Statements of Purpose Editing and Proofreading Services

A statement of purpose says the applicant is deeply interested in the department's work in cognitive development and hopes to contribute to the field. Nobody in that department can tell from it what the applicant would actually do on arrival, which of them would supervise it, or whether the thing they want to work on is something the department can support. It reads as a personal statement submitted under the wrong heading.

We edit statements of purpose for graduate and doctoral admission — research interest and project statements, fit-with-department sections, methods and preparation accounts, statements for taught and research programmes, and the versions tailored to individual departments. Our editors work on the document that is often confused with a different one.

The proposed work and its match to the department is what a statement of purpose is for, and its failure is a statement of interest where a statement of intent belongs. The reader is asking what you would do here and who would help you do it. We work through these so the intended work is stated as a problem rather than a field, since "cognitive development" is a department and "whether the effect holds in children who acquire the language later" is something a person could begin in October; so the problem is placed against the department's actual current work, with named people and the specific projects or papers that make the match, because a department can only support what it does and generic admiration proves nothing was read; so the applicant's preparation is mapped onto the proposal — the methods they already have and the ones they would need to learn — given that the reader is judging readiness rather than enthusiasm; so at least two possible supervisors are named with a reason, as naming one is a risk if that person is on leave, full, or leaving; so the difference from a personal statement is respected, with the origin story, the character and the ambitions left in the other document; so any second interest is stated briefly to show flexibility rather than at length, since a reader worries about an applicant with one immovable idea; so the statement acknowledges what the applicant does not yet know; and so nothing in it would have to be rewritten if the applicant meant it. Statements written this way get read by the people who would supervise.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including applications, unpublished ideas and unsuccessful attempts. We are editors rather than admissions committees or academic advisers, and we offer no view on your prospects, any department or any decision. What we can do is say what you would actually do there.