10 Tips for Writing an Effective Statement of Purpose

Getting ready to apply to grad school? Watch this video for expert tips on creating a powerful statement of purpose. Here Debby Bacharach, writer and tutor of DebbyBacharach.com, revisits her popular tips for writing a statement of purpose, which she previously shared as part of a Navigating Grad School as a Working Professional event hosted by UW Professional & Continuing Education. http://www.keeplearning.uw.edu 10 Tips for Writing an Effective Statement of Purpose 1. Put your face on the page. 2. Don't panic -- brainstorm. 3. Get another perspective. 4. Let it all flow and edit later. 5. Keep your writing lively. 6. Make it clear you've done your homework. 7. Show you care. 8. Answer every part of every question. 9. Make sure your essay reflects your work. 10. Give yourself time. Video Transcript: I’m Debbie Backrack, I’ve been a college writing instructor for over 25 years. And I’ve helped hundreds of people write their statements of purpose successfully. I’ve also been on the other side of the desk and I’ve read these statements for admissions committees. I have a good sense of what people are looking for and how to get started with it and how to do this successfully. The main goal of the statement is to make all these numbers about your, your transcripts, your GRE scores, take all these numbers and make them come alive, make you alive as a person. We call this putting your face on the page. You’re here because you did not take a direct route to grad school and admissions is excited about that. They want to know about that, maybe you were a cook in Alaska and from talking to people you decided “oh I wanted to be a social worker”, or maybe you’ve been a midwife your whole career and you realized there’s not enough research to support how you want to help your client and you decided to become an epidemiologist so that you can create that research. These are the “ah moments” they are looking for, when did you get inspired, what excited you about coming into their program? That’s what they’re looking for. So here’s how not to get started: don’t put the question in front of you and stare and stare and panic and look at your watch, and go” it’s due in three”, don’t do that to yourself. Many of us have done it but I want to give you 2 ways you can avoid that. Number one: think about categories, jobs you’ve had, skills you have, awards you’ve won, 10 things that related to this career you’re thinking about that you think really would really fit. 10 things from your life that have nothing to do with this potential career and make all these categories and just fill them in, fill them in with whatever you think of including things that are probably bad ideas and won’t come into your essay but just give it to yourself. And then let it sit a little bit and have a friend come and look at it with you and pick out what might help tell your story and focus who you are. Because you are often can’t see what in your own story might help tell it. So I have a personal example of this; I was writing an essay about failure and I’ve thought about times I’ve failed, a job I didn’t get, an award I didn’t get, and a friend of mine said “oh how do you cope with all that failure?” I thought “what are you talking about” but I’m at poet and I send out hundreds and hundreds of poems all year and maybe I get 3 accepted. And she was just amazed that I wasn’t distressed by this. I thought “oh I don’t think of that as failure” that’s interesting, that makes for a much more interesting essay and a new focus on it that I wouldn’t have thought of myself. So bring someone in to help you figure that out. I also recommend free writing and this is a technique where you have to ask your personal editor you know the one that tells you that’s a stupid idea, you spelled that wrong, you’re never gonna get into grad school- that person. Tell them to go you know take a break, take a cup of coffee, they’ll get a chance to proof read but not right now. And then you sit down and you set a timer for maybe ten minutes and you write. And you just write and write and you just whatever comes whatever connecting ideas that you didn’t think of you just let it all flow. You’re kind of tapping into your subconscious a little bit and what happens is images you didn’t think would come, there’s a lot of power in your writing that wasn’t there before. Again, this is not your final draft, I understand you are writing a professional document but this is a way to get moving with it...