Applying for an NSF Fellowship
This week I turned in my application for an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. If I am granted this fellowship, I will be funded by it for my next three years. I had to write three essays for the application. The toughest one, the research proposal, was reviewed by at least five different people (including my wife). I really wanted to make sure I got it right.
In the proposal I talk about some cool new stuff I will be researching on Cyclopath of which I am very excited about. Hopefully, this might lead to a thesis someday. It's all sort of confidential for now, so I can't say much more!
One thing I learned from feedback about my essays was that I use phrases like "I think that" and "I hope I can" too much. I learned to eliminate such phrases and be more assertive. I'm sure I'll keep learning writing tips like this as I continue my graduate studies. I'll try to... I mean, I WILL put what I learn into practice in this blog!
Comments
You had to write three different essays? Boy, they sure make you work for it! I really hope you get it, though.
I think I tend to do the same thing you do with the unassertive phrases when talking and writing (just look at how I started this sentence, it wasn't even on purpose!). Essays for Fellowship applications are certainly not the place for such phrases, but I think sometimes they're useful for introducing uncertainty and ambiguity in situations where those are needed.
Posted by: Lidia Noemà | November 8, 2008 12:39 PM