Using the word 'my'

[Graham17]

hi all,

I noticed that 2% of the words used in my SOP are 'my.' Just curious as to whether this is common for other people, or if you have found ways around using the word...

It seems I can avoid using 'my' so frequently but that comes at a cost of increasing the length of the SOP.

Any thoughts/suggestions?

Edited November 23, 2012 by Graham17

[fuzzylogician]

You noticed...how? does it stand out as inappropriate or were you doing weird statistics on your SOP? I wouldn't worry about it unless the wording calls attention to anything unwanted, in which case I'd advise rewording. This is my general advice, though; it has with the use of 'my' in particular.

[alf10087]

The same happened to me. I started noticing the words "my" and "I"showing up quite disproportionately, then I remembered the statement is about me, and so there's no way to avoid it.

Of course, try to use as many writing techniques as you can to avoid excessive repetition, but it is impossible to make a statement and avoid talking about yourself. It could even be perceived as diffidence, which is poison for your cause.

[Graham17]

You noticed...how? does it stand out as inappropriate or were you doing weird statistics on your SOP? I wouldn't worry about it unless the wording calls attention to anything unwanted, in which case I'd advise rewording. This is my general advice, though; it has with the use of 'my' in particular.

Going over it and trying to avoid excessive use of any particular word. My, however, seems to be more difficult to synonymize. As a Linguist, any ideas?

[fuzzylogician]

As a linguist, I have about as much of an opinion about this as a mathematician or a chemist would.

As a competent writer of English, I think that using first person pronouns in a statement of purpose is completely warranted and should lead to a better stronger statement. If you're worried that all your sentences start with "my this" and "my that" then you could rephrase some of them to say maybe "the idea that I'll put forth" or "the interests I will discuss" or some such. But just as a concept, I don't think there's anything wrong with having more first person pronouns in your essay than you may have, for example, in your writing sample.