PS求改，感谢各位大侠~

字数1283...我自己删减修改过好几次，感觉已经不知道怎么更短了。。非常感谢各位的耐心~

Personal Statement
Starring through the limpid river water, I saw small fishes scattering about, rocks with multi-shapes and patterns, and footsteps of deep and shallow. It was one of my favorite activities in my childhood, swimming with my cousins or friends in Wushui River of my hometown. However, just a decade passed by, the water was too turbid to be looked through; even if check carefully, no fishes to be found anymore. Near the river stood boldly a large factory. When I tried to wade into the water, I was warned about cases of headache and even coma after stepping into this river. I trembled and could not feel more painful seeing the river once flowed in my treasured memory now filled with industrial poisons instead. After entering university in North China, I witnessed sand storm for the first time, and the following increased incidence of asthma and rhinitis around me. Such incidents kept surfacing all over the world, such like bed bug infestations, tainted food outbreaks, bio/agro-terrorism, and so forth. The need for trained environmental health professionals keeps increasing with the growing number of environmental health threats. I cannot just sit watching it take on vicious circle, and I am determined to devote myself in environmental health career to alter this trend.

With this faith, I started my study and research in School of Public Health in Shandong University. My current research in the effects of nano-Mg(OH)2 on the reproductive and developmental toxicity of Cr(VI), is a part of a project funded by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program). This project is directly related to my initial motivation, treating industrial wastewater, to start career in environmental health. Chromium is extensively used in many industrial processes, and contaminates surface and ground water, provides the general population with access to its adverse health impact. Nano-absorbent is an emerging technique in treating Cr(VI) contaminated water. The purpose of this study is to compare the reproductive and developmental toxicities of Cr(VI) with and without the absorption of nano-Mg(OH)2, to evaluate the safety of nano-Mg(OH)2 in water treatment.

This research started in the summer of 2012, because of the long and uninterruptible period of time it required to raise hundreds of mice as experimental animal, I gave up my plan of going home and stayed at school doing this research during the whole summer holiday, with the highest temperature of 38 centigrade without air conditioner. These external condition did not matter at all compared to the valuable opportunity of research. It was not an easy task to treat such an amount of mice, I planned grouping and batching elaborately, in order to limit the mice of each batch in the number that we could manage to execute within an hour to minimize systematic error. It was a great training for me to design randomized grouping and plan experiment according to specific requirements. After mice mating at night, I checked their vaginal plugs in the morning, indicating their sexual intercourse. It should be done before 7 am every day, as the vaginal plugs were likely to drop later, with great passion I was never late. Pregnant mice were exposed to experimental materials by intragastric administration. On the 19th day of gestation, they were sacrificed and conducted cesarean and dissection, from which I obtained both systematic and specific understanding of internal organs structures in normal and abnormal pregnant mice; besides, proficient skills and stable mentality in operation were developed. During the following examinations, including observing fetal ossification by dissecting microscope and placental structure by electronic microscope, and examining hormones levels by ELISA kits, I learned the common methods and techniques in evaluating reproductive and developmental toxicities. With knowledge and training in Statistics, I analyzed data by SPSS, and reported them in graphics by Sigma Plot. The results confirmed the low toxicity of nano-Mg(OH)2 by oral exposure as water treatment agent, which is crucial for its utilization considering environmental health. Another challenge for me was academic writing. Thanks for Professor Bing Yan, the leader of this project, who helps me correct my writing meticulously, I have learned a lot about every detail in academic writing, such like the design and presentation of figures, description of results, and discussion combined with reference. This paper is still under correction now, and is going to be publicized soon. This research provided me with an integrated training of research, now I am capable of doing the whole research processes independently, from designing scheme, laboratory operation, analyzing results and drawing conclusion, to reporting outcome.

Rome was not built in a day. It took over two years until I developed the research qualities and abilities so far, I have experienced numerous setbacks and frustrations. My first contact with research was in my sophomore year, explored the detoxification mechanism of a drug to Organophosphate induced Delayed Neuropathy (OPIDN), a disease frequently occurred in rural areas exposed to Organophosphate pesticides. I was just a dilettante in research at that time, and that research did not meet the expectation in the end, as the potential mechanism we studied was the impact on cytochrome P450 enzymes, a family with numerous members that impossible to be completely studied, and my poor experimental skills at that time also accounted. Having learned this lesson, the next research was handier with facility to me. I spent much efforts in reading papers to create new research idea, and I found an interesting phenomenon that Calcium and Calcium channel blocker, seem antagonistic to each other, were both used in treating OPIDN, but only individually in reports until that time. I was so excited about this discovery, and curious about the effect of these two drugs administrated at the same time. It turned to be effective and verified my idea, and greatly encouraged me. Even though the reporting of a similar research ahead of me interrupted the publication of my research, I believe the ultimate goal of doing research is not getting publicized, but making the discovery benefit the world. Anyhow, I got valuable experiences in creative thinking from extensively reading of literature. Another research I participated in is about changes of autophagy-related proteins in SO2 induced peripheral neuropathy, my major role was examining levels of these proteins by Western Blot. It took me great efforts to learn and practice, as there were so many influential factors, such like the concentration of each component in gel, voltage condition in electrophoresis, and the duration of combining with antibody and rinsing membrane. During that period, I spent almost 12 hours a day in laboratory. Even during the time to wait for gelation, electrophoresis, transferring, or combining with antibody, I must check if everything is going well from time to time. In the first month of training I had hardly made satisfying zones in film, which frustrated me indeed, I did not lose faith but consulted professors and graduate students and reflected on every detail of my operation every time to figure out my problems. Eventually, I successively presented desirable films to report. Regardless of all the painstaking processes, my growth from a complete layman of research three years ago to a qualified professional researcher now is the best reward.

Based on my interest and research experiences, I believe I would become a contributive researcher to promote this high-impact science. As far as I know, the PhD program of Environmental Health Sciences in … University provides students with unique opportunities for research and education to solve environmental health challenges ranging from molecular to global, and the faculty are eminent both for their teaching and their research. I consider this application not only a great desire of me but also an indispensable route for my future research career.

It was one of my favorite activities in my childhood, swimming with my cousins or friends in Wushui River of my hometown. 这句就能精简不少 my ，cousinsorfriends wushuiriver of my hometown。。。
后别也是 细节太细

q198800287 发表于 2013-8-25 11:34
It was one of my favorite activities in my childhood, swimming with my cousins or friends in Wushui ...

I see... 我原以为细一点比较生动。。 谢谢版主~

the water was too turbid to be looked throughz这句话有问题。后面不应该用被动的。比如，这道菜很好做the dish is easy to cook，这本书很难理解the book is hard to understand。中国人写这种句式就容易犯误用被动的错误，在老外看来是很低级的错误（no offense）~~Lz注意一下细节啊

lywytomato 发表于 2013-8-26 08:58
the water was too turbid to be looked throughz这句话有问题。后面不应该用被动的。比如，这道菜很好做th ...

啊啊，对呀，我自己没注意呢，多谢提醒~

Such incidents kept surfacing all over the world, such like bed bug infestations, tainted food outbreaks, bio/agro-terrorism, and so forth.这句的后半段举例就可以不要了，前面半句已经是对之前现象陈述的很好总结了，再举例子显得很冗长。而且，应该是such as，不是suh like~~（如果说错了，各位大侠手下留情，多多纠正！）

读完以后有这种感觉，LZ说了太多的细节（怎么养老鼠什么的……）。我觉得在有限的篇幅里应该略去一些细节，多说说你所取得的成绩，可以适当引用一些导师和同事对你的评价。因为我是申请商科的，可能和理工科的不太一样，但是宗旨是一样的，PS是展示之前经历、成就，并说明这些和你未来职业规划联系的，而不是工作描述的。祝楼主好运~

lywytomato 发表于 2013-8-26 09:13
读完以后有这种感觉，LZ说了太多的细节（怎么养老鼠什么的……）。我觉得在有限的篇幅里应该略去一些细节， ...

非常感谢提供建议~我原以为细节会显得比较真实，因为我做出的成果不多，只是经历多，所以就这样写了，选择比较能表现我素质或能力的细节写的。另外，别人对我的评价不是应该在推荐信里吗？多多指教了~

我提一点个人的见解吧。首先PS，全名叫personal statement。既然是personal，落脚点应该是你的人，而不是你的research，感觉楼主写的不是PS，是description of research，实验的细节太多了，而且没有落脚到你自己对于实验的想法或者是收获上。其次，PS的作用的convince the committee that you are competent for the graduate program, 既然是这样，重点应该是你自己的想法：为什么对这个方向感兴趣？自己为什么足够competent？和你对于自己的规划是什么样的？为什么这个学校的这个program适合自己？把这四个问题回答清楚基本PS就写好了。至于你的research，当然也需要在PS中体现出来，比如这个research是如何帮助自己发掘兴趣的，自己从中锻炼了什么能力（举例说明），这个能力又对于你以后的graduate education有什么影响。通过research这么串起来就可以很好的回答上面的问题，而不是简单把你的research像写日记一样描述一遍。。。。。纯属个人理解，也希望和各位交流意见。。

还有，楼主是申PhD的。那么最后一段太宽泛了，你要提一下你对哪些教授的什么研究感兴趣，他们的研究和你的研究是怎么联系起来的：你为什么感兴趣之类的。
目前的最后一段放在哪个学校身上都行，没有说服力。