Personal StatementsEffectively presenting yourself in graduate school application essays

*Created by Jared Featherstone,

James Madison University Writing Center

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.

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

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.

Preparation• You’ll 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.

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.

Preparation: Finding the info• All of this information can be found online. Here

are some places to look.• 1. the department’s 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.

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?

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?

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?

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?

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.

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

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.

Drafting

• Using the rough or detailed outline you have composed, write a first draft of the statement.

• Don’t 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.

Revising

• Revision is the process of re-examining the ideas in your essay.

• In addition to the feedback you’ve gained from other readers, there are methods for examining your own work.

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.

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, you’ll want to develop your own ability to find errors and make corrections.

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.

Editing strategies

• Conciseness: http://ualr.edu/owl/concisewriting.htm

• How to find and correct common errors:http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/acadwrite/editing.html

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

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.”

Avoid telling instead of showing• You may have heard the “show don’t tell”

warning if you’ve taken a creative writing class.

• Whether it is in a narrative portion of your personal statement or in a paragraph about your academic successes, you’ll 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.”

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 potential…When I began to take courses in my major, I felt my wings begin to emerge…I can foresee cross-pollinating with other scholars in graduate school.”

• This doesn’t mean that you should ever use metaphors or make an attempt to be creative. You’ll just want to avoid letting that attempt take the place of more useful content.

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.

Additional Resources• Purdue OWL’s tutorial on personal statements:

▫http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/642/01/

• University of Central Florida:▫http://uwc.ucf.edu/Writing%20Resources/

Handouts/personal_statements.htm• Indiana University

▫http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/personal_statement.shtml

• Sample statement, Sweet Brian College:▫http://www.psychology.sbc.edu/6_3.htm

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.”