Moving your readers is essential if you are to get the admission officers attention.

I think it is true to say that those UCAS personal statements which evoke emotion are normally the ones that get through to acceptance.

A successful student one said to me "A reader loves to feel emotion" I think she was right - but we don't want to depress our admissions officer. To quote one of the most famous writers of all time, Catherine Cookson, "The aim of the writer should be to touch the heart of the reader."

In her autobiography, Our Kate, she told of growing up as the illegitimate ( now out of date!) child of an alcoholic mother whom she thought was her sister, a story which moved any reader. Recalling some of the most riveting pieces read out by my students in my english classes, I asked myself what do they all have in common?

The UCAS personal statements all demonstrated them in the best possible light and everyone enjoyed listening to life accounts.

If the readers like to hear the personal statement, you know then, you have a wining combination.