The Statement of Purpose is an important part of the application for admission into graduate and postgraduate programs. It is written by the applicant to state the purpose of joining the program. It is a short document – one or two pages. A student may find it difficult to write a statement of purpose but it is the most important document which counts a lot for their admission. Most of the applications are rejected by the admission committee due to a poorly written or copied statement of statement of purpose. It is always advised to write an impressive statement of purpose. Similarly, students should not use a statement of purpose copied from internet or others.

Writing an elegant statement of purpose is very much easy if you understand the basics of the statement of purpose. These basics include the format and the content of the statement of purpose. I hope reading this article, you will be able to draft an impressive statement of purpose to be accepted by the admission committee. This article applies to writing a statement of purpose for all disciplines.

   CONTENT OF STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

A statement of purpose is basically an essay. The first thing, to understand, is what to write in a statement of purpose. The statement of purposes covers the following points:

1. Stating the purpose: It is the central theme of the Statement of purpose – to state the purpose of admission in a program. The ideas of your essay revolve around this central theme.

This central theme is elaborated by explaining the following briefly.

2. Introduction to the area or discipline – what is it and what is it about?
3. Why are you interested in this area or discipline?
4. Your previous qualification in this area
5. Why is the intended qualification important to you – Why do you intend to study it?
6. Why should you be selected for admission – write your good qualities as a student.
7. Why are you interested in this institution – college or university?
8. Why are you interested to study in this country – if applying for a foreign university
9. Describe your proposed research – if applying for a research program
10. Your future plans – What will you do after getting the degree or how will you utilize the learning gained in the program after completion of the program.

These are the question you need to answer for writing your statement of purpose. Remember! You have to answer very briefly so that your statement of purpose may not exceed two pages.

   FORMAT OF STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

Though the statement of purpose has no universal format, it adopts a structure of an essay. The widely used structure of statement of purpose is as follows:

1. Title. The title of the statement of purpose is simply ‘Statement of Purpose’. It is not advisable to add more words making it as ‘Statement of Purpose for Admission’.
2. Three parts: The statement of purpose has three parts: 2. Introduction, 2. Body, 3. Conclusion
3. Introduction: It is the opening paragraph where you have to introduce yourself in one to three lines. In the same paragraph, your introduction should move on to explaining your interest in the area or discipline, in which you are seeking admission.
4. Body: The next part, the body can comprise many paragraphs to describe the following briefly:
• A brief introduction to the discipline – what is about?
• Your previous qualification in the discipline – if any previous degree
• Why is the intended program important to you?
• Why should you be selected for admission? – your student qualities
• Why are you interested in this institution?
• Why are you interested in this country?
• Brief description of your research proposal
5. Conclusion: This paragraph should summarize important points from the previous paragraphs in just three to four lines. It should also include the following:
• Your future plans after getting the degree – two to three lines.
• Thank you note for their time for reading your SOP – one line
6. Contact details: At the end, you should write your name and email address.

   WRITING THE STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

Consider the following points for writing your statement of purpose.

1. Prepare an outline before writing your SOP. Keeping in view the above points, you should give proper time to write the outline for the content of your SOP.
2. You will need to write ideas to justify your interest in the discipline, selection for the program and choice of the institution and country. If you are a creative person, you can generate good ideas.
3. Use ideas and words in your sentence in such a way that they express an appeal to the reader. It will engage the reader to read your all CV.
4. Use sentences having a motivational sense to inspire the reader. It will also show them your devotion towards the admission which is the first requirement for selection.
5. Avoid informal or immature style of writing which bore the reader or give them a bad impression.
6. There should be no grammatical or spelling errors. It has a very bad impact on the reader.
7. Avoid writing very long sentences. Make sentence possibly short enough to hold all the ideas as well to stand grammatically correct. Your CV should ideally be no longer than two pages. You have a very thing within these two pages.
8. Avoid repetition of ideas and words.
9. Proof-reading: After completing your SOP, read it many times to ensure there is no writing mistake or spelling and grammatical error.
10. SOP is a computer printed document. Hence, design it nicely on a computer using proper fonts and size of fonts and take its print out on A4 size paper.