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Using a chapter from a book manuscript (under contract) as a writing sample?

In our August “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:

Any thoughts on using a chapter from a book manuscript (under contract) as a writing sample in job apps as opposed to published articles/a draft article? I am not sure about how hiring committees perceive this, which is why I am here asking. In my case, the book represents my newest and what I think is my most interesting work. But then I could see some committee members who prefer a more ‘contained’ writing sample, since it might be hard to make the right inferences from a book chapter. Thanks.

Good question. Do any readers have helpful insights to share?

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4 responses to “Using a chapter from a book manuscript (under contract) as a writing sample?”

  1. Anonymous

    [Experience with UK hiring here]: I think this sounds fine. But it also sounds like this might be good to save for a job talk if you’re invited to interview, where it would definitely be good to have some excellent work in progress to present that is distinct from the writing sample.

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  2. Anonymous

    For some interviews, I was explicitly asked to send published and unpublished work as writing samples, but I only ever sent work that was forthcoming or accepted but awaiting copy editing. I wouldn’t send anything unpublished that is a draft personally.

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  3. anonymous too

    [From a UK-basis, if that matters]: I would be wary about doing this, though a lot depends on the chapter itself. From my experience, people don’t tend to like a writing sample that includes lots of ‘As I argued for in Chapter X’ or ‘As I will discuss in chapter Y’. People like something more standalone. The problem is that a chapter from a book may not be fully assessable independently.

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  4. Anonymous

    There are some things I’d recommend checking before deciding to do this. It definitely needs to be self-contained in the way an article usually is. It hasn’t been peer-reviewed, so using a chapter is a little riskier (you might not see a problem someone else would think is glaring). An advantage for search committees, especially ones that don’t have an expert in the area being hired, is that a published paper comes with a kind of guarantee that the work is at least good enough to be published in that journal, a kind of proxy for judging the philosophical quality. Most of the writing samples yours will be compared against will be published papers, and it is hard for readers to not feel a difference between a refereed, copy edited and typeset paper as compared to a Word doc or similar, even if the quality is actually the same. None of this means you must not do it, but I think in general I would caution against it.

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