威斯康星大學PS寫作要求4

Now that you have generated some ingredients for your essay, hopefully several pages worth, here are some tips for mixing the ingredients together:

　　Make your statement personal. Please don't derive your statement from a friend's essay, or the first example you find in a book. Also, don't rely heavily on quotes, clichés or platitudes （over-used truisms）。 Use you own words！ 一定要注意:不要引用別人的名言或者陳詞濫調

　　Organize your statement. Let your structure flow from the content you have chosen. Many people organize chronologically. If you choose this approach, maintain the flow. Don't send your readers from high school to college, then suddenly back to grade school. Many essays use both time and another type of element, e.g., a chronology of personal stories, life changing events, places you've lived, important activities, influential people, or recurring themes. If you choose to organize with a feature other than time, let your readers know what you are using. Although the essay is short enough that it doesn't demand a full summary, it is nice have a small, concluding paragraph that pulls elements together, serves as a bookend for your introduction, and/or foreshadow your plans for the future. 組織文章的結搆

　　Show with true stories. Rather than telling your reader you are compassionate, you can illustrate your compassion with little, descriptive vignettes. Well-written anecdotes are fun to read, memorable, and humanizing.

　　Provide details, examples, and explanations. Name the people （except the patients） and places （towns, schools, etc.）, Describe how you were involved in research projects, What you did as a health care volunteer； etc. Who, what, when, where, how, and （sometimes） why？提供具躰的事例

　　Support your assertions. If you want to say you value helping people, try giving an example before making the assertion. If space is tight, it is often better to give examples, and let your readers draw their own conclusions.

　　Write with feeling！ Admission committee members are looking for a passion for the profession. One way to convey your passion, is to use emotional language. Write and talk about your feelings！帶有感情色彩地寫

　　Go deep. Saying you want to help people and like science doesn't cut deep enough. It doesn't differentiate you from any of the other candidates who are applying, and doesn't differentiate the role you desire from the countless other careers that involve helping with science. What can you do as a member of the profession that you could not do in other professions？要有深度

　　Offer explanations for significant weaknesses. The line between explanation and excuse is very thin. Have some readers help you find where that line lies. Take responsibility for your decisions, especially regarding the use of your time.解釋和申辯的界線很模糊

　　Constructively fill most of the space you are given. If you leave three-fourths of the space blank, readers will assume that you are not an interesting person and/or have not done much to prepare yourself for the profession.

　　Use everyday words. Rather than trying to demonstrate your vocabulary by using obscure words, use a variety of appropriate words. If you must use technical terms, provide definitions. Try not to send your readers running to a dictionary. It is important for health care professionals to show they can communicate clearly with people from a variety of backgrounds.不要用生僻的詞語

　　Avoid criticizing members of the profession. Some candidates try to argue that they want to become doctors, because they think they could do a better job than some of the doctors they have seen. This sets a negative tone, and invites a defensive reaction. Without being a doctor, you cannot fully appreciate the demands of the job, and the realities which often lead to less than ideal health care.不要批評某個專業,比如不要說你想成爲毉生因爲你見到的某個毉生不專業

　　Avoid using too many"I's." When writing a personal comments essay, it is easy to use too many"I's," especially at the beginning of sentences. Some strategies for reducing I's include using other personal pronouns （e.g., we）, chaining （e.g., I did this. I did that. I did the other = I did this, that and the other.）, and removing unnecessary double I's （e.g., I believe I want = I want）。 不要用太多的I

　　Avoid using contractions. The essay is a formal enough work that most writing guides suggest using full words rather than contractions （e.g., don't use"don't"）。 I have seen a couple of exceptions in which the tone of the essays was so informal that contractions were a better fit. 不要縮寫,不要用don't,要寫得正式

　　Watch out for the grammar police. Unfortunately, many admissions committee members attended schools at a time when violating grammar conventions was a punishable offense. Some rules, like always putting subjects before verbs and never ending sentences with prepositions, are dated or never really were rules at all. Others, like getting your verbs to agree, are （not"is"） still in effect. For the purpose of this essay, it's probably wise to follow both current and dated conventions. One of my favorite grammar links is ccc.commnet.edu/grammar.

　　Have readers review your statement. Have friends, parents, recommendation writers （including a member of the profession）, a department advisor, and English teachers review your statement.