Book V Getting The Internship You Want: How to write APPIC essays that get you noticed . . . without completely losing your sanity (Strategies for Overcoming Writer's Block to Produce Excellent Writing)
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The document is a guide by Dr. John T. Carlsen on how to effectively write APPIC essays for internship applications, emphasizing the importance of presenting oneself authentically and persuasively. It highlights common challenges like writer's block and provides strategies to overcome these obstacles by generating ideas and refining drafts. The author encourages applicants to embrace the writing process and manage anxiety, as well as to focus on showcasing their unique qualifications and personal philosophy in their essays.
Book V Getting The Internship You Want: How to write APPIC essays that get you noticed . . . without completely losing your sanity (Strategies for Overcoming Writer's Block to Produce Excellent Writing)
- 1. Getting the Internship You Want: How to write APPIC essays that get you noticed . . . without completely losing your sanity Dr. John T. Carlsen Your Internship Coach Book V: Sharpening Your Writing Tools to Overcome Writer’s Block and Produce Excellent Writing
- 2. Copyright © 2008, 2011 John T. Carlsen, Psy.D. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. EXCEPT FOR USE IN A REVIEW, THE REPRODUCTION OR USE OF THIS WORK IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC, MECHANICAL, OR OTHER MEANS, NOW KNOWN OR HEREAFTER INVENTED, INCLUDING PHOTOCOPYING, RECORDING, AND IN ANY INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM IS FORBIDDEN WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE WRITER AND PUBLISHER PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FOR ORDERING INFORMATION, CONTACT: John T. Carlsen, Psy.D. (773) 975-4297 [email protected] www.PDI-online.com
- 3. Chapter I: Prepare to Write Thoughtful, Comprehensive Model Essays The APPI essays are the part of your application packet in which you present yourself as the person behind your professional role. Aside from the total number of experiences you have had, these essays provide you the chance to set yourself apart from your competitors. Often, selection committees start by simply reading these responses for an introduction to who you are. So, be sure to spend enough time thinking about them to make the best first impression you can. Think about your philosophy as a therapist, your values about being part of a helping profession, the people and experiences that have shaped your career goals. You will save yourself a significant amount of time if you start by writing a M odel Essay for each of the four required essays and worry about customizing them to each site later: You will avoid writing each essay for each site, and you will have more time to think about how to match your particular qualifications with the needs of each individual internship program. Remember that, to write a comprehensive but brief response, it is easier to start by writing a longer draft that enables you to cover the material fully. Then, you can revise and edit what you have written, condensing your sentences and fitting them into the number of words allowed for each essay. Also, realize that writing your applications might represent “. . . the secret to writing persuasive your first experience of putting applications is identifying your your thoughts about internship and your career plans into unique personal qualities and words. Before now, you might professional qualifications and never before have taken the finding ways to present the time to answer questions such as these in detail. So, avoid the persuasively.” tendency to believe that you have to articulate your responses perfectly the first time or to believe that you must fit your responses into the allotted number of words. Instead, allow yourself enough time to refine and polish your essays until they say exactly what you want to say. With each essay, you have two main goals: Copyright © 2008 by Dr. John T. Carlsen. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.
- 4. 2 CHAPTER I: Prepare to Write Comprehensive Model Essays 1. You want to present the very best qualifications, both personal and professional, you have to offer as an applicant. Remember that your personal and professional sense of self will evolve and change continually. 2. You want to present your qualifications in such a way that you stimulate selection committee members’ curiosity about you - so they have to schedule an interview to learn more about you. You do not want them to base their selection decision only on your written materials. Also, do not think that what you say in these responses must be permanently true about you. Over time, as you finish your training and move into the profession, your philosophy and goals will probably change dramatically. In fact, it would be surprising if they did not change, given the intense experiences you will have. As stated previously, the secret to writing persuasive applications is: identifying your unique personal qualities and professional qualifications and finding w ays to present them persuasively. A central assumption in this manual is that you will continue revising and editing your rough drafts - making several versions - until you arrive at final drafts that convey your most important qualifications in clear, concise, and understandable sentences. Try not to feel overwhelmed by the amount of material you generate with your brainstorming exercises at the beginning of the writing process. The more material you have to choose from in writing your documents, the greater your chances of uncovering your best and being able to highlight it. Copyright © 2008 by Dr. John T. Carlsen. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.
- 5. CHAPTER I: Prepare to Write Comprehensive Model Essays 3 Overcome Your Writer's Block Before you become too involved in writing your applications, you might want to pause for this review of the writing process and learn to make the most of your writing sessions. Whenever writers need to write important material under pressure, they run the risk of hitting writer's block. What is writer’s block? It is simply the writer's version of creative panic. If you are struggling with writer’s block, you might, as you sit down to write, initially find yourself staring at the blank computer screen or a piece of paper for several minutes...or even several hours. As you continue this visual fixation, many of your greatest fears might begin to rise to the surface. You hear yourself asking: "W hat if I have nothing to say...or, at least, nothing w orth saying? “W hat if no one understands w hat I’m trying to say?" "W hat if no one takes me seriously?" "W hat if I m ake mistakes in gram m ar or punctuation?" "W hat if I com e across looking naive or foolish?" Whether or not they are true, each of these fears can raise doubts about your existing abilities and your levels of competence. And, unless you find ways to face them directly and work through them, these fears can even hamper your success throughout the entire application process. How Writer’s Block Stops You Cold and Keeps You From Getting Started Your fear of looking bad to others might prevent you from even sitting down to start writing your first thoughts. It may keep you from recognizing - and challenging - your hidden expectations that you can write something perfectly, the first time. Finally, it might convince you that your rough drafts will never reach the level of quality you expect in your final copies. To cope successfully with writer's block, therefore, you must begin to identify - and work hard to counteract - the ways it manifests in your individual circumstances. Typically, writer's block generally emerges in one of a few different forms. The first Copyright © 2008 by Dr. John T. Carlsen. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.
- 6. 4 CHAPTER I: Prepare to Write Comprehensive Model Essays appears when you have the overall feeling that you have nothing to say and wind up staring at a blank computer screen or piece of paper for several minutes, unable to make your fingers type or put your pen on the paper. You might get up from the chair and pace, turn on the television or radio, or find some other distracting activity to fill your boredom. A second form of writer's block appears when you k now internally that you have a great deal to say, yet cannot even get the first words out. Frequently, this kind of writer’s block reflects a strongly-developed, but unconscious, attitude of perfectionism: It leads you to believe that you m ust to start out with exactly the right sentence before your can allow the rest of your thoughts to begin flowing across the page. You might find yourself going over and over the sam e sentence - refining it, rearranging it, crossing it out and starting over completely, tearing off sheet after sheet of paper, or opening one new document after another. Yet, despite your best efforts, you cannot move beyond the first sentence or two to write the rest of your draft. In his classic book, The Courage to Create, noted psychologist and author “Whenever you try to create Dr. Rollo May explains the psychological experiences of fear and terror that often something out of nothing, lie deep within the unconscious of our some of your most basic, writer’s mind, especially at the beginning long-standing fears are likely of the creative process. He says that, to appear.” w henever you try to create something out of nothing, some of your most basic, long-standing fears are likely to appear. Notice, as you begin and continue the process of writing your applications, how this occurs in your experience or writing. For example, you might discover: 1. The fear that what you create will appear to others as inadequate, 2. The fear that you will say something m eaningless or em barrassing, or 3. The fear that others will see you for the trainee you actually are, rather than the one you profess to be. Dr. May says that fears such as these might prevent you from starting the creative process at all. Or, cause you to become lost in an relentless editorial loop that keeps you from moving forward and completing this task. You are not, how ever, alone in this fear. Copyright © 2008 by Dr. John T. Carlsen. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.
- 7. CHAPTER I: Prepare to Write Comprehensive Model Essays 5 Visual and performing artists often experience a similar version of these fears. Painters often stare at a blank canvas for days on end before daring to touch it with a paintbrush or drawing pencil. Actors, directors, and set designers frequently stare at an empty stage for a long period of time, unable to imagine what kinds of scenes and backdrops they would like to create. Depending upon your previous success with facing these fears, your typical response might be to give into them completely - and simply allow yourself to procrastinate or perseverant in one part of your creative process. Throughout high school and college, you might have taught yourself to wait until the last possible minute - and “pull an all-nighter”. During those days of youth, you might even have been able to produce acceptable work - while surviving on minimal sleep and inadequate nutrition. But, like it or not, those days are gone. You cannot, unfortunately, afford to take this approach to applying for internship. You have reached the doctoral level of training, so selection committees have much higher expectations of how you will present yourself and what you will say. More importantly, you are clearly competing against many experienced and highly- qualified applicants. So, you can no longer take the chances associated with this long-standing habit: The consequences are, sim ply, too severe. Unlike the relative unimportance of any single essay or research paper, the contents of your internship applications heavily influence - and largely determ ine - whether or not you receive interviews at your chosen sites. So, they basically determine your chances of receiving the internship training you want and need. Actually, the process of writing your internship applications offers you several chances to begin addressing these unconscious fears more directly: Because you will be engaged in this writing process over several weeks, you will have numerous opportunities to recognize, and begin changing, your existing writing habits. Given the depth of this process, you might even start making significant progress in overcoming your writer’s block. If you, typically, ignore these fears and give into avoidance, you will certainly benefit from learning to recognize them when they appear. Develop Strategies for Blasting Through Writer’s Block Copyright © 2008 by Dr. John T. Carlsen. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.
- 8. 6 CHAPTER I: Prepare to Write Comprehensive Model Essays To prevent writer’s block, you can stop to think carefully about your writing style and plan a strategy that allows your thoughts to flow smoothly onto the paper or the computer screen. First, start recognizing that the entire process of w riting TECHNIQUES TO SPARK YOUR CREATIVITY actually does ex cite your AND HELP YOU OVERCOME WRITER'S BLOCK greatest fears and ex pose our deepest vulnerabilities. 1. Jot down your first thoughts and rough out an And, this reality will never overall writing plan when you look at your internship applications and before you become change: Each time you sit too involved in reading them in depth. Allow down to write, you are your first ideas to emerge before allowing involved in an act of creation. them to be influenced by what you read. Each time you put your 2. Outline your main ideas and break them down thoughts into words, you are logically into sub-ideas and details using a bringing something into Roman numeral outline. Organize the details existence that did not exist under each main idea to keep them organized. before. 3. Carry a pad of paper with you at all times so you can jot down ideas that occur to you when Therefore, you need to find you are not involved in the writing process. ways to reduce your Creativity works best when we allow it to vulnerability throughout the happen spontaneously rather than trying to entire creative process so you force it. can complete your applications. 4. If something on your mind or in your heart One of the most effective keeps your attention, write it in a journal - solutions comes from planning promise yourself that you will return to it later adequate time for writing and and deal with it more directly. This will free editing your rough drafts. This your mind from your emotions to concentrate m eans you m ust get started on the task at hand. as soon as possible. Second, start recognizing and acknowledging that, when you feel so vulnerable, you will also probably feel more anxious. And, you might attempt to cope with the anxiety by becoming self-critical. You might even begin to believe that you can avoid the criticism of others by criticizing yourself first. Unfortunately, you might criticize yourself when you feel particularly vulnerable in this creative process. So, practice using m ore positive internal self-talk . That is, consciously change the words you use internally in evaluating your performance as you move along. Copyright © 2008 by Dr. John T. Carlsen. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.
- 9. CHAPTER I: Prepare to Write Comprehensive Model Essays 7 Third, remember that the importance of writing competitive internship applications might intensify your existing anxieties. The emphasis that professors, training directors, supervisors, and classmates have placed on finding a good internship right away might lead you to believe that you must achieve perfection in writing your applications. As if writing were not already an extremely vulnerable process of revealing your fragile thoughts! Promoting your qualifications to several groups of unseen strangers can make the experience of writing even m ore challenging. In summary, remember that any tim e you have to w rite under pressure - especially w hen the stak es are as high as they are for internship applicants - you can anticipate ex periencing w riter’s block . Knowing this ahead of time can help you gain control and manage your own particular kinds of writing obstacles. In other words, learning to combine self-discipline and self-care can help you manage your anxiety and learn to prevent feelings of being overwhelmed The following sections will help you gain a clearer understanding of the writing and editing processes. They will also help you to identify your own writing style. Combining this knowledge of the writing/editing processes with your individual writing style will help you learn to work through - and overcome - the obstacles of writer’s block. Copyright © 2008 by Dr. John T. Carlsen. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.
- 10. Getting the Internship You Get the full book W ant: (or the entire set) at: The How to write APPIC essays Internship Resource that get you noticed . . . without Center Store completely losing your sanity Dr. John T. Carlsen Your Internship Coach Book V: Sharpening Your Writing Tools to Overcome Writer’s Block and Produce Excellent Writing About the book Finally, for a generation of doctoral students who are dedicated to becoming highly- competent psychologists but facing unprecedented competition for internship positions comes Getting the Internship You Want, Dr. John T. Carlsen’s proven approach to distinguishing yourself from your fellow applicants. A completely practical approach to marketing your qualifications that not only tells you what to do, but also shows you how to do it.