Using your voice.

In the blog post Let’s talk about grammar! I counseled students to “Talk like you!” when it comes to writing the Personal Statement. Here’s a little more on what that means.

“Never use the first person in a formal essay.”

Sound familiar? In my 20+ years as a college professor, I’ve heard hundreds of first-year students repeat this common rule of thumb.

The problem is that it’s not really a rule. In fact, there will be many times in your college and professional careers when writing in the first person is acceptable and necessary. Still, many high school students are told not to as a way to prevent them from slipping into informal language and to help them sound more authoritative.

What often happens as a result is that students lose trust in their own voices. They begin to write in another voice altogether, one they imagine their teachers or professors want to hear.

I call this The Newscaster Voice.

The Newscaster Voice is not yours, but it’s something you’ve kind of heard before. The Newscaster Voice uses unnecessarily complicated words. The Newscaster Voice will never use one word when five are available. The Newscaster Voice is fussy and formal, and when students use it in their writing, essays inevitably become what is called stilted, which means stiff or unnatural. 

I’ve spent a lot of my career convincing students that their voices are worth hearing, and this is especially true when it comes to the Common App Personal Statement. My advice to students is this: your writing should sound like you. Not you hanging out with your friends, but a more cleaned up version of you. 

So how do you do that?

1. Use words you know. This is not the time to bust out the thesaurus. Even if you use the right word in the right context, you might choose one that’s out of fashion or too formal for someone your age, and this can be jarring for readers. 

2. Avoid turns of phrase that you don’t use in real life. Same advice as above. Some phrases that sound like they should be part of The Newscaster Voice’s repertoire are actually tricky on the page. In which? Of which? To which? These phrases have three different meanings. Unless you use them regularly in your writing, skip it ...which brings me to a question I ask students all the time when they’ve written something a little confusing...

3. How would you say this? Trust yourself. You communicate pretty well. Write it the way you’d say it out loud. You can clean it up later. 

4. Tell it like it is. Ask yourself, did I really feel like that? Was that my genuine reaction? Sometimes students exaggerate their responses to situations and events. Did you gasp? Really? Are you a gasper? Or did you freeze? Did you clench your jaw? Do you not remember? This is your story. Be honest with yourself and with your audience.

The best thing you can do in your Personal Statement is be honest. That means dropping The Newscaster Voice and being you. It’s who the admissions officers want to learn about, and as we’ve told you before, you’re kind of a big deal. 

Give us a call (617.851.9975) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let us help you find your voice.

Let’s talk about grammar!

Really? You read that and you’re still here? Okay…

I love grammar. A lot. I taught my first college class when I was 25-years-old. I was scared. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew grammar. Grammar was a concrete set of rules that no one could mess with. I may not have known how to make students better writers, but I could make them better grammarians, and no one could argue that I was messing that up.

I wasn’t exactly the best teacher back then. 

The truth is, most people don’t know their misplaced modifiers from their split infinitives, and this includes college admissions readers. Still, most students beginning their personal essays get hung up on essay format and grammar, when really these are the finishing details. The things to give attention to at the end. 

Remember, admissions officers already have your grades, test scores, and transcripts. They know what kind of student you are. They’re not judging your ability to write a perfect essay. They’re trying to get a better understanding of what kind of person you are and how you’ll fit into their college community. 

Your application details reflect you, the student. Your personal essay reflects you, the human, and most humans aren’t grammar experts, so relax. Don’t let the technical stuff get in the way of your ability to tell a great story about who you are. 

Some tips for pushing past writing anxiety:

1. Don’t think about grammar and structure. At least not in the first few drafts. The most important thing is for you to get things out of your head, and worrying about technical stuff is putting the cart before the horse. 

2. Talk like you. Ever had a teacher say you shouldn’t write the way you talk? What they probably meant was, write like a classier version of you. You with a suit on. You without cursing or saying “like.” But of course you should write the way you talk because you talk pretty good -- I mean well.  You’re applying to college, aren’t you?! Most importantly, as a college student and later, a professional, you will find that your professors, clients, bosses, and colleagues expect your authentic voice, both in person and on paper. 

   Be you. Always.

3. Read it aloud. You may not be a grammar expert, but you are exposed to a lot of speech and writing that adhere to the basic principles of good grammar. In fact, when you speak, you probably adhere to those principles too, so when you hear something that sounds off, weird, or wrong, it probably is. If your own work trips you up, stop and change it, or maybe circle it and come back to it later. Better yet, read it out loud to a parent or a friend. They can help identify things that sound awkward and help you brainstorm solutions.

   It’s easier to hear a grammar mistake than to see it.

4. Forget the 5 paragraph essay. It’s a great tool for elementary and high school writers, but it’s not useful for an essay like this. The personal essay is just that -- personal. Think about it like a conversation between you and someone who wants to get to know you better. Tell them a story about yourself that helps them get there. It doesn’t require a thesis statement and three distinct details in three distinct paragraphs. It requires something honest, specific, and representative of the awesome person you are.

We’d love to help you with all the stages of the personal statement. Email us at info@yourmayfirst.com or give us a call (617.851.9975) and let’s chat.