MA in Science Writing Admission and Application Requirements

Please identify two individuals, such as professors or supervisors, who can verify your professional and/or academic accomplishments. Submit your recommenders’ contact information within your online application. They will be emailed automatically with instructions to access the system and provide their recommendations.

Please submit 10 to 20 typewritten, double-spaced pages, or about 2,500 to 5,000 words. These writing samples should be your best attempt at creative, communication, or journalistic writing in medicine, science, technology, nature, health, or related fields. Any form or combination of forms, including news or feature articles, commentary/blogs, communication feature, memoir, travel, essay, newsletter article, review, profile, humor, news release, speech, book chapters, and creative nonfiction, is permitted. If you lack samples about science, medicine, or technology, you may submit writing about other topics, although some kind of explanatory or analytical writing is useful. Samples do NOT have to be a single, lengthy piece of writing. Instead, a combination of several shorter pieces is recommended if the combined length of all pieces equals 10 to 20 pages. We suggest two to five separate or related works of prose.

Tips for a Successful Writing Sample

Typical academic or college papers, peer-reviewed research reports, extremely technical writing, or formulaic government or corporate documents are NOT acceptable writing samples. Instead, we seek your best attempt at journalism, communication writing, essays, creative writing, blogging, op-eds, speechwriting, newsletter features, journal entries, storytelling, narrative, or other styles, in any traditional or experimental form. In some cases, a corporate document or academic paper may be an acceptable sample, but only if it displays creativity and originality beyond the typical example.

For models to emulate, you should review the content and style of writing found in the health, science, technology, or related sections of major newspapers, magazines, literary journals, scientific organizations, or web publications. The Science Writing program favors writing samples that show some understanding of the traits and techniques of such published writing, although professional-level expertise is not expected.

Our admissions committee advises applicants who don’t regularly produce the requested writing in a personal or professional setting to demonstrate creative initiative: Read and study your best models, find a topic of knowledge or interest, then seize a pen or keyboard to write.

You may submit copies of published writing, although submitted samples do not have to be published. If you have digital writing samples, please submit a copy of the entire sample, not just a link. The majority of samples in the application should be no more than five years old. You may submit uncompleted work if you label it as such.