<p>4 quick questions:
-Contractions: Ok, I know they're informal, but it's ridiculous to use it is instead of it's, and I am instead of I'm. They just make the wording awkward. "It is surreal"... I suppose "I've" almost always works as I have, but the other two are just weird in the uncontracted form. Should I change them into uncontracted before submitting? Would make my word count larger though, and it really doesn't need to be.
-Symbols: Is '&' accepted? Trying to lessen characters.
-Numbers: Ok there's only one part where I used an actual number but should things like "8" be written as "eight" instead?
Formalities are annoying.</p>
<p>-One more Q. Can you say "Guitar is a large part of my life", or should it be "The guitar"?</p>
<p>The college essay is not formal writing. Formal writing is something like a research paper. I like to think of most college essays as informal, like maybe a letter to the editor, whereas casual writing is an email to an friend (like the varying degrees of friends, casual has many degrees).</p>
<p>To give you the fashion analogy: formal is your black and white tuxedo event (boring!), informal you still have to have a dress shirt, coat, trousers, and dress shoes but there is a lot more freedom with colors and styles, and casual is anything from church clothes to anything goes. </p>
<p>For an informal paper you have to present yourself well (so no one-word numbers like 8, 13, 1 and no symbols like & or @-- spell them out), but you have significant freedom in how you do this. You can use passive voice, you can put in dashes and other stylistic elements, you can use contractions if it fits the style of your essay, and you can shorten formal words like rhinoceros into the informal rhino (which also means you can say “guitar” without “the”). </p>
<p>Although actually if you were doing a research paper on rhinos the formal version would be the species name while an informal email to your thesis advisor you might say rhinoceros. So some words will be informal in one context but formal in another. If your college essay is to some specialty program this is a good thing to keep in mind.</p>