STEP3. EXECUTION
Writing with a Distinctive Voice
Once you've gathered your information and selected a structure for your essay, you are now ready to write your statement. A key element of the writing process is choosing a particular point of view from which to present your information. Of course, your choice of perspective depends on the particular style you have developed over the years. The following is an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of applying a particular writing voice to personal statement drafting.
1. First Person
This is the most basic and common voice. This employs the use of the word "I." This approach is great for most formats. Professional and graduate school applicants most often use this approach because it is the most direct. The greatest danger this approach presents is boring the reader if you do not vary your sentence structure. Avoid placing subjects in front of predicates consistently throughout the essay; reverse their order. Pay attention to sentence length and word choice to vary the look and feel of the essay.
2. Third Party Narrator
While this approach can be very creative and effective for writing the personal statement, Chinese students should experiment with this voice very sparingly. As the third party's viewpoint is particularly powerful in telling stories of personal growth and evolution, you can use it effectively for drafting the reference letters, which are also an important part of your application package. This narrative voice often employs the perspective of a teacher, parent or a friend telling your personal story.
3. Second Person
Uses the word "You." This is a rarely used voice but crucial for building empathy between the reader and the applicant. It is often used in a storytelling format. The problem with this approach is that it may be too personal for the reader.
Chinese applicants, who usually find it challenging to write anything in English may use the second person while drafting their documents, but should only use the first person in their finalized personal statements. The second person approach should be steadfastly avoided in the application process except for the extremely rare circumstances.@ Writing the Statement: the Power of a Good Introduction
Your introductory paragraph may be the most crucial portion of your entire essay. This is your opportunity to grab the attention of the reader and encourage them to read your essay intently. Take your time and go through possible alternative approaches for presenting your information. Instead of saying, "This is my personal story....," or "I was born on September 29, 1978..., " try:
Born into a family beset with poverty, I had to give up a normal higher education in favor of vocational training midway through high school. Exercising diligence to give full play to my intelligence, I parlayed my vocational career in the provinces into graduate studies at a top university in the nation's capital, Beijing. Now a Ph.D. candidate with China's topmost research institution, I wish to vault to the forefront of the field of spatial statistics by pursuing post-doctorate studies at your university. (adapted from a passage in the book 《留学书信写作指导》by何庆权、包凡一)
Some Chinese applicants are very fond of employing a quote, anecdote, or some other gimmicks for an opening paragraph. This is fine as long as you know how to do it right. Unfortunately, I have seldom, if ever, seen such a paragraph that is apt. If you really want to cling to this approach, make sure that the quote or anecdote is at least relevant to, and preferably strengthening, the story you tell about yourself. Avoid cliches, truisms and spurious axioms.
An effective opening line engages the reader and draws them into your essay, compelling them to read your personal story closely. The rest of your introduction should be a short summary of what is to come. However, don't just write a summary. Dramatize and highlight the following paragraphs of your essay. In essence, your introduction should be an exciting preview of the body of your statement.
The Body: Getting the Message Across
The main paragraphs should consist of events, experiences and activities you have already organized in chronological order or in order of importance. You should feel free to give special prominence to those accomplishments that you believe deserve particular attention. Be specific and detailed. Tell the readers the reasons why you deserve to get admitted to their school. Let them know in no uncertain terms that you qualify over and above the rest for a spot in the entering class. Be careful not to sound redundant. Each and every paragraph should have a separate theme, and developed within and throughout the paragraph. Your final body paragraph should end on a positive note restating your goals in terms of your anticipated fulfillment at the institution to which you are applying.
Conclusion
The personal essay, like any persuasive writing piece, is a "front loaded" document. Emphasize your point with a topic sentence at the beginning of the document. Thus, dramatic flourishes should not be reserved for the conclusion of your essay. Conclusion paragraphs may not be needed if the last paragraph of your body is striking enough. However, if you decide to write a conclusion, make sure not to merely restate your introduction. While its acceptable to restate your goals and motivations, you should do so in a manner that will leave a lasting impression with the reader. Rather than claiming, "I have worked hard in school as a tutor, and I believe that I will be successful at your school," try, "My GPA, professional experiences, and incomparable traits combine to make me the outgoing, accomplished and promising candidate that your school is looking for." It often helps if you can somehow return to the specific ideas that you have stated in the opening paragraph. Be clear, straight-forward, and end with a bang!
Step 4: QUALITY CONTROL AND REVISION
Review and Revision
This is perhaps one of the most important essays you will ever write, so do not submit your first draft. Read it aloud, have a friend read it, then revise, revise and revise! While a few schools now try to conduct personal interviews either in China or over the phone, in the vast majority of cases, the application documents, particularly the personal statement, represent your only chance to personally connect with the person who holds the decision-making power to admit or reject you. Thus, if the essay does not feel right, never hesitate to revise it once more. Make sure the essay has the overall content, tone and feel that you intend to convey to the reader.
Do not hesitate to analyze your essay line by line. Question whether each line fits and connects with the rest, especially the next. Ask whether it is concise, effective, and illuminates the general theme or supports an assertion. Make sure that all sentences follow the preceding ones in logical order. If something is not absolutely clear to you, it certainly will not be clear to the reader who knows nothing about you.
Eliminate all redundancies
Check every word, every phrase, and every sentence. They each should carry some significance for the purpose you want the documents to serve. Read over each paragraph and make sure that each is dedicated to a separate thesis or theme. Repeating the same topic or theme over and over again will bore the reader, and the essay will lack the professional feel that you are going to convey.
Look at the essay as a whole.
Are there any missing parts that would aid your thesis? If so, go over your "paired" list (pairings of facts and personal attributes) and provide the material for the missing sections.
Support all assertions
Find any claims or assertions that are unsupported by facts, events, or other descriptive material. Compare "I am an enterprising individual" with "While going to college and taking a full engineering course load, a couple of friends and I decided to form our own software company ... " If these gaps exist, use facts to link your particular experiences with the message you are sending. Every line should make logical sense, and every fact must support your thesis.
Proofreading
The final step of your writing process should be, if at all possible, to have two or more people read your essay. One person should be someone very familiar with your personal background. If pertinent information is excluded in your essay, that person may be able to point it out. The second person should be someone who is casually acquainted with you. Since any areas in your essay that are unclear to this reader will also likely be unclear to the Admissions Committee, this reader should be able to point out the problems. Lastly, but very importantly, a third person should check for grammatical and spelling errors. You must make sure that there are absolutely no errors in your essay. After all, you are trying to convey a professional image of yourself. You'd be surprised how bad an impression a single spelling error makes on the reader. Reread, reread, and reread again!
A MATTER OF FAITH
A key to successful writing of application documents is the faith you have in yourself. You must have faith in both your anxious self and your ability to write. As has been said, everyone is special. In the process of composing the application documents, you should find yourself special, too. If only you look hard enough and deeply enough at yourself! Whether or not you have performed many great deeds, you surely have qualities, experiences and skills that other people do not. At the very minimum, you have in you a unique combination of the commonly shared attributes. Do not allow anyone, not even yourself, to tell you that you are just too ordinary to tell from others. That is simply not true and cannot possibly be true. Once you know how special you are, you should not be intimidated by the writing, which is only to tell people the honest truths you know about yourself. With adequate soul-searching, you should acquire the passion for asserting your able self to the world, not to speak of the foreign professors who hold the key to your lifetime opportunities. A document written with faith and passion can only be good.
So, have some faith, and out will pop the document you need.
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