Send the best work. Length, I always figure, is a guideline. If they don't like the work, the won't read it, no matter how many pages. If they do like it, they won't stop at some arbitrary number.
And should you do end up going to MLA, don't register. Last year, I discovered that replacement badges are $8. So when a friend wanted in to check it out, I just pocketed my badge, went to the desk, and bought an $8 replacement badge for my friend. Nobody looks at the names anyway. Just find someone willing to get a replacement badge. Hell, I'll do it.
I wish I had helpful suggestions on travel and rooms.
I agree. I would send the pub. Always send the best writing. They are not going to check page length then toss your app - or if they do? They'll be tossing it anyhow for the missing letter. Chances are excellent they won't though and you want your strongest writing in. I would not reformat it either.
Hell, I once sent in a teaching portfolio binder, completely un-requested by the college, and I got the job. So don't assume you can't push the envelope a bit.
re. "always send the best writing" - I'm not sure it's quite that simple. See, this is def. the best scholarship. But it's not necessarily the best prose for this rhetorical context. It's dense, involves Latin and Aquinas, and has some passages that require very careful reading (in part due to my prose, in part due to the subject matter, in part due to places where the argument hinges on a latin translation - I'm not saying "it's too sophisticated for mere mortals," I'm just saying it is NOT what anybody wants to read when they have a big stack of other stuff to read. It is a very unfriendly piece in places - I had to reread paragraphs of it to follow my own argument when I reread it this summer, and I spent four years writing the damn thing. So I think, like any act of communication, it's a question of audience, purpose, and genre
( ... )
Honestly, I reread the article yesterday and I think I probably should send an easier piece, at least to the places unlikely to have an early modernist or medievalist on the search committee. The article is a hard slog. The other piece is a lot more engaging a lot earlier on. Too bad the argument is garbage :)
25 pages is not much for a writing sample. Can you edit two pages out of the Word version of your article and send that, noting that it was published in a slightly longer format in whichever journal?
Hahaha... no way. Well, maybe, if I had six months. It took me four years to get it down to 33 pages :-) If I were going to put that much time into it, I would be better off spending that time on the diss.
ME's job market guide says take the number of pgs excluding citations/footnotes and allow for +/- five in either direction. I have a 20 pg version and a 30 pp version (discounting endnotes/wks cited) and I send the 20p for 15-20 and the 30pp for the rest.
PS: More than happy to hook you up w/ replacement badge. Also, I don't know how much PDS $ I have left but my parents offered to cover the rest so you are more than welcome to stay in my room.
That is very helpful, thanks (and again I wonder why there can't be a little more ME around in a few more places).
*Thank you.* I don't think my chances of an interview are very good, but I feel a little less "damned if I do" now :-) See, I think I have PDS money left over, at least a little - it's just that I don't have the money to book anything ahead of time and wait to get repaid. But if the GS doesn't balk at dealing with receipts that involve splitting rooms, then I could conceivably repay the cost of room share later. I just can't pay it up front :/
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And should you do end up going to MLA, don't register. Last year, I discovered that replacement badges are $8. So when a friend wanted in to check it out, I just pocketed my badge, went to the desk, and bought an $8 replacement badge for my friend. Nobody looks at the names anyway. Just find someone willing to get a replacement badge. Hell, I'll do it.
I wish I had helpful suggestions on travel and rooms.
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Hell, I once sent in a teaching portfolio binder, completely un-requested by the college, and I got the job. So don't assume you can't push the envelope a bit.
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PS: More than happy to hook you up w/ replacement badge. Also, I don't know how much PDS $ I have left but my parents offered to cover the rest so you are more than welcome to stay in my room.
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*Thank you.* I don't think my chances of an interview are very good, but I feel a little less "damned if I do" now :-) See, I think I have PDS money left over, at least a little - it's just that I don't have the money to book anything ahead of time and wait to get repaid. But if the GS doesn't balk at dealing with receipts that involve splitting rooms, then I could conceivably repay the cost of room share later. I just can't pay it up front :/
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