Using Personal Statement Essay Samples to Avoid Common Errors in Your Statement

Using Personal Statement Essay Samples to Avoid Common Errors in Your StatementIn this article I'm going to talk about some of the most common mistakes that people make when it comes to writing their own personal statements. The first thing that people will do is start off their statement with a couple of words, but no real content. It's important to think about the important things you want to say before you get to the big stuff. Let's take a look at some sample personal statements from some different students.'I'm going to start this personal statement by sharing how I have benefitted from my past experiences in public speaking. My parents have always been supportive of me and encouraged me to pursue an education. My family has always supported me. Although I've had some difficult circumstances in my life and struggled to pay for school, my parents never put me down and always encouraged me to go ahead. The support they gave me was always there even when I was afraid or hurting bec ause they love me so much.'My best memories from high school are when I met my best friend and we competed in the Miss Teen pageant. This is my first pageant but I will never forget it. Even though I didn't win the pageant, I learned that I can conquer anything if I have the right attitude. Even though my life doesn't seem to be working out, I will not let this discourage me and know that I am the queen of my own castle.'I'm going to share the past experience that led me to achieve such success in my field. I like to think that I was given a gift and a knowledge that I could apply to a field that would help people like me.'This is a huge mistake because the last thing anyone wants to do is tell a story about themselves. Personal statements should be told in a non-judgmental way. People will look for information about what the person likes to do, who they like to hang out with, and who they like to go on dates with. The thing that needs to be discussed is what the person has done and how they are going to use that information to improve the world.People may like to watch reality television and see people who are successful, but most people don't see what that success looks like on the inside. They only see the superficial success. Not all people in the world are blessed with good parents and great grades. They don't go on trips to some exotic location in order to learn about the culture.When you write your personal statement, you need to focus on what you want to accomplish in life. The next time you get an opportunity to speak in front of a group of people, use that opportunity to share about your successes. You'll find that people will be more interested in what you can do for them and what they can do for you.Just remember that people want to learn about your past experiences in public speaking. They want to know that you are able to be effective in front of others. Your future will be determined by how well you share about your experiences.

Tennessee Williams And The Southern Belle Essays -

Tennessee Williams And The Southern Belle Mary Ellen P. Evans Dana Smith THEA 393 11/23/99 Tennessee Williams and the Southern Belle And such girls! . . . more grace, more elegance, more refinement, more guileless purity, were never found in the whole world over, in any age, not even that of the halcyon . . . so happy was our peculiar social system- there was about these country girls . . . mischief . . . spirit . . . fire . . . archness, coquetry, and bright winsomeness- tendrils these of a stock that was strong and true as heart could wish or nature frame; for in strong and true as heart could wish or nature frame; for in the essentials their character was based upon confiding, trusting, loving, unselfish devotion- a complete, immaculate world of womanly virtue and home piety was their, the like of what . . . was . . . never excelled, since the Almighty made man in his own image . . . young gentleman, hold of, . . . lay not so much as a finger-tip lightly upon her, for she is sacred. (qtd. Bernhard, Southern Women 4) She did not move. Her eyes began to grow darker and darker, lifting into her skull above a half moon of white, without focus, with the blank rigidity of a statue's eyes. She began to say Ah-ah-ah-ah in an expiring voice, her body arching slowly backward as though faced by an exquisite torture. When he touched her she sprang like a bow, hurling herself upon him, her mouth gaped and ugly like that of a dying fish as she writhed her loins against him. (Faulkner 126) The quotation from George W. Bagby's The Old Virginia Gentleman (1885) presents the southern belle on her pedestal in a typical nineteenth-century description. The second quotation from Williams Faulkner's Sanctuary (1931) describes the lurid nymphomania of Temple Drake, a more extreme example of the fate of the modern southern belle. The metamorphosis began abruptly around 1914, and since then, Tennessee William's has presented three southern belles: Amanda Wingfield, Blanche DuBois and Alma Winemiller in the plays respectively The Glass Menagerie, Streetcar Named Desire and Summer and Smoke (Abbott 20). Early on, writers saw the belle as their ideal South, pure and noble. However, more self-conscious and critical modern writers like Mr. Williams use the darker side of the belle- to symbolize the indictment the Old South or to describe the new. Characteristics that will be examined to exemplify the new belle and consequently the South are narcissism, illusion/memory and rape. First, what exactly is a southern belle, and why did she change to the present southern belles of Williams? The belle is a young, unmarried daughter of a landed (and thus aristocratic) family, who lives on a great plantation. She is an ideal woman who would be sanctioned by Victorian morality and by the southerners' image of the home as a constant standard of order and decency (Dillman 17). The notions of their aristocratic origins assured that the belle would be protected from reality, championed, and wooed. In addition, the realities of plantation life were well suited to the idealization of women, since women were kept isolated from the world by the nature of their life. The lucky, young girl had few tasks except to be pretty and charming. After marriage, she was expected to become a hard-working matron who supervised, nursed and mothered (Avia, WebRing). The reasons for the changes from this proper Victorian belle to the southern belle of Tennessee Williams are both cultural and psychological. When the traditional southern myths clashed with the forces set loose by World War I, the South's fantasies about itself no longer provided the sanctuary of values that had been sufficient for sixty years after the Civil War. World War I unleashed a chasm of industry, anxiety, death and doubt (Roudane 49). Artists, always the creators of order, had to begin to reorder the world and break up the idles of the old world. Thus the myth disintegration began in poetry, in fiction, in histories, in scholarship, and in the drama (Bynum 5). The beauty ethic of the South prefers its lovely women to be charming and flirtatious, coquettes who