I would like to apply for a PhD studentship and am uncertain of how to arrange the contents.
Among other documents, I am asked to hand in a 'letter of application' and a 'summary of research experience'. In previous applications, I would just outline my research experience in the cover letter. Now, I am a little unsure of what to include in the cover later at all. Should I go into my academic history at all? If yes, to what extent?

My previous structure was as follows:
1. introductory paragraph ("wish to apply...", "graduated in ...", "academic aim ..."
2. paragraph about research experience at university (focus of studies, topic of theses, areas of research I was acquainted with, learned research skills, also: a mention of a fellowship I was awarded)
3. paragraph about an internship relevant to the studentship (general infos, topic, tasks / acquired skills)
4. paragraph about other interests (just 2 sentences: interests & experience abroad)
5. paragraph about my motivation (why the interest in this position, relevant skills that didn't belong with the other paragraphs, sentence about my enthusiasm)
6. conclusive sentence

The second and third paragraphs I just more or less transferred to the 'summary of research experience' document (except for the fellowship sentence). I will be very thankful for suggestions as to what I should do with the remaining 'hole' in the cover letter!

Thank you so much for taking your time to look at my letter!
I will incorporate your advice. :)

At a 1.5 spacing using Arial (11) font the text it is four lines too long (after adding my name at the end).

Hello everyone,
I'm applying for a PhD position and it would be really great if you could help me review my cover letter! I will also be especially grateful for advice on how to improve the letter regarding aspects that are not purely related to language such as conciseness, wording, and elements that can be left out or should be further expounded, respectively.
I am really grateful for all the help I can get!

Dear ***,

I wish to apply for the PhD program in Cognitive Zoology starting in September 2015. I graduated in Psychology from *** University, Germany in November, 2014. My academic aim in pursuing a doctorate with your group is to become a researcher grounded in comparative cognition research.

The focus of my studies thus far has been neuro-cognitive psychology, particularly attentional control processes in visual perception. More specifically, I wrote both my Bachelor's and Master's thesis on the attentional blink– a phenomenon central to understanding temporal aspects of attention. From my theses and research internships in the same domain, I gained experience in various areas of psychological research, including design, programming and conduct of experiments as well as statistical analyses. The studies involved gathering behavioral data such as saccadic movements during eye-tracking procedures. To prepare for a future academic career, I have written most of my research papers, including my theses, in English.

Due to my excellent grades and ranking among the top two percent of my year, I succeeded in receiving a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation.

I also completed a research internship in ***, Germany, where I collaborated with John Doe and John Smith on a paper on *** in American crows. More precisely, I was involved in experiment design, data collection, construction of apparatuses and video coding. My duties at the station also included non-academic tasks such as feeding, maintenance, organizing and supervision.

I am very enthusiastic about doing my PhD in *** as my ideal field of study would be animal cognition and evolution-related research. I also greatly enjoy working with animals and especially corvids: work in *** gave me the opportunity to interact with American crows, jackdaws, a rook and a carrion crow.

In my free time, I enjoy nature-related activities such as hiking. I also started doing volunteer work in conservation, helping out with landscape preservation and bird census projects. When possible, I love visiting other countries and I spent one year as an au pair in Japan (living with an English-speaking host family) and three months in New Zealand travelling.

I am certain that due to my enthusiasm for the subject, I will be able to make a meaningful contribution to your research effort.

Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to your positive response.

Yours sincerely,

Hi guys,
for a PhD application I am required to include "first- and second-cycle theses/degree projects". Does this mean I should add complete pdf-versions of both my Bachelor and Master thesis? I just wonder whether this is a common requirement. (It's a digital application, so adding the files shouldn't be a problem.)
Thanks already!

Dear all,
I would like to apply for a PhD position that, among other things, requires me to submit "records of first- and second-cycle studies (transcript of courses and grades)".
The respective university is Swedish, so applications in English are fine. However, I completed my BSc and MSc in Germany, and my certified transcript is written in German as well.
I did create a translated version of it at one point digitally (when applying for an internship), but of course it's not certified.
Now I wonder how I should proceed.
Is it necessary at all to submit a certified transcript? (If they didn't need that, how would the staff know my grades aren't forged? Or do they usually just trust you with that?)
Should I submit just my (uncertified) translated version, or both the translated version and a pdf of my scanned certified German transcript? Or is it necessary to somehow have my former university certify a translation of my transcript?