Yet another statement of purpose plea for help

[vermeer_groupie]

I am applying to several library science programs for Spring 2011 admission, meaning my first deadline is in October.  I have been working on the SOP for a couple of months, and while I'm mostly happy with the one found after the cut, I think it could be better.  Please help, be as nit picky as you want, I can take it.

Comments

[67threnody]

I really like this. You draw the reader in with a specific story about how a helpful reference librarian sparked an interest in a possible career path, and then continue with knowledge about how reference librarians will be even more useful in the coming years, as more and more research is conducted online

[indicolite]

I agree that this is very good.

"I currently work as an educational benefit liaison for veterans and I take great pleasure in assisting helping veterans work towards their educational goals by helping them navigate the application process to gain access to their educational benefits and providing information about other resources available to them." Very long sentence with a pile of subordinate clauses, some of which can be inferred.

Good luck! One of my best friends has an MLIS (she works with government archives rather than research university libraries), and she is very happy working in the field.

[tisiphone]

You know, I don't really have a lot of specific feedback - overall, this is pretty good. One thing I'd do is go through and take out the extraneous words. As Strunk and White say, "Omit needless words." (Actually, going over this with Strunk and White's rules would be a good plan.)

[cardoorgraffiti]

I like this as well!

Just this: "Currently, to prepare for entering a rigorous master's program I have joined the American Library Association to increase my understanding of [contemporary? Descriptor of types of issues you're interested in] issues surrounding the library world. I am a member of several ALA newsgroups[,] including the new librarian group, the library and information technology association, and an academic librarian group."

I'm at an LIS program myself (in part, anyway), good luck!

[negcap]

I agree that this is a generally strong statement. You could improve it further by adding in a bit more concrete detail. You do this already with the "common log" example, but could also use a more specific example in the next paragraph--what unrefined query? What are the range of results? Also, what specific benefits do veterans usually not know about that you bring to their attention? You already do a good job of providing specific examples, but the more concrete, particular, and colorful the details, the more it sticks out in a pile of statements.