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Writer's pictureRoger Maioli

A guide to statements of purpose: the humanities PhD

Updated: Aug 7


Illustrative image showing the acronyms SoP (for Statement of Purpose) and PhD

 

The statement of purpose (or SoP) is the most important document for applying to a PhD program in the humanities. Writing it is hard even when you know what you are supposed to do. As it happens, many applicants are in the dark about that. Worse, much of the advice available on the internet does more harm than good, whether because it is written by non-academics or because it applies to processes with different expectations, such as personal statements for college or Law School applications. The SoP for a PhD program is its own thing, governed by conventions that you need to know before you sit down to write yours.

 

I regularly read SoPs as part of my job as student advisor and as member of admissions committees at my university. Some are excellent, but many are weak due to misconceptions about the genre. In many cases I can tell that the applicant is doing their best, but they don’t know what is expected of them.

 

I decided to write this guide to help my own students as well as students in general understand the statement of purpose and avoid common mistakes that may tank their candidacy. The advice that follows applies most directly to applications to PhD programs in English, which is my field; but most of it also applies to applications to other fields in the humanities, such as Philosophy, History, or Political Theory. All of the illustrative examples are made up.

 

Even before I start, here is a caveat: there isn’t one right way of writing a good statement of purpose, and different readers may react differently to the same statement. You will experience this first-hand if you send your draft to two professors asking for feedback. They are likely to tell you different things, and one may object to aspects of your draft that the other has praised. This may seem unfair, but it is also instructive: the same thing will happen when your statement finally reaches the hands of the admissions committee. It is very hard, if not impossible, to please everyone equally. You should do the best you can while knowing that some readers may prefer a different approach.

 

But if not everybody agrees on what makes a great statement, there are certain flaws that readers generally regard as such. I begin accordingly with five common mistakes that many applicants make and you should avoid.


 

Five mistakes to avoid

 

Here are then five mistakes that applicants frequently make when writing an SoP. The first is specific to literature programs. The other four apply to the humanities in general.

 

Mistake 1  To speak of literature as an object of enjoyment rather than study

 

Many applicants open their SoP with a personal story that describes their discovery of reading in their childhood. These are often sentimental narratives in which candidates try to demonstrate their love of books. Without realizing it, they are sabotaging themselves. The professors reading these applications may love literature (it’s often what brought them to the field), but they expect you to write as a scholar who studies literature rather than as a reader who enjoys it. Not everybody who enjoys literature is interested in studying it professionally, which involves reading books you will not like and acquiring mastery of a body of theoretical thinking. Rather than declaring your love of Charles Dickens or Toni Morrison, you should identify your field of specialization (say, nineteenth-century British literature, or twentieth-century African American literature), the topic or topics you intend to research, and the existing scholarship you will be engaging with. Doing so will communicate awareness that a PhD program is designed to provide training in advanced research, and it shows that you already have what it takes to hit the ground running.

 

Now, while you should avoid declarations of love for literature (or history, or philosophy), it is perfectly acceptable to express a strong commitment or passion for your field of study. If you are pursuing a PhD because you believe it will help you foster causes you are committed to — whether it is community service, racial or gender equality, environmental justice, accessibility, or public education — be welcome to express that in your SoP. That will convey to the committee that you have a concrete driving purpose that will keep you going during the demanding years in the program. Conversely, if you are pursuing humanistic study as an autonomous activity with its intrinsic value, do not feel pressed to translate that commitment into the language of social action. The pursuit of scholarship in the humanities is itself a good that committees take seriously.

 

 Mistake 2  To focus more on the past than the future

 

A statement of purpose is, as the name says, a statement about your purposes in graduate school. It describes what you intend to do during your time in the program: what field(s) and topic(s) you envision specializing in, which courses you intend to take, which professors you would like to work with, which on-campus initiatives or opportunities you expect to contribute to and benefit from, and how your research will advance scholarship in your field. This is to say that the statement of purpose must be future-oriented. It will talk about your past as well, but as a scaffold for your vision of the future. Aspects of your past that deserve mention include your training in the relevant field (i.e. your major, courses you’ve taken); your experience researching your topic (for example, a paper or honors thesis); any publications you may have; any awards; and any additional experiences or credentials directly relevant for your future work in graduate school (community engagement, work in archives, certificates, languages). Describe all of this as the foundation that got you here; then focus mainly on where you are going next.

 

 Mistake 3  To stuff your paragraphs with platitudes instead of concrete information

 

Statements of purpose must be concrete. If you want to convey that you care about community engagement, mention initiatives in which you actually engaged with communities; if you want to convey that are dedicated to feminist criticism, mention work that you did with feminist criticism and scholars whose work you’ve used. Many SoPs leave out such concrete descriptions to focus on unsubstantiated claims that anybody can make. Phrases such as “I am hard working and strive to succeed” or “I am passionate about the life of the mind” will work against you. They give the impression that you lack concrete accomplishments and must rely on filler. Statements about your passions and commitments must always be backed up by concrete evidence. If you do not have that evidence in your past, find it in your future: if you are excited about the digital humanities but have no previous experience, you can say that you will pursue a digital humanities certificate (if the program offers one) or join an existing collaborative digital project on campus (while identifying it by name).  

 

 Mistake 4  To leave out information available in your CV

 

The CV and the statement of purpose are two different formats for presenting much of the same information. They are both representations of the same thing: you, your qualifications, and your accomplishments. Inevitably they will cover much of the same ground. The important difference is that the SoP gives narrative expression to the bullet points in your CV, explaining how they fit into an evolving career. Many candidates seem hesitant to include in their SoP items already listed in their CV, maybe for fear of seeming repetitive. In doing so, they end up impoverishing their SoP by depriving it of many of its highlights. Not everything in the CV needs to reappear in the SoP, but the highlights do. If you have published an article or won an award, this should be both in your CV and your statement of purpose. Don’t let the committee overlook your strengths by storing them away on page 4 of a CV.     

 

 Mistake 5  To not tailor

 

The same applicant may be more appealing to some programs than to others, depending on the compatibility between the candidate’s interests and what the program has to offer. A good SoP should showcase that compatibility. If you are working on comics and the university’s library has a prestigious collection of comic books, you should point that out; if you work on contemporary poetry and the department sponsors a poetry reading series, you should point that out. Needless to say, all of this is specific to each program, which means you should tailor your statement. In describing your fit with the program, avoid generic statements like the following: “This program is right for me thanks to the excellence of its faculty,” or “I profoundly admire the work done in this department.” This not only sounds like flattery (which you should avoid at all costs), it also shows that the candidate has not studied the specific strengths of the program. (You can tell that this candidate is saying the same thing to everybody.) You should identify opportunities on campus as well as professors you expect to work with. In mentioning them, be polite but don’t flatter: “I would be interested in taking Professor Y’s seminar on Postcolonial Criticism,” or “Professor X’s account of improvisational theater informs my own understanding of performativity.” Notice that these statements do not seek to flatter: they are respectful yet descriptive, and they show you are already thinking of how your research may benefit from the strengths of the faculty. 

 

In short, avoid making your SoP a sentimental autobiography or a collection of abstract platitudes; keep it concrete, channeling the best items from your CV into a coherent narrative about your evolving career; subordinate the past to the future; don’t flatter; and tailor your statement to the specificities of each program. The goal is to convince the admissions committee that you get what grad school is for, that you have what it takes to get started, and that you have a plan for making use of the courses, training, resources, and opportunities that lie ahead.

 

Having covered these common mistakes, let us turn now to recommendations for writing the SoP.

 

 

Statements of purpose: how to write yours

 

First of all, begin early. This short document will take time, sweat, and tears to write. You cannot pull this off over a weekend. Keep in mind that the best programs will be receiving 300-500 applications and admitting small cohorts of 6 to 20 students. Such odds should not discourage you, as you can improve your chances by applying to several programs; but they serve as a reminder that you only stand a chance if you do your very best, since others will be doing their best. Excellence takes time. Give yourself at least a month to work on your SoP. You need to research each department, learn about their specific requirements and strengths, seek feedback from qualified readers (and the best readers will be the professors writing your recommendation letters), and revise multiple times.

 

There are many approaches to writing a good SoP, but here is a set of steps that may help you get started:

 

- Visit the graduate admissions page for all the departments you are applying to, and study their requirements. A lot will be the same across programs. But you may find that certain things may differ (some programs may limit your SoP to one page, for example, while others expect two). It is good to know all of this in advance, as it may mean that besides the usual tailoring you may need to prepare different versions of the document. Some departments offer concrete guidelines on what they expect to see in your SoP, and it is good to know that too.

 

- Before you start writing, make a list of everything in your CV that deserves to feature in your SoP. Expand that list with additional entries about your research interests and the specifics of each department: the field(s) you intend to specialize in, the research topic(s) you are currently considering, the courses you plan to take, professors you would hope to work with, on-campus resources and initiatives that matter for you, courses you envision teaching during your time in the program. Research the university’s website for libraries, centers, initiatives, archives, and other resources of relevance for your future work. At this stage, none of this needs to be polished; what you need is a list of concrete items — the exhibits that will showcase your qualifications, accomplishments, interests, and plans for the future.    

 

- Once you have the raw materials laid out in the form of a list, it is time to start drafting. You will be bringing those items into the SoP as your narrative unfolds, and they will serve as concrete examples of your training, your writing, your plans, and so on. The order in which you display your exhibits is up to you, as there are, again, many good ways of structuring a statement of purpose. One good rule to follow, in any case, is to start strong and get straight to the point. Do not waste your opening sentence on grand abstract statements. (Historians, for example, look down on statements that begin with “Throughout all of human history…”) What admissions committees want to hear about is you as a scholar. They want to know your field of specialization and your topic within that field. Here are some examples of how to get straight to the point:

 

I specialize in British literature of the late nineteenth century, with a focus on representations of the British empire in works by women — especially women from global peripheries.

 

As a scholar of African American literature, I seek to recover the work of Black authors from the US South, especially work that explores the relationship between racial and environmental issues.

 

My work focuses on the relationship between philosophy and imaginative literature during the British eighteenth century, and I am particularly interested in debates about ethics and human rights.    

 

You can then follow this opening statement with more details on you, your interests, and your qualifications. Because this is the opening paragraph, there is no need to provide an exhaustive treatment of any of these topics. Think of the opening paragraph as a quick trailer of the best about you; the rest of the SoP will then expand on the most important items. Here is an example of a good first paragraph, beginning with a concrete opening statement:

 

My fields of specialization include Women’s Studies, nineteenth-Century American Literature, and the long tradition of the Gothic. I am interested in how Gothic conventions originating in Britain carried over to the US in connection with the spread of first-wave feminism. The authors I cover include male and female poets, novelists, autobiographers, and essayists, from Horace Walpole and Mary Shelley to Emily Dickinson, Sojourner Truth, and Margaret Fuller. While pursuing a major in English and a minor in Women’s Studies at Stanvard University, I took courses on the history of the Gothic, queer theory, the suffragist movement, and nineteenth-century US poetry. I also collaborated on a library exhibit on illustrated Gothic fiction and presented a poster on Sheridan Le Fanu’s novella Carmilla. My honors thesis, which I discuss in more detail below, is a comparative study of Dickinson and Fuller. I plan to expand this initial work into a dissertation project on the transatlantic Gothic and its fusion of questions of genre with questions of gender. 

 

What makes this paragraph good is that it is concretely identifies the candidate’s field of specialization, research topic, and existing work, while connecting all of this to a future research program. It covers a lot of ground in a few sentences, while paving the way for a more detailed account of the candidate’s activities and honors thesis, which can come later. The readers in the admissions committee will probably come out of this paragraph with a good initial sense of who this candidate is as a scholar and how they will fit with the program.   

 

Subsequent paragraphs will then complement this initial picture by saying more on the candidate’s past and future. Go back to your list, group together items that are thematically related, and build the new sections of your SoP around those thematic clusters. You may have, for example, a paragraph on your honors thesis or other essays related to your field of specialization; a paragraph on your provisional dissertation topic; a paragraph on the courses you intend to take in graduate school and the professors you expect to work with; a paragraph on-campus resources and initiatives you anticipate engaging with... It really depends on your specific history, interests, and strengths. Because part of your job in grad school will be to teach undergraduate students, you may also have a section on your teaching expectations. You may briefly describe a topics course for undergraduates that draws on your research; and if you already have teaching experience, make sure to mention it. 

 

As you write these sections, keep things concrete. In discussing your existing essays, honors thesis, or publications, provide an informative but concise summary of their contents: your topic, some of the primary sources you analyzed, your arguments and conclusions, and the scholars whose work you engaged with. If you are coming in with an MA, then a summary of your thesis is a must. Ideally, you should try to articulate how your existing work contributes to existing conversations in the field. If you are a historian, maybe you are working with archives that previous historians have not explored; or maybe you are approaching well-known archives through a novel approach. Describe the archive or the approach and explain what new insights they yield. If you are a literary scholar, maybe you are paying attention to neglected authors that merit critical attention; maybe you are shedding light on less known work by major authors; or maybe you are taking a revisionist approach to traditional topics. Identify what we learn by attending to these authors and sources or by taking your new approach.


When it comes to closing the SoP, there is no need to be fancy. You can keep things simple and just say: “Thank you for considering my candidacy. I will be looking forward to hearing from you.”

 

One final word about dissertation formats: while I have focused most of my advice on the production of scholarship, PhD programs have slowly been changing to accommodate other forms of intellectual work. The scholarly monograph or collection of articles is still the standard format for a dissertation in the humanities, but some programs are becoming receptive to digital and creative projects as well as projects less focused on writing (video, images, or performance, for example). If your inclination leans that way, research the department to make sure they welcome such projects. Writing to a faculty member in your field is perfectly acceptable.

 

I plan to produce sample statements of purpose that you can consult as you write yours. For now, I hope these guidelines prove helpful. Best of luck with your applications!  

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