UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES

THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN DEVELOPING YOUR PERSONAL STATEMENT

In writing your personal statement, remember to develop an interesting and appropriate theme for connecting all parts of your application. You should keep the following things in mind:

1. The purpose of the statement
2. The audience to whom you are writing
3. The organization of your statement
4. The tone of your essay
5. The ways that you weave your statement together to develop an informative, well-written, articulate and convincing personal statement.

A compelling personal statement will enable you to stand out in a field with other high-achieving persons. It will help you overcome any gaps or inadequacies in your record. It can predispose the interview panel to want to give you a Truman Scholarship rather than to merely hear your case and then decide.

The passions, accomplishments, ambition, and creativity that you present in a carefully prepared personal statement will go a long way toward success in the Truman competition. Your ability to portray well these characteristics should be of enormous value in competitions next year for graduate fellowships and admissions to highly selective graduate schools.

Writing an effective personal statement is difficult. Points in this section should help you — but count on a lot of thought, effort, feedback from the Truman Faculty Representative, rewriting and editing to produce an outstanding personal statement. The skills that you develop in writing an excellent personal statement for the Truman competition will likely be skills that you will employ throughout your professional career.

How to Write With Style

(Adapted from William Strunk and EB WHite- The Elements of Style fourth edition)

1. Write in a way that comes naturally
2. Work from a suitable design
3. Write with nouns and verbs
4. Revise and rewrite
5. Do not overwrite
6. Do not overstate
7. Avoid the use of qualifiers
8. Do not affect a breezy manner
9. Use orthodox spelling
10. Do not explain too much
11. Do not construct awkward adverbs
12. Make sure the readers know who speaking
13. Avoid fancy words
14. Do not use dialect unless your ear is good
15. Be clear
16. Do not inject opinions
17. Use figures of speak sparingly
18. Do not take short cuts at the cost of clarity
19. Prefer the standard to the offbeat

Dos and Don'ts for the Personal Statement

What to DO

Have a consistent story line that focuses on your special aspects and interests.

Be positive. Be upbeat.

Be honest about your ambitions, accomplishments, and plans.

Say what you mean to say.

Write simply. Rely on nouns and active verbs, not adjectives and adverbs, to carry the story.

Take it easy on the readers. Make it interesting. Make it easy to read — both in terms of writing style and appearance.

Have lightness, color, and possibly something amusing or humorous.

Make the opening of each response engaging.

Take risks.

Have perfect spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

Get others to review your statement.

Edit, edit, edit.

Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.

What NOT to DO

Use qualifiers or imprecise words such as: very, quite, rather, little, many, great, somewhat, far, some, often, deep, broad.

Try to impress readers by using words which are not a part of your normal vocabulary or writing.

Repeat the question in the opening sentence of your response.

Overstate accomplishments.

Make a plea for financial assistance.

Use statistics without giving the primary source.

Use famous quotations — it's like name-dropping.

Be cute, flippant, profane, nor glib.

Employ jargon, slang, nor unusual abbreviations.

Use flowery language nor cluttered imagery.

If you must write about them, use the following cautiously: how much your family means to you; how difficult or unjust your life has been; how smart, capable or compassionate you are; how much you got out of a short trip abroad; how much you learned about government from an internship.

(adapted from the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation web site)