How to Write Great Essays

HOW TO WRITE GREAT ESSAYS
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your writing. Your goal is to give them the sense, through your writing skills, that you are
capable of a college workload, and have much to offer their school.
But remember that the essay is also referred to as a 
personal statement
. The most impor-
tant connection you can make is not between your reader and the intellectual argument
you present, but rather an emotional or personal connection with the content of your essay.
Simply put, a winning essay makes admissions directors like you.
SHOULD YOU USE HUMOR?
This is a tough question, and the simple answer is, probably not. A light-hearted, witty
tone is fine if it fits with your subject. But resist the urge to tell a wild and crazy story,
or to tell a straight story with jokes and puns thrown in. You don’t know your reader’s
sense of humor. If he or she doesn’t find it funny, you run the risk of looking foolish.
Unless you are known for your great sense of humor, keep your tone upbeat, but leave
out the jokes.
APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF FORMALITY
Your essay should strike a balance between formality and informality.You don’t want to sound
distant and stiff, like a college professor, but a slangy, highly informal tone is also inappro-
priate.Your voice should be another piece of personal information you share with the admis-
sions committee. Let your reader hear you, not your impressive vocabulary or your attempt
to sound like what you think they want to hear.
The balance you need to strike between formality and informality is simply the avoid-
ance of one extreme or another. You are not writing to your best friend, nor are you writ-
ing an academic essay. Review some of your journal entries. These are written in the voice
you want to use, with just the right level of formality.
CHECKLIST—FINDING THE APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF FORMALITY
Follow these guidelines to insure your tone is correct:
■
Avoid slang words and phrases unless you are deliberately trying to imitate
speech.
■
A few contractions (
I’m, don’t, who’d, shouldn’t
) can help your essay from
sounding too stiff.
■
Aim to sound like a 17 or 18 year old (i.e., yourself).
■
Don’t use five words when one will get the point across, or use words consid-
ered archaic or pretentious (
according to
, not 
as per
;
determine
, not 
ascertain
;
think about
, not 
cogitate
).

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