A Good College Essay: Do’s and Dont’s
Thursday, October 14th, 2010Keys to successful college essays
When applying to colleges, you will probably be asked to submit a college essay as part of your application. This is a very common method of evaluation in colleges and universities for selecting their applicants. Admission essays can be based on your own experience as well as objective information: for example, a a definition essay, in where you explain what do you understand from a certain abstract concept, such as “democracy” or “wealth”.
Writing college essays can be harder than it sounds. Especially if you have never written one before. Have you considered how are you going to organize your work? Here we will show you what to do and what not to do, so you can avoid some common mistakes.
Do’s
– Plan your essay: An essay plan, a sketch or a first version of the paper will help you success in the following versions. It is very important that you organize your essay, by thinking of an essay introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. That will help you when you find yourself in front of the blank page, and you feel that awful writer’s block. Use titles and subtitles and an index for longer papers, they will make your essay easily readable.
– Choose a hypothesis: Certain kind of essay needs a hypothesis for a proper development. For example, if you write a research essay, you need to establish in the introduction what do you expect to find in your research, and then check with the actual results, whether your hypothesis is plausible or needs to be reformulated.
– Quote many different authors: It is very important that you expand your sources, and do not constrain to just a couple of authors. Include as many texts, documents and testimonies, as you can in your college essay. That way, you’ll show the examiner your commitment to your investigation. Of course, always quote the used bibliography and reference the essay appropriately.
Dont’s
– Never submit your essay without having it proofread: You can’t be too careful when it comes to your spelling and grammar. Even though this kind of mistake is quite rare -since many college essays are written using a text processor that corrects them automatically- you should consider hiring an editing and proofreading service. Because even the best software can confuse “you’re” with “your” or “expensive” with “expansive”.
– Don’t ignore the requested essay word count: If you are asked to write 1000 words, you may as well write 980, or 1100. However, submitting a 2500 words paper would be as wrong as submitting a 200. Always match the examiner expectations. After all, he or she is the one with the power to welcome you into college… or to refuse you admission for good.
If you need some help writing your college essay, or you need an editing and proofreading service, remember you can always count with our team of professional writers.
