Language Tips for Writing Essays
Essays play a key role in ensuring you secure admission to your dream college. It is your chance to let the admission officers know why you deserve to be in their institute. So, do not throw this opportunity away by making silly errors and taking unwanted risks. Here are some language tips for you to make sure you write an impeccable essay!
- Careful use of humor –Be careful about how you use humor. It is an official document so keep jokes on risky topics at bay. But this doesn’t mean that you should take yourself too seriously. It all goes back to your ability to honestly reflect your individuality.
- Watch your tone – You should sound excited about the school, but don’t only focus on the brand and reputation. Your excitement should be evident from your knowledge about the institute, the program it offers, how you plan on seizing each opportunity, etc. Visiting the campus or speaking with alumni will help you with this.
- Write naturally but succinctly – Use simple sentence structure and everyday vocabulary (if large words are used incorrectly, the applicant may sound pretentious). Rather than focusing on fancy instructions, quickly make your point, and use relevant examples to back it up.
- Make sure that your grammar and punctuation is PERFECT – Make sure that you carefully proofread your essay, especially given the multiple edits it is going/has gone through. Make sure that your paragraphs are separated so that it is easier to read your essay. DO NOT BE CARELESS. Students often write the wrong school name on their application essays. This is why we often advise students to write and save unique application essays for each school.
- Read it out loud-To ensure that your essays sound as powerful as you intend them to be, read them out loud to yourself. You will catch any spelling and punctuation errors by hearing what you are trying to say, and as a result, you will improve the sentence flow and tone as well.
- Use the active voice – Use the active voice, as the passive voice is highly impersonal and makes the essay almost unreadable (it is too technical and verbose). Keep the verbs in the essay both simple and active. Example of active and passive voice statements:
Active Voice: The chicken crossed the street
Passive Voice: The street was crossed by the chicken - Do not plagiarize – Use your language and DO NOT lift content from existing published materials. If you take content/material from existing content, it needs to be in quotation marks, and paraphrased content needs to be cited.
- You should sound your age throughout the essay – The essay should read with the tone and voice that is at the expected level of maturity for a person who is your age. The tone and voice should be yours.
Follow these points carefully to make sure you submit the perfect essay. To give you a taste of what essay questions might look like, here are some of the toughest questions that have been asked by universities – Top 10 Tough Essay Questions in College Applications That Stumped Students
The article has been written by Grishma Nanavaty, Lead Counsellor, ReachIvy.
Grishma Nanavaty has completed her MBA from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Warwick, having done her GCSE’s and A-Levels in Hong Kong.
ReachIvy offers college essay editing services for aspiring students and helps reach top tier educational institutions globally.
ReachIvy sincerely hopes that this article serves as a critical tool to increase your knowledge base. For study abroad consultation or career counselling with ReachIvy, Submit a Query now! Also, review our resources section to access our free premium content..
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