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I've looked through all the threads on this forum I could find about this and I'm still confused as to the level of detail this essay should go into. I know that we want to convey the background of the project, the hypothesis, the findings, and what we actually contributed to the project. I'm trying to do this succinctly, but for just one experience it took me two paragraphs since I'm trying to explain the rationale for what I did, the rationale for my conclusions, and mention everything I did (which is basically every step in the whole project). For another experience I've already got a paragraph that's as long as the previous two and I've used up nearly 5000 of the allotted 10000 characters and I've still got three more projects to talk about in just that lab alone (there's still one more lab after that although I don't have much to say about my experiences there).
I assume this is shaping up to be far too long. I have a shorter draft of the first experience that's only one paragraph, but it covers only the very basics of the project and doesn't really go into any detail about what I did beyond saying "I worked on the project from the planning stages to writing the manuscript". I feel like that isn't in-depth enough.
What kind of balance should I be aiming for? Should I only explain the very basic idea of what I did and why I did it ("To determine if area X was responsible for behavior Y as hypothesized, we lesioned area X and ran a variety of biochemical and behavioral tests"), even if it means not explaining what my exact role in the project was (using the above example, maybe I only did the biochemical tests, data analysis, and write-up)? Should I first say what the lab did overall as above, but then add what I responsible for while not going into detail about what I did (ex: "I analyzed the data" vs "I took digital pictures of the stained tissue in order to quantify the number of stained cells using a program so that I could then perform a statistical analysis on the data")?
Also, I've seen suggestions that we also add in what we got out of the experience. I've been putting that in my work & activities section instead as my "most meaningful experience" essays. Is it okay to not put that stuff in my research essay since it's already elsewhere in my application, and especially since it would mean making it even longer?
I assume this is shaping up to be far too long. I have a shorter draft of the first experience that's only one paragraph, but it covers only the very basics of the project and doesn't really go into any detail about what I did beyond saying "I worked on the project from the planning stages to writing the manuscript". I feel like that isn't in-depth enough.
What kind of balance should I be aiming for? Should I only explain the very basic idea of what I did and why I did it ("To determine if area X was responsible for behavior Y as hypothesized, we lesioned area X and ran a variety of biochemical and behavioral tests"), even if it means not explaining what my exact role in the project was (using the above example, maybe I only did the biochemical tests, data analysis, and write-up)? Should I first say what the lab did overall as above, but then add what I responsible for while not going into detail about what I did (ex: "I analyzed the data" vs "I took digital pictures of the stained tissue in order to quantify the number of stained cells using a program so that I could then perform a statistical analysis on the data")?
Also, I've seen suggestions that we also add in what we got out of the experience. I've been putting that in my work & activities section instead as my "most meaningful experience" essays. Is it okay to not put that stuff in my research essay since it's already elsewhere in my application, and especially since it would mean making it even longer?
