English SOP

[wombats]

I feel like there is a serious lack of discussion regarding English Statement of Purposes. Any advice?

 

How much "flair" do you put into it? Should you try to impress them with your language skills? Or sounds purely academic?

 

I have no idea what they're looking for.

[Loric]

None of the above.

 

SOP's are expected to have a true authorial voice, i.e., not a fabrication or affectation. You, yes "you," are supposed to speak to them. Yes "them," they're real people who are specifically reading this.. as said by "you."

 

The way you'll impress them is being able to write with a natural candence and candor; the proper use of a semicolon wont hurt either. If you can develop that rapport and deliver the goods while being a bit poetic or witty then more the better. Most will fumble tragically and bury their points in senseless combines of mixed metaphors and meaningless symbolism amid runon sentences that one would pray a comma splice would birth itself into to begin to categorically and intrisically make sense thereof.

 

See? It happens.

 

But if you can do that judo in your finery, go for it. Do not - under any circumstances - take on the erudite voice. That's what you called "academic." It's rigid, it's awful, and no one likes to read it. It is the dry heave of a writer forcing out the septic bits of an information dump. Avoid at all costs.

Edited December 8, 2013 by Loric

[Vader Was Framed]

the "flair" comes from the headshot you include at the top of your CV anyways

[wombats]

Ha! If only we could include headshots.

 

But seriously. Thank you so much loric. This is precisely what I needed to hear. Luckily it's what I've been preparing for so the advice isn't totally out of left field. You've made me feel a little more confident in my SOP

 

I can't pull of erudite if my life depended on it. (kidding, but only slightly?)

[dvl215]

Two questions:

 

1) I was told by many people to not include anything too corny or personal in my SOP. No, "I've loved literature since age..." or "Modernist literature is so beautiful because..." or anything of the sort. But now I'm worried that I've gone too far in the other direction. Basically, my SOP declares upfront my interests and my knowledge of the field, my relevant undergraduate experience, the value I see in my proposed project, then two paragraphs about why the school is a good place to explore those interests and which faculty members I'd like to work with, and then a bit about my career plans. There's really nothing personal, and the tone is quite formal. I'm nervous I'm coming off bloodless/humorless, but I'm finding it difficult to incorporate spontaneity and candor, given the purposes and constraints of the document. Anyone having this problem?

 

2) I've seen posts by people on Grad Cafe suggesting that in the SOP you should give a sense of why a certain school's "approach" or "environment" or "methodology" feels right. I'd love to do that, but I find it very difficult to glean that kind of information from department websites. How are you supposed to get such a natural, macro picture of a department without actually being personally familiar? Are there resources for this kind of information that I'm not aware of?