jeudi 29 janvier 2015

Is putting the statement/conclusion first considered to be cliched?


Instead of asking this question as a comment in the Do I need an introductory paragraph in SOP? question, I think that I should start a new one. I hope this action don't turn Academia.SE into a forum, but I guess you should read it to get the scenario. I really want to ask this question too.


The first, highest vote comment from Jonhanna:



I just had to say: including the idea "I believe I was born for scientific research" is a terrible idea. Did no one tell you to avoid cliches? Try to change that to "I have done / am doing X, Y and Z, all of which demonstrate an aptitude and passion for scientific research" instead.



Yes, I do acknowledge that I should demonstrate what I did, not what I think I am. In fact, I do demonstrate what I did after that sentence. This is my first whole paragraph of the first point:



I believe that I was born for scientific research. I had my first experience in research when I was in high school. Although my interest are natural sciences, my first research was in social science. For a long time ago, I had always queried about why when Vietnamese people in love, the female one always addressed herself (and was addressed) as the little sister, and the male one always addressed himself (and was addressed) as the older brother, while in fact there were many couples which the female had the same or larger age than the male. I couldn’t understand this convention because the couples had to change the way they address each other, and from my (naively) feminism point of view, this was unacceptable. In the research, I had proposed a hypothesis to explain this, and even when I broaden my objective to homosexual couples, this hypothesis still worked. This is a biggest proud of all my scientific activities so far.



I know that the research itself needs so much thing to improve it, but this is another question. I put it here just to show that I do exactly what Jonhanna said.


I think what I do is exactly what ff524 do in this answer. I will quote her answer in plain to make it fair cause I can't use any special character:



No. How will you know exactly...



ff524, can you tell me why you put the No at the beginning of your answer? I guess because it answers my question directly, and impressive. After you create the impression first, you start explaining. I'm not saying that you intended to make me impressed, I'm saying that the directive of the answer make me impressed. When I write my SOP, I imagine a venerable professor open my email, start thinking a question in their head: "Yet another email. Why should I give this guy a chance?". I will answer that question first, then start explaining later.


After reading back this question after post it, I admit that this is more like a discussion forum. But still, there is a question that I want to ask: Is putting the statement/conclusion first considered to be cliched?


A side question: after asking a lot of question and drawing some attention of many users, including the big boss ff524, I would like to know what do you think about me? I really appreciate if you tell me. Thank you.





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