Many deadlines are fast approaching. If you haven't taken my advice and at least finished your application essay, you had best work in earnest to do so now. In the words of the great philosopher, Larry, the Cable guy, "Get 'er done!".
I've often written about a favorite website, englishclub.com. It provides invaluable help with all types of writing and gives a complete tutorial on how to go about writing the college application essay. Just type the underlined phrase in the search box and you'll find a step by step approach to the process.
Another excellent resource is a book that I've use and recommended for over 20 years. Writer's Inc.: Student Handbook Writing and Learning, published by Houghton-Mifflin is a great reference for writing and revision, sentence construction, grammar, punctuation usage and all that other stuff you need to know to write well. (Like knowing that you use adverbs to modify verbs).
So, what should you use all this well placed verbiage to actually say? Lacy Crawford wrote a novel, Early Decision: Based on a True Frenzy.
In an article she wrote for the Wall Street Journal, she states that when she was a
college applications adviser, her students would ask her what they should write. She would answer,
You are a student of the world. What is it that moves you? What incites you,
enrages you? The first-person pronoun is a might tool. Use it. I have had successful
students write about the virtues of napping (Middlebury), failing a course (Harvard),
and having to shoot a farm dog because it couldn't work stock (Princeton).
...tell a story in your own voice. Speak an opinion with care and focus. Claim that "I"
and write the hell out of it.
I couldn't have written it better myself!
This will be the last post of 2013. I will resume on January 8, 2014. Thank you for your continues interest in my blog. Have a wonderful holiday season!
