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Written Communication
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Self-Composed

Rhetoric in Psychology Personal Statements

Robert M. Brown

University of Texas at Austin

The personal statement written for graduate school admission has been a genre virtually ignored by rhetoricians but one that deserves attention. Not only a document of pragmatic importance for applicants, the personal statement is an indicator of disciplinary socialization. The discipline studied here is clinical psychology. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods, the author analyzed a corpus of statements to identify features distinguishing statements of admitted applicants from those of rejected applicants. The findings showed that successful applicants attended more to projecting their future research endeavors and demonstrating their commitments to scientific epistemology. Thus, the author argues that the modifier personal needs qualification, because successful applicants tend to emphasize their public identities as apprentice scientists.

Key Words: personal statement writing • genre • graduate school admission statements • personal writing • public writing

Written Communication, Vol. 21, No. 3, 242-260 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0741088304264338
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