The personal statement

[bigballer27]

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To use or not to use contractions?


Or Is a mix ok? When I take ten out it takes away from the flow of the essay but I know it's suppose to be formal....what do u guys think

 

[rHinO1]

I personally didn't use a lot of contractions b/c my story flowed better without them. I think you should go with what you think sounds the best and most natural. If your writing style leads you to use a lot of contractions when telling your story, I don't think there is any harm in it... but I had to look up "contractions" so what do I know


Edit: btw I think in many cases avoiding contractions can make a statement sound stronger, which is why I didn't use very many. For example: "I am the most qualified..." sounds stronger than "I'm the most qualified..."

 

[pelliper]

To use or not to use contractions?


Or Is a mix ok? When I take ten out it takes away from the flow of the essay but I know it's suppose to be formal....what do u guys think

depends on your style of writing really. don't think its a problem if you use contractions. i even considered mixing contractions and non-contractions in my PS but ultiamtely decided against it because i figured that the denser adcoms might not appreciate poetic use of contractions and just see it as poor writing 🙄

 

[SweetRain]

I always found it more professional to not use them. But like everyone else said, it depends. I just don't use them in formal essays because everytime I go to my school's writing center they correct it. It just became a habit now.

It's probably not a big deal since they read thousands of essays and they're looking for overall quality of your statement.

 

[bigballer27]

so one way or the other, not a mix

 

[muhali3]

I think the quality of what you're writing about matters much more than the quality of the writing itself. As long as grammar, punctuation, and spelling are correct then it shouldn't make a difference. Still, I wouldn't (would not) use contractions just to be safe, you can reduce them to contractions if your PS goes over the character limit though.

 

[catswym]

normally in a formal essay I would not use them but in my PS I specifically did not want it to sound too formal so I chose to use contractions.