Include a governing idea, thesis, or life-lesson that reveals your ability to reflect and think
critically about your life and experiences.
Show, don’t tell. See, for example, the following statement, which was excerpted from
Dr. Karen Kelsky’s advice blog for young professors on the job market. The subject
matter is different from what you’ll be writing, but the concept of show, don’t tell
remains the same:
o “I am committed to the mission of liberal arts, and I ensure that my classroom is
a space for creative expression and critical thinking alike.”
While this statement may seem descriptive, it’s really not—it doesn’t show us how the
writer is a) committed to the mission of liberal arts, or b) how she ensures that her
classroom classroom is a space for creative expression and critical thinking alike. Now,
read this version:
o “I stress creative and critical thinking in all my classes. For example, to develop
creative writing skills, I give students regular writing prompts. To train them in
critical analysis, I design a sequence of in-class debates on topics relevant to the
course topics; subsequently, students have to produce a position paper, drawing
on those debates.”
This is a little stronger, but it’s still telling rather than showing. What kinds of writing
prompts? What kinds of debates? Here’s a third revision:
o “I stress creative and critical thinking in all my classes. For example, to cultivate
creative writing skills in my Critical Theory students, I give them writing
prompts—in five minutes, they have to improvise a conversation Foucault and
Derrida might have had at a cocktail party, or write an ad for a missing pet from
the perspective of Wittgenstein. To train them in critical analysis, I design in-
class debates and other collaborative assignments on topics relevant to the
subject of the course. In my Deviance and Control class, students debated
whether gossip is a form of bullying, while in my Literature and Psychology
seminar, students had to do a clinical intake of Hamlet to evaluate him as a
potential patient.”
You don’t have a great deal of room in your grant proposal and personal statement, so
you need to choose your examples judiciously. These documents require that you learn
the art of balancing detail and concision.
Choose from any number of appropriate organizational strategies and methods of
development. The following pattern, common in many essays, includes a number of
characteristic components arranged in a particular order that resembles a chronology:
o Applicants commonly contextualize their topics or begin with life-revealing
anecdotes or experiences—at a time before high school or college—that
illustrate how they first became interested in an activity or subject.
o Applicants then focus on the experiences—after high school—that make
them worthy Fulbright candidates. They discuss, among other things,
academic experiences, research experiences, language experiences, cross-
cultural experiences, and extra-curricular leadership experiences. Applicants