Strange writing sample instructions

[ACLS New Faculty Fellows]

I am trying to figure out what to do about my writing sample for the ACLS New Faculty Fellows application. It is limited to 25 pages, and they say that footnotes/end notes are not required. It can be a published article (but they specifically ask for the word file, not the pdf of the typeset version) or an unpublished paper or chapter. I was planning to send a published article, but it is more than 25 pages even without the notes. Also wondering if they don't want the notes, maybe they don't care about the references either? What do people think about sending a published article that has been edited down. That seems strange to me. The other option is to send something unpublished, but I generally don't do that if I can only send one writing sample. What are others doing with this application?

[simple]

First, get the word copy of the published article. Then drop the bibliography and all the footnotes/endnotes. You can put the artilce into 11pt new times roman font as specified by the application checklist. Unless the artilce is a monster, that should get you to about 30 pages. You can probably cut the remaining sections to get to 27-8 pages (e.g. the data and methods if it is a straightforward analysis). 27-8 pages, I hope, is good enough, because that is how long my sample was...