Hey all,
I found a copy of my cover letter for my job at ISU. Compare it to Katherine’s listed in the other cover-letter post.
I’m attaching it because I’ve used Comments (in Word) throughout to explain the different rhetorical moves I’m making. I asked Jim K if he had an old copy of the ad so you could compare the two, as this letter specifically addresses the ad’s language/call. Some of this won’t be as relevant as Katherine’s letter since this was for an advanced assistant position, not someone directly out of school (i.e., the dissertation paragraph is replaced here with a research agenda paragraph). Just be aware of the differences. Also be aware that this letter is by no means exemplary, even though it did get me the job. Plenty of things I would change (small changes) about it now, including the font, which at the time matched the font on my CV, which got mailed together.
Enjoy,
cheryl.
ISU-coverletter-commented
Cheryl and I will try to post more sample cover letters as we request them from successful job-seekers. For now, I’ll post my own application to ISU just so you can get a sense of the format and language. This letter, then, was written for a research-focused school (so my dissertation paragraph could be more substantial and I’d definitely want to emphasize future research, in all having 3 paragraphs on research instead of 2) that very much values teaching, which I could tell from the mission statement, large number of English Education majors, and faculty profiles and personal webpages. I knew the department also valued the English Studies model, so I should emphasize my interdisciplinary interests and remember that rhetoricians, technical writers, creative writers, linguists, and education specialists would be reading my letter as well as literary scholars.
20 November 2004
Professor Tim Hunt, Chair
Department of English
Campus Box 4240
Illinois State University
Normal, IL 61790-4240
Dear Professor Hunt,
I write to apply for the position of Assistant Professor of Eighteenth-Century British Literature, which your department has advertised in the MLA Job Information List. I received my Ph.D. in May 2004 from Emory University, where I am now a Visiting Assistant Professor of English. I believe that my interdisciplinary research interests in eighteenth-century British literature and global communication systems, such as print, the postal system, and intelligence networks, would complement the current curriculum of the English department at Illinois State University. I would bring to your department two in-progress book projects, experience teaching introductory and upper-level courses in eighteenth-century literature and in writing, and a record of enthusiastic participation and leadership in the academic community.
My current book project, entitled “Fatal News: Information Overload in Early Eighteenth-Century Literature,” is a revision of my dissertation. The first extended consideration of the literary and cultural effects of information, my dissertation discovers that the term changes meaning between 1678 and 1795. Though the eighteenth century is frequently cited by media theorists as the origin of today’s information age, no studies have yet analyzed or explained what information was, semantically, and how conceptions of it influenced the period’s knowledge and communication systems. Beliefs in an “Enlightenment public sphere” and in print technologies as harbingers of a future of burgeoning knowledge inform many current theorists’ historical outlooks on media. At the other extreme are studies that overemphasize eighteenth-century fears that the sheer quantity of documents in circulation would lead to total communication and community breakdown. Jonathan Swift’s A Tale of a Tub, for example, begins with the image of an individual nearly suffocated in a crowd, which scholars have agreed represents Swift’s contemporary print culture. What I find in Swift’s Tale, however, is that the narrator then goes a step further to demonstrate several innovative strategies for coping with the apparent threat of information overload. For example, the narrator adopts a secretarial model of communication that promotes collective authorship. My readings of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Aphra Behn’s History of the Nun, Swift’s Tale, Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year, and James Boswell’s London Journals revise media theory’s historical assumptions about print culture before the nineteenth century. I have been requested by Routledge to submit my revised dissertation for review as part of their series in Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory.
My next project, “The Whispering Office: Information and Intelligence in the Literary Eighteenth Century,” continues my work on the relationship between Restoration and eighteenth-century literature and media to focus next on cryptography, intelligence networks, and narrative. Despite their obvious influences on contemporary philosophies of language, cryptography manuals have remained largely unexplored texts. I argue that manuals by authors such as John Wilkins, Samuel Morland, John Falconer, and Noah Bridges, and literary works by known intelligence agents Behn, Defoe, and Swift, make visible the emergence of information as a type of knowledge that virtualizes bodies. In other words, information comes to be thought of as both material and immaterial, as bodiless and yet defined by the human body. Most interesting to me is the way in which that “informational body” comes to be globally represented by the native or ethnic bodies of New World inhabitants and, locally, by the bodies of female readers.
Professionally, I have presented my research at major conferences in my field, and my article analyzing the relationship between the female body and mechanical technology in James Boswell’s London Journals and his Hyponchondriak essays is forthcoming in a collection entitled Sex and Death in the Eighteenth Century. Two articles, one on the role of the postal service in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and another on informational bodies and media events in Defoe’s Journal, are currently under review by journals. I have also published online, editing and introducing the late seventeenth-century Gentlewoman’s Companion and nineteenth-century feminist and abolitionist periodicals The Woman’s Advocate and The Women’s Era.
At Illinois State University, I would be excited to teach survey courses in the century, including your “British Literature of the Eighteenth Century.” In my upper-class survey, “Reading the Book of Nature in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature, 1660-1740,” students have learned about allegorical, dramatic, and novel conventions with the help of contemporary developments in the graphic arts. Of particular pedagogical interest to me are courses on the novel and women writers. “Secret Histories of the Early English Novel,” which I taught when awarded a competitive Dean’s Teaching Fellowship, challenged students to recognize and question the relationship between historiography and the novel form during the early eighteenth century. In a course on eighteenth-century women novelists and protagonists, which I will teach next spring, students will explore the context and legacy of “The Pamela Controversy.” In the future, I would like to build from what I learn in this class to design a focus for your “Studies in Women and Literature” course, and I would also like to lead a graduate seminar on “Studies in the English Novel” that provides a more rigorous introduction to novel theory. In addition to courses in my period, I would also be interested in teaching courses on “Research Studies in Language Arts.” One of my strengths as a teacher is my approach to teaching research in both literature and writing courses; I work closely with the campus library to help students learn how to negotiate between different archives, electronic databases, and the stacks and how to recognize the investigative, rhetorical, and personal uses of research in their academic and professional lives.
Like my research, my teaching is technologically informed, and I would value the opportunity to work with Illinois State graduate students interested in “Technology and English Studies.” Platforms like Blackboard, which offer discussion boards, portfolio management, and multimedia lecture and assignment opportunities, have proven especially useful in my Emory classes. In the Lewis H. Beck Center for Electronic Collections, I have also had the opportunity to brainstorm and design online databases and exhibits: editing Seamus Heaney’s handwritten poems and helping to build a site for the Illustrated London News, for example, have made me more sensitive to narrative, intertextuality, and the physical properties of texts.
My service to the Emory Department of English and the Emory College has helped me better understand my responsibilities as part of a university community, and it has also deepened my commitment to research and teaching. I seek out leadership roles and enjoy creating new opportunities for teachers and students to continue scholarly conversations outside the classroom, and I would be excited to participate in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching. I also believe in supporting the campus Writing Center. As Assistant Director of the Emory Writing Center, I trained a staff of twenty-four gifted undergraduate and graduate tutors, designed and taught monthly workshops, and improved faculty understanding of and participation in the Writing Center mission.
I have enclosed my curriculum vitae and a writing sample, and my dossier will arrive under separate cover from the Office of Career Services at Emory. Should you require any additional materials or wish to speak with me, I can be reached by phone at 770-923-5365 or e-mail at keellis@learnlink.emory.edu. I plan to attend the MLA convention in Philadelphia in December. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Katherine Ellison
The job application letter is the most important part of your application. People differ a good deal on how long a letter can be. Our opinion is that it should be no more than 2 pages, but definitely more than 1. 1.5 or just at 2 pages is lovely.
The tone of the letter is crucial. It must be thoroughly professional; remember that you are speaking as a potential colleague. In addition, do not worry about repeating things from your CV or your writing sample. Few people read all three documents with care. Finally, be sure to have your letter read by at least one faculty member for matters of content and by at least one person who sincerely cares about typographical errors. Be sure to spell the name of the chair correctly.
While you will probably have one or two models from which you work, you must tailor each letter to fit each job. Job letters typically follow a kind of five-paragraph format + conclusion, with the order of paragraphs switched depending upon the focus of the department (research or teaching):
1. The introduction paragraph. Name the position for which you are applying and where it was advertised. Give your current status and the title of your dissertation. If you have not completed your degree, explain that you will submit the final draft of (or defend) the dissertation in ____ (March, say) and receive your degree in ____ (May is good — August would make them nervous).
2. The dissertation paragraph. This is the most important paragraph of your professional life if you are applying to a school that cares whatsoever about research. I recommend a single paragraph, though others suggest two. (I fear that many readers may not make it to the second paragraph.) In four to six sentences you must show what makes your dissertation compelling and original. Do not, however, waste time situating yourself among other scholars. If you have room, you might end this paragraph by referring to an enclosed one-page summary (see post on Dissertation Summary). Remember: People from outside your specialty will be reading this description—and you should emphasize the aspects of the dissertation that fit the particular job.
4. Publications, papers, awards. Basically, point out that you have had the chance to share your work with scholars outside the ISU community and/or that your work has received some recognition. Another thing you can include in this paragraph, especially for research schools, is an idea of your research agenda; i.e., what projects you have on the table past the dissertation, where you’re going next.
4. Teaching paragraph (s). This paragraph — you can have one or two — should include three things: a one or two sentence explanation of your teaching philosophy (you might show how your teaching relates to your research here), a description of your teaching experience, and information about the kinds of courses you hope to teach in the future. This last element, obviously, is one that you can and should easily tailor to the specific position. For teaching-focused schools, this paragraph may go before your dissertation paragraph or between the dissertation and papers/publications paragraph, but be very careful in assuming that a school won’t be interested in your research. If you’re not sure, keep your dissertation paragraph concise and then spend two very detailed paragraphs on your teaching to show how engaged with and dedicated to it you are.
5. Service paragraph. Here’s where you note all those administrative positions you may have held, your job at the CTLT, your work with the tutoring center, your editing work for a publication, your computer experience (if you’ve digitized texts, run blogs, etc.). Be selective in what you list, choosing what you think says a lot about you and how well you’re going to transition to a job that asks you to balance your research, teaching, and service.
6. Final paragraph. If you have instructed Career Services to send the dossier, say so here. Mention that you will be at MLA (or appropriate academic conference), that you would welcome the chance to meet with this committee there, etc. If there’s any place that you will be in December that is not listed on your CV, give the information here.
Other Quick Tips:
- The real trick to writing these letters are the transitions between paragraphs. In other words, you are going to have to think hard about the connections between your research and your teaching. But the better you can articulate those connections, the better off you will be in the interview stage.
- Work on your writing style and, if you think it might pay off, take calculated risks. For example, I mentioned in the first paragraph of one letter, for a school that served many first-generation college students, that I am also a first-generation college student.
- Remember that in the letter, at least, it’s about what you can do for them, not why they will be good for your research or your career.
- Do your research, but don’t go nuts and spend more time than you need to. Prioritize. For job letters, you can find everything you need during a 20-minute internet search of their school and department. On the university/college level, I looked quickly for the following: the type of student population (how they characterize their students), diversity, interdisciplinary emphasis or not, commuter vs on-campus, enrollment size, technology use, location, and mission statement. On the department level, I quickly looked for: what the department offers, where the gaps are, special interests or programs, courses they offer in your area and courses you think you could teach (choose 1 from each level), and faculty profiles.
- One last tip: readers seem to love the Garamond font in letters, especially when it’s 12 pt. A subtle thing, but it just seems to look professional and is very easy on the eye.