Trimming a Statement of Purpose to a Hard Word Limit
Rida is cutting her statement of purpose from 190 words to the 150-word limit on a scholarship form. The form adds one instruction: "Use active voice where possible." Three sentences are giving her trouble. S2 (21 words): "Having volunteered at the clinic for two years, the patients' gratitude convinced me to study medicine." S5 (14 words): "The clinic serves 300 families, it has only one doctor." S7 (11 words): "It was decided by the committee that evening hours would be extended." She may rewrite any sentence but cannot delete the main clause of S2, must keep the figure "300 families", and each repair must not make the draft longer overall.
1. Diagnose S2 and give the shortest repair that also satisfies the active-voice instruction.
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The fault is a dangling/misplaced modifier. The introductory participial phrase "Having volunteered at the clinic for two years" is meant to describe the writer, but the subject of the main clause is "the patients' gratitude" - so the sentence literally says the gratitude volunteered for two years.
Repair rule: the subject of the main clause must be the person who volunteered, i.e. I.
- Weak repair: "Having volunteered at the clinic for two years, I was convinced by patients' gratitude to study medicine." Grammatical, but passive, against the form's instruction.
- Best repair: "After two years at the clinic, I saw patients' gratitude and chose medicine." (13 words, down from 21.)
It keeps both ideas the original carried, restores the correct subject, is active, and saves 8 words toward the 40-word cut. Note that the cheap fix - deleting the opening phrase - would lose the two-year commitment, which is the strongest evidence in the essay.
2. S5 is a comma splice. Compare two repairs and say which to adopt given the word limit and the active-voice rule.
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S5: "The clinic serves 300 families, it has only one doctor." Two independent clauses joined by a comma alone.
| Repair | Result | Words | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Semicolon | "The clinic serves 300 families; it has only one doctor." | 10 | Fixes grammar, saves 4, keeps active voice, but keeps two flat clauses |
| Subordinate one clause | "The clinic serves 300 families with only one doctor." | 10 | Fixes grammar, saves 4, active, and shows the contrast (300 families vs one doctor) that the original was reaching for |
| Split into two sentences | "The clinic serves 300 families. It has only one doctor." | 10 | Correct but adds a full stop and two short choppy units |
Adopt the second. Same word saving as the others, but it converts two loose facts into one statement of the strain the clinic is under, which is what the surrounding paragraph is arguing. The semicolon is a fallback if the paragraph already uses long sentences and needs the pause.
3. S7 is passive. Should Rida convert it, and does the conversion serve the paragraph or only the rule?
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S7: "It was decided by the committee that evening hours would be extended." (11 words)
Active conversion: "The committee decided that evening to extend the hours." (9 words)
Convert it. Three reasons, in order of weight:
- It saves 2 words toward the 40-word target - the passive version spends a word on "It" and two on "by the committee".
- The agent is information, not filler. A scholarship reader wants to know who acted; naming the committee shows the clinic's decision was authorised, which supports Rida's claim that the change was real and not her own initiative.
- It satisfies the form's active-voice instruction at no cost.
The one case for keeping the passive would be if the committee's identity were secret or irrelevant - neither applies here. Converting is not merely rule-following; here the passive was hiding the useful fact.