Many elements make up the ordeal that is the admission process. While all are important to be on the receiving end of a favorable outcome, statement of purpose writing is up there with the most essential.
Your Statement of Purpose or SOP is basically a personal statement that is a critical piece of your graduate school application. It is all the more important because it provides an insight to the admission committee about who you are, your personal history, your academic accomplishments, and your professional interests while you’re at it.
Most institutes make their decision to greenlight an admission based on many criteria but a lot rides on what you share in your SOP, because this is where you’re able to tell authorities why you deserve a yes.
Hence, you must follow a strict code of formal formatting and guidelines for your statement of purpose, that too with extreme care and focus.
With statement of purpose writers that have helped individuals get into some of the biggest colleges and universities in the world, we’d like to share our expertise so you do not miss your chance.
The dos and don’ts of writing a great statement of purpose are as follows.
The Dos of Writing Your Statement of Purpose
In order to make a successful attempt at writing your Statement of Purpose, you may want to take the following tips under consideration:
→ Make a List
First things first, when you get down to writing your Statement of Purpose, you would want to make a list of all the things you should or you want to include.
It is always much easier to stick to a checklist of sorts than to recall them from the top of your head. It allows you to remember the important things that you want to add and highlight them for better focus.
By the end of the writing session, you can check off the things you have included or rework the thing if you missed something.
→ Stick to the Official Format
Even though there is no universal format that you can follow when writing a Statement of Purpose, there might be an official one handed to you by your institution of choice.
Many educational institutions like to regulate the formatting of the documents they see. It makes things easier for them as well as for students to pay attention to detail and include relevant pieces of information pertaining to them and their thesis.
Moreover, it helps eliminate unnecessary information that may do no good and allows focusing on things that actually do matter, which the reader would like to be there.
→ Be Creative
You have to show your personality, what makes you different writing a Statement of Purpose essay. Contrary to the usual notion that the SOP is a formal document and accordingly, should be kept rigid and formal, there is no harm in being creative therein.
In fact, in order to do a successful job at writing one, you have to be expressive while sticking to the format and requirements of the essay.
Remember, being personable isn’t mutually exclusive to being formal and can easily go hand-in-hand. It is all about how good you are with precision writing and making sure the spotlight is on your degree and yourself.
→ Stay Genuine and Honest Throughout
Many people may diddle around and build themselves up much more than they should. Not only is this unethical, but be aware that the truth will be found out. Background checks are common and your SOP is being examined by professionals who can tell what’s what. Even if you pass this phase, chances are that you will be found out during the interview.
If, prior to admission, they find out that you have been lying in your college applications, it can carry repercussions severe enough to end up on your permanent record.
Therefore, it is best to dive into a bit more detail about your truthful accomplishments and personality rather than try and embellish yourself.
→ Write Clearly and Precisely
Many people may be guilty of not sticking to the point and floundering around, adding unnecessary information – in turn, increasing the length of the statement. It is important to note here that you have to follow a certain word count rule.
In fact, if the institution you are writing the Statement of Purpose for hasn’t laid down the word count to adhere to, make sure you keep your Statement of Purpose is somewhere between 1000 to 1500 words maximum.
Any longer than this, and you can be sure that the reader will not have enough time get through your Statement of Purpose essay.
→ Check, Revise – Then Check Again
You can never go wrong with checking and revising your Statement of Purpose multiple times after you are done with the 1st draft.
You may go along the lines of proofreading the whole thing and using online platforms like Grammarly to help you sort out the mistakes and errors. After doing this, you should definitely proofread and check it again.
The goal here is to ensure that any possibility of an error has been eliminated because even a minute error can completely change the context of what you are trying to convey. Hence, it is always a good idea to double-check and revise.
→ Read it Aloud, Preferably To Someone Else
Lastly, you may find this interesting but reading aloud an essay, and that too, preferably to another person, helps a lot in distinguishing sentence structure. People have different styles of writing. Thus, reading aloud what you have written to someone else allows insight into your style of writing.
You may learn whether your conversational tone makes sense or if the formal tone sounds robotic and unnatural. Then you can proceed to tweak your essay accordingly and repeat the steps until you are satisfied.
The Don’ts of Writing a Statement of Purpose Essay
Just as there are some things you would want to do and include while writing your Statement of Purpose, there are things you would want to exclude and avoid at all costs. Let’s take a look at the don’ts of writing a SOP.
→ Don’t Go Around In Circles – Avoid Repeating Details
We already suggested earlier how remaining clear and precise is good when writing a Statement of Purpose. Therefore, one of the biggest don’ts is to avoid repeating any details that you have already mentioned before.
Going around in circles about the same thing, again and again, is disinteresting and may cause your reader to drop the essay and move along. Moreover, you definitely don’t want to bore your reader by repeating details.
So try to capture their attention with distinct pieces of information intertwined to form an amazing essay.
→ Don’t Use Complicated Jargon to Impress
Using technical terms, code words, or complicated jargon to impress would do more harm than good. It turns out that admission committees like a Statement of Purpose that describes a candidate’s experience more than their vocabulary.
Of course, they are expecting you to know things, but your curriculum vitae and other educational documents like diplomas, degrees, and certifications can validate it for you. A SOP should strictly stick to telling your side of the story while you accomplish all of that. And the simpler, clearer, and to-the-point it is, the better for you.
→ Don’t Undermine Errors, Correct Them If Any
Many people may underestimate errors and the power they hold for your application getting rejected. You really shouldn’t take the route of downplaying even the smallest of errors because it shows your effort and responsibility towards the Statement of Purpose and your character in general.
It is indeed not about the error itself than the fact that you couldn’t even care enough to correct it. Therefore, instead of leaving a negative impression about yourself, correct all the errors there may be, and as we said earlier, check, recheck and revise.
→ Don’t Try To Plagiarize
Plagiarizing your Statement of Purpose is like plagiarizing your life story because you think yours isn’t interesting enough. Not only will the institution’s admission committee find out that you plagiarized it, but you will also lose any current and future chance of ever getting an admission.
Therefore, write your statement of purpose with your perspective while sticking to concrete facts and genuine experiences. Own the document like it is your autobiography, and the whole world is about to read it. It will give you the right motivation to do the work with honesty and make sure you stick to original information and details about yourself.
→ Don’t Be Generic About Yourself
The institution wants to know that why you are so special that you deserve admission there. The only probable way you can answer this in writing is by not stating your obvious and generic dispositions.
Instead, make yourself sound special, unique, by highlighting what’s unique about you. Mediocrity is not the virtue you would want to practice in the case of writing a Statement of Purpose because if you downplay your strengths, chances are the committee won’t find them extraordinary as well.
However, you definitely don’t want to go the pompous, self-centered route as well. The best way is to proceed with humility, self-awareness, and belief in your abilities.
→ Don’t List Excuses for Bad Grades
Don’t go on ranting and making excuses for bad grades. It is like highlighting a bad grade that may otherwise not make that much of a difference in the bigger picture. Instead, you may want to outline certain difficult times, some personal problems that would have led to you suffering academically as well.
It’s like a game of charades where you are stating the obvious yet, not doing just that – stating the obvious. The person on the other side is human and intelligent enough to connect the dots without you making it look like an excuse than a genuine reason for a potentially one-time educational offset.
→ Don’t Hurry the Writing, Take Your Time
Lastly, you want to take your time with writing the statement of purpose. You don’t want to rush this and make a fool out of yourself because you didn’t have time to correct it, recheck it or make sure it’s on point with the guidelines.
Instead, start preparing for writing the Statement of Purpose way before the due date, right after admission dates, and document submissions are posted. In fact, there is no harm in writing multiple drafts of the Statement of Purpose and finalizing one by the end of it that 100% ensures your competency, relevancy and is completely error-free.
Let Experts Take Statement of Purpose Writing Off Your Hands
Writing a Statement of Purpose is a challenging ordeal. You need to have good written expression if you want to make sure you accomplishments, expertise and personality shine through. The last thing you’d want is for your SOP to let you down because you couldn’t find the right words.
Hopefully, the dos and don’ts we have shared will help you write the best version of your Statement of Purpose. However, sometimes there is no harm in accepting help.
This is where we come in. Our team of professional SoP writers can help you out in no time. With experience writing SoP’s for students applying for various academic programs, our experienced writers bring you the best custom statement of purpose writing and editing service.
We’ll start by gathering information about yourself including giving you a call and finding out as much as we can about you. Then, we let our writers weave the magic.
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