Revising
Review the Prompt
One strategy for revision that may help you is to highlight the different points of the prompt in different colors. Then use those same colors to highlight the sentences in your response that relate to those parts of the prompt. For example, a prompt may ask you to describe an award you received, what you did to earn it, and what resources you used to achieve success. You may mark any ideas in your writing that relate to the purpose of the award in yellow, the narrative/process sentences in green, and the resources in blue. This will help you recognize if there are any unmarked sentences that might not address the prompt. It can also help you to see if ideas are repeated or underdeveloped.
Example
Prompt: Describe how attending Ensign College will help you reach your educational and professional goals.
Attending LDS Business college will be one of my greatest blessings because it will help me get an excellent education and be ready for my future career. The unique environment will help me to increase my spiritual knowledge about the Savior as I become more self-reliant. And learn skills to help me in my business career. The most important to me is that with my education, I will be able to help others reach their own goals.
Although the student addresses both parts of the prompt, only the educational benefits are explained specifically. The reader can recognize from this paragraph how education will benefit the applicant, but the career impact is only mentioned briefly and generally. The paragraph will need to be revised or an additional paragraph will need to be added in order to fully answer the prompt.
Word Choice
Because personal statements are often limited in terms of character or word count, you want to be sure that you get the most impact out of the words you choose to use. Choosing a word that is more precise in its meaning and connotation will help you to use the space wisely.
Exercises
Exercise 1: Revise a Paragraph
Read this example student paragraph from a personal statement. This was a general college application essay without a specific prompt. What general advice would you give the writer? What specific advice would you give about word choice?
Later, on my own country I was applying for a university, but the situation became hard I was not accepted in at least four universities. I imagined that college was not for me, but I remembered that experience and I looked for a different college, but I had to pay too much money for that and I had to take brakes because I needed to work more money for it, that was crazy I can remember the time where I was thinking what I need to do now, many of my classmates finished before than me, but I still on the way and finally I did it. When I finished the college, I was able to apply in a better job where I could earn more money and I could do the stuff of my career, later I feel stuck because I was thinking that I should approach better my time and I decided to study a master that was difficult because the time for studying was not enough, but I did it. Later, a dream which I had about studying in America appears again, but he problem was English, so the way looks far away of me because I did not speak English.
Exercise 2: Revise Your Writing
Follow the steps below to revise your personal statement.
- Open your essay and save a copy called "Revision."
- Choose two or three colors to represent your main points. If you have more than that many points, you can choose more colors. However, it will be good to think about whether or not the additional points actually add strength to your essay or use space that could be better used for something else.
- Change the text color for all sentences connected to each of those two or three points.
- Look at any sentences that are still in black. Are they necessary? Should they be connected more clearly to your thesis and supporting details?
- Select the highlighter in yellow.
- Highlight any sections of your essay where words repeat too frequently or you use too many words to express an idea. Is there another way to say these points?
- Make changes based off of this review of your draft.
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