One of the worst things about being a writer is dealing with people who help themselves to words like 'passionate' while seeming to have no grasp of what even tepid interest would look like - there's something about statements claiming passion, enthusiasm and so on that seems to undermine the claim. What comes across as genuine is something I see in the writing of Michael Lewis and Edward Tufte (in almost every other respect so radically different): both have a capacity to be OUTRAGED by stupidity (Tufte, famously, coined the term 'chartjunk' for a raft of deplorable design practices), and both exult in examples of ingenuity and intelligence (Lewis on the career of Bill James, the development of Bill Walsh's passing game has the capacity to enthrall someone (me) with zero interest not only in baseball and football but all forms of organised sport). I don't actually know whether this approach would work in an application (maybe the kind of people who expect passion to be displayed by 'I' statements would find it lacklustre, while those put off by such statements of affect would consider this equally unprofessional). I suppose it *might* stand out if no one in either camp is doing it.
One of the worst things about being a writer is dealing with people who help themselves to words like 'passionate' while seeming to have no grasp of what even tepid interest would look like - there's something about statements claiming passion, enthusiasm and so on that seems to undermine the claim. What comes across as genuine is something I see in the writing of Michael Lewis and Edward Tufte (in almost every other respect so radically different): both have a capacity to be OUTRAGED by stupidity (Tufte, famously, coined the term 'chartjunk' for a raft of deplorable design practices), and both exult in examples of ingenuity and intelligence (Lewis on the career of Bill James, the development of Bill Walsh's passing game has the capacity to enthrall someone (me) with zero interest not only in baseball and football but all forms of organised sport). I don't actually know whether this approach would work in an application (maybe the kind of people who expect passion to be displayed by 'I' statements would find it lacklustre, while those put off by such statements of affect would consider this equally unprofessional). I suppose it *might* stand out if no one in either camp is doing it.
But of course I would be exasperated and infuriated to get such conflicting advice on applications.