a personal statement writing services

a personal statement writing services

The Art of Crafting Persuasive Personal Statements: A Comprehensive Guide

1. Introduction to Personal Statements

Personal statements are an essential aspect of several life events, including applications to colleges, graduate programs, residencies, and jobs. They outline who you are and what you are capable of by illustrating your personality and experiences and conveying it in an organized and creative style. Writing a personal statement enables the reader to learn more about you than your grades and extracurricular activities ever will. It is also a vital writing sample to receive scholarships and entry into competitive programs that appeal to examine a candidate’s writing skills.

Writing a brilliant personal statement is an art. An effective personal statement is so much more than describing oneself and one’s experiences. The combination of selling this to your reader while also providing validation of your seriousness is the key factor. Given the significance of the personal statement, it’s easy to become nervous, and if the essay isn’t going well, it’s tempting to think that there’s something wrong with you as a person. Writing a persuasive personal statement requires a vital writing talent and a significant amount of practice. For some of them, it comes easily; for the rest, it necessitates learning. If you’re planning to write a personal statement to seek admission to a college or university, the tips and methods mentioned in this guide will assist you in improving upon your writing and will help you create a comprehensive personal statement that will assist you in increasing your chances of getting admitted.

2. Understanding the Purpose and Audience

Understanding the motivations and expectations of the audience is a critical step in actually getting yourself noticed. The assertions you make should be tailored to the specifics of the program at your chosen institution, if the personal statement is general. Further, each class of personal statement demands varies. A number of personal statements cooperate for the purpose of determining who a candidate for medical treatment is, while others are designed for the purpose of obtaining further education for a particular class of scholars (alumni, scholars, or external scholars), a particular section specialist, a scholar involved in a particular mission, or persons of certain academic merit (a perfect GRE, a certain QPA, or a place on an honor roll, for example).

What you tailor your personal statement for courses makes it interesting and rich. Your purpose, on the other hand, should pressure you throughout the process of creating your personal statement to that program. You have shown that you are well-informed about the school and thus seen as a serious applicant. You’ve designed your studies to fit together. On the majority of those occasions, you focused on your desires. Although the personal statement is written for a range of scholarships, your needs and related scholarships will not be exemplified. A very obnoxious paper would, as an example, characterize the way in which you “come to be” described in the kinds of criteria programmed during a particular time.

3. Structuring Your Personal Statement

The structure of your personal statement

The statement is notoriously unstructured; however, while there is no formula, there are building blocks. You have to establish:

• Where do you wish to begin your anecdote? In medias res (in the middle of the story) is considered good form. It gives the impression of energy, as though doors are opening and people aside them are peering. Here are your readers: They are holding your application and hundreds of others as well, and the goal of your statement is to catch, hold, and transfix their attention. • When is the best time to fully step back and describe the scene? As Flannery O’Connor is famed for saying, “A story is a dramatic event that involves a person who needs to express their emotions.” When we read your story (or “anecdote”), we need to read the things that would be driving that person. A good story allows, almost pressures, us to read emotions and has set a ground for them to burst into new action, new language.

How long should it be?

The common length of personal statements is one page, single-spaced. This is clear, consistent advice from recruiters and the admissions personnel: They have to go through a stack of applications and want the essence of applicants quickly. That said, some of the best personal statements are two pages long. It’s rare for selections committees to say there can be two pages, other than the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) Programs. Come to the discussion of the second draft if in doubt or if working on a graduate school application. The need for the précis paragraph and the actual opening is tangible and must be met. Not all essays need to go—thank heaven!—from the extreme particular to the grand and final sentiment. With shorter word counts, most essays will. Even a reader sympathetic to an attempt to compress a small story into say, 250 words, might find herself saying, “So what?” Your anecdotes will live, instead, to fit into the roomier, sans-precis drafts, where they can grow the full-figured foliage of responses and character portrayal.

4. Incorporating Key Elements and Strategies

Personal statements should demonstrate a central theme or clear sense of purpose. They should ideally articulate an organizing metaphor, concept, or concern relative to at least one area of physical therapy. The personal statement should prioritize language and events over reflection, as two-thirds to three-quarters of the essay should be directed towards narrative. Content should convey your attention to the field and your suitability to practice. In constructing a narrative, avoid offering “admission by colonoscopy,” or an incessant listing of lengthy and detailed events. Your summary at the conclusion of the essay should illustrate the relevance of your narrative to the field of physical therapy.

Utilizing something unusual or somewhat humorous can be quite effective; however, be prudent and consider context, as what may be funny to one applicant or review committee might not translate universally. One strategy of introducing humor is to mention your enthusiasm for “Sesame Street” as a makings of a desire for broader episodic memory. Another application of humor can be to employ the use of “Star Wars” to convey your passion for physical therapy by comparing yourself to a giving Jedi or yoga instructor. To deliver impact with an experience: note the subjective response to your clinical experiences about what it feels like, or note an affective response to an irreducible ethic or profession. Emphasize depth in a few experiences that can always be returning to and integrated, and be sure to give much more than merely a description of the experience, also adding any past and ongoing reflections, theorizing, and integration in your life, work, and social worlds. Utilize examples of how the experience has tasted them to develop any of their skills for school or for life. Show outcomes if those involved made some changes by what happened or to what is still going on. Ground your reflection to the current work of physical therapy. Keep in mind that although coping with adversity is relevant to a personal life mission, selection committees will look for strengths developed as well.

5. Editing and Refining Your Personal Statement

Step five: Editing Drafting a personal statement is a slow, evolutionary, often iterative process. Considerable rest is recommended once you have completed a draft; often a week or more is required to come back to it with fresh eyes. As with the drafting of personal statements, editing requires time, attention, energy, and consideration. Work on a hard copy at this stage for accurate and efficient markup. This will direct attention to written word and ideas, which can take away from language but are highly important. Negative space is certainly an important part of a personal statement. Use it with intention.

First, attend to content and its overall coherence. Eliminate redundancies. Structure: When crafting a personal statement, start with a process of brain dumping. Get it all out of your brain and onto paper. There will have been themes and anecdotes that developed across your drafts. When reviewing a final personal statement draft, revisit these themes. Has every idea and sample or example furthered and fleshed out a narrative?

Step six: Refining At this stage, turn attention to the language. Have interest; abandon cliché; consider, as always, your particular audience as the “refinement” stage may shift depending on the residency to which you are applying. Polish is majority; play with language to illuminate and refine rather than to push meaning or to prop up interest.

Step seven: Getting feedback Take your edited personal statement to a professional tutor at the Writing Center. Share it with peers and mentors. Let a friend or family member read it through. Finally, share it with a staff member in your Career and Professional Development Center. They have ample experience helping develop materials for professional growth and can offer insightful feedback. Schedule an appointment on the Career and Professional Development Center website.