Berkeley's Diversity Outreach Office has some great tips on their websites for writing SOPs and other parts of grad school applications. It's a really great resource for anyone who's applying to grad school, especially for those in the social sciences and humanities.
If you plan on applying for the 2010-2011 season, check it out!
I think I mostly like the amount of detail you have. It's just the very broad seemingly baseless statements that I find hard to work through. You don't need to give irrelevant details about what you studied, but you were doing a good job tying your degree to your current studies so I was hoping for more of that.
You need to be careful about the advice you read on the gradcafe. It's sometimes very general, and many people aren't careful about pinpointing who their advice targets. People in STEM fields may need to have projects before they start grad school, but I don't think that holds for many other fields. Or maybe I don't understand what you mean by "project." I understand you're a nontraditional student with a different background than most students. If that means that you didn't do a BA in the field you want to study now or you've never written a large paper for a class about anything similar, then the question you want to be able to answer for the adcom members is - "does she really know what she's getting herself into?" that is, do you understand the field? are you familiar with the prominent questions it is currently preoccupied with? are you sure the work you are interested in is done in this field? One good way to answer this question is to give detailed relevant descriptions of your interests. If you went and read up on your field, was it just random? or was it topic-directed? is there a question or cluster of questions that intrigue you? can you describe your independent study in that context - explain your interests and how they developed and became more focused through your research. There doesn't need to be a final paper or presentation - in many fields it'd be great but not necessary - but you should demonstrate that you actually learned something. Again, show, don't tell.
This will also help you get started on the fit paragraph that I saw you asked about elsewhere. I assume that you've chosen schools to apply to that have professors who do relevant work. Identify the professors and explain how their work will help yours. Imagine that the adcom gives each prof the SOPs that identify him/her to read, to choose students who stand out. If they see how your interests match theirs, and you seem like a focused student with a clear vision of what she's doing, then you'll stand out.
Yes, everyone likes initiative and tenacity. But show, don't tell. Explain what you did in detail. That will show that you're invested and determined. If you can, have a LOR writer explain your motivation. Saying "I'm motivated" is far less convincing than laying out the details of how your motivation has pushed you to achievements in the past.
Medievalmaniac, I really don't think that the SoP is the right place to explain your coursework, unless it has direct relevance to the narrative you're writing about your development. I just attached a sheet with all my applications called "Undergraduate Coursework in Literature" or "Relevant Coursework," and then divide it up into "English" and "French." Under each category, I had the course number, the actual full title, the prof, and my grade in it. That way they can cross-reference with my transcript if they want, but they have the important info that they'll really be mining my transcript for isolated for them already. And I didn't have to take up precious space in my SoP explaining them.
As for what I did in my SoP that I think worked, I have some perspective on that, having been roundly rejected two years ago and pretty decent success this round (though UVa and U Washington, what is UP?! Still waiting on them). I really think the difference between my two SoPs is the big thing that made the difference, as my numbers and other qualifications (and even most of my writing sample, though I edited it) are the same. So here's what I think made the difference, in three alliterative categories:
1. Focus. Like it or not, they want to be able to categorize you. You can have secondary interests, but they have to be clearly secondary and bear some relation to your main focus. Last time I tried to tell too many stories of my development, and there were too many directions I could go in. This was partially a reflection of where I was at the time, and honestly I think they were right to reject me straight out of undergrad - I needed some time to reflect, to think about what I actually wanted to do in the field. Now that I have, my SoP reflects that clearer sense of direction and purpose.
2. Fit. Everyone tells you this, but it's true. I spent a lot more time really researching profs on the websites, then looking up and scanning through a few key articles, and skimming through the courses they taught. It really gives you a better idea of whether their interests and methodologies ACTUALLY fit yours, or whether it just looks like that on paper. I then tailored my fit paragraph to show how multiple faculty members could support my research interests (this may be English-specific, as in other non-humanitites disciplines you are applying to work with one advisor). Also, if the department has a pet methodology, it's helpful to know that - they'll look for students who fit that bill. Interdisciplinary programs that faculty are involved in and subfield/methodologically-specific colloquia, etc. are also things to look for.
3. Future. This could vary, depending on how much of an academic past you have, but for me what helped was focusing discussing even my past towards showing how it formed a trajectory for the future. I've said in other places around here that the best advice I got for my SoP was that you should think about demonstrating that you are capable of conceiving of a larger project; whether or not you end up doing that project is irrelevant, as you probably won't and the adcomm is well aware of that - the point is that you are CAPABLE of conceiving of a future direction for yourself. I focused on telling a story (i.e. "I'm interested in the relationship to place in Modernist literature") and cutting all details of my past that didn't mesh with that. So by the end I was able to say look! What I discussed doing in paragraphs x (gloss of relevant coursework/advisors, focus), y (challenges and triumphs of writing my thesis and learning theory), and z (teaching, living different places) all feed into the project I'm proposing in this last paragraph (though the project was sufficiently broad so as not to pigeonhole me). I said that I wanted to go in certain different directions, but it was clear that it would be a continuation of my development, not starting anew. They want to see that you are capable of functioning independently as an academic (should be demonstrated by your past and by the fact that you can independently come up with good future directions), but that they have something to offer in terms of guiding you.
