Monday, May 1, 2017

american english - How to avoid using lot of I's in the personal essay?




I am writing my statement of purpose for applying to grad school.
When I read my statement of purpose I see a lot of "I"s:




I did this
I worked on this
I want to
I got to learn this
I got to work on that
I got to learn that
I did that




I just realized I am so bad in writing. How do I avoid using lots of "I"s?



Answer



The whole point of the personal statement is to give the admissions officer a convincing impression of what kind of person you are, your passions and strengths, your most valued experiences, etc. It is pretty much impossible to do this without liberal use of the first person pronouns.



In fact, if you try and avoid using I you may well end up with some bland passive constructions or formulaic expressions that will not help you stand out from the thousands of other applicants.



Of course, this does not mean that you should start each sentence with I. There are many other ways to ensure sentence variety. For example:




After finishing my three months as an intern, I ..




One of my most memorable experiences was when I ..



Six months later I ..




Here is an extract from advice from Indiana University,




Consider The “I” Problem: This is a personal statement; using the
first person pronoun “I” is acceptable. Writers often feel rather

self-conscious about using first person excessively, either because
they are modest or because they have learned to avoid first and second
person (“you”) in any type of formal writing. Yet in this type of
writing using first person is essential because it makes your prose
more lively. Using third person can result in a vague and overly wordy
essay. While starting every sentence with “I” is not advisable,
remember that you and your experiences are the subject of the essay.




You will find many pages of similar advice if you Google on "writing an application" and "first person".



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