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Personal Statment Draft - Please Critique

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 11:45 am
by Wodin
Deleted. Thanks all for the help!

Re: Personal Statment Draft - Please Critique

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 12:15 pm
by 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."

Re: Personal Statment Draft - Please Critique

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 12:32 pm
by 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.

Re: Personal Statment Draft - Please Critique

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 12:42 pm
by 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.

Re: Personal Statment Draft - Please Critique

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 12:56 pm
by 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.

Re: Personal Statment Draft - Please Critique

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 4:29 pm
by 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.

Re: Personal Statment Draft - Please Critique

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2012 2:19 pm
by 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.

Re: Personal Statment Draft - Please Critique

Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 7:39 pm
by Wodin
Deleted. Thanks all for the help!

Re: Personal Statment Draft - Please Critique

Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 8:06 pm
by 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!

Re: Personal Statment Draft - Please Critique

Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 11:39 pm
by 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!

Re: Personal Statment Draft - Please Critique

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 12:47 am
by 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.