]

12 minutes ago, boomah said:

 

3 minutes ago, AP said:

No. Seriously, no. It looks weird. Don't do it unless you've contacted the program and they told it's ok. Otherwise, stick to common formatting (1 inch margins, 12 Times New Roman, Double spaced. I *think* I used 1.5 spaced for mine bc I'm international and back home we use 1.5). 

No, I don't think these need to be double-spaced. Check your program for instructions. My SOPs were 1.something for some reason. 

Use Dr. because 'professor' can be for people who are not Drs. (my students call me professor, but I am not a "real" professor). I don't see why you'd waste space with the first name but I also don't see any major difference. I used "Dr. Smith" but again, I'm international so I was not SO aware of rules. 

For the first point, agreed on the rest but I feel 1.5 spacing looks fine when you need to for page limit reasons! At the very least, I'd rather do that to fit everything than remove content when it may be unnecessary.

[ploutarchos]

11 minutes ago, AP said:

Use Dr. because 'professor' can be for people who are not Drs. (my students call me professor, but I am not a "real" professor). I don't see why you'd waste space with the first name but I also don't see any major difference. I used "Dr. Smith" but again, I'm international so I was not SO aware of rules. 

This varies by (type of) institution. At research institutions, virtually everyone on the faculty has a doctorate, so "professor" is usually the higher-prestige title. Thus, at the very large research-intensive universities I've been at, calling an assistant/associate/full professor "Dr. So and So" is minor faux pas, a sign that you haven't fully understood the conventions. At my small undergraduate college, "Dr." was the prestige title because a fair number of faculty (often with the title "Professor") did not have doctorates. (See the second answer at this academia stackexchange post.) In any case, the practice of undergraduates (who generally don't know the difference between adjuncts, lecturers, tenure-track professors, etc.) is not a good guide to to academic norms.

If you're applying to American research institutions, OP, where virtually everyone in a teaching capacity (except for grad students) has a PhD, use "Professor Smith" or "Prof. Smith" for professors and "Dr. Smith" for people with doctorates who are not professors. 

 

[ashiepoo72]

3 hours ago, boomah said:

Hi everyone!

I hope y'all are doing well with your applications  I'm finishing up my SOPs and writing sample in preparation for the December 15 deadline, and I had a few quick questions:

1. Some of my schools have a 25 page word limit for the writing sample and others have 20. Mine is around 23 pages. Would it be okay if I slightly tweaked the font or margins to fit these 23 pages into 20 pages? (Currently it's Times New Roman, size 12, double spaced, one inch margins).

2. SOPs: double spaced, right?

3. When mentioning potential advisors in the SOP, how do you name them the first time? 

a) Professor John Ferguson
b ) Professor Ferguson
c) Dr. John Ferguson
d) Dr. Ferguson

(assuming they're the only Ferguson in the department).

I know these are sort of silly things but I'd really appreciate any responses. Thank you!

Have you tried using Garamond instead of Times? I would switch to Garamond unless the department specifically requests another font (it's smaller than Times), then I would edit down the paper until it's 20 pages. I know that's a pain but manipulating margins and whatnot isn't a good idea. On the plus side, Garamond is prettier AND approved by the discipline haha

I single-spaced SOPs except for Ohio State (they requested double spaced)

I wrote Professor So-and-So when referring to potential advisers

Good luck!

 

[AP]

5 hours ago, ploutarchos said:

This varies by (type of) institution. At research institutions, virtually everyone on the faculty has a doctorate, so "professor" is usually the higher-prestige title. Thus, at the very large research-intensive universities I've been at, calling an assistant/associate/full professor "Dr. So and So" is minor faux pas, a sign that you haven't fully understood the conventions. At my small undergraduate college, "Dr." was the prestige title because a fair number of faculty (often with the title "Professor") did not have doctorates. (See the second answer at this academia stackexchange post.) In any case, the practice of undergraduates (who generally don't know the difference between adjuncts, lecturers, tenure-track professors, etc.) is not a good guide to to academic norms.

If you're applying to American research institutions, OP, where virtually everyone in a teaching capacity (except for grad students) has a PhD, use "Professor Smith" or "Prof. Smith" for professors and "Dr. Smith" for people with doctorates who are not professors. 

 

Well, I'm at a big R1 and as graduate instructor students called me professor. The DUS explained to us that yes, since we were instructors, it was appropriate for students to call us professors even we were not "real" professors, as I said before. "Dr" on the other hand is more precise because its bypasses this distinction. 

[ashiepoo72]

13 hours ago, AP said:

Well, I'm at a big R1 and as graduate instructor students called me professor. The DUS explained to us that yes, since we were instructors, it was appropriate for students to call us professors even we were not "real" professors, as I said before. "Dr" on the other hand is more precise because its bypasses this distinction. 

I was actually very confused about the distinction between Dr. and Professor at my MA institution, where one of my instructors was an adjunct with a PhD (I called her Professor). The chair of the department explained to me that the "proper" title for this particular professor was Dr., whereas tenured or tenure-track faculty are both Dr. and Professor (but Professor is preferred because it is the more distinguished title, that signals their tenured or tenure-track status). Anyway, I'm sure most people won't pitch a fit if they're referred to as Dr. instead of Professor, it's just one of those quirky things in academia that's good to know.

FWIW when I meet other academics whose tenure status I don't know, I err on the side of Professor out of politeness. I like to mind my p's and q's in case they're one of the people who gets offended when they aren't referred to by the proper title.

[AP]

7 minutes ago, ashiepoo72 said:

 Anyway, I'm sure most people won't pitch a fit if they're referred to as Dr. instead of Professor

Agreed