Do I talk about my research in a statement of purpose?

[username1824]

The schools I'm applying for haven't opened applications for, so I'm not sure what they are looking for, but I was wondering if there is a separate Statement of Research thing, or if I'm supposed to describe my past research in the Statement of Purpose. Any information would be very helpful.

[sarab]

That's the purpose of the statement of purpose! Write your about your research interests and your research project.

[MsDarjeeling]

Yes!  =)  You can also describe prior research experience here to so that admissions committees have an idea of how prepared you are to handle independent research.

[free_radical]

You definitely want to talk about your past research; I don't believe many schools have a separate "Statement of Research" so the SOP is your chance to talk yourself up!  However, it shouldn't be just a laundry list of all your past research accomplishments, you should talk about why your past experience qualifies  you to do the type of graduate work you want to do.  

[username1824]

How much should I talk about it? I wrote a draft a few weeks ago, and it's about 1200 words long, but I only touch on my past research in a single sentence (because I wasn't sure if there would be a separate research statement or not). I do mention my future goals, my research interests, and why I'm applying to the particular program, but I also take a paragraph to explain scientific awards I've won. Is that something I should include? I've had three or four (depending on how you look at it) major research projects that I can talk at length about. I can write 20+ pages on my research I've done, so I'm really not sure how to concisely summarize these major projects. What should I mention? When I thought there was a separate research statement, I was planning on writing about the questions I was hoping to solve, how I tackled them, the results I found and any problems I faced. Is this the general gist of what I should touch on? Should I mention all the techniques I used? For example, should I say "I expressed a particular protein in a bacterial clone, incubated the protein with enzyme in a buffered solution, took aliquots of the reaction mixture over set time intervals, and ran a Western blot to determine levels of the protein that remained," or should I just say "I determined that protein X was digested by enzyme Y." Is there anything else I need to know about the personal statement?

[sarab]

Well, you first need to take into account that some universities have a word limit, so you definitely shouldn't mention all your research experience. You can dedicate maybe 2 paragraphs to your previous research, another paragraph to the research project you want to pursue, and one additional paragraph to why you want to go to x university and who you want to work with.

As far as the awards, it's good to mention them, but if you are really limited in space then you should just focus on research on the statement of purpose and leave the admission committee to figure out your awards from your CV. You might also want to avoid sounding arrogant,

 

As far as which sentence to choose, I really don't know. The first one sounds better, but since I'm in the social sciences, I really don't know.

 

I found this link that might help you: How to write a statement of purpose for students in the STEM field

[asdfx3]

I'm going to go against the grain on this one because of what my PI recommended. He said that admissions committees don't really care about the specifics of what you did or the projects you worked on. Instead he said to focus on what has driven you as a person to decide you want to pursue a career in science and why you will be successful as a future PI. My SOP ended up having very little about my actual research or future projects, mostly how I've grown through my experiences and a short bit about my accomplishments (papers, posters, awards).

 

Whether this method is better or worse I can't say since I got both admissions and rejections above and below my perceived qualifications.

Edited July 24, 2013 by asdfx3

[aberrant]

As opposed to the first couple responses, I would only briefly mentioned my research experience (if necessary), and focus more on what and why do I want to go to this specific school for a PhD.

 

I applied 25 schools including 6 schools that are on your list. though different program, many schools do require submission of a research statement for STEM programs -- only question here would be the length of that particular statement.

[ion_exchanger]

For most of my applications, I had to submit only a personal statement, where I listed research experience as well as future plans and what I wanted to study in school. For my UPenn app, there was a research statement, and a personal statement. I wrote both, and then the schools where they were combined I submitted a mixture of the two. If you write both now, you will be prepared. You should have some sort of research statement prepared anyway.

[Arcadian]

..........Yes.

[Jimbo2]

My SOP was entirely a summary of my research experiences. If I had done something incredible with my life before going to grad school that demonstrated I had fundamental traits that would make me a good grad student, I would have included those as well. Side note: avoid the "ever since I was young, all I wanted to do was..." cliche. It doesn't set you apart from other applicants. 

Edited July 30, 2013 by Jimbo2

[mandarin.orange]

I wrote a draft a few weeks ago, and it's about 1200 words long, but I only touch on my past research in a single sentence (because I wasn't sure if there would be a separate research statement or not). I do mention my future goals, my research interests, and why I'm applying to the particular program, but I also take a paragraph to explain scientific awards I've won. Is that something I should include? I've had three or four (depending on how you look at it) major research projects that I can talk at length about. I can write 20+ pages on my research I've done, so I'm really not sure how to concisely summarize these major projects. What should I mention? When I thought there was a separate research statement, I was planning on writing about the questions I was hoping to solve, how I tackled them, the results I found and any problems I faced. Is this the general gist of what I should touch on? Should I mention all the techniques I used? ... Is there anything else I need to know about the personal statement?

 

Sorry for the recycle, but I don't want to type all this again, and would encourage you to search and dig around old threads. This is a post I wrote last fall to someone that I think will address your questions, with resources that will certainly clarify things...it was under the thread ""

Much of what I wrote then IS targeted to that person's specific SOP (which...is kind of a good example of what NOT to do  ). I did make some comments about award-mentioning that may be relevant here.

Katherine Sledge's resources (I linked to them) are invaluable to assembling a grad application, esp. in science and STEM.

1200 words is overly long, IMHO.

Edited July 30, 2013 by mandarin.orange

[TakeruK]

How much should I talk about it? I wrote a draft a few weeks ago, and it's about 1200 words long, but I only touch on my past research in a single sentence (because I wasn't sure if there would be a separate research statement or not). I do mention my future goals, my research interests, and why I'm applying to the particular program, but I also take a paragraph to explain scientific awards I've won. Is that something I should include? I've had three or four (depending on how you look at it) major research projects that I can talk at length about. I can write 20+ pages on my research I've done, so I'm really not sure how to concisely summarize these major projects. What should I mention? When I thought there was a separate research statement, I was planning on writing about the questions I was hoping to solve, how I tackled them, the results I found and any problems I faced. Is this the general gist of what I should touch on? Should I mention all the techniques I used? For example, should I say "I expressed a particular protein in a bacterial clone, incubated the protein with enzyme in a buffered solution, took aliquots of the reaction mixture over set time intervals, and ran a Western blot to determine levels of the protein that remained," or should I just say "I determined that protein X was digested by enzyme Y." Is there anything else I need to know about the personal statement?

 

I wrote 1 paragraph (4-6 sentences) per research project I did and I included all of them (I have about the same as you). I used about 2-3 sentences to describe the project and the rest of the paragraph to attempt to weave the project into my narrative which was meant to answer the question "Why am I interested in graduate work and why would I succeed". I decided to treat each project as a chapter in my "career" and discussed why I chose to take on each project as well as what I learned from each project. I think this second part might be more important than what you actually did!

 

When talking about the specific research project though, I tried to use specialized words in a way that would tell an expert exactly what I did but also give a non-expert a general idea of what I did. For example, I might have written something like "We divided up the [Population X]'s phase space into x,y,z cells and used the SWIFT numerical integrator to determine residence lifetimes of [Population X] test particles in each cell. From these results, we computed a [blah] model." I hope that a Physics/Astronomy prof would understand that my project was a computational one to compute the distribution of Population X in space. They might not know what SWIFT is, but I hope it would be clear what it does, in general. An expert in the field would know that I have specific experience with that software and that I would be able to use it on other projects. 

 

Overall, I had an intro paragraph, then one paragraph per project, then one longer paragraph about why School X, and a conclusion paragraph that says the almost obligatory desire to be a PI etc. etc. I opted to spend maybe 50% of the time on my experience (i.e. "Why pick me?"), 30% of the time answering "Why I picked them", and 20% on intro/conclusion/filler. If I had to do it again though, I would have cut back on my intro a lot!

 

Finally, I wouldn't mention things like awards unless they are connected to your research paragraphs e.g. you won an award for the research or you successfully applied for a grant to do your project (but definitely not a whole paragraph just for awards -- that's what the CV is for). I also would not mention teaching or anything else that can be found in your CV, unless, again, it's a significant thing you want to really highlight. The SOP is a chance to provide your own personal voice/tone to your application since almost everything else is either very formal or in a concise list form! Just my thoughts.

[username1824]

I wrote 1 paragraph (4-6 sentences) per research project I did and I included all of them (I have about the same as you). I used about 2-3 sentences to describe the project and the rest of the paragraph to attempt to weave the project into my narrative which was meant to answer the question "Why am I interested in graduate work and why would I succeed". I decided to treat each project as a chapter in my "career" and discussed why I chose to take on each project as well as what I learned from each project. I think this second part might be more important than what you actually did!

 

When talking about the specific research project though, I tried to use specialized words in a way that would tell an expert exactly what I did but also give a non-expert a general idea of what I did. For example, I might have written something like "We divided up the [Population X]'s phase space into x,y,z cells and used the SWIFT numerical integrator to determine residence lifetimes of [Population X] test particles in each cell. From these results, we computed a [blah] model." I hope that a Physics/Astronomy prof would understand that my project was a computational one to compute the distribution of Population X in space. They might not know what SWIFT is, but I hope it would be clear what it does, in general. An expert in the field would know that I have specific experience with that software and that I would be able to use it on other projects. 

 

Overall, I had an intro paragraph, then one paragraph per project, then one longer paragraph about why School X, and a conclusion paragraph that says the almost obligatory desire to be a PI etc. etc. I opted to spend maybe 50% of the time on my experience (i.e. "Why pick me?"), 30% of the time answering "Why I picked them", and 20% on intro/conclusion/filler. If I had to do it again though, I would have cut back on my intro a lot!

 

Finally, I wouldn't mention things like awards unless they are connected to your research paragraphs e.g. you won an award for the research or you successfully applied for a grant to do your project (but definitely not a whole paragraph just for awards -- that's what the CV is for). I also would not mention teaching or anything else that can be found in your CV, unless, again, it's a significant thing you want to really highlight. The SOP is a chance to provide your own personal voice/tone to your application since almost everything else is either very formal or in a concise list form! Just my thoughts.

 

This post was extremely helpful. As were the others. Thanks for your help, I definitely think I have a better understanding of what my statement should be.

[wahael]

It was a great advise for me thanks for everybody...