Using the Proper Tone
The tone of your essay is almost as important as its grammar.
The tone you adopt can dramatically affect the experience of your
reader. It can confuse your reader, make her trust you, or set her
teeth on edge. Your grade is dependent on the impression you make,
and the tone you choose will affect that impression.
You should try to write in the voice you’d use to talk
to your friend’s mom—a little formal, but comfortable and natural.
Avoid a weighty academic tone, which will likely come off as false
or pretentious rather than impressive. Similarly, don’t use a casual
email style. Spell words formally—no lite as in Miller
Lite, no b/c in place of because.
Here are some other rules of tone:
Avoid Clichés
Clichés make your writing sound trite, dull, and unimaginative.
You know that person who says, “Boy, it’s raining cats and dogs
out there!” every single time it rains? You know how
annoying that is? Don’t be that person in the essay.
Don’t Write Just to Fill Up Space
A healthy desire to make paragraphs long and impressive-sounding
can lead to writing simply to fill up space. Don’t do it. It’s terribly
easy to spot sentences that sound okay but don’t mean anything.
Cast such sentences into outer darkness. Expunge even those little phrases
that sound good but could be said in half the space, such as “in
my own personal opinion.”
Mentioning Yourself
The word I shouldn’t really appear in your essay, unless
you’re using a personal example. You don’t need to say, “I think
in war, conventional morality loses its hold on the popular imagination,”
to alert the reader that you’re one woman with one of many valid
opinions. In these essays, it’s okay to act like your opinion is
the only possible one. Instead of prefacing remarks with “I think,”
or “In my opinion,” screw your courage to the sticking place and
write, simply, “In war, conventional morality loses its hold on
the popular imagination.”
Of course, directions that instruct you to use personal
examples are a different matter. For those, you should trot out
those great stories about your mom and your most inspiring teacher,
and the word I will invariably crop up.
