I know that we have some keen editorial types around here! Anyone want to do me the favour of reading over my statement of purpose, and giving me some feedback?

Gimme about 30-45 minutes and I'll pick that over better than a 14 year old with backne before a hot date.

*Edit* Actually ... before I get totally into this ... do you want feedback on your structure and flow or the spelling/grammatical/'does this make sense' mechanisms?

I'm horrified, but I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't curious.

After a quick read nothing "jumped" out at me. It might be helpful if you described the needs of the target audience (for example is the length an issue?).

It's supposed to be 1-2 pages, so it's fine on length. It's basically a "sell" of myself (nods to JT). It's supposed to tell the University who I am, what I'm interested in, and why they should spend a small fortune on me.

It's targeted at academics.

I think to emphasize the "selling" perhaps your interests could be sequenced differently. I'll read it again tonight and see if I have any suggestions. When is this due?

btw - do you have any successes in these areas that you can make claim to? (exceptional grades, special projects, etc.)

Grade, yes. But they are already getting my transcript, so I don't want to duplicate information. And infact, that was advice that one of my professors gave me: don't brag about grades.

I'm on some special projects now, but I really don't have many that I can really report any results with. That's the weak part of my application, I think.

December 13 is the deadline, I'm going to submit as soon as I can, however.

By the way, thanks for taking the time to read it, HB.

I am interested in the behaviour of autonomous agents and the nature of intelligence. Of particular interest to me is the interaction between competitive agents. This interest started as a fascination with the behaviour of social insects and herding behaviour in animals, and has grown to encompass the social, political and economic dynamics of human society. These questions are examined by many different fields and I have chosen to explore these problems from a computer science perspective. Game theory and multi-agent artificial intelligence are of particular interest to me. I am aware that there are other fields working at these questions- namely economics, political science, philosophy, and psychology. One of the main reasons that I am primarily interested in furthering my education at Carnegie-Mellon University is precisely because of the diversity of fields that study the interaction between agents- Carnegie-Mellon has a reputation for interdisciplinary research and innovation. <rework – sounds awkward. Try: One of my primary reasons for choosing Carnegie-Mellon University to further my education stems from the great reputation the school holds for interdisciplinary research and innovation, as well as the diversity of fields that study the interactions between agents. >

I am currently working on my undergraduate thesis as a part of my honours computer science degree. My thesis will be a trading agent for the 2006 TAC SCM (Trading Agent Competition, Supply Chain Management) game. When the competition was described to me by my thesis supervisor, Dr. Kevin Leyton-Brown, I immediately saw it as a chance to examine the complex behaviors of competitive agents and I jumped at the opportunity to work on building an agent. As I lacked any real knowledge of how to analyze the scenario, I enrolled in his graduate course on game theory and multi-agent artificial intelligence, and accepted a position as a research assistant in UBC’s <Don’t use short forms when they haven’t been spelled out long hand previously. Otherwise, you might as well just say UBC’s LCI> Laboratory for Computational Intelligence. I also joined a game and decision theory reading group,<comma not needed> and have even had the honour of presenting information on the SCM game to the group. Being a part of the reading group has given me a chance to really expand my awareness of the issues that are present in these disciplines, as well as understanding how a group of researchers work together and exchange ideas.

The graduate course has been exceptionally informative,<comma not needed> and was easily the most interesting course that I have taken at school. I have enjoyed learning about subjects that are only mentioned in passing in my undergraduate courses. I found that what I have learned about game theory and mechanism design has given me the ability to more precisely ask questions that I have about the interaction between individuals in a social setting. I also have enjoyed the experience of taking a graduate class,<comma NEEDED> as I have noticed the difference in attitude and focus between the graduate and undergraduate levels. With this graduate course <consider removing the following bold sentence as it is redundant …> as an introduction to mechanism design and game theory, I have been able to start work on my agent proposal,<comma not needed> and feel confident that I will be able to design and program an effective agent for the SCM scenario.

One of the of research projects that I enjoyed working on took place during my sixteen month co-op term with IBM. I was a part of a team that was working on a database memory manager that automatically tunes database heaps based on workload performance characteristics. This involved many discussions with IBM’s research labs- specifically the Almaden and TJ Watson Research Centers- about the memory model that the manager used. I was able to observe the application of research to a nascent product,<comma not needed> and help with aspects of the manager (specifically database memory tuning). It was gratifying to have contributed to a frontline piece of technology,<comma not needed> and I still talk with the developers to see how the product is doing. I feel a great sense of pride that a product to which I contributed my code will eventually make it to market and improve the way that databases are administered.

Getting a Doctorate has been the ultimate educational goal for me since I started my university career. Both the teaching and research aspects of enabled by a PhD degree are appealing to me,<comma not needed> and I think that I have an<replace with ‘the’> aptitude for both. My natural curiosity drives my interest in research. I want to know why the world works the way that it does,<comma not needed> and I am not afraid of the hard work that goes along with figuring it out. I notice that the graduate course stimulates new questions for me each day and searching for the answers is the reason why I want to continue my post-secondary education. This is the most exciting features of the course for me as it shows my how tantalizingly close I am to the unknown.<”These are the most exciting features” or “This is the most exciting feature” – choose which you are going for – you are mixing singular usage with plural here.> The exposure to graduate studies and research that I have had already haS convinced me that research is where I want to be,<comma not needed> and that graduate study is the right path for getting there.

I think that being able to successfully teach something to another person is the greatest sign of a deep knowledge in a subject. Teachers have had a great impact on my life,<comma not needed> and I can attribute my current direction and drive to several really inspirational teachers. It would a great privilege to help inspire students, <comma not needed> and assist them with the knowledge and wisdom that I possess.

CMU is the university that I would most like to study at. I am very impressed with the publications by Dr. Norman Sadeh about the SCM game that I read during a survey of the SCM literature. CMU offers a unique opportunity for me to learn, as the school is very strong in computer science, psychology,<comma not needed> and statistics, and has a tradition of interdisciplinary research. The research produced by both the Center for Automated Learning and Discovery and the Center for the Neural Basis of Computation are uncovering very fundamental things about intelligence and learning, <comma not needed> and I would like to be a part of that effort.







Other than the blatant misuse of commas, not too shabby at all. In some ways I think it is missing some "oomph" ... it is informative, but kind of bland. A little more passion and some creative word uses will liven this up to the point where they won't care if you have money or not, they'll want you as a student for their performance indicators.

Cool, thanks 420. I'll mull over the changes that you have suggested.

This is awesome, because I'm using it as the template for all my other Statements of Purpose, so it's great to get all the kinks out.

I, for some reason, love editing. Not a problem. If you need more done in the future, you know where to turn.


(*pssst* It isn't 'left' at Albequerque either)

Since 420 did the microediting, may I offer some big picture remarks? (along the same lines as his remarks)

1. From what I know, you are way more interesting a person than this SoP would lead anyone to believe. It might help to sell yourself if there were at least one concrete anecdote to bring your interests, experience and interactions with others to life.

2. If you could tell someone your true feelings about teaching, what would you say? Do it. Imparting knowledge and wisdom is not enough, and is, in fact, the least a teacher can do for others.

3. Are any of the characteristics you listed for yourself unique? I assume there will be several other worthy individuals out there applying and it would help to highlight your uniqueness.

4. Specificity is your friend. So you joined a reading group and enjoyed it - what books or articles did you particularly enjoy?

I used to write grant proposals for a living, and I would edit until perfect and suck the very life out of the proposals. By accident, I learned that an unexpected bit of information or use of a word made my work more memorable. In a very competitive market, it made all the difference for the organizations I reperesented.

Suggested reading: William Steig's Zabba Jabba Jungle Yes, the guy who wrote CDB and Shrek.

Good luck again, Daemon!

I think 420's edits are sound and I believe JD's advise could be very valuable. The few thoughts I would add are:

The third paragraph could be removed. The points about your experiences could be condensed and moved to the related paragraphs.

The last paragraph should be moved up to second and the end of the first paragraph rewritten to flow into it. Putting the reason why you want to go to a particular school at the end of your document makes it seem like a form letter (even though they know you are writing to more than one school). If your reasons ring true (do your best to make it so) I would think that would give you an advantage over other candidates and should not be buried at the end.

Unless you know you want to focus on teaching over research I would drop the second to last paragraph. If you feel you need to keep it, I suggest rewriting the end of paragraph before it, as it makes it seem you are contradicting yourself.

Best of luck with your new adventure!

edit: one last tip - try reading this out loud to people, You will be suprised what jumps out at you when you do that...

420's suggestions certainly do help the readability. Even though it's targetd at academics, it may be worth double checking the transparency of content - even though the reader(s) may know a little about the subject, the best policy to adopt is that they know nothing. I've written as few pieces or the academic audience and have added a few suggestions in addition to 420's in green (easy on the eyes :)).

I would also be cautious of using colloquialisms (of which there are a few), especially when in context. Passivity of sentences is also another major issue to watch out for.
Writing for academics is one of the hardest things to do ever as they are all very anal about how it is disseminated and constructed. I apologise for the lateness, but I've been working on my own Masters Degree, so I've been a bit pre-occupied.