Posts Tagged essays
Five Ways to Instantly Improve Your College Application Essay
You’ve written your college application essay, shown it to parents, friends, teachers, even that neighbor down the block who once worked on the television show, Full House. Everyone’s signed off, told you it’s great. And yet, you wonder, are there any ways I can still improve it? Here are five of them.
1. Read the essay out loud.
This technique is extremely valuable and yet, unfortunately, often ignored. But reading the essay aloud will usually reveal flaws that you tend to overlook on the 400th time you’ve read it to yourself. Another variation here: Get someone else to read it to you and take notes as they do.
2. Punch up your opening
Shorten, tighten, do anything you can to get the reader asking a question that he or she knows will be answered in the body of the essay. Use strong, provocative statements, interesting quotes (real or imagined), crazy statistics, whatever works to pull the reader into your essay. The opening of your essay is like the springboard that gymnasts use in the vaulting event. If you hit it just right, it can carry you to the gold.
3. Change words that are repeated too often.
In tutoring students on their college application essays, I am often amazed how many times a student will use the same word, even within the same sentence. This lack of variety gives the essay a dullness that can be easily overcome by carefully identifying those words and substituting others. Use your naked eye or the Find command in MS Word, and once you locate the repeated words, replace them with a lively, vivid synonym.
4. Be sure your sentence structure is varied.
This is basic but again, often ignored. As you read through your essay, carefully note the sentence structure of each consecutive sentence, and make sure that you vary that structure from sentence to sentence.
5. Be aware of digressions
To guarantee that the meaning of your essay is clear, eliminate any point or information that doesn’t support your main theme, even if it is interesting on its own. As the essay evolves, statements that fit into the first draft will often be out of place on the fifth. Make sure that you haven’t held onto any of those statements, simply because you’re used to them or they sound good. Be ruthless!
The difference between a good essay and a truly terrific one is often how hard the writer wants to work at it. Maximize the potential of your essay, and your chances for admission, by employing these five techniques to every essay you write.
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Essays About the Presidential Election in Admissions
I’ve had a few people ask me whether they should write about the Presidential election and how it is has shaped their lives. The answer is: if you can do it effectively without it being too clichéd, then yes – it can be an acceptable topic. All too often, however, students let the election season take over their college applications- writing fervently for either Obama or McCain without any substance; they forget to come up with a solid theme about themselves. Don’t fall victim to such poor writing.
Writing an essay, whether it be for prep school, college or graduate admissions, requires students take an inimitable approach. You must write with clarity, consistency and care.
For example, the following essay is a sample of bad writing on the election:
“I’m supporting ______ candidate because we need change. Change is a good thing for America. Just look at the last 8 years; when I was in middle school students and teachers thought we were heading in the right direction.”
Why does this essay start off bad? Well, for one, it is about a concept, i.e. “Change,” which can be difficult to bring down to a tangible level where the audience can see how it has shaped your life. Instead, start broadly and narrow the concept into a form where the reader/audience knows where you’re heading with the topic. Further, supplement any political writing with solid examples of your participation in the election process.
Here’s an example of a better essay with more substance:
“Having volunteered in a local phone drive for __________ candidate, I have heard the voices of people desiring change; I want to be part of this change. I took part in the electoral process because I feel our government is too large and our individual voices are all too often drowned out by special interests and lobbyists.”
These two parallel examples – one bad, one good- hopefully clarify the essay topic of the Presidential election or any election for that matter. If you have volunteered before or been an active part of any local, state or federal campaign, tell the admissions office, be specific and bring any abstract topic such as change down to a manageable level. You don’t want to sound clichéd like many political ads airing across the nation. Bring substance, candor and care to your essay and you’re bound to connect more with your audience.
Hope that helps…
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Effective Ways Of Writing A Good Essay
There must have been many times during your childhood days or even in the college when you would have come out of the class room with a sad face, gloomy mood and a mark sheet in hand which says that you have scored well in other subjects, but for essay writing you have got really less marks. And because of this your percentage has gone down considerably. This is one of the most common situations faced by the students who are either weak in academics or somehow not aware of the tricks of essay writing. Even today exists a group of people who think that essay writing is the easiest part of any educational program and what you need to do there, is to just go on writing whatever and wherever you feel like writing anything that comes in your mind. Thus to all those people, it should be very much clear that this is an absolute myth far from reality and whoever indulges into this is just committing a blunder. Moreover they should also be aware of the fact that essay writing is one of the trickiest forms of writing in this world and involves a lot of research and analysis. Apart from this, it should also be known that essay is just a broad category and within this, there are many types of essays and each of them have a different type of pattern. Like academic essay writing, persuasive essay writing, college application essay writing and many others too.
Therefore, if you are a person who is confused about essay writing, then it is recommended to you all that, before you start writing any essay, go through the instruction. Follow and try to understand it and only then jump into writing it. And moreover if you are interested in knowing in detail about essays, then refer to some good academic book. If you want to know how to write a college application essay or about argumentative essay topics, then you can also refer to a good website like WritingBest, which will explain you in detail about the minutest detail and difference in different types of essay. Apart from these, websites like WritingBest will also present you with some of the samples of the finest written essays on a wide variety of topics of human concern. This will not only make facts clear in front of you but will also make you understand in a detailed manner.
You can also refer to WritingBest for getting essay writing services on various topics or for knowing topics like argumentative essay topics etc. The above mentioned website is known all over the world for its world class and premium essay writing service and moreover it also offers custom essays on 100s of topics of human concern and human interest. Some of the topics widely covered by WritingBest are Consumer Psychology Essay, Victorian Architects Essay, Essay on Honore de Balzac, The Purpose of Genetic Engineering Essay, Essay on Transgenic Plants, Controversy over Stem Cell Research Essay, Essay on Organ and Tissue Transplantation and Donation, Human Experimentation Essay, Essay on The Decline of Leisure, Depression and Suicide in Adolescence Essay, Essay on Alfred Kinsey’s Works on Sexual Behavior, Art and Authenticity Essay, Essay on Robert Burns etc and on a wide range of other topics too.
Therefore, either you want to know more about how to write an essay, or you want some essay writing services or even if you want to go through some sample essays, then just refer to WritingBest and all your requirements will be fulfilled as soon as possible.
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