Get your free advertising on Radio4

Get your free advertising on Radio4

Yesterday (Sunday 21 August) I caught a few minutes of a documentary on Radio4 called ‘How to Write a Personal Statement’. It covers the importance of a personal statement when applying for university, and how a good one should demonstrate abilities and help win you a place.

At present it is still available to listen to on Iplayer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013fmcn

As luck would have it, I turned the wireless set on when personal statement writing services were discussed. Of course this means paying an agency to get someone to write your statement for you. The position of the documentary was that this is less than moral. After reading out a handy price list, they interviewed a spokesperson for such an agency. This spokesperson defended in the indefensible by mentioning that their ghost-written statements are merely examples intended to guide the student. Yeah, right.

But taking a step back, I am sure the agency is delighted how things went. Yes they were put in a bad light on Radio4, but disapproving listeners would not consider using them anyway. However I am sure there were a few listeners to the programme who will go on to take up their services, or pass on the agency’s name to someone who might.

You will of course have noticed that we are not using the agency’s name – they have had more than enough promotion.

Just to clarify, writing personal statements is not something we would do at http://www.technicalwriter.org.uk/ – because we are cursed with a moral compass (oh sometimes I wish we were free of it). We do proof read academic work, but the student must always issue us with the work to proofread/edit. We have been asked to write academic coursework on behalf of a student, but we refused.