文书是留学申请中非常重要的一环，哈佛大学每年会在官网公布一些优秀文书的范例，并附上专业的点评。本文中整理了一篇文书的原文和点评，供大家参考～
文书原文
When I was ten, my dad told me we were moving to somewhere called "Eely-noise." The screen flashed blue as he scrolled through 6000 miles of water on Google Earth to find our new home. Swipe, swipe, swipe, and there it was: Illinois, as I later learned.
我十岁的时候，我爸跟我说我们要搬去一个叫“爱丽噪音”的地方当他在谷歌地球上穿越6000英里的水域寻找我们的新家时，屏幕上闪着蓝色的光。滑动，滑动，滑动，这就是我后来才知道的伊利诺斯州。
Moving to America was like going from freshwater into saltwater. Not only did my mom complain that American food was too salty, but I was helplessly caught in an estuary of languages, swept by daunting tides of tenses, articles, and homonyms. It’s not a surprise that I developed an intense, breathless kind of thirst for what I now realize is my voice and self-expression.
搬到美国就像从淡水到咸水。不仅我妈妈抱怨美国食物太咸，而且我也无助地陷入了语言的河口，被令人生畏的时态、冠词和同音异义词的浪潮所席卷。毫不奇怪，我对自己的声音和自我表达产生了一种强烈的、喘不过气来的渴望。
This made sense because the only background I had in English was “Konglish”--an unhealthy hybrid of Korean and English--and broken phrases I picked up from SpongeBob. As soon as I stepped into my first class in America, I realized the gravity of the situation: I had to resort to clumsy pantomimes, or what I euphemistically called body language, to convey the simplest messages. School became an unending game of pictionary.
这是有道理的，因为我唯一的英语背景是“韩式英语”——一种韩语和英语的不健康混合体——以及我从海绵宝宝那里学来的断断续续的短语。在美国上第一节课的时候，我就意识到情况的严重性：我不得不借助笨拙的哑剧，或者我委婉地称之为肢体语言，来传达最简单的信息。学校变成了一场没完没了的看图游戏。
Amid the dizzying pool of vowels and phonemes and idioms (why does spilling beans end friendships?), the only thing that made sense was pictures and diagrams. Necessarily, I soon became interested in biology as its textbook had the highest picture-to-text ratio. Although I didn’t understand all the ant-like captions, the colorful diagrams were enough to catch my illiterate attention: a green ball of chyme rolling down the digestive tract, the rotor of the ATP synthase spinning like a waterwheel. Biology drew me with its ELL-friendliness and never let go.
在令人眼花缭乱的元音、音素和习语（为什么洒豆子会结束友谊？）中，唯一有意义的是图片和图表。不可避免的是，我很快就对生物学产生了兴趣，因为它的教科书有最高的图文比例。虽然我看不懂所有类似蚂蚁的标题，但这些彩色的图表足以吸引我这个不识字的人的注意力：一个绿色的食糖球沿着消化道滚动，ATP合成酶的转子像水车一样旋转。生物以它的ell友好吸引着我，永不放手。
I later learned in biology that when a freshwater fish goes in saltwater, it osmoregulates--it drinks a lot of water and urinates less. This used to hold true for my school day, when I constantly chugged water to fill awkward silences and lubricate my tongue to form better vowels. This habit in turn became a test of English-speaking and bladder control: I constantly missed the timing to go to the bathroom by worrying about how to ask. The only times I could express myself were through my fingers, between the pages of Debussy and under my pencil tip. To fulfill my need for self-expression and communication, I took up classical music, visual art, and later, creative writing. To this day, I will never forget the ineffable excitement when I delivered a concerto, finished a sculpture, and found beautiful words that I could not pronounce. If biology helped me understand, art helped me be understood.
后来我在生物学上了解到，当淡水鱼进入咸水时，它会进行渗透调节——它会喝很多水，排尿少。我上学的时候也是这样，我不停地喝水来填补尴尬的沉默，润滑舌头，形成更好的元音。这个习惯反过来又成了对英语和膀胱控制能力的考验：我经常因为担心怎么开口而错过上厕所的时机。我唯一能表达自己的时候，是通过我的手指，在德彪西的书页之间，在我的笔尖下。为了满足自我表达和交流的需要，我学习了古典音乐、视觉艺术，后来又学习了创意写作。直到今天，我都不会忘记演奏协奏曲、完成雕塑、发现不会发音的优美词语时那种难以言喻的兴奋。如果说生物学帮助我理解，艺术则帮助我被理解。
There’s something human, empathetic, even redemptive about both art and biology. While they helped me reconcile with English and my new home, their power to connect and heal people is much bigger than my example alone. In college and beyond, I want to pay them forward, whether by dedicating myself to scientific research, performing in benefit concerts, or simply sharing the beauty of the arts. Sometimes, language feels slippery like fish on my tongue. But knowing that there are things that transcend language grounds and inspires me. English seeped into my tongue eventually, but I still pursue biology and arts with the same, perhaps universal, exigency and sincerity: to understand and to be understood.
艺术和生物学都有一些人性的、同理心的、甚至是救赎的东西。虽然他们帮助我适应英语和我的新家，但他们联系和治愈人们的力量比我一个人的榜样要大得多。在大学及以后的日子里，我想要回报他们，无论是致力于科学研究，在慈善音乐会演出，还是仅仅分享艺术之美。有时候，语言在我的舌头上就像鱼一样滑。但知道有超越语言界限的东西激励着我。英语最终渗透进了我的舌头，但我仍然以同样的，也许是普遍的，迫切和真诚追求生物和艺术：理解和被理解。
Over the years, I have come to acknowledge and adore my inner fish, that confused, tongue-twisted and home-sick ELL kid from the other side of the world, which will forever coexist within me. And I’ve forgiven English, although I still can’t pronounce words like “rural,” because it gifted me with new passions to look forward to every day. Now, when I see kids with the same breathless look that I used to have gasping for home water, Don’t worry, I want to tell them.
You’ll find your water.
多年来，我开始承认并崇拜我内心的鱼，那个来自世界另一端的困惑、舌头扭曲、思乡的ELL孩子，它将永远在我体内共存。我原谅了英语，尽管我仍然不会发“农村”这样的音，因为它给了我新的激情，让我每天都充满期待。现在，当我看到孩子们和我以前一样气喘吁吁地想要家里的水时，别担心，我想告诉他们。
你会找到你的水。
文章整理自哈佛官网，作者为Michelle
https://www.thecrimson.com/topic/sponsored-successful-harvard-essays-2024/
专业文书点评
Michelle’s essay offers the reader a picturesque and witty journey through their immigrant experience of adapting to their new life in Illinois (Eely-noise!). While some immigrant experience essays can come across as predictable, Michelle deftly crafts an extended metaphor using the idiom of a “fish out of water” to connect their passions for both biology and art with their evolving struggle to master English. The uniqueness comes in the candid and often humorous depictions of Michelle’s everyday struggles with language, from initially resorting to “clumsy pantomimes” to signal an intent to go to the bathroom to their “ineffable excitement” at finding beautiful new words to express themselves, showcasing Michelle’s eventual growth into an articulate writer in full command of the English language.
米歇尔的文章通过他们在伊利诺伊州适应新生活的移民经历，为读者提供了一段风景如画、诙谐幽默的旅程。虽然一些移民经历的文章可能会被认为是意料之中的，但米歇尔巧妙地运用了一个扩展的比喻，用“离开水的鱼”这个成语，将他们对生物和艺术的热情与他们不断努力掌握英语联系起来。这本书的独特之处在于，书中坦率而幽默地描绘了米歇尔每天在语言上的挣扎，从最初用“笨拙的哑剧”来表示要去洗手间的意思，到他们在寻找漂亮的新词来表达自己时“难以形容的兴奋”，展示了米歇尔最终成长为一个完全掌握英语的口才清晰的作家。
Michelle’s diverse passions, ranging from music, to art, to biology, are on full display in this essay, but what’s most impressive is Michelle’s nuanced and introspective journaling of adapting to American life and culture. It’s evident that Michelle genuinely loves writing and relishes finding the right words to convey their thoughts, showcasing their tenacity and love of learning. Michelle’s sincere exuberance for growing as a writer and artist shines throughout this essay, with a warmth and humor that’s infectious.
从音乐到艺术，再到生物，米歇尔的各种激情在这篇文章中得到了充分的展示，但最令人印象深刻的是米歇尔适应美国生活和文化的细致入微和内省的日记。很明显，Michelle真的很喜欢写作，喜欢用合适的语言来表达他们的想法，展示了他们的坚韧和对学习的热爱。作为一名作家和艺术家，米歇尔对成长的真诚热情贯穿于整篇文章，充满了温暖和幽默，具有感染力。
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