伯克利 Berkeley 个人自述详解002

 

 

Brainstorming For Your Personal Statement

Brainstorming is the first stage of writing, often called "prewriting." Brainstorming is the process of gathering all of your ideas and getting them on paper without editing them.

The brainstorming stage does not involve editing, so don't censor your ideas. There will be enough time to edit later; right now you want to get all of your ideas down so that you don't forget anything. Brainstorming is NOT an outline, NOT a draft and certainly NOT an essay. The purpose of brainstorming is to write out ideas, thoughts, pieces of thoughts, without regard for their connections with each other. Structure and form are not important at this point. What is important is to get everything out of your head and onto paper.

 

Begin by creating a brainstorm sheet. Be totally honest! Ask yourself the following questions, and write out your answers.

What are my strengths?

What are my weaknesses?

What is special about me?

What kind of person am I?

What do I care about?

Why is (BLANK) more important to me than (BLANK)? (Fill in the blanks.)

What is it like growing up in (BLANK)?

What is it like going to school at (BLANK)?

 

 

 

Gathering Information and Developing a Theme

After you've completing your brainstorming, you'll want to filter the fruits of your brainstorming and identify ONE area you wish to pursue in more detail. Look for areas that might seem interesting or different to a reader. A good way to do this is to group similar ideas together to highlight patterns; these patterns can then uncover a potential theme for your essay. (Your essay's theme is its controlling idea.)

For example, if after brainstorming and grouping your ideas, you find that your talent for writing shows up in your hobby as a budding novelist, your community service as a teacher of creative writing to youngsters, your extracurricular work as a writer for the school newspaper, and your award for outstanding history essay, then you should consider focusing your essay around this talent and how this interest in writing shapes your place in the world and your goals.

Remember--it is the quality of your experience as you describe it that matters, not the number of experiences.

STEP ONE

Begin to focus your thoughts by examining your actual experiences. Use the information you've uncovered throughbrainstorming to address the following topics.

? An achievement that made me feel terrific...

? Something I have struggled to overcome or change about myself or my life...

? An event or experience that taught me something special...

? A "real drag" of an experience that I had to get past...

? Someone's act of strength or courage that affected me...

? A family experience that influenced me in some powerful way...

? A lesson, class project, activity or job that had an impact on my academic or career goals...

? A time I blew it, failed, made bad choices, and how I got past it...

? Some memorable event or advice involving an older person...

? An event that helps to define me, in terms of my background...

STEP TWO

Choose one or two of your favorite respones from the list above (or combine a couple that evoked similar responses). Check to make sure your written description addresses the following three questions. If it doesn't, add details so that the experience you describe will be vivid to a reader who doesn't know you.

1. What were the key moments and details of the event?

2. What did I learn from this event?

3. What aspect of this event stays with me most?

STEP THREE

Decide on a theme for your essay. Taking the experience you wrote about in Step Two, answer the following questions:

?What does this event reveal about me?

?What makes it special or significant?

?How does this event make me special or make me stand out?

? What truth about me is revealed through this event?

Your answers will reveal your theme.

 

 

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