Personal Statements

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Personal Statements

• Effectively presenting yourself in graduate
  school application essays
• Created by Jared Featherstone,
• James Madison University Writing Center

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Three types of prompts

• A. Open prompt In this case, the application
  asks for a general personal statement (Tell us
  about yourself in 250-300 words).
• B. Specific question In this case, the
  application gives a specific question (Why do
  you want to study at the University of
  _________?)
• C. Set of specific questions In this case, the
  application will list several questions for you
  to answer in your statement. The difficulty here
  is how to organize your response.

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Following a process

• Whether you have been given an open prompt, a
  single question, or a set of questions, the
  writing process will be similar.
• We will now explore the steps of the process
  preparation, organization, drafting, revising,
  editing

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Essential steps of the process

• 1. Prepare before you begin drafting.
• 2. Develop a plan of organization (this may occur
  before and/or after the initial draft).
• 3. Allow time to revise and edit multiple drafts.
• 4. Have other people read your personal statement.

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Preparation

• Youll need to take a few steps before you
  actually begin writing. Preparing will greatly
  enhance the quality of the essay you write.
• Allow yourself time to prepare before you begin
  drafting the essay. Trying to prepare, draft, and
  revise the night before the application is due
  will usually result in an ineffective application
  essay.

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Preparation Do your research

• Personal statements should reflect a clear
  understanding of the particular graduate program,
  the audience (the committee members or senior
  faculty and their research interests), and the
  career path of someone in this field.

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Preparation Finding the info

• All of this information can be found online. Here
  are some places to look.
• 1. the departments web site
• 2. the home pages of the senior faculty or hiring
  committee
• 3. any recent publications by faculty.
• 4. For information about the career field, ask
  professors at your undergraduate institutions for
  information and references.

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Preparation Ask questions take notes

• It can be very helpful to take some notes before
  trying to craft elegant paragraphs. There are a
  few questions you might ask yourself. Take notes
  as you reflect on each of these.
• 1.What about this program is attractive to me?
• 2. What characteristics, experiences, or skills
  might distinguish me from other candidates?
• 3. What are my specific research interests and
  how do they fit with this program and faculty?

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Preparation (questions continued)

• 4. What work or internship experience of mine
  relates to this graduate program?
• 5. How does my undergraduate work relate to this
  program?
• 6. Are there any outstanding academic or personal
  achievements that might be worth mentioning?
• 7. Are there any great personal or academic
  challenges that I have had to overcome?

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Preparation (questions continued)

• 8. How does this graduate program connect with my
  career goals?
• 9. What are the most compelling reasons that a
  graduate program would want me instead of other
  candidates?
• 10. Can I provide evidence of my motivation to
  pursue this field of study?
• 11. Are there any problems on my academic record
  that should be explained?

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Preparation general prompts

• For those writing from a general prompt, you
  might look back over your responses to the
  questions provided in the previous slides.
• Look for connections between the answers. Can you
  see a story emerging? Can you discern a unifying
  theme or idea? What connections can you draw
  between your answers?

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Preparation specific prompts

• In the case of a specific prompt, you will also
  want to provide some basic answers to the
  questions they have given.
• One strategy for this is to write down each
  question and take notes on whatever comes to
  mind. This will at least give you some material
  to work from later.

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Organization

• Now that you have rough material to work from,
  you can begin to organize your thoughts.
• One common way of organizing
• I. Personal story
• II. Connect personal story to career goals and
  explain those goals.
• III. Connect career goals to education and
  describe relevant accomplishments
• IV. Show how this graduate program fits into your
  goals and why the program is a good fit for you

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Organization the personal story

• A common, effective way to start the statement is
  with a brief personal story or scene.
• Be sure to choose a RELEVANT story, one that ties
  closely with your goals and gives the reader
  details that will distinguish your application.
• Avoid clichés. This is a sure way to make you
  sound like everyone else.

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Drafting

• Using the rough or detailed outline you have
  composed, write a first draft of the statement.
• Dont worry about getting every sentence perfect
  in the initial draft.
• Read the draft several times to make
  improvements.
• Reading out loud can be very helpful.
• Allow others to read the draft and offer you
  feedback.

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Revising

• Revision is the process of re-examining the ideas
  in your essay.
• In addition to the feedback youve gained from
  other readers, there are methods for examining
  your own work.

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Revising reverse outline

• One method is to do a reverse outline of your
  essay. Using the margin of your document or a
  separate paper, write the main idea of each of
  your paragraphs.
• If you have trouble determining the main idea of
  a paragraph, the paragraph probably needs to be
  refocused.
• Once you have done this for the essay, you will
  be able to see if you have covered all of the
  important points and how much space you have
  given to each area.

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Editing

• Editing involves choosing the best words,
  rewriting sentences, adding punctuation, and
  checking spelling.
• Although other readers can help you identify the
  need for changes in your writing, youll want to
  develop your own ability to find errors and make
  corrections.

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Editing wordiness

• One problem that can slow an essay down is
  wordiness.
• Wordy sentences will hurt you by taking up space
  that should be used for more relevant material,
  boring your readers, and reducing the readability
  of your writing.
• When looking for words to chop, look for
  repetition, excessive adjectives and adverbs, and
  long noun phrases. Note the efficiency of the
  more concise version in red
• As far as scientists are concerned, the new
  spores should be smaller in size than the
  previous spores produced earlier.
• Scientists report that the new spores should be
  smaller than the previous spores.

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Editing strategies

• Conciseness http//ualr.edu/owl/concisewriting.ht
  m
• How to find and correct common errors
• http//leo.stcloudstate.edu/acadwrite/editing.html
  

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Things to avoid in your statement

• 1. Overstatement
• 2. Telling instead of showing
• 3. Becoming enthralled with your own metaphors
• 4. Talking around the questions

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Avoid Overstatement

• When you overstate your abilities or hardships,
  the readers will get the sense that you are
  trying very hard to impress them.
• My debilitating course load of 12 credits gave
  me chronic anxiety throughout my junior year.
• My fall internship allowed me to develop
  unprecedented research skills.

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Avoid telling instead of showing

• You may have heard the show dont tell warning
  if youve taken a creative writing class.
• Whether it is in a narrative portion of your
  personal statement or in a paragraph about your
  academic successes, youll need to give details.
• Telling I have an impressive record of academic
  success at JMU.
• Showing I have received a 4.0 average every
  semester at JMU, and I have been an active member
  of the Phi Kappa Phi honor society.

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Avoid flashy metaphors

• Students often come up with metaphors to describe
  their personalities or experiences. The problem
  occurs when the effort to convey and maintain
  this metaphor distracts from the more important
  content of the statement. Note the attempt to
  maintain this clichéd metaphor
• As a freshman, I was a lonely caterpillar who
  did not realize her potentialWhen I began to
  take courses in my major, I felt my wings begin
  to emergeI can foresee cross-pollinating with
  other scholars in graduate school.
• This doesnt mean that you should ever use
  metaphors or make an attempt to be creative.
  Youll just want to avoid letting that attempt
  take the place of more useful content.

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Avoiding talking around the question

• If the essay prompt gives specific questions, be
  sure to answer them directly with clarity and
  detail.
• For instance, a prompt may ask the applicant to
  demonstrate lab experience. Instead of describing
  a particularly rigorous lab or memorable learning
  experience, the writer repeatedly mentions
  extensive lab experience without any detail.

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Additional Resources

• Purdue OWLs tutorial on personal statements
• http//owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/642/01/
  
• University of Central Florida
• http//uwc.ucf.edu/Writing20Resources/Handouts/pe
  rsonal_statements.htm
• Indiana University
• http//www.indiana.edu/wts/pamphlets/personal_sta
  tement.shtml
• Sample statement, Sweet Brian College
• http//www.psychology.sbc.edu/6_3.htm

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JMU Writing Center

• The University Writing Center can also help you
  at any stage of this writing process.
• http//www.jmu.edu/uwc/
• 540-568-1759
• We help writers help themselves by providing
  individualized instruction to students, faculty,
  and staff during any stage of the writing
  process.  Located on the fourth floor of Wilson
  Hall, the Writing Center actively supports
  writing across all disciplines.  Our Writing
  Consultants offer writers help with scholarly and
  creative work, business writing, formatting and
  citation, grammar and punctuation, research
  strategies, and ESOL support.