<p>This isn’t a cover letter. A statement of purpose is what it is- a proposal for your studies.</p>
<p>I take it that this is your first draft ever… you will be re-writing this at least 10 times before you’ll be satisfied with it. So don’t take my comments/suggestions too personally. With my suggestions, you’ll be (hopefully pleasantly) surprised that 500 words can be sufficient.</p>
<h1>1: The first paragraph is completely a waste of space. The first lines are cliches and tend to be in the reject pile. Professors aren’t interested in “Ever since…” or “When I was young/a child/ etc …” or “Throughout my life…” You need to come up with a different, attention grabbing line. Most applicants start off with a broad question/provoking thought.</h1>
<h1>2: While it is nice to hear why you picked FL State’s MA in Applied PS, it still doesn’t have to do anything with the PhD program. PhD is research and teach focused. No internships. You do get to do fieldwork for your dissertation and research projects but you don’t “work” in the field in a sense of obtaining an internship while in a PhD program. (Unless you totally have a summer off to do such one and your adviser doesn’t care.)</h1>
<h1>3: Don’t repeat what’s already been written in your CV or your transcript. Your space is too precious to be repeating anything that’s already obviously elsewhere. If your campaign and student activities aren’t already listed in your resume, add them in your resume now. Don’t state the obvious as you point out in the second paragraph- just make a quick note on your writing sample that it was a paper submitted for the competition and earned the title (which then should be on your CV under “Awards/Honors”). Don’t mention your GPA- it all makes you sound like a pompous person who only cares about numbers. Professors will know you’re a good student just from looking at your LORs and transcript.</h1>
<h1>4: That all said, you should have a bit more room to discuss your two papers in details- talk about your methodology, questions that you asked, and how you went about doing the research. Show the adcoms your thinking process- that’s what they’re really interested in. Bring up any thoughts or questions that you have in mind that came up during your research or in class and want to explore those while in PhD.</h1>
<h1>5: Unless specifically asked for, don’t mention your goals if not academia. It’s true for humanities, maybe not for social sciences. We just keep mum about our ambitions and stick to the conformity for the sake of maintaining professional relationships for networking and funding purposes. However, you have mentioned that these professors have had the experience, you could point out that you would benefit from their fieldwork experience. “Other side” is too colloquial and maybe… discomforting to some academics, especially to those who have never worked in the real world and don’t <em>get</em> it.</h1>
<h1>6: “Cannot guarantee success”? That’s automatic reject. You are to write with absolute positive, get-go attitude, that you WILL finish the program and graduate. Otherwise, why waste their time and money? Your “appreciation of Florida State” makes me wonder- what do you mean by that? Especially that you ARE a student there already…</h1>
<p>Go back to re-writing. There are some excellent sites (one at Berkeley, I think, if you google) out there that explains how to write a convincing SOP. With my pointers on where to delete unnecessary information, you should have more room to discuss your thoughts, problems need to be solved, hypotheses, and whatever other threads to demonstrate your intellectual ability. It’s what professors really look for.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>