Have you been working on your Common App essay for weeks or months now? Are you feeling stuck, like you’ve written everything you’ve wanted to say but there’s no way to wrap it all up, or are you freaking out because it’s 1000 words and you need to get it down to 650? Whatever boat you’re in, don’t fear. Below you’ll find our basic guide to helping you out of a writing and editing rut so that you can finish your essay and send it off feeling confident it is polished and finally done.
Read here if you need to make big edits or rewrite sections:
First things first: take a break. Set down the essay and work on other things (supplements) for 3-5 days. You have time. After that time is up and you’ve had a breather, print your most recent draft out in double spaces. Seriously, please, print it out. In double spaces. The double spaces make sure you have room to edit.
Then reread slowly. Act like it’s a totally new piece of writing by a stranger and try to approach it as if you haven’t just spent two months working on it. And if you can, read it out loud. On this reread, there are two main goals:
Figure out what sentences feel clunky. Clunky sentences or phrases are ones that “stick out,” that sound unnatural or forced or like you didn’t say them but instead you read them in a textbook or in a 19th-century poem for English class. Mark those sections of the essay. When you are done reading, circle back and try to explain aloud what you’re attempting to say in each section. Write down what you mean, and see if you can insert that explanation instead of the original clunky language. (Note: Don’t worry as much about word count here. You can write what you need to write and go back later to pare down.)
Figure out what is repetitive. This is a short essay, so you don’t want to be saying the same thing over and over again in different ways, no matter how good you think each way you say it sounds. One helpful tip for finding places you need to edit is to check whether you can summarize any of your sentences, paragraphs, or ideas. If you do, then you need to rewrite those parts or simply cut them out.
Read here if you’re struggling with one nasty paragraph or with finding your conclusion:
Take another step back. Ask yourself what you’re trying to get across in that section. What’s its “point”? What question do you still need to answer here? What’s missing? Then try doing a 20-minute free-write to answer the question. Don’t criticize what you think here before you have it down on paper. This is just a way to get random thoughts out about the section or conclusion. Once you’ve done those 20 minutes, look back at what you’ve written to see whether you’ve come up with anything that you can now insert into the piece. This can be especially helpful for the ending, rather than trying over and over again to get that perfect last line and falling short every time, or landing on something cheesy that you hate.
If the 20-minute free-write isn’t working for you, you can try to think about the overall structure and goals for the piece––the ideas you want your readers to come away with. Then get a trusty friend or two to read it over and ask them what they came away with. Does it match up with your goals?
Read here if you’re struggling with making the piece a lot shorter:
Don’t start small here. Instead, think about whole paragraphs or sentences that are either repetitive, rambly, or random. If you don’t know why a sentence is in the essay, it probably shouldn’t be in there. Think in phrases, rather than in whole sentences, and don’t be afraid to chop things up. Once you’ve really slashed what you need to, and you have fewer than 50 words until you’re under the word limit, you can then try to go through each sentence and find extraneous words.
Read here if you’re heading towards your final draft:
After you’ve worked out those bigger issues, you can reprint (!) your newest draft and start looking for smaller places to edit. One major goal before getting to your last draft is to go through the essay and see whether you use the same words in multiple places. Do you see yourself saying “I love X” and then “I love Y,” or “great,” “good,” “nice” in different places? Those words aren’t actually descriptive, so in those cases, try to diversify and get more specific and exact.
But there’s a trap here––don’t just thesaurus-ize your essay. Do you see yourself saying “myriad,” “multitude,” “innumerable” “plethora”? Chances are, those words don’t sound like you. At the end of the day, this essay is still about you and you’re trying to get your voice across. So go carefully through the piece and make sure you’re using genuine and honest vocabulary: things you can hear yourself saying in a conversation with parents, teachers, or friends.
Okay, so how do I wrap everything up?
Once you have moved through this process above, we strongly suggest printing the piece out a final time and reading it aloud again to make sure everything flows the way you want it to. If you’re still getting stuck, start from part 1 again (ie. taking a break and looking back at the piece as a fresh, new reader). Or if you’re more of a perfectionist type, remember that this piece is ultimately just trying to get you into college. It is supposed to represent your voice, but it doesn’t need to represent your whole life. Be sensitive and thoughtful with your writing process, but don’t obsess endlessly.
And last, once you feel like you’re finally done but before throwing up your hands and never thinking about the essay again, please double-triple check to make sure you’ve followed the Common App’s instructions and requirements about how to upload, your max/min word count, and your formatting. You don’t want to be furiously fixing those things at 11:59pm the night before everything is sent in.
If you are still having a ton of trouble brainstorming, writing, or editing your essay, reach out to us here. It’s our job to guide students through the essay-writing process.