Using contractions in your Personal Statement? Forum

[t-14orbust]

What is the consensus on this?

[Leaborb192]

What is the consensus on this?

In any professional writing, my professors told me, "DO NOT DO IT!" Unless it is a quote.

[t-14orbust]

What is the consensus on this?

In any professional writing, my professors told me, "DO NOT DO IT!" Unless it is a quote.

So I've been told, but that was mostly in regard to formal essays and I'm not sure how much a 'personal' statement qualifies as that. I've seen them in others' statements, so I was just wondering. I have no problem with getting rid of them though.

[Ramius]

I doubt you'll get anything beyond personal opinions on this, but in my opinion you should keep it more formal. Obviously quotations would be an exception to this rule, but I think generally it will be a rare occasion where a contraction is the right call.

The only case I can imagine is if it's used intentionally to drive a point home. For instance, I used one contraction in my PS to add a softer humanity to a revelation I had. It just didn't sound right to say it in formal language. But it was the exception to a generally solid rule.

In case you want a little specificity on this, I was talking about explaining a death to a group of the guy's peers, and the sentence was,"'Bad luck' just wouldn't cut it."

[t-14orbust]

I found this http://www.top-law-schools.com/archives ... =2&t=50098

Edited the rest of this post out

[Ramius]

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable contraction to leave in. The difference between a PS and other formal writing is that voice and tone are infinitely more important in the PS. But, like using conjunctions at the beginning of sentences, they should be used sparingly.

[t-14orbust]

Thanks for the input brother, you'll be one of the first unfortunate ones to get a PM of my PS.