Personal Statment Draft - Please Critique Forum

[Wodin]

Deleted. Thanks all for the help!

[rinkrat19]

Extremely superficial, as if written by a much younger person. No insight into your personality. No detail to "show" the reader things, just "telling."

[Wodin]

Thank you for the advice. I'll try to re-write some of it to show more of my personality. I never realized I'd have such a hard time writing about myself.

[rinkrat19]

A little more advice, hopefully more helpful:

Don't start off with a sentence stating your topic thesis ("I learned stuff from my mom"). If you're just going to tell me that right off the bat, why should I continue reading the rest of it?

Start off with an anecdote from a specific incident (it can be something small) and what you did/how you felt in that situation, either bad or good. Then mention her condition, which explains the incident (so the reader first wonders "why is this woman locking her kids in the house?" and then figures it out.) Use the incident to illustrate a larger point, which is that you learned to speak for her and support her--but transfer that to something else even bigger, like wanting to be an advocate for other people as a lawyer, or experiences supporting other people in school or volunteer work or something. You need to make it not JUST about you supporting your mom.

[bmore]

Father??? Did I miss it? Too much about your mom and not enough about why you would make a good law student. But I am impressed by your story.

[dietcoke0]

Good story, but too much about your mom. They want to know about you. I want to hear how you've changed, or are different. Some examples other than you are the big boy in the family.

[Wodin]

Thank you all for your advice. It is very helpful.

I'm working on incorporating an anecdote as my first sentence. I see what you mean about leading the reader to the main topic. I'll also focus more on myself. My dad left when I was 10, I suppose I could mention him in the story since the reader will wonder where he was.

[Wodin]

Deleted. Thanks all for the help!

[Moriarty]

Definitely getting better. Rinkrat's right--make sure to include as much as you can about you. Also, try to avoid generic statements (e.g. "granted me a unique perspective..."), mostly because you're showing that through your words.

Ah, and don't forget to watch "your" vs. "you're" and general punctuation issues.

Good luck!

[Wodin]

Thank you Moriarty. I changed the things you pointed out. Add more about myself.. That seems to be the advice I'm getting most often, I'll see what else I can add. Again, Thank you for your help!

[rinkrat19]

You're still beginning with a statement of your topic. Either your essay will effectively communicate that topic (in which case you don't need to state it right off the bat), or it won't (in which case it's just a bad essay). Either way, stating your thesis first thing makes me wonder why I should keep reading if I already know your main point.