<p>seems like almost everyone on here says that about themselves. is it so wrong of me to be skeptical?</p>
<p>Not at all. I’d be skeptical as well, mainly because truly great writers will hardly go around on an Internet forum (of all places!) trumpeting that opinion.</p>
<p>yes, probably the main reason why i’m on CC is because i’m insecure about college acceptance, haha</p>
<p>by no means am i saying that my essays are better than everyone else’s so i can make this observation. i just thought that it’s kinda funny and worth bringing up</p>
<p>I’ve seen the essays of a few people on here who tout their writing abilities, and they’re usually terrible. I’m not exaggerating, either, two of them were about lessons in class and how they were remarkable experiences in their life. Yet, each of them focused only on the lessons and did not spend more than one sentence discussing the importance of the lessons they had just described. So, after reading those, I generally assume that the people who brag about their essays are arrogant and will assuredly convey that to the college.</p>
<p>God, I sound like such a prick, but oh well.</p>
<p>The truth is people cannot see themselves or what they are doing. Let’s think like this, would you send essays that you think are terrible to colleges? Obviously not. When people write their essays and decide to send them to colleges, they must think that their essays are good/great enough-even though they are not.</p>
<p>[Almost] nobody can see their bad bahavior or think that they are bad people - but others do see it. The same with those college essays, people cannot see any flaws in their essays - but others do.</p>
<p>Ah, jellyya, that idea is so amusing. I don’t mean that in a rude way, but if you think about it the entire process falls into a lose-lose situation. People are pretentious and see nothing wrong with themselves or they have a middle ground and pick and choose what they see as wonderful in themselves or they are completely lacking in any confidence, seeing only how terribly awful they are. There seems to be no way of winning. Even if there were a way around it you encounter false modesty or actual modesty or that weird modesty where the desire to say something is there, but not the desire to profess it everywhere.</p>
<p>God I love people.</p>
<p>On topic! It’s fine to be skeptical, people are right, most people are bad writers, which is why people (like me! and a few others I know directly) get laughed at when they consider writing as a profession. Hell, some of the smartest people around are bad writers. </p>
<p>What needs to be pointed out is the fact that there are SO many ways to be a bad writer. The biggest is assuming a large vocabulary always indicates both intelligence and ability. This works multiple ways. People see the vocab. and assume “wow, good writer”, they can see it as overcompensating for lack of substance, the list goes on.</p>
<p>Another common problem is losing focus (or going about the topic in a weird attempt to stand out (which usually fails(but not always(you have no ideas how much I enjoy this)))). This is the most common among all reaches of essay, not just the people capable of using a thesaurus. The losing focus is a lot like the example given by Jaddua. Kid starts writing about something and completely forgets about the point of the essay. Pretty pictures taken of nothing basically. The other I mentioned is when people try to do something unconventional, but by doing so venture WAY off the path into the land of fancy ideas and pointless things. For example, I wrote about my desire to be (like) the Robin Hood of literature. However, I made it connect to the topic, I made it somewhat interesting, and I made sure it wasn’t utter nonsense. Is it what I would consider a major literary advancement for this century? No, but it’s an essay, not a dissertation. See? See how I’m venturing off the path? This is what those essays look like.</p>
<p>I apologize, I’m terribly bored and this topic grabbed my eye. </p>
<p>It’s okay to be skeptical, but not cynical. That statement could stand for all of what I said, but who needs short, potent statements when you can have lengthy and unnecessarily wordy post? That’s right, suck it Hemingway.</p>
<p>P.S. I have great essays =P</p>
<p>that…was quite a post, shadowkitt</p>
<p>I hope it was sort of useful. I read a lot of friend’s essays and they do those two things quite often. They will have words that make no sense, that are stuck in there just because they are 7+ letters and sometimes they just go off on weird ass tangents that are silly.</p>
<p>My essays are about me & I like them, but I can see someone else hating them. I think a lot of other people are the same</p>
<p>I want to be an author. I’ve been told I have a gift. I am 13. Some seniors vessays have been awful, and I know my essay and 14 ap’s might help my admission when time comes.</p>
<p>haha that’s true…</p>
<p>i think “Great Essays” could be in kinda like 2 categories:
- Grammatical use
- Substance</p>
<p>I think to really be great, it has to be in both categories. If it’s really good substance wise, but has horrible grammar, its just okay.</p>