Comments on the Sample CV (E. Dresher)
The sample CV (from Microsoft) is not bad. It is possible to vary the layout and categories.
Some notes:
It is more usual to put dates on the left side rather than the right:
| 1998-1999 | University of Toronto Open Fellowship Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto |
Education: Rather than one date give the dates of your program:
| Sept. 2004- Oct. 2005 |
Master of Arts in Linguistics University of Toronto Forum paper: "Something in Syntax"; supervisor: J. Doe |
Publications and Papers: This category should be expanded to include at least:
Publications
Presentations
Publications should in turn be expanded to distinguish between types of publications, if you have more than one type. A major distinction is between journal articles and book chapters versus proceedings, working papers, and technical reports. At least these two broad categories should be distinguished. One could make more fine-grained categories, but for most graduate students that is not necessary.
The categories above roughly correspond to refereed versus non-refereed. They don't exactly, since some proceedings are very hard to get into (say, NELS), and involve very competitive refereeing of abstracts; on the other side, not all book chapters are refereed. But nevertheless, you should distinguish these categories, because many things you apply for require these or similar distinctions. It is a mistake to think that the list of publications will look more impressive if you lump everything together. On the contrary, people (fellowship committees, job search committees) do not like having to sift through and sort out a heterogeneous list of stuff.
Presentations similarly can be divided into Papers presented at meetings and symposia versus Invited lectures, if you have both types.
Other categories: You should add a category where you can list participation in departmental committees, conference/workshop organizing, work on working papers, etc. You can call this Service activities or something like that.