When asking for a professor to write a letter of recommendation, it is best to do so a minimum of two weeks in advance. Then, in one email, explain where and how to submit the letter and included any materials that will be helpful for writing it: cv, resumé, application materials, proposal. In the email, share any characteristics that you are hoping the letter will stress.

Send two reminders: a week ahead and a day or two before the deadline. Don’t worry that a reminder will “bug” your professor - reminders help to ensure your letter gets in on time.

Writing letters is part of our job, so do not hesitate to ask if you need a reference.

Students at Johns Hopkins University are welcome to sign up to meet during my regularly scheduled office hours: https://calendly.com/adria-lawrence/professor-lawrence-office-hours. All non-university affiliates should send an email to request an appointment.

Office hours with professors serve a variety of purposes: talking more in depth about class discussions and materials, clarifying issues that come up in class, understanding course expectations and getting help on how to meet them, discussing research and the research process, and considering intellectual questions that students wish to raise. Students may also wish to discuss their educational and career plans. Professors are generally happy to discuss these issues. More administrative questions, such as major and university requirements, are often best addressed by the DUS or your university academic adviser. Office hours are not for making up absences, but for one-on-one discussions.

Ideally, students will come with their own agenda to office hours, bringing specific questions and topics to discuss, or a piece of writing to share. Students are also welcome to simply come to introduce themselves and chat.

Applicants often reach out to professors to express interest in our graduate programs and I welcome this correspondence. Please keep your email concise: explain briefly your proposed area of interest and ask any questions you might have. You do not need to send me your application materials. Due to time constraints, I cannot meet with any applicants in person, via zoom, or on the phone before admissions decisions are made.

If I were to give one piece of advice to potential applicants, it would concern how to approach the statement of purpose. Applicants often spend time explaining their motivation for seeking a doctoral degree. My advice is to prioritize what you plan to study, not why you want the degree. Applications to doctoral programs differ from undergraduate applications because they are more focused on the candidate’s professional plans than their personal experiences to date. In your essay, explain the research questions you plan to pursue in your graduate studies and tell us why your experiences and education help qualify you for the graduate-level work you plan to do.

A second piece of advice is to do some research on the department or program to which you are applying. Remember that departments are not just looking for well prepared applicants with great records; they are also looking for students who are a good fit for their department. If you mention specific faculty you want to work with in your application, make sure those faculty are actually members of the department to which you are applying. Also try to accurately specify your subfield: comparative politics (politics outside the U.S.), international relations, political theory, or American politics.

For other advice on applying to grad programs see Nuno Monteiro here, Erica Chenoweth (particularly on what kind of degree to pursue) here , or see Dan Drezner here

For information on JHU’s Political Science graduate program see here.

Or see the Doctorate in International Affairs Program at SAIS.

If you are pursuing a PhD, it is only a matter of time before you will be asked to discuss someone else’s work in a group setting - at a conference, workshop, or even in class. How should you go about this? 

The discussant’s role is to open up a broad, constructive conversation about the work-in-progress under discussion. This is an important job: the discussant ideally will raise some fundamental questions about the piece. 

Typically, discussant comments take about 15 minutes. A small portion of that time is a summary of the author’s work. An ideal summary will re-state the purpose of the work in a different way than the author states it. 

As a discussant, you should also provide critical comments. In your comments, do not go for the low-hanging fruit! You can email the presenter regarding minor issues. Ideally, provide 1-3 core comments that get at what the author is trying to accomplish. Are there issues with the concepts used that impede understanding or undermine the main argument? Are there places where the logic of the argument is missing or does not make sense? Are there important alternative arguments missing?

When you raise critical comments, spell out exactly why they matter for what the author(s) is trying to do. For example, do not simply say “you did not account for factor X.” Instead explain why accounting for X is important - how it might change the logic of the argument, or the interpretation of the data or findings.

The reason to provide a small number of comments is so that you can explain why those issues are consequential for the work under discussion. 

See this blog post for more advice on this question. 

1. Make sure you give an answer to the question asked. This answer is your thesis statement. The thesis statement is often a characterization of the literature, an analytic point or points, not an empirical argument like an article would have. For example, instead of “civil wars are caused by factor X” something like, “The literature on civil wars suggests that there is a need for greater consideration of how non-violent forms of contention evolve into violence and vice versa.” In other words, your essay’s argument is a) the answer to the question asked and b) an analytic point about the literature(s) you will discuss. 

2. Make the essay as well organized as you can – you overall want a readable essay with an intro that tells us what the essay will do. Include your argument (the answer to the question) and a roadmap (first I will discuss A, then I will address B, then C). Include page numbers.

3. When you are preparing, keep notes on the main arguments as you read so you can understand where/how authors differ from one another. Identify the major areas of disagreement. Also note down your reactions to works - where you think they succeed and where they fall short. Was the logic of the argument clear? Were there steps in the argument that were omitted? Were there plausible alternative arguments that either were not addressed or were not adequately addressed?

4. Invest in a reference manager like Zotero that you can use to take notes on the readings and to automate your bibliography. At the end of the exam, you'll want to include a list of the works you cited, and this can be done automatically using a reference manager.

5. Work with other students to prepare for the exam. Ask students who have taken it about their experiences. If you can form a study group, that is ideal. It is useful to run your understanding of major works by other graduate students.

6. Typically, readers prioritize breadth over depth in exam essays.  Focusing only on a couple sources in an essay is not a great strategy. It is better to discuss several authors, even if you focus more on some authors than other ones. Include the most important scholars on the topic.

7. How are exam essays assessed? Here’s how I think about assessment (other professors may have different criteria). A weaker essay will not have a main point or thesis statement, or it will be quite vague. A weaker essay will read more like a set of summaries and won’t draw connections between pieces. The weakest essays will misunderstand or mischaracterize works on the reading list.  A good essay will do more than just summarize, but will offer some thoughtful analysis of the pieces – both their strength and the weaknesses. A great essay will have original analytic claims about the state of the literature and/or will be able to put distinct literatures in conversation with each other – i.e. maybe something in the colonialism field tells us something about regimes? Maybe putting contentious politics together with democracy is useful? Keep in mind that you do not need to write a great essay to pass a comprehensive exam.

8. Exams incentivize students to read broadly. Their purpose is for students to get a broad sense of the major debates in the field – a kind of overview of what the conversations have been like and what current and past work looks like. You may never devote this much time to reading great (and not-so-great) works in your field again, so enjoy the reading time!