Thursday, March 19, 2009

Memories- My Garden and Guava Trees!

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1538451/my_garden_and_guava_trees.html?cat=44

How to write good content?

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1471603/how_to_write_good_content.html?cat=55

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Tips to write your admission essay and personal statement.

Admission essays and personal statements make a very important part of an application to any Educational institution. Candidates need to convey their eligibility to the admission panel in as clear a manner as possible.
Now, how can this be done? Performance alone that constitutes previous records cannot be described in a monotonous way. Apart from performance it is the presentation that plays a crucial part.
Arresting introduction
The introduction must be arresting. You have to catch hold of the reader’s attention and hold it till the end. The admission panel has to go through countless number of applications and people would go to sleep if they are going to read longwinded recommendations and self acclaims. Do not imagine the murder of a grandfather or father and write fictitious episodes. Write relevant authentic incidents in an arresting manner.
Logical Flow of ideas.
Ideas must be sequential. They should logically flow in every paragraph and there must not be incoherent ramblings. Transition of ideas must be smooth and not disjointed. There should be no repetition whatsoever...
All the achievements of the candidate must be presented. They should reflect the positive outcomes of the extra curricular and volunteer activities. The resultant specific skills must be highlighted.
Preliminary Homework and Research
The candidate must do his preliminary homework regarding the course content, University and must be able to assess where the skills acquired would come in handy regarding his future career. There must be distinct focus in stating the choice of a particular Major and the allied credits that he wishes to take.
Short term and long term career goals
There must be clarity and certainty about future plans and there must be no scope for vagueness. The voluntary activities that the candidate hopes to take up must be clearly stated...The statement must convey the candidate’s willingness to go through the curriculum in the best manner possible where he/she would put in the best of efforts This means that the statement must clearly convey the candidate’s motivation level .
Word limit, grammar and punctuation,
The statement should adhere to the word limit specified in the application form and not be too short. Do not repeat ideas in order to fill in the word limit.
Do not use capital letters where they are not called for.
There must be NO grammatical errors and do not rely on MS word tools alone to correct the grammatical errors. Check with a professional and see that the statement is read, reread and edited before the final submission.
Sentence structure
There must be a judicious mix of simple, complex and compound sentences. Avoid verbosity, word play and be lucid in your writing style. Simple, clear sentences would be much more effective than long sentences designed to impress. Passive voice of the verb should be minimized. Do not write an autobiography, giving importance to trivia; make sure that whatever you write is related in some way or the other to your qualities that count.
If three parts of the statement needs to be written as answers to three questions, see that every answer is relevant to the particular question asked e.g... If a question regarding past voluntary activities is to be answered, only the activities and the accompanying skills acquired need to be written there.
Conclusion
To summarize, the statement must convey the candidate’s sincerity in approach, capacity for hard work, interest in the pursuit of a particular subject and his clarity of thought... His personal qualities that would be an asset to the curriculum must be highlighted. It should make the authorities feel that losing the particular candidate would indeed be a loss to the institution and on no account the candidate must be allowed to go to another University.

The yellow wall paper