Help Writing Essays

You can't avoid them, well you can, but I'm not sure how far you'll get in college like that.

College essays are the root of all that is stressful in college.  We all have to do them and it isn't the most entertaining aspect of college.  The majority of students hate writing papers and it isn't that hard to understand why.

I found a list of tools to help you get that pesky paper done.
Check it out!




1. Research - When writing a paper, you should always and I mean always, research the topic you are writing on.  If you don't know exactly what you're writing about your paper will sound like garbage, and the grade will easily reflect that.

2.Outline - This has always proven to be the best strategy when writing a paper.  If you sit down and write an outline you'll know what to write next.  There's nothing worse than writers block.  You know the point where you're staring at the screen thinking, "What in the world do I type next?".  If you have an outline, you'll know where to go next.

3.Paragraphs- Look at a paragraph as a chance to start a new thought.  Rambling isn't good when writing a paper, so if you can minimize the nonsense you can make it easier on yourself to focus on the key points.

4.Grammar- This might be the hardest thing for many people when writing a paper but it can be avoided.  When writing a paper many students make grammatical errors.  Losing points on a paper for misspelled words is avoidable.  Here's a website that can help you check your grammar, Bookmark it!!  Grammarly

5.Format- Whether it's MLA or APA, knowing which specific format you need is crucial to getting a good grade, If you don't know which is which, click the links below.

APA              OR            MLA


Now run college students, go write your wonderful college papers!!

A bit cheesy ending huh?


Catch you next time,


L.U.J

Creating a Self: The Facts of Fiction

The reasons many colleges give for requiring essays include getting to know more about the student, giving him or her a chance to explain something in the record, or providing a writing sample. Fair enough, but do they have to be Ӏtrue?Ԁ More than one student has asked me, "Is it OK to write an essay that isn't factually accurate as long as it's good?" Answering questions like "What is your most significant experience?" or "What person, real or fictional, has had a major influence on your life and why?" or "Topic of your choice" tend to frazzle students attempting to impress the mysterious admission Inquisitors they imagine gathering in dank basements to determine their futures. TheyҀre not talking about lying, exactly, but the bare-bones facts donҀt quite do it, either.

As long as you aren't claiming club presidencies or social service you haven't really done, is there anything wrong with saying Thomas Jefferson is your most influential hero instead of Bono, your real hero? Is there a problem if you exaggerate an incident that "changed your life" even if it didn't so much, really, or if the situation was more mundane than you present it? I brought this topic to my NACAC colleagues recently to get their impressions and received a dozen or so responses.

Most of us, including me, opt for "honesty" and "truth," but those are slippery concepts when you're really asking someone to essentially create a character in 500 words or less. Asking a student to include subjective narratives about relatives, experiences, or outlooks in an application introduces an element that, no matter how it turns out, I'd have to call "fiction," with the ӀfactԀ being what lies beneath that essay.

Let's distinguish between "fiction" and "falsehood," and the purpose of the essay. One colleague wrote that "If the goal of an essay is for the student to provide insight about himself or herself, and if that insight is authentic, then maybe it doesn't matter if the person didn't exist or the experience never happened." We teach novels and short stories even though they aren't factually true because they reveal important "truths" about human existence. If it works for Hemingway and Oates and David Sedaris, why not for Sally or Billy in their applications? That whale wasnҀt just a whale, was it?

Some said that it was important to hear the applicants' authentic "voice" and that it wouldn't come out in a "fictional" essay. But we hear and value authors' "voices" constantly in fiction. Even when they're not writing about themselves, they are by virtue of what they choose to observe and the stance they take toward it. I tell students that constantly--no matter what you choose to write about, you're writing about yourself. (Many parents do not like to hear this: At his parents' insistence one student substituted for an excellent and fascinating essay about his Jewish grandfather, who sold mattresses in Shanghai during WW II, a boring one that was all about himself.) We draw conclusions about Hemingway from his writing, why not about Billy?

Most of the colleagues I heard from said they expected students to be "truthful" and "honest" in their essays, but I think their reasons for doing so could as easily be answered by fiction if we are willing to look below the surface of the writing: "the essay helps us get to know the student better," it "reveals something about themselves that the rest of the application doesn't," it is designed to "communicate the living breathing person to assist admissions deans in putting together a diverse class with varying personalities, interests, and accomplishments...," "it reflects his genuine beliefs," it "shows the college who you are--both in the voice of your writing and in the content. Therefore it is essential that the content be trueԀ and so on.

Don't all these responses describe the best fictions? Poe said that every short story should focus on creating one unified effect in the reader. IsnҀt that what weҀre asking our students to do? No one expects ӀThe Tell-tale HeartԀ to be ӀtrueԀ but it sure is scary, because it taps into our basic fears. Shouldn't we give our young authors the same respect we give those we expect to show us truths through "lies?"


One colleague compared non-factual essay writing to phony reporting, but there's a difference--we expect reporters to give us the facts; to do otherwise gets you fired (unless you work for Fox News). Do we expect students to meet reportorial standards? I don't think so. 


Conversely, we can blast the author of "A Million Little Pieces," not because he had actually written fiction, but because he lied to us about what he had done. We read memoirs differently from novels, as one colleague noted, distinguishing "between fiction and deception....If you read a 'real life account' of an adventure that was later revealed to be made up, you'd feel cheated--even if you continue to acknowledge the skill of the writer."

I think we may simultaneously place too much and too little responsibility on applicants and their essays. One colleague thought of the college essay "as less of a measure of writing talent and more of a glimpse inside the applicant's soul (his judgment, his perspective, his sensitivities, and his sensibilities." I'd still have to say that a fiction can do that maybe even better than "fact.Ԁ Expecting a look into an applicantҀs ӀsoulԀ may be way more than the exercise will bear. [I once read an application from a student whose essays were about his suicide attempt and his recovery. (Verified by a call to his counselor.) They were well written and the student was admissible, but his truthfulness sank him. That was a glimpse into a soul IҀd rather not have had.]

If we want "just the facts" how can we rely on imaginative constructs like essays? If "it is essential that the content be true" what do we mean by "true?"

I believe that whatever a student writes about reveals something about him or herself, so the factual truth is less important than the arrangement of facts to arrive at a "truth" that points to something about the author. If a student writes a touching essay about a relative who may not exist, can't I appreciate the author's ability to express compassion and empathy? Is that any less "real" or "truthful" than if the relative were real? I know the student has the capacity to express those qualities, at least. (Yes, that person may be a cold-hearted bugger in real life, but it's not the fictionalizing that makes him so.) And will I ever know the facts in any case? Probably not.

So if students "made up their feelings and included actions/results that never happened, they are lying about themselves?" I donҀt think so: they're creating a reality they know to be fictional. And maybe they have a clear understanding of what needs to be said.

Let's be honest: Every college admission essay really is a creative writing assignment. We should not expect rock-hard reportorial fact from seventeen-year olds under pressure to "reveal" themselves; it's not fair. We should broaden our sensibility to understand that what we receive is the "fact" and what we do with it is the result. If we read every essay as ӀliteratureԀ instead of reporting we might not only encourage better writing but also enjoy it more.  


One colleague put it best: "I think if the essay is a vehicle for illustrating some important value/realization/personal motto that the kid really believes in, it's okay to stretch the truth or create a scene through which to convey the message."

If we agree that some of the greatest truths can be found in fiction, why not give college applicants the same consideration?

Thanks to everyone who responded to my question on the NACAC listserv. Here are some other comments I received:

ӀWe tell our students quite firmly that the college application essay is not a creative writing assignment!...It needs to be seen as an opportunity for the college to get to know the student more deeply than it could from a transcript and a set of test scores. How could that possibly happen if a student were to write about рtruthyҀ rather than truthful aspects of his/her life?Ԁ

ӀI think truthiness is where most essays fall. Does everyone have that one moment either while hiking the Grand Canyon or fishing with their grandpa where they learn some important life lesson before their 18th birthday? My life has never worked like that!Ԁ

ӀI have always called those fantasy essaysŀI simply tell my students that at some point they must clue their reader in that this is fiction.Ԁ

ӀThe essay should all be true and real, just like when the student signs the application indicating the work is his/her own true and original work, it should also be real׀otherwise whatҀs to stop them from adding activities and embellishing their apps in other ways?Ԁ

ӀIsnҀt the answer relatively simple? The student must designate a fictional essay as suchŔ

ӀIt would be nice if the point of the essay were more explicitly outlined on the application. If the point is to judge writing skills and creativity, I think the sky is the limit in terms of the truthiness of it all. But if the point is to learn more about the studentҀs life, and to gauge his thoughtfulness or self-awareness about his experiences up to now, then the actual truth is absolutely warranted.Ԁ

ӀThe admission committee can glean information from an honest essay, regardless of topic, to help us put a studentҀs academic and leadership career into contextŀThey may not be the most entertaining essays but if an essay offers insight that helps us make an informed decision itҀs far more engaging. I can read good fiction on my own time.Ԁ

Being Someone Else

I read "Being and Nothingness" one summer for a theater course at Northwestern (Sartre wrote "No Exit") and was fascinated with his image of a servant looking through a keyhole at some unspecified but vaguely naughty activity going on behind the door. While he's focusing on that activity, Sartre says, he's totally in a state of "being," simply "himself." Suddenly, however, he hears footsteps in the hall and becomes a self-conscious "actor," not truly himself.

We've all had the experience of being caught at something we shouldn't be doing. The more we try to behave "normally," the more we twist ourselves into behavioral knots. The same is true when we ask high school students to write their college application essays. We're asking them to "act" and not "be." More often than not, we get essays that are weird fun house mirror images of the applicant as he or she tries to be "authentic." and we complain that the essays end up being artificial.

In trying to help students, we often advise them to "relax" or "have fun" with the essays, which they hear as "I'm lulling you into a false sense of security before we reject you." So they frantically try to suss out what colleges really want, losing themselves in the process. The most often prescribed advice is "Just be yourself," which, as far as I can tell after reading thousands of them for Amherst College in the 90s, has no appreciable effect on the essays but doesn't stop us from giving it out.

Believe it or not, I donҀt blame the applicants; I blame the advice. After years of prescribing "Be yourself" myself I think itҀs probably the worst thing you can tell a kid under pressure to write for an unknown audience. It requires a self-understanding beyond even a 40-year oldsҀ and is most often interpreted as ӀTalk about yourself,Ԁ which, if youҀve ever been stuck in a conversation like that, quickly makes you want to gouge your eyes out with a pencil. But it also requires the writer to run smack into himself as he tears himself away from the keyhole and tries to "be himself."

I've never known what else to say but the other day I thought, well, why not have them write about what's going on beyond the keyhole instead of having them try to explain what they're doing looking through it? We should really say, ӀBe somebody else.Ԁ Placing the focus overtly outside themselves can free them from having to construct a "self" for us, acting instead of being. We can see how this works when we ask students to introduce each other rather than themselves; it's always easier to talk about another person than feel exposed yourself. (Of course, some can do it without problem or effort, but most can't, especially not in writing.)


The things we do tell as much about us (and may even be more revealing) than what we say we do. I might say I love the opera and Russian novels, but I may actually watch "The Real Housewives of Orange County" religiously and have a shelf full of Danielle Steele. But even if we ask an applicant to, say, write in a voice other than her own, we can learn a lot about whom she chooses and how the essay goes. Over the years IҀve advised a lot of students that their essays about other people or books or events are very good, but theyҀve been brainwashed to think that unless they talk explicitly about themselves the essays wonҀt help them get into college or tell the admission people about themselves.

One of my students several years ago wrote about his Jewish grandfather, who spent World War II selling mattresses in Shanghai. It was wonderful, memorable (see?), and gave me a glimpse not only into a part of history I had never heard about but also revealed how much he cared for this man, who had survived the war and made it to the United States. (Unfortunately, his parents were horrified that he wasnҀt Ӏbeing himselfԀ and vetoed the good essay in favor of a tedious one.)

IҀve written elsewhere about the existential issues surrounding the college application process, including the problem of imposing an overwhelming self-consciousness on 17-year old applicants. But asking students to be or focus on someone or something else can relieve them of that burden. If application readers are careful readers they sense the writerҀs personality no matter what he or she writes about. A focus on an external person, object, or concept without worrying about "being yourself" might actually accomplish the thing we want most--creation of a window into the applicant.


A shorter version of this essay (as well as other entries) originally appeared on the Admitted Blog at the NACAC website.