January 28th, 2011
We can say much about the style of your admission essay. Since these writing assignments generally call for you to tell a story about yourself, they invite you to write in a personal tone. That tone should come from you and your voice. I urge you to avoid trying to add an inauthentic “style” to your essay. As William Zinssser, cautions in his essential book, On Writing Well:
There is no style store; style is organic to the person doing the writing…Trying to add style is like adding a toupee. At first glance the formerly bald man looks young and even handsome. But at second glance –and there’s always a second glance– he doesn’t look quite right…The point is that he doesn’t look like himself. (1998:19).
When you write your essay, you will go through a process of finding your voice. This voice is how you express yourself and come across as the real you. And that’s what admissions committees want to hear.
Happy writing!
-Dr. Kirschner
Admission Essay, College Essay, On Writing Well, Proofreading, Uncategorized, William Zinnser, writing | 
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November 11th, 2010
Okay, so the title of this blog is a bit of a throwback to the world of handwriting. Still, the point that you should meticulously comb your essays for the smallest of errors still holds. Although you won’t get admitted to a college just because you had nice punctuation, not proofreading your essay shows a kind of carelessness that might put off the admissions officer. There’s really little excuse for small errors.
So, I urge you to avoid counting on your word processing program to catch all of your typos and grammos. If this is not your area of expertise, you should ask a trusted friend, parent, teacher or coach to go over your essays. Do this only after you have done so yourself. You don’t want to tax these relationships!
Happy Writing!
-Dr. Kirschner
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