Just how much honesty is necessary?

Colleges & Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>So... I'm writing an essay about challenges I've faced working with a specific student. Right now I'm using a lot of dialogue and specifics that are, to be honest, unlikely to be quite accurate. That is, I'm not changing any overall content, or compressing events to make one afternoon incredibly meaningful, but I am taking liberties with the exact wording of what we said and the exact order of when we said it - simply because I don't have a photographic memory.</p>

<p>If I want to be completely honest, I won't be able to use dialogue at all, because I can't remember very many exact quotes. I probably won't be able to paint an incredibly vivid picture; I'll need to turn the essay inside-out so that I can either work from very short, clearly-remembered moments without claiming any sort of order.</p>

<p>I assume that this is a common problem in trying to vividly capture an experience. How have other people handled it? Would what I'm doing so far be considered ethical?</p>

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<p>if its just dialogue...try and state it as close as u can remember, but if you change it around a little to express something better, that's fine. but when most ppl talk about dishonesty on applications, they mean embellishment. like saying you were in a club when you weren't. things like that. but i'd say you're fine here.</p>

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<p>i wrote an essay for rice...the entire dialogue was fictional--i just couldnt recall what we both said. i got in, so it's fine. And no, you're not being unethical.</p>

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<p>Yeah...as long as it's not a revisionist biography :) (C&H).</p>

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<p>Okay, that seems to be a consensus... thanks everyone. I'm trying to keep the dialogue as close to what was said as possible, so as to not make myself sound less awkward than I did :-)</p>