<p>I thought I read something that said that the application essays are supposed to be written in common, every day, conversational language. My daughter has written wonderful essays, full of language that would sound great in an English Lit class. I cannot see her actually speaking that way. The essays sound great though!</p>
<p>How should the language be in the essays? Should they be in great vocab? Or using words that someone would only use in writing..like beckoned and zeniths?</p>
<p>I’m not an expert but what I’ve read indicates they should write as they would speak. But not as they would text :)</p>
<p>Good writing is good writing. If the writing is strong and reflects her voice and conveys what she wants to convey, she should be fine. The voice doesn’t have to be “conversational;” it just has to be hers. IMHO.</p>
<p>I cannot even read her essays because they are so wordy. She keeps asking me to read them. They are painful to read. I am forcing myself to read an entire essay. They are that bad. She has the word “partially” 3 times in one sentence, but does not think it is a run on sentence. She spends a long paragraph detailing how a particular foreign language is pronounced. Then she turns around and comments that it was more challenging than any video game she has ever played. </p>
<p>I am glad she has some good safety schools on her list. I do not think she will get in to any reach schools at all. </p>
<p>I have tried telling her these are not very good. She says she loves her essays. So I guess these are what she is going to submit.</p>
<p>^ that does not sound like good English Lit writing.</p>
<p>And for the record, using a particular word three times in a sentence, though probably a problem, does not indicate whether it’s a run on or not, which is a separate, specific, issue.</p>
<p>But perhaps she should run these by her teacher. they do not sound like good writing, by your account. “could be written in English Lit” and “her own voice” should not be mutually exclusive.</p>
<p>I’m confused. In the first post, you say she’s written wonderful essays - but then in the fourth post, you say you can’t even read them because they are so wordy?</p>
<p>If they were good writing you should be able to read them. It’s unlikely (though possible) that you would have a good sentence with “partially” three times in the same sentence. I think parents and their kids often have a hard time agreeing on what’s appropriate. Why don’t you ask her to run the essays by an English teacher she likes for a second opinion and step away from the minefield?</p>
<p>They’re either wonderful or too bad to read. They can’t be both. Have her ask a teacher, as has been suggested. An impartial reader might be able to get her on the right path.</p>
<p>I should clarify. When I originally posted, I had only read the first paragraph of 3 of the essays. All 3 had flowery language and complex sentences. I felt like I was reading one of those boring books from a lit class. </p>
<p>After I posted, she asked me to just read the entire essays. I did. That is where I ran in to long redundant sentences. The grammar was questionable. The form was wrong.</p>
<p>I told her to please run it by her English teacher from last year. I even offered to pay someone to look over the papers with her.</p>
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<p>Such as? You find Dickens boring? Henry James?</p>
<p>Your D could be a great writer but you might not appreciate it. She might also be a bright adolescent who is straining to sound important or intelligent.</p>
<p>I agree that asking an English teacher to look them over, or paying someone who knows what they are doing, would be the best thing.</p>
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<p>Even that, although I assume you meant it to be complimentary, makes it sound as if the essays are egregiously overwritten.</p>
<p>(And as a complete aside, although I have an MA in English, I happen to loathe Dickens. No other writer of distinction has ever given me so great a sense that he was being paid by the word–which, in a very real sense, Dickens was. And I really do not care for those cartoonish characters of his, either.)</p>
<p>LOL…yep…I am outed as someone who does not like to read some of those books you mentioned. That being said, I did forward the essays to my sister who has a masters in education and teaches and she agrees they are awful. I think my daughter’s feelings are really hurt, and she does not want her aunt’s opinion. So, I told her to see the English teacher tomorrow.</p>
<p>I hated my D’s first draft of her main essay last year. It was too wordy and very confusing. She didn’t want to believe me (I did not like her writing style in general) but her father also said it was hard to follow. She worked with her English teacher to cut it down and clarify her points, and it turned out very well. Sometimes it is hard to take criticism from relatives, hopefully her teacher can provide good advice.</p>
<p>I would definitely let her work this out with a teacher at school who will guide and help edit but not rewrite. One exercise I know friends have employed with students with long essays or use language they normally wouldn’t has been to use a tape recorder and have them verbally tell you their essay from memory. They will remember the most important parts they want to convey in language and in a voice that is theirs. If they use advanced vocabulary it will still be there. What generally falls away is the extraneous fluff that was clouding the heart of the essay and overpowering the students voice. I’ve seen it work well several times.</p>
<p>“full of language that would sound great in an English Lit class. I cannot see her actually speaking that way.”</p>
<p>Then they are bad essays and will not serve her well. If your kid is a walking thesaurus who speaks like a Victorian poet, the essays should reflect that. But yours isn’t, and she’s hurting her chances – though many kids do get into top schools despite these overwritten essays.</p>
<p>English teachers are a great resource as long as they understand admissions and have good judgment. If they are just looking for the kids to parrot all the vocabulary words they’ve learned in school, they’ll reinforce the student’s mistakes. Consider all the educated adults you know. Sometimes the English teacher is the best choice; for other kids, a smart adult who knows them well would be better, and that could be a coach, math teacher, anyone.</p>
<p>First of all, an off-topic aside: Dickens was NOT paid by the word, which is a myth I feel the need to refute whenever it comes up. Because his novels appeared as serials, like those of most other novelists of the period, he was paid by the installment; obviously, a novel that ran for eighteen months was going to earn more than a novel that ran for twelve. But he was no more paid by the word than Vince Gilligan is paid by the minute for writing Breaking Bad, which is also more lucrative the longer it runs, or, more to the point, than George Eliot or Thackeray were paid by the word for publishing Middlemarch and Vanity Fair in monthly parts. </p>
<p>As to this essay, I can’t make a judgment without seeing it, but I disagree that college essays should be written in colloquial or conversational voice. There is a difference between formal language and stilted, jargon-filled language. Lmk’s daughter’s essay might be mature and carefully crafted, or it might be a pretentious, overwritten mess. But the fact that she is using words and sentence structures that don’t necessarily mimic her normal speech patterns doesn’t in itself tell me anything. Nor does the repetition of the word partially; if she is using parallel structure, that might make stylistic sense. For instance, suppose she wrote, “I refused to join in partially out of principle, partially out of guilt, and partially out of fear.”</p>
<p>In any case, what Lmk has posted makes me doubt that she is necessarily the best judge here either. I second the idea that the daughter should go ask some English teachers for input, but I would say that in any case.</p>
<p>Agreeing with the teacher recommendation!!!</p>
<p>The first essay that my son wrote was beautifully written but revealed absolutely nothing about him. It had lines that were truly poetry in motion. If he had been applying to school for poetry, it might have worked. I tried to get him to see that, but I am just his mother. He took it into school and showed it to his Honors English teacher from his sophomore year. THANKFULLY, his teacher said the same thing that I did. He told my son that some of the lines were beautiful, but the essay overall wouldn’t work for a college application. The second essay he wrote was incredible. If you read it, you had a window into what makes my son tick. </p>
<p>Good luck. Hopefully, a teacher will be able to steer your daughter in the right direction.</p>
<p>apprenticeprof – well said, and beautifully written.</p>
<p>I too have a senior working on his essay. I sent him what I thought was an example of generic, stilted writing, then another example of more natural writing. He sent me back his first draft, which sounds just like him. It needs a little work but not much. I think there’s a point where further revisions wring the life out of the work.</p>
<p>Students should write the essay the way they speak, but with better grammar.*</p>
<p>*These words were spoken by the head of college counseling at a very well-known independent school. This man is a “legend” in the college admissions world, with 25 years of experience. :)</p>
<p>I think it is important not to be too naive about this whole thing: the kid is writing for an audience. It is important to engage and please that audience, and to be able to do so when this is the 50th essay they’ve read that day and it is 11 o’clock at night.</p>
<p>They want simple to follow. They want an easy read. They don’t want you to make them work, or to annoy them by appearing too intellectual or too privileged or too anything else that they don’t like. </p>
<p>My son is an excellent writer, and he wrote two very good essays. The one that HE wanted to use as his personal statement I called the “philosophical” essay. It revealed the pure intellectual fire at the core of him. It wasn’t turgid and pretentious. It had vivid details. It was really him. The other essay was about a different kind of experience. It was a much easier read, much more conventional, although again very well written. I told him to switch them. A friend who had been on the admissions committee at Princeton in days of yore told him to switch them. A college counselor we talked to after he was deferred SCEA from his first choice school using the philosophical essay as his personal statement told him to switch them. </p>
<p>He switched them. Know your audience.</p>