出国经验帖 | 撰写留学申请时，不注意这些误区的人都失败了

对申请留学而言，留学文书是很重要的一部分。虽然我们大部分时候说的都是PS、CV和推荐信，但PS往往才是最核心的部分。

今天的主题主要集中于如何避免PS写作的误区，以及如何从零开始写好一篇PS。小K希望通过以上内容让大家对PS有一定的了解。

PS写作常见误区

中式英语

以下是一位申请者的留学文书。

During the one-year LLM program, I touched English legal system for the first time. Although I was told that English/American legal system is substantially different from civil law system, which is applied in China, it was hard to have a comprehensive and personal understanding of the gap. On the first day of semester, an email listing the mandatory reading materials and cases for first class jumped into my email box. I was familiar with reading the textbooks, the statues and the academic articles after 4-year study in law school, but reading cases was completely new. Starting from logging on the case research system, typing long case name into the searching engine, downloading the verdict, it took me 3 hours to read a case named Marshall’s Valve Gear v. Manning Wardle, and got the conclusion that major shareholders had the right to control the action of directors. However, my sense of accomplishment lasted for only 20 minutes as this conclusion was thoroughly denied in the next case Automatic Self-cleasing Filter Syndicate v. Cuningname, in which the judge said that the majority of shareholders cannot impose obligation on directors. Such overturn happened during my whole-weekend reading and made me disoriented time to time.

可以发现，以上内容中，touch、deny都是严重的中式英语，英国法律体系用British legal system，描述事件时词汇量、归纳能力不足。

在定势思维中，许多人难以意识到自己的用法错误，因此也不会过多地检查或寻求意见，这导致招生官无法从中获得有效信息。因此最好在提交之前征求专业意见，避免因为语言的屏障影响信息的传达。

篇幅分配不当

以下是一位申请者的留学文书。

My curiosity started because of my father who works for an investment company as a broker. When I was 14 years old, one day during dinner, I realized that my father was once again absent from the dinner table. This is very unusual for him because ever since I can remember we always have dinner together, so, after dinner I walked into his office and asked him why. The result was very surprising to me, he had lots of issues at work and had lost over 5 million dollars in 2 weeks. He was under a tremendous amount of stress at work. I did not know what I can do at the time, and I want to make him feel better. The only thing I could think of is to talk with him and get his mind off the issue. After a while, I realized that I had turned into his stress reliever, he started to explain to me the issues he had at work, and how he plans to fix it. During the process I became extremely interested in the field and started to find out as much information as I can on my own.

可以看出，该同学的概括能力较差。这段文字本来是要解释选择该专业的原因和起源，但真正有意义的句子只有第一句和最后一句，中间156词浪费大量篇幅，可以压缩提炼。

不同学校对文书的要求不同，在考虑自身经历数量的情况下，应该先确定文书的长度，按照比例去分配不同的部分，再在各个小部分中找到并突出自己的闪光点。文章开头起到引入或者总领全文的作用，不宜过长。

逻辑混乱

逻辑混乱会给人非常糟糕的阅读体验，以下是一位申请者的留学文书。

I always demonstrated good critical thinking abilities during my time in college. I enjoyed expressing my free opinions during lectures, which has instilled passion in me towards music. Thus, with the help of these learning habits, I won the “Studious Award” in the 2015-2016 academic year. Also it has motivated me to pursue a major, music management, such as strategic planning for music business clients. I hope to apply the experience of the orchestra and the knowledge of this course to the Regional festivals every spring after I officially start this course, and join the Sheffield Music Hub to assist in the production of a Sheffield Regional Festival of Music for Youth. I am confident that my academic abilities integrated with my experience and passion for music are compatible with field of music management.

文中提到“these learning habits”令学生获得勤奋奖，但前文无任何对学习习惯的描述。同时，本文前半部分说自己的能力，后半部分又说入学打算，两者缺乏逻辑上的联系。

PS的中心可侧重学术能力，可考虑同时烘托学术能力与性格品质。不管诉求是什么，只有确定一条明确的主线和逻辑链，才能有条不紊地展开写作。

泛泛而谈，缺乏细节

When I see how I can merge design together with other subjects that I am interested in, for example, sociology, philosophy and literature. Being encouraged, I have browsed a lot of involving websites and books which has strengthened my determination of studying interaction design. Besides, this course has cultivated my interest in the design of tangible devices. After two weeks’ study of arduino, I tried to design a tangible product with arduino.

该段中对于交换期间的收获只提到了其他大学现在的研究状况，而并未表明自己实际做了什么，以及后面设计产品的过程中遇到了什么问题以及解决的方法，这些能够体现个人成长和能力的方面一概不知。文章重点不明，表面上举了两个例子，实际上无更多细节佐证。

PS写作攻略

本科申请的PS相对而言自由度更大，写法也不太固定，因此我们接下来要讲的主要针对研究生申请，是更加偏向于SOP的个人陈述。

结构安排

一篇文章的结构主要分为以下几种：

1、并列式：文章各部分的内容没有主次轻重之分。

2、总分式；先总述，再分说。这种关系还可以演变为“分—总”或“总—分—总”的结构方式。

3、对照式：文中两部分内容或进行对比，或用这部分内容烘托另一部分内容。

4、递进式：文章几部分内容逐层深入。

其中总分总（开头、主体、结尾）是PS最常见的结构。我们可以这样安排：

开头：选择这个专业的动机

中间：选择本专业后的经历，有什么收获和成长；要申请的学校/专业/项目如何，自己如何符合该学校/专业/项目的要求

结尾：将来的学习方向和职业规划，以及对未来的展望

文章风格

严谨

PS虽然是关于自我经历的文章，但其写作框架却很固定。我们要写的主题基本上都是固定的，它要求所写的每一段经历，每一句话都有目的性，都是在阐述主题。尤其是研究生申请中的PS，严谨是最基本的要求之一。

严谨这一要求意味着文章拒绝浮夸、虚假、无关的信息。作为学校，他们希望从你的字里行间读出的，是一个思维严谨，逻辑清晰，认真对待事物，积极向上，充满热情的有为青年的形象。

语言

每个人的PS被阅读的时间非常短，因此我们建议大家尽量不要写废话。比如把核心信息直接放在段落的开头也是一个不错的办法，这样读者一下就知道你要说的是什么了。

对于申请美国大学的小伙伴们来说，故事是写作PS经常使用的方式，这会让人读起来感到比较轻松。但如果全篇总是长句和大段密集的文字，就会让读者感到压力了。毕竟PS考察的不是语句的复杂程度，而是表达是否准确到位。

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