Monthly Archives: August 2009

Tips on Writing a Narrative Descriptive Personal Statement

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When writing yourpersonal statement for college or forgraduate school, keep in mind that you have to grab the attention of your readers.  How else will you be able to stand out from hundreds or even thousands of applicants vying to get a spot at your dream school?  One way to hook your essay readers is to write a personal statement while keeping the tips on how to write a narrative descriptive essay in mind.

What is a narrative descriptive essay?

Basically, a narrative descriptive essay is a written work that aims to convey a story in such an imaginative way that the readers’ attention is instantly captured.  By using the right words and descriptive phrases, you are able to create vivid images in your readers’ minds.

What are the advantages of using narrative descriptive essay writing techniques?

Now you don’t have to turn in a fictional tale as an admission essay.  What you have to do is to apply some narrative descriptive essay writing techniques in creating a draft for your personal statement.  An advantage of using this writing style is that you are able to instantly capture the attention of the admissions panel.  Members of the admissions panel read hundreds and probably thousands of essays so it’s best to come up with something that’s both unique and personal.  You’re also able to show the admissions panel your creative side, something that many admissions panel appreciate when they read the applicants’ essays.

Another advantage is that you are able to hone your creative writing skills, which can be very useful during English classes in college.

Tips in using narrative descriptive essay writing techniques in your admission essay

When writing a descriptive story, you first think of a catchy topic.  So whenwriting your admission essay, select an interesting topic that’ll let you tell the admissions panel why you deserve a slot in their school.  This interesting topic could be a previous work experience, someone who motivates you, or any event in life that made a huge impact on how you look at things today.

In a narrative descriptive essay, you use words or phrases that’ll help the readers conjure images as they read the story.  As you write your admissions essay, use words or phrases that’ll help the admissions panel see a clearer picture of you as a future student in their school.  Just make sure to not go overboard when using descriptive words.  Too much can make your essay look like a fictional tale and not a realistic yet attention-grabbing personal statement.  Try to read creatively written examples of personal statements to get an idea when writing your own.

When writing your personal statement, keep in mind that being creative is a plus.  Just don’t be too creative because this might give the readers the wrong impression.

A Fictional Character as the Subject of Your Personal Statement

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Your personal statement is one of the most important requirements for your application package.  While most people see the personal statement as a stressful requirement, it is also an opportunity to introduce yourself to the admissions committee by writing about practically any topic you can think of.  In fact, you can even write your personal statement based on a fictional character.  Choosing a fictional character for your personal statement topic may seem rather absurd at first, but you can come up with a great essay if you handle the topic with care.  This article will offer some helpful information on using a fictional character as a topic or theme for your personal statement.

A fictional character as a catchy essay subject

Fiction books, movies, and stories come in all sorts.  From the fanciful and intangible to the scientific and realistic, you can find fiction stories of all kinds, each with different fictional characters.  Each character is a unique personality that you can relate to in various ways, on various levels, and through various channels of emotion and thought.  This is what makes fictional characters such a catchy essay topic; if offers you diversity, depth, and broadness of the topic.  You must realize, though, that the task of writing a personal statement is not similar to writing a book report or research paper.  Your personal statement is something that reveals your personality, your values, your virtues, and your strengths.  For this reason, it can take some deep reflection and self-evaluation to come up with a great personal statement based on a fictional character.

Discussing your favorite fictional character effectively

To use a fictional character effectively as your essay topic, you should try to understand how you relate to the character and how the character has positively affected you and your life.  You may want to think of the qualities and traits that you have in common with the fictional character, such as fortitude, resilience, honesty, faithfulness, or integrity.  Your main objective is to keep the focus on yourse;f, while using the fictional character as a point of reference or a source of inspiration.

Think of why you want to use the character as the subject of your paper and try to express that in your essay.  Make a clear connection between how the fictional character has had a positive effect on your personal development.  Then, establish a clear connection between how your personality and character traits make you a good candidate for acceptance to the school you are applying to.

Other tips to make your essay catchy

Here are a few more tips on how to make your essay catchy:

–  Try capturing the reader’s interest and attention from the beginning of your essay by starting your essay with a quote from your favorite character, a passage from the story the character is featured in, or a personal anecdote related to you and the character.

–  Focus on telling the story of how you have been affected as a result of the connection you have made with the character.

–  Try to have other people read your essay and ask for their opinions, suggestions, or comments.  This will help you polish your fictional-character-based essay into a personal statement worthy of even the best schools in the world.

Writing about Your Political Beliefs in Your Personal Statement

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If you are into politics and you have strong feelings regarding your political beliefs, you may find it a good idea to write about a politics-related topic on your personal statement.  Some of the personal statement writing guides that you have read may say that politics isn’t necessarily a good topic for your essay, because politics is a very sensitive subject.  In truth, though, you can write a compelling, interesting, and meaningful personal statement based on your political beliefs.  Read on to learn how to use your political beliefs to write a successful personal statement.

How your political beliefs can help you with your essay

When you are faced with the task of finding a topic for your personal statement, your political beliefs may not be the first topic that comes to mind.  If you think about it, though, politics and political beliefs can make a good topic, especially if you want to major in a plan of study that is related to politics or government.  Your political beliefs are more than just what influence your votes in an election, but they also reflect your perspective of world issues, legal matters, and the relationship between politics and society.  Furthermore, your political beliefs may also give a hint on your personality, character traits, and who you are as a whole.  In other words, your political beliefs can reveal more personal information, which is exactly what the purpose of the personal statement is: to introduce you, as a person, to the admissions committee.

How to discuss your political beliefs in the essay

When it comes to writing your personal statement, it’s essential that you relate your political beliefs as to who you are and how you have developed as a person.  Basically, you want to reflect on your political beliefs and understand how they have shaped your character traits, personality qualities, virtues, and values.  Your aim is to use your political beliefs as a vehicle to convey more pertinent information about you.  In other words, the focus of your personal statement should still be about you and not on your political beliefs per se.  Here are some suggestions for using politics and political beliefs as your personsal statement topic:

–  Write about how your political beliefs are a manifestation of your admirable qualities.
–  Write about how politics have shaped your perspective of profound topics, like justice, equality, or freedom.
–  Write about politics-related experiences that have influenced your decisions, personality, or outlook on life.

What not to include when tackling political beliefs in the essay

When using politics or political beliefs for your personal statement topic, it’s essential to know what topics to avoid writing about.  In most cases, it would be best to avoid controversial and sensitive topics, because most schools try to avoid the controversy involved in such topics.  Likewise, it would also be irrelevant to write about what you know about politics or about your stand on current political issues.  Avoid discussing politics in a manner that takes the focus away from you and why you are a good candidate for the school you are applying to.

Guide to Using Examples of Personal Statements

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Uniqueness is one of the most important elements of an effective personal statement.  The admission officers read hundreds or even thousands of essays.  This is why you have to make your essay attention-grabbing.  And how would you do that?  Basically, you can grab the attention of the admission officers by making your essay very unique.

One of the best ways through which you can write a notable admission essay is by reading and studying examples of personal statements.  You can use these examples of personal statements as guides when you write your own.  But when you use these sample essays, there are some things that you have to keep in mind.   Read on to know what are these things.

Do not copy the entire format

Analyzing the style and the format of personal statement samples is an excellent way to get ideas on how personal statements should be written.  However, you have to be careful not to fall to the danger of imitating the format of the sample essays entirely.  Your goal here is to be unique.  And you could never achieve uniqueness by sounding like thousands of applicants before you.  Just use the format of others as a guide.  But make sure that you come up with your own format.

Use your own experience and cite your own strengths and weaknesses

The personal statement is about you — the you which could never be revealed by just your resume and tests results alone.  Your personal statement is about the you who is a special individual.  This is why when you write an admission essay, you have to talk about your own experiences, strengths, and even weaknesses.  Yes, you should include even your weaknesses.  By doing this, the admission committee would see you as a person who is unafraid of admitting his or her weaknesses.

Make your essay reflect the real you

Your admission essay should be about you.  You have to make sure that your essay reflects the real you and not just project the ideal you.  The most important thing is to be sincere in what you write; let others read it and listen to what they have to say.  Remember that the admission committee had read thousands of essays before.   For sure, they have a way of seeing through your lies.

Although it is best that you use examples of personal statements as guides, you have to remember that your essay is still about you.  Therefore, thestyle and the content of the essay should reflect the real you.

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Examples of Personal Statements: Top 10 Best Writing Tips

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Reading examples of personal statements is an excellent way to get ideas that you can use when you write your own.  Aside from reading sample essays, there are also various tips on writing that you can find online.  Below are some of these tips.

Common problems in writing an admission essay

Before you start your writing process, you have to be aware that writing is not very easy.  One of the problems you would probably encounter is deciding for your topic or theme.  Hundreds or even thousands of people are vying for a spot in the university that you want.  So it could really be difficult to choose a theme that would make your admission essay unique.  Another difficulty you would probably encounter is deciding for the scope.  An admission essay should not be very long, so you really have to limit the scope of your essay very well.

Top 10 essay writing tips

It is very important that you are equipped with helpful tips when you write your essay.  The following are top ten essay writing tips to keep in mind:

1.  The first tip is to make your essay interesting and creative.  By doing this, you could grab the attention of the admission committee.
2.  The next tip is to weave your ideas with one theme.
3.  Next, make sure that you write with clarity.  A clear essay is engaging and fun to read.
4.  Don’t forget to make your essay coherent.
5.  Provide a three-dimensional image of yourself through your essay.  Your essay is the means through which you can reveal your personality to the admission committee.
6.  Then, make sure you develop your theme well.
7.  Do not use jargons and highfalutin words in order to impress the admission officers.
8.  You also have to ensure that your essay is well-edited.
9.  You have to read it several times to make sure that it is error-free.
10.  Lastly, you should let others read your essay.  Ask them for suggestions.

Reminders

When you write your personal statement, there are other things that you have to keep in mind.  One of these is the limit of your creativity.  A creative essay is notable.  However, you have to limit your creativity.  Remember that you are not writing an essay for a creative writing class.  You also have to remember to include only your experiences relevant to your application.  Keep in mind that a personal statement is supposedly short.

Before you start writing your admission essay, it is an advantage if you read excellent examples of personal statements.  You can use these examples of personal statements as guides.

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