Writing English Self-Introductions

�Daniel Plesniak (DHPlesniak@gmail.com)

Hongik University, 2026/11/13

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In Case You Want To Follow Along

• This Presentation is available at: https://www.danielplesniak.com/etc/self-introductions

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Introduction

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About Me

• Ph.D. in Linguistics, University of Southern California, 2022

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• Research Area: Syntax of English, East Asian Languages (these days especially Korean)

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• Current Position: Assistant Teaching Professor, College English Program, Seoul National University

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Applications I’ve Had Write Self-Intros For

• Middle School
• High School
• College
• Graduate School
• Current Job
• Many other things!

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Today’s Presentation

• I am far from an expert on self-introductions.

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• I do have a lot of experience with them, both from writing my own and from observing other people’s as well.

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• I’m going to share my personal tips with you, but some people may have different opinions! (You should follow whatever advice seems best.)

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Overview

• First, I’m going to walk through my thoughts (in no particular order.)

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• Then, I want to give you some time to ask questions and share thoughts.

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• Finally, if there’s extra time, I can talk more about some specific issues not covered here.

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What Self-Introductions Do

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Good News

• If you’re worried about whether or not you can write a good a self-introduction, here is something reassuring: they’re not very important!

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• That does not mean they’re very not important. Rather they’re not very important, as in, they are important, but just a little!

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What Self-Introductions Don’t Do (I)

• Generally speaking, a self-introduction will not decide if you get a job/accepted to a school/chosen for a grant/etc.

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• Other aspects of your application are generally much more important.

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• For example, for graduate school, things like: (a) your transcript/grades, (b) your letters of recommendation, (c) your writing sample/projects.

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What Self-Introductions Don’t Do (II)

• There can be exceptions, especially for younger students (who don’t have as much to demonstrate their abilities), but even in that case, it is one among many factors.

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• As an adult, outside of highly unusual situations: (I) a good self-introduction cannot “save” an otherwise weak application, and (II) a “just okay” self-introduction cannot ruin an otherwise strong one.

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Exception: A BAD Self-Introduction (I)

• If the self-introduction has serious problems, it can cause issues.

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• In some sense, this is part of their function: it’s a small test to see, “can this person write a brief, normal-looking piece of writing about themselves without seeming insane?”

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• Surprisingly, some people do fail this test.

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Exception: A BAD Self-Introduction (II)

• Usually, this would be because of something like the following:

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• (I) The self-introduction was really poorly/strangely written (chaotic organization, parts obviously missing, no spell-check, excessive “uniqueness”, etc.)

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• (II) The writer came off as a mean/rude/hard-to-work-with person (e.g., by critiquing their colleagues)

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Exception: A BAD Self-Introduction (III)

• (Cont.) (III) The writer inserted (probably irrelevant) inflammatory details, like their political beliefs, dating preferences, personal medical history, etc.

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• More good news: These mistakes are all really really easy to avoid!

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• Key tip: Your content should be unique, but not the letter style itself!

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Priorities

• So, goal #1: Try to look nice, professional, and (relatively) normal!

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• Succeeding in this gives you >50% of the value of your self-intro.

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• There is a goal #2 though: Try to give your application a small boost

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What A Self-Intro Can Do (I)

• If well-written, a self-introduction can:

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• (I) Emphasize your key strengths/unique traits so that you stand out a bit more among other applicants.

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• (II) Provide background/context that frames and ties together other parts of your application.

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What A Self-Intro Can Do (II)

• (cont.) (III) Bring out aspects of you that aren’t obvious from your CV, like your personality, philosophy, fit with the organization, etc.

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• Will any of these things “make or break” your application on their own? Probably not!

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• They might help push you up a bit higher on the list of candidates though!

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To Review

• Writing a great self-introduction is not essential.

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• Not writing a bad self-introduction definitely is!

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• The better your self-introduction can be, the more likely it is to provide small but possibly significant help to your application.

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AI for Self-Introductions?

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Can AI Help?

• Since this is an “urgent” topic, I want to address this early.

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• The answer is yes, AI can help, but you should be careful.

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• Application reviewers are increasingly aware of AI, and if it looks like “AI wrote it for you”, your application may be discarded, possibly without even being read.

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What To Avoid

• You should not have AI write up, translate, or substantially revise large parts of your self-introduction.

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• Here, “AI” includes not only generative AI like ChatGPT, but also automatic translators like Google Translate/Papago and writing assistance programs (e.g., Grammarly).

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AI Detection (I)

• In my experience as an English teacher, AI detectors are highly sensitive.

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• Just allowing AI to suggest stylistic revisions to a few sentences (let alone write or translate them directly) is often enough to trigger many AI detectors to conclude with *100% Confidence* that the document is all or partially written by AI.

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AI Detection (II)

• Applications may involve screening with such detectors, and it is quite possible they may automatically reject candidates whose writing is flagged as AI-generated.

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• Even if you “escape” the detectors, AI writing tends to follow a recognizable style which native speakers can recognize easily, which may cause them to discount your writing.

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AI Detection (III)

• In fact, being a non-native speaker can be something of a “superpower”: native speaker writing is sometimes falsely flagged as AI generated, but this is quite rare with non-native writing (at least based on my classes).

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• Your own unique way of writing can also help you sound authentic, and demonstrate you cared enough to write the document yourself.

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Uses For AI (I)

• AI can still be useful though!

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• For one, it can help you formulate ideas, as well as read what you wrote and give you feedback on the content.

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• In terms of English, you can use it both as a fancy dictionary and as a spelling/grammar checker.

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Uses For AI (II)

• Simply translating small words/expressions or giving feedback on grammatical errors is unlikely to make the final document look suspicious.

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• Indeed, such things will probably make your final document look more polished and avoid distracting readers with small errors or incorrect word choices.

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AI Caution (I)

• Be careful though! Do not accept stylistic advice from the AI!

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• Do not ask it to make you sound more native-like, sophisticated, or otherwise let it make “subjective” suggestions about the way your write.

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• Stick to objective issues, like grammatical errors or wrong words.

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AI Caution (II)

• If you let it make subjective decisions, it will (a) give you bad advice, and (b) make you sound like an AI.

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• The AI’s understanding of “good style” is basically “writes like me”

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• I have seen this problem a lot, both in my own interactions with AI, and my students’.

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AI Caution (III)

• For example, one student of mine was recently recommended revisions like the following by ChatGPT. Note that in all cases, the changes are (a) unnecessary (no grammatical errors present), (b) subtly different the meaning, and (c) caused AI detectors to flag the text as AI generated.

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• “economic changes far away”🡪 “larger economic changes”
• “I try to connect what I learn in class to news articles”🡪 “I try to apply what I learn in class to news articles”
• “continue to study it in graduate school”🡪 ”pursue further studies in graduate school”

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AI Caution (IV)

• Two more things to not do:

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• (1) Do not let AI make revisions to your text itself; ask it to propose revisions, and you then incorporate them if they seem good.

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• (2) Do not ask AI to “make your text look less like AI wrote it”. This is like trying to dry something by pouring water on it.

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Do’s And Don’ts Of AI (For Self-Intros)

• Do: Use AI as a dictionary, an editor, and/or a sample reviewer.

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• Do not: Let AI generate, translate, or revise anything larger than a small phrase, let it revise your text directly, or let it give you subjective stylistic advice.

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• Tell to focus on objective issues like grammar and typos.

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Inform Rather than Impress

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A Story (I)

• Theodore Maiman (pictured) invented the first�working laser in 1960.

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• His paper about the invention was promptly�rejected from a top physics journal.

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• The reason is unclear, but it seems the journal did not understand the significance of what he had achieved.

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https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/

Maiman_with_the_first_laser.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=index&utm_content=original

A Story (II)

• What is the point of me telling you this?

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• In short: it is very hard to predict what will�impress people!

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• If *inventing the laser* did not impress *top physicists*, then how can we hope our self-introductions will impress reviewers?

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https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/

Maiman_with_the_first_laser.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=index&utm_content=original

Refocusing

• My advice: let’s not really hope that, or at least, let’s not make it our primary goal.

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• “Being impressive” is not really something you have control over. It mostly depends on the reader!

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• Besides, if our main goal is to be impressive, doesn’t that mean we should be dishonest if it makes us “look better”? That doesn’t seem right…

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Informing

• Instead, I suggest you focus on something you do have control over: Being as accurate and informative as possible.

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• We can definitely judge whether a self-introduction is accurate/informative, even if we don’t know the reader.

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• Making this our goal also makes it clear why we should be honest.

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Informative about what? (I)

• Try to focus on making clear the below (in that order of priority)

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• 1. Why you are a qualified person for what you are applying for.
• 2. What makes you distinct from the many other applicants.
• 3. Why you would be a good person to work with and/or represent the organization.

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Informative about what? (II)

• Your qualifications, unique strengths, and general “appropriateness” are exactly the things the people reviewing your application want to know about!

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• The more clearly your self-introduction addresses these things, the more likely it is to help your application. And again, these are (more or less) objective things, meaning you can evaluate them yourself.

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Other Benefits of This Approach (I)

• Thinking about your self-intro in terms of informativeness also helps solve other problems.

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• For example, it guides us not to bury key information in a bunch of not-very-relevant details.

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• When you go to look something up, don’t you prefer it if the answer is stated very obviously, rather than having to find it amid a bunch of other text?

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Other Benefits of This Approach (II)

• It also helps with the problem of feeling like you are “bragging”/not being humble by stating your strengths/accomplishments very directly.

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• If you *don’t* state them directly, then you’re not being informative!

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• You can still state the information in a humble way.

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Other Benefits of This Approach (III)

• Consider a student who got the top GPA in their department.

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• “I got good grades in my classes.”🡨 This is really misleading, because the student’s grades were not just “good”. Not informative enough, because the reviewer would definitely want to know about the top GPA.
• “I was honored to learn that I received the highest GPA in the department.” 🡨 Informative and humble! Tells the whole truth, while still making clear the writer is not “bragging”.

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What If They’re Not Impressed? (I)

• It’s natural to be worried that, even if you inform someone perfectly about yourself, they might not accept your application.

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• Even a fantastic candidate might not be the right “fit”, and it’s the reviewer’s job, not yours, to determine that fit.

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• Sometimes, reviewers may even be doing you a favor by rejecting you, because they know some other opportunity will be better for you.

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What If They’re Not Impressed?

• Moreover, often there are many excellent candidates, and things are decided based on factors far outside your control (and well-beyond the self-introduction.)

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• Try to think like this: “My self-introduction is not bad if it informs readers well but they ultimately decide I’m not the right candidate. What would make it bad is if I were the right candidate, but the self-introduction didn’t inform readers well enough for them to see it.”

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The Opening

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The Hard Reality (I)

• These days, many things you apply for will have hundreds if not thousands of other applicants, with a very small number of reviewers (possibly just one).

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• Despite their best intentions, they generally cannot read everything submitted to them.

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The Hard Reality (II)

• Your self-introduction may never get read. (E.g., there may be an internal first round based purely on the CV, and they only read the statements of those who pass.)

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• If it is read at all, it may only be glanced at quickly.

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• This is why the introduction, especially the first sentence, is crucial.

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Informativeness Again

• It is therefore good to write the opening as if it is the only part being read.

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• Ask yourself this question: if they read only this sentence (or this paragraph), what is it I want to make sure they know?

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• Another way to think of it: what can I write here to inform them it’s worth reading more?

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Uninformative Openings (I)

• #1 Talking about what you are applying to/for.

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• Telling them things like “Your organization is really excellent” or “I saw you posted a job” or even “I really want to be a student in your department” are not very useful, because they already know these things! These things also don’t tell them much of anything about you!

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• There may be appropriate place to say these things, but making them the focus of your opening wastes your chance to tell them key information about you.

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Uninformative Openings (II)

• #2 Giving information about yourself that is too basic

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• “My name is Daniel Plesniak. I got my PhD from the University of Southern California in 2022. My area of study is linguistics.”

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• None of the above is very informative about my unique strengths as a candidate, and readers probably know it anyways from my CV. Again, it might be useful to include such information somewhere, but the opening needs more specific information to be useful.

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Uninformative Openings (III)

• #3 Giving information about yourself that is not central to your application.

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• In one of my classes, a student made a sample self-introduction for an application to a position in the music industry.

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• This student’s first paragraph was mostly about their current major, which has essentially nothing to do with music.

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Uninformative Openings (IV)

• #3 (cont.) As it turns out, this student had extensive experience in the music industry, but this didn’t get mentioned until about the third paragraph.

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• Unfortunately, by that point, many reviewers might not be reading anymore, wrongly assuming he had no relevant background.

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• If something is important, make sure it gets mentioned early!

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Uninformative Openings (V)

• #4 Starting with interesting points about yourself you don’t return to.

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• Your opening lines should encapsulate what your self-introduction is about. The rest of the self-intro should repeatedly return to the themes they establish, filling in details.

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• Don’t just introduce something there and not talk about it again

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Uninformative Openings (IV)

• #4 (cont.) To give an example, one student in my class wrote a self-intro, that began with a very interesting critique of some the common ideas in his field.

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• This was an eye-catching opening… only he never talked about it again!

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• A reader would expect that these critiques, since they were mentioned at the beginning, would be the essence of his identity as a researcher.

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A Positive Example (I)

• Here is the opening paragraph of one of my self-introductions from the past. A lot could be improved about it, but it does some things okay.

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• “I am a syntactician whose work focuses on answering some of the most fundamental questions of generative linguistic theory. Is there really a universal grammar that manifests itself through abstract structure-building operations? If so, can we produce evidence of its existence that even a strong skeptic could accept? My position is that this is not a philosophical question, but an empirical one. Adopting hypotheses about the nature of a universal grammar makes definite predictions about the linguistic behavior of all individuals, and the only way we can test these predictions is by carefully gathering data. To do so, I design and implement experiments that elicit the judgements of speakers of various languages, especially English and East Asian languages like Korean. These experiments rigorously demonstrate the existence of a universal, structure-building language faculty, as well as allow us to probe deeper into what the syntactic properties of that language faculty are.”

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A Positive Example (II)

• First sentence:�
• “I am a syntactician whose work focuses on answering some of the most fundamental questions of generative linguistic theory.”

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• Notice, this is not just generically “I study linguistics”; it gives my sub-field and some indication of what my attitude towards that subfield are. It’s also somewhat eye-catching/dramatic, which might make people want to read more.

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A Positive Example (III)

• Next two sentences:�
• “Is there really a universal grammar that manifests itself through abstract structure-building operations? If so, can we produce evidence of its existence that even a strong skeptic could accept?”

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• This starts to explain more specifically what I am interested in. The reader takes away (I) “abstract structure-building operations” and (II) “producing evidence […] a strong skeptic could accept”. This is not what all or even most syntacticians study/do, so it differentiates me to some extent.

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A Positive Example (IV)

• The rest:�
• “My position is that this is not a philosophical question, but an empirical one. Adopting hypotheses about the nature of a universal grammar makes definite predictions about the linguistic behavior of all individuals, and the only way we can test these predictions is by carefully gathering data. To do so, I design and implement experiments that elicit the judgements of speakers of various languages, especially English and East Asian languages like Korean. These experiments rigorously demonstrate the existence of a universal, structure-building language faculty, as well as allow us to probe deeper into what the syntactic properties of that language faculty are.

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• This gives further details, like that I do experiments, study English/Korean, etc.

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A Positive Example (V)

• If I could give my past self any advice, I would say that it would be better to get to specific even faster.

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• More “philosophical” aspects are important, but they don’t tell readers about me directly.

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• The less important/directly informative about you, the later things should come.

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More About *You*

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Be Specific

• The rest of the self-introduction should build on and repeatedly return to the basic theme(s) you established in the opening.

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• Make sure that this theme is the core thing you want to be conveying. If it doesn’t address what you’re applying for directly, or is too vague/generic, this may cause problems for you in the rest of the document.

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Avoid Centering Common Traits (I)

• Many students, I notice, want to make their core theme something like:

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• “I never give up.”
• “I am intellectually curious.”
• “I am good at learning from failure.”
• Etc.

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Avoid Centering Common Traits (II)

• While those things are great, they’re not exactly unique!

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• Probably, many, if not most of the people applying would say similar things about themselves.

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• As a result, they’re not very informative to readers, at least, not so much so your self-intro should take them as its core focus.

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Technical Over Personal

• The other issue with such themes is that they are primarily about your personality, rather than your technical skills/qualifications for whatever you’re applying for.

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• It you recall, I ranked “why you are qualified” 1^st as your goal for informing the reader about, and “why you’d be a good person to work with” as 3^rd.

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• Most of your self-intro should be about your qualifications (+what makes you distinct in your field, which I ranked 2^nd; often these overlap)

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Qualifications to Talk About (I)

• Younger undergraduates in particular are often a bit shy talking about their “qualifications”, because they feel they don’t have (m)any. However, all of the below are qualifications:
• (a) What relevant classes you’ve taken
• (b) What grades you got in them (if they were good)
• (c) What you learned in them/what they made you interested in
• (d) Any projects you did as part of the class

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Qualifications to Talk About (II)

• Even first year undergrads applying for an internship/scholarship will be able to talk about these things. And the people running those things want to know!

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• Many of you will have more than just these: extra-curricular activities (that are relevant to the application), larger projects you undertook outside of class, your big picture interests/specialties in your field, etc.

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• These are things that might only take up a line in your CV (or not even be in there at all), so the self-introduction is a chance to say more about them!

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Anecdotes (I)

• Space permitting, it is good to tell at least one “story”.

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• This might be a literal story, like an experience you had (presumablyone that’s relevant to the job).

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• It might just be a summary of a particular project you completed (like for me, my dissertation/ongoing research).

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Anecdotes (II)

• Make sure it is specific though!

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• Many of my students write things like: “One time, my group project had a lot of difficulty, because we couldn’t solve a key problem. I came up with a solution and proposed it to the group, and we got an A in the end”.

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• This is not very informative, unless you actually say what the problem was and what your solution to it was!

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Anecdotes (III)

• Not only do adding details to your stories let you show your abilities/qualifications more clearly, they also make them specific to you.

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• Lots of people have similar experiences to you, but only you have the same experiences.

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• Lots of people have written dissertations on similar topics to mine, but only I have written it in my particular way, with my particular findings, etc.

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Your Personality (I)

• A story can also be a chance to showcase your personality traits.

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• It is important that you give at least some indication that you are a nice person who works well with others, and ideally, give some sense of your unique aspects as a person, to distinguish you from others.

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• This can be tricky though.

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Your Personality (II)

• Make sure that you keep your personal information relevant; otherwise, it stops being informative and can actually hide key details.

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• Briefly mentioning that you participated in your department’s hiking club and hope to organize similar events in graduate school, for example, could be a nice thing to say towards the end of your self-intro (where the less important details go.) But that should be like, a sentence, not a whole paragraph.

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Your Personality (III)

• As I said before, you should not add information that might make a reader uncomfortable, like your political views (even if they are relevant^* or you think the reader probably agrees with them!)

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• If I were reviewing someone’s statement of purpose and they stated a political view I agree with, my reaction wouldn’t be, “great, same politics!” It would be, “Does this person not know how to separate their political views from their work? Do they lack professionalism and/or objectivity?”

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*If what you are applying for is primarily political in nature, this might be different. But still, be cautious.

Your Personality (IV)

• It’s definitely nice to include something that demonstrates that you get along well with others, especially if you’re applying to work/study somewhere. (No one wants to recruit someone only to find they’re impossible to get along with!)

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• For example, in my self-introductions, I talk both about my teaching record/philosophy (which shows I have a kind attitude towards students) and my collaborations with other researchers (which shows both that I can get along with my potential future colleagues, and that I might even be able to help them by working together on something.)

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Your Personality (V)

• Be careful not to come off as though you are a bossy or arrogant person though!

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• This sometimes happens when you are trying to demonstrate you work well with others, ironically!

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• One of my students wrote a self-intro where she included numerous cases where she worked with others… but they were all cases where the others made a problem by doing something wrong, and she solved it! That might read as “I think other people don’t know what they’re doing, and in groups, I make them follow my suggestions.”

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Your Personality (VI)

• The student in question isn’t actually like that at all, as far as I can tell! So this was a failure of informativity.

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• I think she wanted examples that made her look good (understandably). Try to find ways to look good together with others, though.

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• In general, avoid negativity, even towards ideas.

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Your Personality (VII)

• The student I mentioned before who opened their self-intro by critiquing common ideas in his field… yeah, don’t do that.

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• Rather, focus on what you are trying to add to the field.

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• Of course, you can mention some ideas are limited or have XYZ problems, but this should be in passing; your focus should be on what you did or want to do about it, not what others or “the field” does wrong.

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Your Personality (VIII)

• Negative Example: “Current theories of Korean scrambling are based off of inaccurate diagnostics. Though commonly used, these diagnostics rely on speaker judgements that are not robustly reproducible, and relatedly, are poorly controlled for interfering factors. My work attempts to correct these errors by using better diagnostics that do not suffer from these problems.”
• Positive: “My current work aims to improve the power of our diagnostics so we can make progress on the difficult theoretical problem of Korean scrambling. There are many challenges to this, including the difficulties of obtaining robustly reproducible results in the face of interfering factors that are hard to control. My work aims to address such issues through better understanding the nature of these interfering factors so that we might better devise ways to control them.”

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Your Personality (IX)

• The two statements on the previous page have essentially the same content.

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• The first one positions me against the field, which may wrongly suggest to readers I look down on or dislike other researchers.

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• The second one positions me as working within the field to try to make progress on a common problem. (Much more positive, and accurate!)

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Your Personality (X)

• Finally, avoid being negative about yourself!

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• You are not normally expected to assess your own weaknesses in a self-introduction.

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• Be careful about giving the wrong idea while trying to be humble, e.g., “I’m normally lazy but this one time I worked really hard” might sound like it’s focused on the hard work to you, but readers may focus on the “lazy” part.

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A Few Other Things

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Mentioning The Place (I)

• A common question: should you talk about the place/thing your applying for? And if so, how?

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• The answer depends on (a) how much space you have, and (b) what kind of application it is.

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• (b) can further be divided into: (b1) what you’re applying for, and (b2) what else is on the application.

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Mentioning The Place (II)

• (a) How much space you have, there’s not much to say here.

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• If you have on a tiny amount of space (X-hundred characters), then you probably can’t afford to say anything except the most important details about yourself.

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• At most, you can say “I think these qualities make me suited for your XYZ position” or something like that.

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Mentioning The Place (III)

• If you have longer, then mentioning more about the place becomes more possible.

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• Considering (b2) though, what else is on the application, sometimes, there are other statements which give you ample space to talk about why you’re applying for this.

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• In that case, you don’t have to make it a big focus of the self-introduction.

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Mentioning The Place (IV)

• Supposing that you do have enough space, but there’s no other statement where you get to talk about why you’re applying for this thing, then it’s harder question.

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• (b1), what kind of thing you’re applying for, becomes crucial here.

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• You have to ask yourself how important it is that they know the reason you’re applying to them specifically.

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Mentioning The Place (V)

• For example, in my case, if I apply to a tenure-track professor position in syntax, it’s rather obvious why I’m applying.

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• There are very few such jobs available, so the reason is “you posted a job, and I would like to have it!”

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• If there are specific ways I can fit into the department though, it would of course be helpful to mention them!

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Mentioning The Place (VI)

• On the other hand, when I applied to graduate school, it was very important to have a least some discussion of which professors I thought I could work with for my research.

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• Graduate schools really want to know this; graduate students have close relationships with their advisors, so even if someone is a great candidate otherwise, if there’s no faculty members they can work with, it would be really bad to recruit them.

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Mentioning The Place (VII)

• Note too that there are usually many graduate programs for a given subject. Thus, the question of “why this one” is quite salient.

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• In general, the more genuine specific connections you can establish between you and what you’re applying for, the better, since those are quite informative to reviewers.

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• Just writing a bunch of details about the organization to show you “did your research” though is not very helpful and probably uses up space you could use for better things.

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Linking Out (I)

• Speaking of (2b) “what else is on the application”, if there are other application documents, you should feel free to reference them in your self-introduction.

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• This can help you save space (since you can say that XYZ is discussed further in ABC document) and further, it can help inform readers of why they should read those documents. (Remember, they might *not* be reading all the documents of all the candidates.)

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Linking Out (II)

• You can also link to things outside the application, like a personal website, something you did that got published online, department news article that mentions you, etc.

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• Just make sure that anything you link to is specific to you; I would not link to general information about a topic, for example. (The readers presumably know how to use Google.)

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Conclusions (I)

• Finally: how should you end your self-introduction?

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• It really depends, but here are a few tips:

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• (A) Return to the theme you established in the opening and briefly summarize what you talked about.

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Conclusions (II)

• (B) Make a final statement of why you would be a good candidate for what you are applying for. (You can probably do this more substantially now, since you have shared many key details about yourself already.)

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• (c) Briefly mention some future plans/goals. You can do this elsewhere besides the conclusion, but it can be nice to end on a note of moving forward.

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Conclusions (III)

• (D) Of course, you can thank the reader for their consideration, if appropriate (namely, if the self-intro is serving as something like a “cover letter”)

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• Note that the conclusion comes at the end, so it is much less likely to be read than the opening. That being said, people do sometimes skip to the end, so it’s worth making sure your conclusion adds something new, rather than just repeating the opening.

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Conclusions (IV)

• In case it’s helpful, here is my conclusion from that same self-intro I gave the opening to. (It’s somewhat generic, but could be customized to specific places.)
• Overall, I am a researcher with a strong focus on data-driven investigation and the teaching thereof. I utilize state-of-the-art experimental techniques that engage with difficult questions that have ramifications both within and without the field of generative syntax. In particular, though I take care to demonstrate the significance of my work for specific syntactic theories, my work also evinces a consistent desire for those outside of syntax, or even outside of linguistics, to understand and appreciate the successful experimental replication of our predictions. My work has also focused on practical issues like teaching readers how to implement experiments and demonstrating relevant experimental principles in a straightforward way. Finally, I have a consistent record of teaching excellence and a strong desire and ability to train others in methods for both rigorous experimentation and prediction-driven theorizing. My focus and skills uniquely qualify me for your position, and I thank you for your consideration of my application.

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Conclusions (V)

• I won’t go through every part, but I will say that, most of the sentences are actually summarizing earlier paragraphs from the self-intro.

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• Unlike the opening, which was trying to encapsulate me, this conclusion is trying to encapsulate the self-intro, so that readers can be reminded what the main points discussed were.

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• This is also informative, since “helping people to remember” is an important part of “informing them”.

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Summary

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Key points (I)

• Self-introductions play a minor but not insignificant role in applications.

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• In this day and age, be careful not to get wrongly flagged for having an “AI generated self-introduction”

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• Try to focus on accurately informing the reader about what you bring to the table as a candidate, rather than trying to “impress them”.

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Key points (II)

• People might only read the first sentence(s) or paragraph(s) of your statement; put information in order of importance!

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• Make sure to tell inform readers about things specific to you, not things they already know or that are true of many candidates.

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• Focus on your accomplishments and qualifications; you have more than you think!

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Key points (III)

• Try to give at least one detailed “story” or “deep-dive” into some relevant experience/project.

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• Make sure that your personality is shown, and in an appropriate way.

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• Reframe negativity to not give the wrong impression about your attitude.

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Key points (IV)

• Suit the amount of details about why you are applying to the situation.

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• Feel free to refer to things outside the self-introduction that the readers can read/access.

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• Conclude in a way that helps to cement what readers just read.

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Break + Question Generation

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Further Rambling (If Needed)

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Possible Topics

• Understanding the implicit question(s) being asked.

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• The different “levels” at which you should write.

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• Similar documents, like cover letters, statements of purpose, “research statements”, etc.

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Thank You!

Feel free to contact me with further questions/requests. DHPlesniak@gmail.com

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