My Personal Statement "Improved Me" inside Forum

[daburrel]

I decided to take it down after not much help. If anyone is still interested in helping PM me and I will send you a copy over. Thanks

[Geist13]

don't you dare send schools a personal statement that has a title.

[daburrel]

I didn't know that but Thanks for the info.

[framboozer]

I think you should definitely take this to a writing center, because the mechanics are really poor, and completely distract from the story. Law schools are going to want to know that you can write clearly and persuasively, and the most basic way to achieve that is to tighten up the basic mechanics of writing. Invest in some good ole Strunk & White.

Then again, maybe someone here will also fix the writing. Aren't half of us snowed-in anyway?

I guess I'll over a few ideas. If you want to shorten your essay, make your ideas more concise. For example, "Unlike the case for many individuals my maturation process did not begin as a child" is very clunky. What about something like "I did not begin to mature until rather late in life." Indicate that it took something extra to make you feel like an adult. If you keep the original outline of that sentence, take out "the case for" at the very least.

In the case of "It is very hard to give up on something, even when you know it’s bad: just ask cigarette smokers." That last part should just be it's own sentence. Take out the colon.

I would also fix the tense (Your identity was born, for example). Why did you say "Hurricane Katrina!" like that? Get rid of that altogether. Also, invest in commas. You use them very sparsely. Like I said, read The Elements of Style by Strunk & White. It's available online: http://www.bartleby.com/141/

[daburrel]

thanks alot for the input framboozer. I have a English Professor who will help me with it all. I appreciate all the comments you have put up.