Ask Jason@沃顿 (my essays inside!) Free essay advice again~

yidiyuehan

great tips Jason,

Does give me some hints for tomorrow's interview.;-)

Thanks a lot.

cannedpineapple

No problem, good luck, hope it went well.

zch7654321

I've just done the survey and think it is a neat idea to do this. Jason, I am interested in this idea. Would you please share the survey result with me? Thanks!

cannedpineapple

Thanks. The results are generally very positive, many people think it's a great idea

cannedpineapple

How to write clearly and concisely- lessons from UChicago

A good essay generally follows a few writing rules: rules that few on this board have talked about. Writing clearly and concisely doesn't depend on one being very linguistically inclined. Just the opposite, good writing can be executed by anyone- you just need to know how.

Here are a few simple rules
1) Look at the first few words of every sentence. Do they grab the reader's attention? In my paragraph above, my first words were 'a good essay', 'writing clearly and concisely', 'good writing'. Because you're reading this in order to learn how to write better, these are the exact words you're looking out for. Thus every sentence looks relevant.

2) End your paragraphs with a logical link to the next one. My paragraph ended with 'you just need to know how', and I immediately began the next with the rules. In short, I'm telling you 'how'.

3) Vary your pace. If you just had a long sentence with a few commas in them, make your next sentence short and sweet. And vice versa.

4) Communicate only a single point in every paragraph. Make clear what that point is in the first sentence of the paragraph, and then the rest of the paragraph should be about that, and only that. Don't be afraid of short paragraphs.

Instead of always talking about what to write about, with R2 deadlines coming up I figured that many might find useful a quick 'how-to write' guide.  In case you're wondering, I learnt these (and a few other more complicated rules) at UChicago

Good luck everyone! As always, feel free to ask any qns.

meimei0222

Thanks Jason, very helpful indeed=)

cannedpineapple

Thanks

cannedpineapple

More rules of writing.

The first batch of rules were simple must-do rules that help an applicant communicate clearly and effectively. But one can communicate very clearly, and still lack the tension and suspense-building that makes a good piece of writing engaging, interesting, and a good read. I dug up my old rule-list from UChicago, and bring you another set of rules for good story-telling:

1) Start your story with why a situation SEEMS to be easy to handle, and well under control. In my previous paragraph, I reminded you why my first set of rules were very useful.

2) Then add some tension. Cast some doubt in your readers' mind. Why were my first set of rules not enough? Why is your situation not as simple as it seems?

3) Next, summarise how the situation should ideally be resolved. In my case, I should ideally give you a different set of rules for story-telling. Maybe you ideally need to come up with a new, creative way to do things that nobody has ever thought of before.

4) Last, tell me how you're going to try to get to this ideal situation. I dug up my old rule-set from UChicago. What did you choose to do?

5) Repeat, if necessary. Your approach (#4) may initially fail- as tends to happen in a complicated situation. How did you reevaluate what was again a calm but impossible-to-solve situation (point 1 again) to find a potential way out (point 2) to reach a new final conclusion that is ideal? (point 3)

There are two ways to apply this set of rules:

1) Summarise rules 1 to 4 in the first paragraph (like what I did above). This works better for longer essays, because it can be easy for readers to lose focus. For longer essays, avoid #5 unless you're really confident in your writing ability.

2) Develop each rule over the course of the essay. This works better for shorter essays, where you want to spend less time summarising, and going straight into what you did, how it worked/ failed, and why.

This set of rules is complicated. Feel free to ask clarifying questions if needed.

Good luck in all your essay writing!

cannedpineapple

How to use these rules properly

These writing rules are most useful in helping you edit and improve your own essays. Often, after writing and reading our own essays many times, we become used to what we're trying to say and can no longer tell if it's a clear essay or not. The first set of rules will help you make sure that the reader can quickly scan the essay and get the gist of it (very important for busy adcom!). The second set of rules will make sure that you can write an engaging, exciting essay that the adcom are interested to read.

Good luck. My next post will be about the areas you need to cover in your essays.

honeybutter

Hi Jason,

I have some questions for you. Please help me.

If you got the chance to choose between Columbia, Harvard and Wharton, which would you pick? Is location really important to recruiting and school life? Please do a simple summary of the comparision among these 3 schools. such as pros and cons.

If I add Stanford, LBS, INSEAD to the list, can you do some explain on the pros and cons as well?  I have a finance background and want to find a job in banking after graduation.  At at the same time I like to get some exposure in business school to global business and entrepreneurship just in case in the future opportunities coming up, I can be my own boss one day. Thank you.


Regards,
christy