What tone to use in the personal statement? The guide in Berkeley states:


  The personal statement should give concrete evidence of your promise as a member of the academic community, giving the committee an image of you as a person.


So what tone should I use here? If as a person is as yourself, then is it better to use informal voice, like writing in a blog? Or should I keep the formal voice as most statements require you to be professional?
I guess that the guide encourages applicants to not hide behind a neutral tone. You should "be yourself" and write in the way you normally talk to people in the workplace. 

You may consider reading your personal statement (or asking someone to read it), and then try to assess the tone and imagine how you could describe a person who wrote it. Can you say something about the author which is not already explicitly mentioned in the text? If you can not see a specific tone and can not guess anything beyond what is already written, then the personal statement is probably too neutral.