About.com offers 7 tips to improve your writing with respect to college admissions essays.

#1 on the list? Know the meaning of the words you use.

For the rest of the list, click here.

That was some great help. Thanks.

I've always tried to be a good writer but I've never found it to be easy. I found the about.com points and commented on them:

1. Understand every word used in your essay.

Nothing turns people off faster than someone that doesn't know what he or she is talking about, and not following this rule is one of the best ways to lose an audience I know of.

2. Use transition sentences and transition words (furthermore, like, also, additionally, etc) between paragraphs to tie them together. Transitions will help your writing flow.

This makes sense. Everything should be tied together, especially when going from one subject to another. There's probably someone in the audience at all times thinking "Why should I have to sit through this?" and you have to be able to keep them glued to their seat at all times to keep from losing that person. How an audience feels can be just as or more important than the way it thinks, and smooth controlled transitions from one subject to another is one tool to help you do this.

3. Vary your sentence structure. Use simple, complex, and compound sentences to pace your writing and make it more exciting.

This is one of the most difficult parts of writing for me, but I certainly understand why no one would want to listen to a boring, monotone speaker any more than they would want to go to a concert to hear elevator music. A presentation has to be dynamic and exciting and keep the audience looking forward to what the speaker will say next. Entertaining and pleasuring the reader has to be the top priority, especially if the subject isn't naturally entertaining in itself. If the performer wants the audience to respect his or her point of view then he or she will have to earn it.

4. Avoid empty sentences. They should all be well thought out.

Empty sentences can be as bad as when the speaker doesn't know what he or she is talking about. Sometimes I've done this when I didn't know exactly what to say next, or I've lost my concentration or just wasn't that interested in keeping my audience's attention to begin with. Or perhaps there just wasn't enough money involved.

5. Avoid using the same words repeatedly.

I generally agree, but I do know of exceptions. For one, there's a technique called parallelism in which the speaker repeats the same phrase several times for emphasis. It has to be used carefully though, like when raising one's voice or using colorful language since it can wear an audience down pretty fast. It needs to be used sparingly to be effective. Comedians and "non-serious" speakers can get away with a lot here but for a more somber tone one has to be more careful.

Another repetition technique is to say the same thing two or three different ways in order to get it across effectively. For instance, I once heard of an approach to writing essays as "Say what you're going to say, say it, then tell them what you just said", describing its introduction, the main body and conclusion. Such repetition can be very effective in getting across one's point of view felt.

6. Know [and use] the rules of punctuation and grammar.

People naturally respect someone who is good at their craft, even if it's used for questionable purposes and I find that true of writers just as much as for anyone else. One of my more subtle favorites is the use of "datum" instead of "data" for singular instead of plural; it seems to impress an audience subtly. Others I pay close attention to include "nuclear" versus "nucular" and "February" versus "Febuary".


7. Read your essay aloud and proofread as you write.

Sometimes when I go back to something after writing it, perhaps an hour or so later or even a day or two later, I'm amazed at how much differently it can come across. Sometimes I've even done that several times and each time I've found myself making changes. When the changes finally seem too small to matter I'll send it to where it was intended, glad that I'd waited as long as I did.

Anyhow, that's a lot to say in one post so I'll sign off here. Thanks for reading this!

Malcolm

Bottom line: Write about what you know best, enrich your vocabulary and don't repeat the same words.

thanks for the advice. "Know the meaning of the words you use"- is probably the most important thing.

I would agree that the writing of a person can indeed carve out a niche for him. The most inportnat thing is that you should read a lot to improve your vocabulary and at the same time should also know what the words actually mean as you wouldn't sound more stupid than while using the wrong words unknowingly. This will not have a good impression of you in front of the others.

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Best advice for essay writing: spend a few bucks for a reading program, e.g. dragon speaking, zoom text, etc... This will allow you to listen to your essay... far better method than proof reading.

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PsyD WannaBe, M.S., LPC, LADC, CADC II