Short answer questions...

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1

<p>Okay, so my long essay is the polished, well thought out typical college essay. It gives a pretty clear picture of my values and what's important to me. My question is: how should the short answer questions be written? At the moment, I've got both of them written pretty informally because that's what came naturally to me. However, my mom just read them and completely freaked about the "abundance" of fragments and sentences beginning with "and" and "but." There's actually only one part like that, which reads (for the most part - I'm too lazy to open up MyMIT and copy-paste it :p): "So basically, is my 'fun activity' one of your deep, enriching activities? Uhhh....no? But is it what I love to do? Yes." </p>

<p>(Again, this is paraphrased - it doesn't sound quite so cheesy at the end, but this is the general gist of it and how the "Uhh..." and fragments are used).
I could change it all and make it grammatically perfect and everything, but to me, it sounds better like this. I know there are going to be fifty people who come on here and tell me "one essay won't make or break your essay" but I just want your opinion as to whether or not I should get rid of the "uhhh..." and the fragments. Sorry if I'm being too anal. :-/</p>

2

<p>do whatever you're most comfortable with. or if you want something more definitive. leave it like it is. don't look at it again don't think about it again.</p>

3

<p>i would just leave it the way it is..if you fix it, it won't have your real voice</p>

4

<p>Don't change the grammar, but make a choice between keeping or omitting those lines altogether.</p>

5

<p>^ Exactly what I was going to suggest. Do these sentence fragments contribute to the content of your answer, do they flow and fit with the rest of the piece, would it stand just as well without them? They're likely redundant, but may fit well with the rest of your response.</p>