Please note: The deadline to apply for the 2012 Women's Studies Dissertation Fellowship is
11:59 p.m. ET on November 22, 2011.
Click here to register and apply.
The Woodrow Wilson
Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship
in Women's Studies
APPLICATION INFORMATION
Basics | Components | Deadline | Tips
Applications will be judged on originality and significance to women’s studies, scholarly validity, the applicant’s academic preparation and ability to accomplish the work, and whether the dissertation will be completed within a reasonable time period. Evidence of commitment to women’s studies is also considered. Collaborative work is not eligible. Important tips appear at the end of these instructions.
Applications must be filed using the online form provided at the link near the bottom of this page. A completed application comprises the online application form, two letters of recommendation, and a current transcript.
NOTE: In order to file an application, you must register as a user of the Woodrow Wilson website. There is no filing or registration fee.
When you register, you will provide basic contact information and choose a username and password. Completing this user profile will enable you to save your unfinished application, so that you can return later to add or change entries and view a checklist of supporting documents received.
After registering, select “Apply for Fellowship,” then choose “Woodrow Wilson Women’s Studies Fellowship.”
Components
- Included in the online application are these five required narrative components: an abstract, a full proposal, a selected bibliography, a timetable for completion, and a statement of commitment to women's studies. See the crucial text formatting tips below.
- Abstract
The dissertation abstract, which should be no more than 200 words in length, summarizes your topic and its significance for women’s studies and/or the understanding of women’s and gender issues.
- Proposal
The proposal should describe the proposed work, discuss its significance to women’s studies, describe source materials and their availability (as appropriate), comment on any special preparation or skills you have for carrying out the work, and give a clear statement of the research methodology employed. The proposal must be no longer than 2000 words (roughly six pages in 12-point, double-spaced type).
- Selected Bibliography
The bibliography should indicate the major theoretical and critical works that bear on your dissertation, and should be no longer than two pages in standard bibliographic format (single-spaced entries, with double-spacing between entries). Note that this is a selected bibliography, not a comprehensive bibliography nor a list of works cited; it is important to include the works that most clearly demonstrate your preparation to carry out the work you propose.
- Timetable
The timetable should be a 350-word (approx. one page, double-spaced) plan for completion, including a brief chapter outline.
- Statement of Commitment
The statement should be a 350-word (approx. one page, double-spaced) description of your commitment to women’s studies.
To be submitted separately are your supporting materials—letters of recommendation and a transcript.
- Two Letters of Recommendation
You must submit two letters of recommendation, one from your dissertation director and one from another faculty member familiar with your work.
You will be asked for the name, email, and phone number for the person who will direct your dissertation an don e additional faculty recommender. (a co-director may be listed as the faculty recommender.)
NOTE: All recommendations MUST be submitted through our automatic online system.
HOW IT WORKS: When you enter a recommender's email address, an automatic request will be sent immediately to your recommender with a web link and a key code. Your recommender must click on the link and enter the key code in the login field. This gives them access to an electronic form that they fill out and submit directly. WE ADVISE that you alert your recommenders to this PRIOR to filling in their email address, so that they can be prepared for this email. The email will be from "Website Email Sender" and the subject heading will be "Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation: Recommender Invitation". Please be sure to include your recommender's correct phone numbers for verification purposes.
Recommendations will only be accepted if they are submitted through this confidential secure system. - Transcript*
You are required to submit an official transcript from the Ph.D.-granting institution as well as the institution where you received a master's degree (where applicable). We advise that you request these immediately.
Transcripts must be mailed in the sealed envelope that your university provides, and may be directed to:
The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
P.O. Box 5281, WS Department
Princeton, NJ 08543
• Please note that UPS and FedEx do not deliver to P.O. boxes. If you choose to send your transcripts through UPS or FedEx, please use the Foundation's street address.
• Do not send undergraduate transcripts.
If you have applied for a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, we wil be able to use the transcript that you submitted for that comptetition but you must send an email to the program staff so your documentation may be appropriately tracked.
*Note that transcripts are the only documents that may be mailed to our office. All other materials must be submitted online.
Deadline
The deadline for all applications and application materials for the 2012 competition is 11:59 p.m. ET on November 22, 2011.
Tips
How we can contact you:
Please be sure to provide an email address where you can be reached should we need to notify you if your application is incomplete or if there are other questions.
Writing a compelling proposal:
The most important part of your application is the dissertation proposal. Your proposal should refer to the theories and methods you will use and describe your study’s relevance to women’s studies. Please describe and present the rationale for the proposed work, discuss the significance of the project and its relevance to women's studies, outline your methods, and give progress to date. In considering whether your work is a fit with the Women’s Studies Fellowship competition, you may wish to review the dissertation topics of recent Fellows.
Formatting your documents:
The plain-text software used in this application does not support some of the formatting options and automatic features commonly used in word processing programs.
- Character formats and special characters: The software that processes your online application produces only plain text output—no italics, underlining, boldfacing, or special characters/diacritical marks will appear in the copy of your materials that the committees receive.
- To indicate italics or underlining (e.g., for a book title), place a single underscore before
and after the text you are indicating.
Example:
not As You Like It or As You Like It
but _As You Like It_
- To boldface or create a subheading, use upper-case letters.
Example:
not Section II: Methodology or Section II: Methodology
but SECTION II: METHODOLOGY
- Do not use diacritical marks and special characters; transliterate if necessary.
Example:
not façade but facade
not ācārya but acarya or acharya
Any diacritical marks or special characters will be reproduced in your materials as question marks:
fa?ade, ?c?rya
- To indicate italics or underlining (e.g., for a book title), place a single underscore before
and after the text you are indicating.
- Line spacing and paragraph spacing: Prepare the narrative components of your application (abstract, proposal, bibliography, timetable, statement of commitment) in a word processing program, then paste your text into the areas provided on the online application. When you paste in text, your paragraph formatting and line spacing will disappear (for instance, double-spaced text will look single-spaced). Do NOT attempt to recreate paragraph formatting or line spacing within the memo field of the application after you paste in your text.
- To put appropriate space between paragraphs in your original document, hit "Return" twice at the end of each paragraph—do not use soft returns (shift+enter) and do not use "space before/space after" to create space between paragraphs. These formatting codes are not picked up by the plain-text software that processes applications.
- To indent a paragraph, hit the space bar several times—do not use tabs or special paragraph formats (e.g., hanging indents). Again, these will not be picked up by the plain-text application software.
- To put appropriate space between paragraphs in your original document, hit "Return" twice at the end of each paragraph—do not use soft returns (shift+enter) and do not use "space before/space after" to create space between paragraphs. These formatting codes are not picked up by the plain-text software that processes applications.
- Footnotes: Automated footnotes, such as those created by using the "Insert/Reference/Footnote" command in Microsoft Word, are not recognized by the plain-text software used in this application, and will be lost. to insert a footnote, simply type the note number in square brackets at the end of a sentence, like this:
...as Butler and others have suggested.[1]
Then, at the end of your proposal, simply enter several hard returns and place your notes there as numbered endnotes. While endnotes are not counted against the length of your proposal, they should not be used for lengthy narrative additions that do not fit within the allocated word count. - Pasting in text from a website or email: HTML coding of the kind used on webpages and in some emails may not be recognized by the application software. Therefore, if you wish to copy and paste text from a website or email into a memo field on the application, it is strongly recommended that you first “wash” that text by copying it into Notepad or another plain-text program, removing any code, and then copying the cleaned-up text into the memo field.
- Spellcheck and proofread: Even if you have spellchecked your document before pasting text into the application, a final proofreading once your text has been pasted in—ensuring that the full text has been transferred as you intended—is strongly recommended.
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