5.1. Engaging in the Writing Process

Now that you’ve learned about the structure of the statement of purpose (SoP) and have substantial brainstorming for the three goals (experiences, motivation, and fit to program), your job is to move from brainstorming to drafting. But how do you start to put the pieces together to form a coherent and meaningful statement which addresses the prompt and stays within the word limit? One way you might approach this writing task is to think of your entire writing experience as a process which includes various intentional stages of brainstorming, outlining, drafting, revising, and editing.

This section will explore how you can use a process approach to effectively work through writing your SoP.