<p>I've been having a lot of trouble writing college essays. Normally, I'm considered to be a good writer at school, but when I actually have to write about myself I just can not do it. This past summer I've started a lot of rough drafts of essays, but end up hating them because they are just terrible.</p>
<p>Does anyone have good advice about how to actually get something done? For the introduction to my personal statement I've written a little more than 100 words that are good, but I just can't continue without it sounding cliched, too conceited, or too modest. Anyone else in the same boat?</p>
<p>My essay is about how I overcame my fear of standing out, by taking initiative and making an actual difference in my school. It's a good story, but I can't put it into words.</p>
<p>I’m in exactly the same situation. I feel completely comfortable with analytical writing, but my personal writing sucks and I don’t know what to do about it. I would suggest just do what I’ve been doing, which is just write as much as you can, restarting the essay whenever you want to, just to get your thoughts out and organized. Eventually, you’ll hopefully end up with something where you go beyond the first 100 words. Another suggestion I’ve heard is to start in the middle, which sounds like a good idea though I haven’t tried it yet. Sorry I can’t be more helpful, but I’ll let you know if I think of anything that works :)</p>
<p>I had this problem with one of my essays, good beginning but didn’t know where to go next. My suggestion is to just write a bunch of different paragraphs that have to do with the topic. Anything you think you might want to say just put into writing. Come back a few days later and start organizing the various paragraphs into an order that makes sense and edit/add/delete stuff as necessary. eventually you will figure out where you want to go with the topic and it will turn into a great essay! The trick is just to write as much as possible and edit later.</p>
<p>I’m having the same problem. >_< I’ve written a bunch of random paragraphs but I’m trying to connect them all together. I think it might be easier if you just try to write a draft as though you are telling someone a narrative. You can add in reflective parts at the end. Anyway, I’m going to try college1216’s idea.</p>
<p>The skill isn’t writing “college” essays but writing essays in general. This is something the high “school” should be teaching but stopped bothering with some decades ago, leaving you college students with figuring it out on your own once you get there.
Writing an essay is a matter of explaining one’s opinion/perception of a topic by supporting that opinion with evidence (from the assigned book, research, etc.).
[Essay</a> on colors](<a href=“http://dissertationcompanyreviews.com/essay-about-color.html]Essay”>http://dissertationcompanyreviews.com/essay-about-color.html)</p>
<p>^true, but writing college essays are a particularly fraught subset of standard essay writing, in that the goal of this type of writing is to tell adcoms who you are – to write something that conveys your journey as a student and a person. Which is why it is more difficult than writing an essay on the rise of mercantilism, for example. </p>
<p>In my mind, a good college application essay is like a mini-memoir – you look back at your life, you find a moment or encounter that was significant or formative, you selectively highlight key passages of your emotional and educational development that have brought you to where you are today, and you suggest or imply how your choice of college could take your learning to the next level.</p>
<p>Good luck to all! This is an exciting, and incredibly stressful time.</p>
<p>There are specific techniques which can really help. Get a book or two and see how to get started and then complete the essay. Some hints:</p>
<p>Show, don’t tell… Now that’s easy to say, but what the heck does it mean? It mean you must tell a visual (or other sensory) story. What is the most visual medium that entertains you and draws you into characters? Movies… the ultimate “show, don’t tell” example. Does that mean your essay needs to be a movie script? Not exactly, but it should have some of the elements of a script. You want the audience (the reader) to come away from the essay having felt like they have gotten to know you better (and like what they see).</p>
<p>So what are these elements? The first is character development. That is why so many essay prompts ask you to describe an obstacle or a “bump in the road” or a problem you had to overcome. They don’t care what that problem was… they just want to see the character development, making you a stronger, wiser character. So give them that. SHOW (via “scenes” in which you DESCRIBE the situation and environment) your change from the first of the essay to the last paragraph, which DESCRIBES a scene that SHOWS a stronger you.</p>
<p>There are many other tricks of the trade that movies use to make the characters powerful and memorable.</p>
<p>Now for topics: If you want a personal, powerful, memorable essay, it has to come from one of your personal, powerful memories. Take some time to think back on your life and see which memories pop to the fore. Good memories? Bad memories? If you can find those moments that tested you or led to a stronger, better you, then that will be your topic. You might think these would be somewhat tame memories. After all, you didn’t find a cure for cancer or solve world hunger. But remember, the SPECIFIC TOPIC DOESN’T MATTER. It just needs to SHOW your transition - your story arc - your character development.</p>
<p>Next post will have an example of what I’m talking about, in case you haven’t seen this from me before.</p>
<p>–Robert Cronk, author of Concise Advice: Jump-Starting Your College Admissions Essays (Second Edition)</p>
<p>This can apply to even what might seem like mundane topics. The following is from a girl who wants to major in art talking about the gift she got from her sister on her 14th birthday. To make matters worse, she didn’t even understand WHY her sister was giving her such a stupid present. However, it turned out that THAT present changed her and led to her interest in art.</p>
<p>She thought back to that birthday and tried to conjure up the scene visually (and with sounds and smells), which became the first paragraph of the essay:
That was the before. Now here’s a trick to writing a good essay: after you have the first paragraph, write the ending paragraph. This is where you want to end up, showing you AFTER the transition. This accomplishes three things. It shows the changed you. It ties back to the beginning (a trick to wrap things up neatly). And it will help you focus your essay. All the middle section has to do is get you from the start to the end.</p>
<p>The writer now wants the end result (last paragraph) to show someone who is an aspiring artist, who wants to major in art, and looks back on that present as having changed her life, so the following is what she wrote.
So now it’s easier to fill in the “in-between” with FOCUS. Here is the entire essay:
Works? I think it does. Can you see the transition, the character development, and the stronger person?</p>
<p>DO NOT TELL THE READER about you explicitly… Like a movie, let them DISCOVER what makes you you.</p>
<p>–Robert Cronk, author of Concise Advice: Jump-Starting Your College Admissions Essays (Second Edition)</p>
<p>I had the same problem; you know what you want to say, but the attempts, when you finally can muster up words to explain yourself, are not up to par. What I did was kind of trick myself into writing one. I just told myself that this essay was due tomorrow and has to be done by tonight, period. With that, I forced myself to just sit and write. When I did this, although it wasn’t perfect, I was able to get my thoughts out in the way I hoped. Then, you have all the time to clean it up.
Just write it! It works! Luck:)</p>