1 - Getting Started ~5 mins
You are applying what you already know about transferable skills and your first personal-statement draft. A reader who has never met you can only trust what you can show. Today you will hunt vague claims in a sample draft, then fix three sentences in your own Personal Statement Draft 1 so they carry evidence and sound like you, not like every other applicant.
2 - Key Terms ~5 mins
Three ideas drive today's revision. Keep them in mind when you mark the sample and when you rewrite your own lines.
| Term | What it means for you | Real example |
|---|---|---|
| Voice: the sense that one real person wrote this | Your draft should sound like you when read aloud, not like a template | Naming a real club, shift pattern or match day instead of 'I work well in a team' |
| Specificity: concrete place, time, action and result | A stranger should be able to picture what happened | 'I held a 12-hour-a-week job at the café on Pearse Street through Junior Cert year' |
| Evidence: a checkable fact or short story under a claim | Every claim you keep in ALT 1 needs something underneath it | 'I rang three suppliers when the October fundraiser order fell through' |
3 - Fix Three Vague Sentences ~35 mins
First, annotate Oisín's draft. Label each marked phrase as a vague claim, strong specific evidence, or generic voice that could belong to anyone. Use Check, then reveal the model. Star one place you disagreed and be ready to say why in one sentence (about 30 seconds, talk only).
Then open your own Personal Statement Draft 1. Find three vague or generic sentences. Rewrite each into a specific, evidenced line that only you could have written. If a sentence still has no place, time, action or result, reopen Strong Skills Evidence, Achievements or What Others See in Strand 1.1 and pull one concrete moment from there before you rewrite.
Paste the three before-and-after pairs into a new document called Personal Statement Revision Voice in your Strand 1.1 folder. Under those pairs, add two lines naming the sentence you nearly left vague and why you changed it. Update the main draft with the new sentences. This is your ALT 1 voice and specificity pass.
Worked pattern (use the shape, not the content): "I'm a hard worker" becomes "I held a 12-hour-a-week job at the café on Pearse Street through Junior Cert year while keeping my grades up."
Oisín's draft: vague, specific, or generic?
4 - Think About It ~10 mins
Talk these through with the person beside you, or sit with them quietly for a minute.
- Read your three revised sentences aloud. Could only you have written them, or could half the class swap theirs in without anyone noticing?
- Which of the three was hardest to evidence? What does that tell you about a claim you may still be carrying without a real moment behind it?
- Confirm the two-line note under your pairs in Personal Statement Revision Voice names the sentence you nearly left vague and why you changed it. That note feeds ALT 1 when you show the statement sounds like you.
5 - What You Covered ~5 mins
Today you applied a voice and specificity pass to ALT 1.
- You labelled vague claims, specific evidence and generic voice in a sample personal statement
- You rewrote three vague or generic sentences from your own draft into specific, evidenced lines
- You saved Personal Statement Revision Voice (three before-and-after pairs plus a two-line note on the sentence you nearly left vague) and updated Personal Statement Draft 1
- You checked whether the new lines sound like you, not like every applicant
Next lesson: peer review of the draft against clarity, voice, evidence and fit for purpose, then a live revision in the same period.
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