“These are my ‘selling points’”: Disciplinary variation in rhetorical features of graduate school statements of purpose

Despite the productive line of EAP genre research on the textual features of academic promotional genres (e.g., conference abstracts and grant proposals), limited attention has been devoted to issues related to disciplinary variation. To address this gap, this study investigated disciplinary variation in the rhetorical features of 100 Statements of Purpose (SoPs) authored by applicants successfully accepted into their target U.S. graduate school programs across four disciplines: Business, Engineering, Liberal Arts, and Science, supplemented by interviews with authors of the SoPs, EAP writing teachers, and admissions committee members regarding their perceptions of the genre analytic findings. The textual analysis unveiled various cross-disciplinary and discipline-specific strategies, characterizing the applicants’ potential alignment with and understanding of the epistemological stances and discursive conventions upheld by their target disciplinary communities. However, the interviews revealed multifaceted resonations and tensions between the findings of the genre analysis and the experiences of those who write, teach, read, or evaluate the SoP genre in terms of (1) the differences between academic disciplinary writing and promotional disciplinary writing, (2) the role of SoPs in the evaluation process, and (3) the pedagogical value of findings from the genre analysis. Future research and practical implications are discussed.