<p>won't this make the essay very dull to read?</p>
<p>I don't quite understand why they don't want you to be wordy. is this due to the 20 minute time limit? I am very used to beefing up essays making it sound nerdier by a centimeter... I'm pretty confused; what did you do?</p>
<p>personally, i never actually "talked" to the reader. so i didnt use the phrase "take into consideration", and i never used personal pronouns. this is how i always write in class essays for english class, so i just did it out of habit, but i got a 12 so i guess it worked.</p>
<p>The goal is high vocabulary without wordiness or personal pronouns. I assume that Kaplan expects most of its students to use good vocabulary improperly. There are certain vocabulary words that are never appropiate, like utilize instead of use.</p>
<p>You are discussing a couple of different concepts which I think you are confusing.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>A good essay <em>does</em> have rich vocabulary, solid structure, and good focus. However, as the adage goes "Don't use a $10 word when there is a 10 center just as good." It is also important that your points in your essay are made clearly, using as few words as possible. As E.B. White says in Elements of Style, an essay should have no additional words in the same way a painting should have no additional strokes of the brush and a musical piece should have no additional notes.</p></li>
<li><p>Compare these two sentences:
(A) In my opinion at the present time, we should take under consideration the possibility of hiring a new person for our firm.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>(B) We should hire a new person for our firm.</p>
<p>You might think that (A) is longer and sounds more "academic" however it is (B) that is much clearer, making the point with greater clarity.</p>
<p>The College Board Blue Book gives you examples of bad writing versus good writing in this context. Students have also found E.B. White's Elements of Style and Strausser's Painless Writing useful to eliminate wordiness in writing.</p>
<p>I used to have a wordiness problem before I took English III AP, where my teacher finally caught me on my wordiness and took off tons of points. So I just changed my entire writing style into a really concise version. A good essay is usually as concise as possible while still clear and smooth. And using big words sparingly gives you credibility, but overloading it just shows you're concentrating more on impressing the reader than making a strong statement in your essay.</p>