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Lesson One: Preparation
The purpose of this section is to get you acquainted with the task that confronts you. The first
step is to understand your audience and what your readers will be expecting. You should view
this knowledge as a foundation from which to build your own creative composition, not as a set
of limiting factors. Once you understand the context of your assignment, you must approach
the brainstorming process with a free and open mind. Allow yourself to reflect without the
interference of preconceived notions. Create a long and varied list of possible topics, and then
narrow down that list using the criteria we provide.
The preparation process is essential here as it is for any important project. If you don't identify
and develop the optimal set of ideas, then no degree of effective structuring or engaging
language will make the essay as strong as it could have been.
Select One:
• Assess Your Audience
• Key Attributes
• Common Flaws
• Brainstorming
• Topic Selection
EssayEdge Extra: The Potential Impact of
the Personal Statement-Good and Bad
"It's possible to redeem yourself or to kill your chances of
admission with the personal statement. What's most important
to me is for the candidate to make a compelling case for
himself or herself. I want to be persuaded that I should admit
this person."
-The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International
Affairs, Princeton University
"If I sense that a candidate is just filling out half a page
cursorily - just doing the personal statement pro forma - and
has not put much time or imagination into it, that's the kiss of
death."
-Graduate English Department, UCLA
The Audience
Unlike undergraduate admissions committees, which usually are comprised of full-time
administrative staff, a graduate admissions committee consists of professors in the specific
program to which you are applying. Occasionally, the committee will also invite a small number
of students currently enrolled in the program to participate in the process.
An applicant's file consists of transcripts, GRE or other test scores, letters of recommendation,
and one or more essays. Admissions committees read the essays within the larger context of a
candidate's application. The essays are your chance to tell the personal story that the other
pieces of the application cannot.
Admissions committees for programs in different fields evaluate personal statements
according to vastly different criteria. Professors reading applications for programs in
language-intensive fields such as literature and philosophy examine the originality and
elegance of the applicant's thoughts as well as fine points of style. In engineering or scientific
fields, on the other hand, admissions committees seek to gain more basic insight into the
applicant's goals and to confirm a baseline of competency in written English. In fact, for many
applicants to graduate programs in the sciences, English is not even their primary language.
As the committee members make their way through stack after stack of applications, they
often place the applications they have already reviewed into a hierarchy of admission. The
particular aspects of this process vary, but according to an admissions officer at the University
of Washington, their hierarchy of admission is as follows, in decreasing order o本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。