Writing Your Killer Resume

You’ve done your background work and now it’s time to put together the pieces you’ve assembled into a resume that “sells” you to an employer.

That’s right—resume writing is selling. Your resume is an advertisement for what you can bring to an employer. Similar to newspaper and TV advertising, to be effective your resume must do the following:
■ Capture attention in the first few seconds.
■ Establish credibility—a reason for the reader to believe that you can do what you say.
■ Inspire the reader to want to know more.

When you’re making a big purchase, an ad alone will not usually inspire you to act. (Have
you ever bought a car or a computer based solely on a magazine or TV ad?) But a good
advertisement will create interest in the product and make you want to know more.
That’s what your resume should do for you. Your goal in sending your resume is to get the
employer to become interested enough to pick up the phone and call you for an interview.
But your resume can do more than just get you in the door for an interview! It will also
serve as a basis for the questions and discussions you’ll have with the hiring authority. So
for your interviews, you must be prepared to explain every item on your resume in a way
that continues selling the “product”—you!

Before we launch into writing your resume, let’s take a look at a few frequently asked questions
and clear up some common misperceptions about resumes.


Resumes are incredibly flexible documents. There are no “rules” about what you must or
cannot include, how or where to present the information, or any real taboos except that
your resume must not contain any spelling, grammatical, or punctuation errors. You can
select and present the most positive, impressive things about you—things that relate to the
employer’s needs, as you’ve identified them in your Core Qualifications list. But because a
good resume is concisely written and tightly formatted, it’s important that you start out
with a good organizational structure so that you can include just the right information,
arranged for maximum impact.

To create that structure, resumes are sectioned into five principal categories:
■ Header/Contact Information: A well-organized presentation of your name and contact
information (one or more mailing addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses,
and other ways of reaching you).
■ Objective and/or Skills Summary: A section at the top of your resume that immediately
identifies what you’re looking for and highlights your most important qualifications.
■ Education: Presents all facets of your recent college experience, such as coursework,
academic honors, internships, and activities.
■ Work Experience: Chronicles the details of your employment experience, whether coop
or internship; part-time during school year or summers; or full-time experience
before, during, or since you graduated from college.
■ Extras: In this category go the many bits of information that you’d like to include but
that don’t fit neatly into any of the prior categories.

You can start with the easy stuff and work your way through the process in the following
steps.

Start Strongly with Well-Organized Contact Information
Give potential employers the information they need in a format that makes it easy for them
to find what they’re looking for. Your name should be prominent. Use bold and/or larger
type to catch the reader’s attention.


Should you use a nickname? Because a resume is a fairly formal business document, it’s traditional
to use your full given name (Richard J. Williams, not Ricky Williams). But you
might want to consider using a nickname in the following circumstances:
■ If no one ever uses your real name (for example, Jay Vasipoli rather than Mortimer J.
Vasipoli III).
■ Your name appears difficult to pronounce (for example, Shayna O’Riordan, not
Séadhna O’Riordan).
■ You want to use an Americanized name or nickname in place of or to supplement your
traditional name (for example, Manh “Mike” Nguyen).

If you are sending out your resume while you are still living at school, you’ll need to include
both school and home addresses and telephone numbers. If the best way to reach you is on
your mobile phone, be sure to include that number as well. And be certain that you have a
reliable answering service for any number you include. Don’t include pagers or fax numbers
unless there really is no better way to contact you.

You must have an e-mail address that’s professional, permanent, and reliable. Consider getting
a separate Hotmail or Yahoo! address just for your job search (this is especially important
if your everyday e-mail address is something like fratparty@bigu.edu).
Create a new word-processing document or use the resume-development worksheet in the
appendix to organize your contact information. Here are a few sample formats to consider:


Sell Your Strongest Qualifications in a Powerful Skills Summary
This important introductory section of your resume should present a quick “snapshot” of
who you are and what you have to offer. Whether you use a formal Objective statement,
use both an Objective and a Skills Summary, or combine the two into some kind of
Summary/Profile, be sure you do the following for greatest impact:
■ Instantly communicate just what kind of job you’re looking for.
■ Highlight your strongest qualifications.

This essential information must be crystal-clear in just a quick glance at the top part of your
resume. Equally important, you must write this section with the employer’s interests in
mind. Stating what you want is not nearly as effective as telling employers what you can do for
them.

Write Your Objective/Skills Summary
There are many interesting ways to communicate your objective and key skills. To make it
easy for you, first I’ll walk you through a step-by-step process. Then, if you’re feeling creative
or would like to consider a different way of presenting this information, we’ll review a variety
of options and examples for alternatives to a simple Skills Summary.


Write an Objective, Goal, or Target Statement
Although it’s not strictly necessary to lead off your resume with an objective, I do recommend
it for new graduates. It is a quick, easy way to focus the employer’s attention on
your areas of interest. Otherwise, because you probably don’t have a lengthy or relevant
employment history, it might be difficult for the employer to understand what jobs you’re
qualified for.
When writing your objective, be specific, brief, and direct; avoid meaningless statements
such as “Seeking a challenging, rewarding position with the opportunity for career advancement.”
Read More: Writing Your Killer Resume

A multimode course in thesis writing for graduate students

David Catterick (2001) describes a Writing Up Research course for international graduate students offered by the University of Dundee, Scotland. The course itself lasted six weeks and was multimode: half accessed in face-to-face classes, half via WebCT. WebCT stands for Worldwide Web Course Tools and is software designed for the delivery of distance learning courses, which can be used to create a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

When the course had been taught as fully classroom-based, scheduling difficulties faced by students from different departments across the university presented ongoing problems. The development of an online learning environment, accessible 24 hours a day, was seen as a viable solution. The course’s first week was classroom-based: the seven students met with the teacher and learned how to use WebCT. The face-to-face orientation was very helpful in enabling students to access and work within the online environment, with the teacher on hand to help with any initial difficulties. Face-to-face meetings at the start of distance courses have been found to be important for motivation, developing a sense of learning community, and in easing access to initial learning events.

However, the constraints of time and distance mean that this is not possible in many contexts. In the Writing Up Research course students accessed materials and completed online tasks early each week using WebCT. They were then required to log on for about an hour – in the university computing labs, in their workplace or from home – on a set afternoon to take part in online discussions.

These were based around questions posed earlier in the week and were designed to mirror classroom-based discussions. The text messages could be read by other students who were in the chat room, and the software kept a record of the entire discussion. The lessons learned included that considerable time and support were required to set up and operate an online course. The response of students to the course was mixed: some appreciated their experience using WebCT, while others preferred ‘more class-based teaching’. Overall the evaluations of the course were very positive in terms of its usefulness and effectiveness.

In conclusion Catterick notes that the text-based nature of WebCT was appropriate for a writing course, but may be less suitable for other English language courses. In addition language proficiency is an important consideration. Based on his experience Catterick argues that learners with less well-developed communicative ability than those in his study – who were described as being high-intermediate language learners – may lack confidence in their communication skills, and therefore be intimidated by the chat function.
Read More : A multimode course in thesis writing for graduate students

Essays Writing: Telling story and Think Metaphorically

Telling a Story 
To translate our talk about concrete detail into slightly different terms, good essays use nouns and verbs while weak ones use adjectives. Strong essays “show” and weak ones “tell.” Or again, good essays describe action while weak ones are a series of static images. Allow us to explain. The adjective is a perfectly good part of speech, but only when serving strong verbs and nouns. An adjective by itself is an abstract category. If you say that your friend is “crazy,” “zany,” or even “off-the-wall,” you haven’t said much.

But if you describe the time when she got out of her car and locked it with the keys still in the ignition, you’re beginning to make progress. Or the time she got the hiccups during an assembly, couldn’t stop laughing, and had to run out the back of the auditorium. If you describe the basketball game when she grabbed a rebound, raced to the wrong basket, and sank a shot, then froze in her tracks and exclaimed “Oh s_ _ _” loud enough for everyone to hear…. Now we get the idea. After recounting a few anecdotes like these, you don’t need to tell the reader that she is crazy because you have shown what she is like. Strong verbs always drive interesting writing. But as essay writers grope and strain, too many of them reach instead for adjectives, as in the following:

It was a chilly, grey twilight as the enormous stadium
scoreboard announced the fourth quarter. I felt a damp,
cool hint of dew under my aching feet. My muscles were
tired but taut. The atmosphere was electric as the fans
watched expectantly…


Though it is only a fragment, notice how this passage seems to move in slow motion. It is a series of images without much action (verbs) to link them. The overworked adjectives are not necessarily weak words, but they weigh down the prose. A trying-too-hard quality creeps in. Nothing is happening, but the author attempts to convey significance by lingering on every detail of the scene. The passage sounds forced and self-important. A good essay consists of anecdotes and concrete observations that illustrate a story or make a point. 


Think Metaphorically 
Is your life boring? Does it leave you with nothing to write about? With metaphors (and similes), anybody’s life can be the subject of an engaging essay. Consider Essay 93, in which the author likens his middle school years to the Dark Ages in Europe. He had been an active learner in his elementary years—which he compares to Greek and Roman antiquity. After a middle-school slump, he experiences a renaissance in ninth grade which he likens to, well, the Renaissance. By twelfth grade, he has undergone an enlightenment worthy of the Enlightenment and written an essay with real substance about his relatively typical school career.

There are numerous other examples in this book. In Essay 19, the author uses sailing as a metaphor for life. In Essay 69, the author describes being accepted as an adult in her family through the familiar experience of that first cup of coffee. In Essay 47, an author who grew up in the Caribbean imagines himself as a palm tree in conversation with a baobab tree that represents his African heritage. Metaphors and similes show a student’s ability to do bigpicture thinking. If you’re ever at a loss for what to write, think of analogies that apply to your life. Exploring such comparisons through simile or metaphor can transform mundane events into interesting ones.
Read More : Essays Writing: Telling story and Think Metaphorically

Writing Grant Proposal

Ofelia teaches third grade in an inner-city school with a large immigrant population. She asks each child to read aloud to their families every night for 20 minutes. Recently three parents have shyly thanked her and admitted they don’t read English as well as their children. They read too well to enroll in the literacy program at the library but not well enough to help their children when they stumble with a word. One mother said she was afraid she didn’t always understand the information that came with medicines for her child’s asthma and asked Ofelia to read it for her. Another mother asked if she would consider teaching parents how to help their children with homework. Ofelia would love to do this, but she’ll need teaching materials, training for herself, and money for child care if this is going to be an ongoing project. Her classroom budget has no money for programs like this, and she doesn’t want to charge the parents. Maybe she can get a grant to at least try out the idea.

Michelle is a pre-med student interested in finding ways to help her grandmother who is having increasing difficulty moving around because of her arthritis. Michelle is not sure if she wants to go into research or clinical work, but she’s being encouraged by a favorite faculty member to write a grant proposal and explore some options.


Boyd is a junior faculty member at a land grant college; he wants to establish a small but significant place for himself. He concentrated on corn breeding in graduate school, but an infestation of corn borers played havoc with some of his experiments. Now he’s wondering if he should shift his focus a bit and concentrate on controlling or at least managing his enemy. To do that, he’ll need to find money outside the department’s current budget.

You and thousands of other people like Ofelia, Michelle, and Boyd have both personal and professional reasons for considering writing an application for a grant. You may have some reservations about your chances of getting money this way, but a persistent project that needs funding keeps swimming just outside your consciousness. You’ve seen the ads that promise easy money, and you’re more than skeptical about their promises. You may have heard that grant writing is difficult, and you wonder if you have the skills that are needed. In spite of these hesitations, however, you’ve decided it’s time to at least explore the idea of finding a grant to underwrite a project that is important to you.
Congratulations! You’ve taken two important steps toward writing a successful grant proposal.

1. You have a passion for solving a problem, helping someone else, or filling a gap in either services or knowledge that won’t go away.
2. You are looking for a guide because you know this is new territory that shifts quickly, and you want to follow basic steps without any false promises.

As you browse, and later read this book and complete the suggested activities, your passion will be needed to complete the myriad small, but time-consuming tasks that are part of the proposal-writing process. Your idea will become the kernel of a research or social service project that forms the core element in seeking and receiving a grant award.

Anyone Can Write a Grant Proposal
This is true. If you are comfortable with a computer, can organize your thoughts in writing, know how to follow directions, and are patient, you have the basic skills needed for completing a funding request. It helps if you’re curious, able to work under tight deadlines, and have access to a copy of Adobe Acrobat Suite (the expensive version), which is helpful in filling out the increasing numbers of online submissions.

Grant Writing Is Simply Filling in a Form
This is F-A-L-S-E in capital letters. Although that is sometimes the last step in applying for funds, writing is the smallest part of preparing a grant proposal. My first Head Start proposal took more than 200 hours to prepare. Now I estimate a proposal for a new client or a government grant will still take between 75 and
80 hours. That’s because there’s a lot more to asking for a grant than the writing.

Even the one-page ads that promise an easy path to fast cash list several steps in the process. As the chapters in this book demonstrate, the basic parts of “writing a grant” include:
• Defining a fundable project
• Demonstrating a need for the project and justifying its expense
• Showing that you or your group is the appropriate agent to implement the research or program
• Refining the proposal with details of objectives, activities, staffing, partners, and evaluation
• Researching and prioritizing funding sources
• Creating a realistic budget that supports the goals of the project
• Writing the narrative
• Preparing a presentation that meets the funder’s requirements

It’s wise to estimate your first submission for a major grant will take a minimum of three months and may require even more time if critical elements are not in place. For example, if you have a clear picture of projects you want to fund, have a reputable connection with potential collaborators, and have identified a handful of funding sources, two months may be enough to prepare a letter of intent or a simple proposal. If, however, you’ve operated solo up until now, have no idea of how many teens will show up for a drumming workshop,
or haven’t done a literature search to see how many other people are working in nanotech drug delivery, you’ll want considerably more time to collect the information and connections you need.
Read More : Writing Grant Proposal

Tips Writing Great Grant Proposal

Grant Writers Speak Their Own Language
Again, this is a true and false statement. Every field has its own language that quickly becomes jargon. Grant writing is no exception. If you are a purist, you don’t write grants. You write proposals for grants. A grant is money given for a specific purpose that doesn’t need to be repaid. Those of us who “write grants” don’t print the checks or even sign them. We define a project, collect appropriate materials to justify the need, and write an application requesting the awarding of that money. We “propose” opportunities for a foundation, corporation, or government agency to give away its funds.


There is an extensive glossary at the back of the book, and lists abbreviations for government divisions that make grants. Since I don’t use abbreviations when I write a proposal, I try not to use them in the book. A few acronyms and some unfamiliar words are sure to creep in, however. To aid your reading, here is some of the most frequently used jargon I share with other grant seekers, philanthropists, and the government, listed in the approximate order of frequency with which you’ll hear and eventually use them
yourself.

• RFP—Request for Proposal. This is the formal, printed announcement in the Federal Register that describes federal government funds that are open for applications. Over the years, it has become synonymous with any notice of available funds from all levels of the government and public and private foundations. Since all the rules and regulations for a particular grant are contained in this single document, the RFP will be your indispensible guide to applying for each grant. Also, because people can’t leave a good thing alone, a host of variations have appeared. RFA (Request for Funding Assistance), NOFA (Notice of Funding Availability), SGA (Solicitation for Grant Applications), FFO (Federal Funding Opportunity), and FOA (Funding Opportunity Announcement) are a few current ones.
• NPO—Nonprofit Organization. Databases of funding sources and brief announcements of RFPs often abbreviate the types of organizations that can apply for funds.

• AVO—All Volunteer Organization

• CBO—Community-Based Organization. Sometimes the same as an

• NPO; sometimes AVOs, FBOs, and NPOs grouped together

• FBO—Faith-Based Organization

• LEA—Local Education Agency. Usually a school district or county office of education

• • IHE—Institution of Higher Education. Colleges, universities, trade schools

• 501(c)(3)—Section of the IRS code that designates an organization as charitable and tax exempt. The vast majority of foundations require grant recipients to be 501(c)(3) organizations.
• LOI—Letter of Intent. A brief, often one-page, letter summarizing your grant request that is increasingly requested as a preliminary screening step by foundations. Since it’s often difficult to write a summary before you have written the entire proposal, an LOI requires all the planning and decisions regarding a project are in place before you send it.
• Program Office. A staff member of a government agency, foundation, or corporate-giving program who administers the application process. This is usually the person who has practical answers to questions about a funding opportunity you are researching.
• Collaborators. Partners who have come together from different organizations or disciplines to work on a mutually beneficial project or program. The vast majority of government grants require some form of collaboration, and once again, foundations are following the trend. Members can include public and private organizations, government agencies, and individuals.
• Sustainability. The expectation that ongoing funds to continue the research or project will be raised from other sources when the grant expires. Both government and foundation applications often ask for a sustainability plan.
• Logic Model. A process that visually depicts assumptions and elements of a specific program. It can be as simple as describing the situation, inputs, outputs, and outcomes in chart form, or as elaborate as a circular flowchart with goals, resources, activities, outputs, and outcomes.
• MOU—Memorandum of Understanding. Legal document spelling out what the lead agency/principal investigator and each collaborating group or individual will and will not do to implement the proposal

You Can’t Apply for a Grant Alone

There are two ideas contained in this heading, and both are true. First, preparing a grant proposal is a team effort. It’s important that one person do the actual writing for continuity and completeness, but you’ll need support from other staff collecting the needed information, and developing a realistic budget, and you’ll need buy-in and approval from your governing board. If a school district, college, university, hospital, or research lab will be the official body receiving the grant, there will be a designated chain of command to create, review, and give approval to the final proposal. Establishing and cultivating relationships throughout your organization are important from the very beginning.

The second meaning of the heading refers to the evidence of partnerships with other researchers or agencies that an increasing number of funding sources require. In this book, I’m working on the premise that all grant requests will be collaborative in nature. If you want funds to add nutritional education to an existing food pantry, you need to know staff at the local WIC (a federally funded food supplement and support program for Women, Infants, and Children), have at least a nodding acquaintance with school, hospital, and senior
food service personal, and be familiar with the churches, temples, and other groups that also distribute food and clothing. If you’re seeking research funds, partners can be in other institutions or in other departments.

Boyd, the corn breeder mentioned at the start of the chapter, will probably want to consult with an entomologist to learn more about his corn borers, a toxicologist to develop an effective kill agent, an engineer to produce an effective delivery system for the insecticide, and local authorities for permission to spray or otherwise kill the nasty bugs. It’s a huge plus for your grant application if you can work together on the proposed new project. Yes, this adds time and complexity to your project, but it also adds depth, avoids duplication, and hopefully is more effective in meeting your long-term goals—and it increases your chances
for receiving grants.
Read More : Tips Writing Great Grant Proposal

Write Right—College Essay Writing Techniques

Learning to write a cohesive and persuasive college essay is crucial to the financial aid process. Write right. Writing is the medium through which you communicate with the admissions officer, the financial aid officer, and the awards committee. It can determine how much aid you might receive. Avoid unnecessary words and redundancy. They waste your space, waste the reviewer’s precious time, and may confuse the reader. Never send your reader to the dictionary by using uncommon and unfamiliar vocabulary. Whatever you plan to write, say it once and say it right. Here are some tips to improve your writing skills.

Avoid Jargon
Using language that is used by a particular group, profession, or culture, especially when the words and phrases are highly technical for someone outside the discipline to understand, can be a disadvantage. Jargon can also convey a sense of pretentiousness and meaninglessness. If you must use a technical term, define it when you first use it. Here is an example of a sentence using jargon:
The Fresnel lens that was invented in 1822 revolutionized the study of pharology. If the reviewer does not know what a Fresnel lens is or what pharology means, your point and its significance are lost. You are making the reviewer’s job more difficult by using jargon.

Instead of being too specific about the Fresnel lens, which is a type of illumination introduced to lighthouses by France in the 19th century, and using the word “pharology,” which is the study of lighthouses (the word comes from the first recorded lighthouse in history, the Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria around 290 B.C.), this sentence can be restructured so as to avoid jargon: The invention of the Fresnel Lens, which was a type of illumination used in lighthouses in the 18th century, revolutionized the study of lighthouses.


Explain Acronyms and Terms
Make yourself clear. You cannot assume that readers who will judge your proposal will know the same acronyms or buzzwords that are common to your organization or field of interest. While they may understand
that HUD refers to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a self-coined acronym like CARA, for the Connecticut Arts Response Action, can confuse the reader. Give readers the full name or title on first reference, followed by the acronym in parentheses.

Write Short Sentences
A sentence gains clarity when it is brief. Avoid long sentences. When sentences get too long, wordiness creeps in and it is easy for the reader to get lost in the phrases and lose your train of thought. By the end of the sentence the reader may have forgotten what was written at the beginning. Eliminate wordiness as it is likely to lead to grammatical errors. Take a look at the following sentence:
“Give Peace a Chance” was a dance recital that our high school presented, in which I played a leading role in depicting movements of conflict from around the world.
Here is how you can make life easier:
“Give Peace a Chance” was a dance recital presented by our high school in summer 2008. I played the leading role of performing scenes of conflict and despair faced by people living in war-torn countries.
You want to get your point across, not bury it in words. Your prose should be clear and direct. If an admissions officer has to struggle to figure out what you are trying to say, you are in trouble. Make your presentation as strong as possible and keep it to the point.

Write Cohesively
Organize your thoughts clearly. Arrange the elements of your thoughts in a way that creates a particular structure within the proposal. Cohesion is key. Organizing your thoughts forces you to eliminate unnecessary

details that make the essay disconnected. Make your sentences short and powerful. Repeating the same things over and over  again will lead the reviewer to believe that your academic and extracurricular background lack substance, just like your writing does. The following is an example where the thoughts are disjointed. The request is made by an individual applicant to seek funding for a photographic project:
I will be visiting Varanasi, India, to conduct a photographic documentary on Varanasi, India. It is one of the oldest living cities in the world. It captures the essence of India. I want to show how old ideas exist with modern trends. Here is how you can organize your thoughts better:
“Varanasi, India, is one of the oldest living cities in the world. In many ways, Varanasi captures the essence of India, filled with contrasts between the old order and the new, ancient civilizations versus contemporary globalization, and the sacred and the secular. My goal is to conduct a photojournalism project titled Tradition vs. Modernism in Varanasi, India. “The theme of the photo project will be to study how traditional rituals are being assailed and benefited by modernism and globalization.

Avoid Expressions of Uncertainty
The language in a college essay needs to be authoritative. Uncertain words and sentences like “may,” “basically,” “it appears to me,” and “I might be able to,” show uncertainty on the part of the applicant. Such phrases leave the reader to wonder whether or not the applicant offers promise. The following is an example of a sentence expressing uncertainty:
It appears to me that there is a shortage of classical chamber music performances in the university curriculum, I think.
The college essay equivalent of the above statement is as follows:
Less than 30 percent of all classical music recitals in the university curriculum  feature chamber music.

Avoid Using Former and Latter
Using the words former and latter slows the reader down. Some reviewers may have to reread the previous text to determine what was “former” and what was “latter.” Here is an example:

Trans fat foods in public schools have led to unhealthy eating while green salads, although less popular, add nutritional value to meals. There is a national effort to eliminate the former and increase the latter food type.
Here is a clearer sentence:
Although many schools around the country continue to use trans fats there is a push for green salads to replace them. Salads are considered healthier and add more nutritional value to meals.

Get Rid of Puny Language
A little amount of emotion may be helpful in college essays, but too much of it is likely to ruin your chances of winning aid. If you think that the reviewer is going to be touched by your emotional statements and not facts, then you may be in for a surprise. Although most people are sensitive and can be swayed by emotions, too much emotional writing can be a disqualification. Emotional sentences are referred to as puny. They try to communicate your project through feelings, and not through facts. Lamenting about your mortgages, unpaid utilities, and ill health within a proposal may not be the best strategy to crafting a proposal that requests funds to buy a guitar to advance your musical career. Grant proposals require a straightforward and matter-of-fact style of writing. Get rid of puny language and convey your ideas pungently and precisely.

The following is an example of a sentence that is puny:
Our Board feels that the establishment of gallery space is a wonderful idea. It will give local people the opportunity to display their fascinating works of art. Unfortunately, though, the recent loss of our executive director, who died of a terminal illness, the fire that destroyed our office space, and an increase in rent have crushed our organization financially. We are trapped in a sad situation and truly need your help.
Here is a better way of writing it:
The establishment of a gallery space will enable local artists to display their work free of charge. It will also bring our arts council a monthly income through juried art shows, entry fees, and the sale of artwork, thereby
enabling our organization to advance financially.

Avoid Tag Questions
A tag is a short question that is added to the end of a sentence or command. We are used to adding tags in conversations. The following is an example of a tag question used in conversation:
You mailed the greeting cards to the client, right? When it comes to grant proposals, however, there is only one thing to do with tag questions: lose them. Here is an example of a tag question:

Public art is one of the most ubiquitous forms of art, don’t you agree? In writing college essays the above sentence needs to be rephrased as follows: Public art is one of the most ubiquitous forms of art.

Spell Check, Stylistic and Grammar Checkers
Spell checkers are now generally integrated into word processing programs. Some of these programs automatically alert you to the presence of misspelled words as you type. Word processing programs can generally check for the following types of incorrect or poor usage:
• Sentences that are too long
• Paragraphs that are too long
• Passive versus active verb constructions
• Adjacent identical duplicate words
• Vague phrases
• Incorrect punctuation
• Missing spaces
• Too many spaces between words or sentences
• Overused words

You want to get your point across, not bury it in words. Your prose should be clear and direct. If an admissions officer has to struggle to figure out what you are trying to say, you are in trouble. Make your presentation as strong as possible and keep it to the point. If your essay is filled with misspellings and grammatical errors, admissions representatives will conclude not only that you do not know how to write but also that you are not smart enough to get help. Use a spell check. Be especially careful about punctuation. Check (and doublecheck) for typographical errors. Above all, submit a clear and readable essay.

Don’t Disappoint the Reader
Be aware that a heading, a subheading, or a topic sentence is essentially a “promise” to the reader about what he/she will find in the text that follows. Remember to include them. For example, if you write, “The chart
below gives an indication of how many elderly residents in nursing homes have experienced falling injuries at Sunny Hill Nursing Home in 2007” but there is no chart, you are betraying the reader.


Don’t Blow Your Own Horn
Remember the adage, “Tis the empty can that makes more noise?” Don’t brag about your project to the funder as being the best. It might go against you. Show substance in your achievements and allow them to speak for you. Avoid an undue amount of self-praise. Let your data speak for you.
Avoid statements like the following:
Our outstanding and exceptional method of...
Our organization is the best in the continent for...

Be Politically Correct
Be politically correct, particularly when you are writing your college essay. Say “people with reduced mobility,” not “disabled people.” Use “minority individuals,” or terms such as African-American or Native American when you have to be specific about ethnicity. “People of color” or “minority individuals” is safer than “colored people”; “developing countries” sounds better than “third world.” Use inclusive, nonsexist language by substituting she/he and his/her.

Avoid Using Modifiers
Examples of modifiers include “very,” “really,” and “certainly.” Use these sparingly in your essay. Using them frequently is an indication that you are trying to get the attention that is slipping by you because you have limited vocabulary to write what you want. Using excessive modifiers also indicates one’s insecurity in relying on simplicity. The following is an example using a modifier:
The Center for Organic Foods, which is an extremely credible organization in the industry, promotes a very important message about eating very healthy foods.
A more effective way of writing it is as follows:
The Center for Organic Foods plays a strategic role in raising awareness about eating healthy foods.

Use Metaphors to Strengthen Your Argument
A metaphor is a figure of speech that enhances the meaning of a sentence with colorful imagery. A metaphor helps to create a written painting with words and adorns your style of writing. Notice how the quality of the following sample is enhanced by a metaphor:
Despite the ongoing peace treaty several signs have indicated that the country is treading unsteady territory. War can erupt at any moment. The grant writing equivalent, using a metaphor, is:

The peace treaty is hanging by a thread.

Create a Visual Painting with Your Words
Make your paragraphs create images appealing to the visual, aural, and gustatory senses when possible. This will entice the reviewer to read your proposal further. Make your writing style a work of art. The longer a funder lingers on your essay, the more likely it is that you will get funding. Adopt an arresting writing style that will grab the reader’s attention and make him not want to stop reading. The following is an example of creating a visual painting with your words:
Aromatherapy massage is relaxing to give as it is to receive. Concentrated essences extracted from plants have been valued throughout history for their therapeutic properties. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks greatly appreciated fragrance. Cleopatra is said to have indulged in herbal essences as part of her beauty regimen and healthy lifestyle. The goal of my project is to promote aromatherapy massage as a healer. Lotus Spa will produce herbal essences that are healthy for the skin.
Lotus Spa will incorporate a wide variety of essential oils into massage treatments. Basic massage strokes such as fan stroking, kneading, and circular pressures work effectively in aromatherapy massage. Massage with aromatic oils softens the skin and aids healing. Some of the herbs used to create essential oils are juniper, lavender, geranium, marjoram, and rosemary. Lotus Spa will offer clients an array of choices on aromatherapy massage, fragrance products, and healing methods.

Stick to One Tense
Avoid changing tenses within the proposal. Using present tense in one section and past tense in another can confuse the reader. Here is an example: A CD recording of the music helped to increase awareness of the different types of singing found in Native American reservations. It was released in record stores last week. The recording is helpful to schoolchildren. It was also helpful to musicians, healers, and scholars. Schoolchildren are listening to the CD in the classrooms.
Here is the college essay writing equivalent:
A CD recording of the music helped to increase awareness of the different types of singing in Native American reservations. It has been widely received by schoolchildren, musicians, healers, and scholars.


Give your College Essay the Human Touch
Don’t get too technical and dense your essay writing style. It can be a turn-off for the reviewer. Most people have feelings. It is up to the writer to reach out to those feelings through writing. Use anecdotes, provide reallife examples, supply actual quotes from those who have benefited or will benefit from your services, emphasize the needs of those you serve, not your own, and describe the situation in terms that are not only factual but also of human interest.

Don’t Be Romantic in Your College Essay
Remember—this is not a romantic letter. Timing your cover letter to get there on Valentine’s Day and pasting pictures of Cupid or provocative photos of yourself on the application pages is not going to increase your
chance of getting into college. Don’t pester the essay reviewer with such childish behavior.

Don’t Put Down Other Applicants
Avoid assuming that you are the only applicant worthy of being accepted to a specific college. By putting down other applicants and giving the impression that you are the only individual worthy of acceptance,
you are likely to hurt your chances of winning any aid. Acting in isolation does not sit too well with today’s thinking. The strategy is to show how your acceptance can blend well with the rest of the student body. When
you put down another applicant, it looks bad on you.

Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
Create a healthy mix of college applications. Apply for private as well as state colleges. Spending six months on only one application is not recommended. Work on several simultaneously. Diversifying is key.

Avoid a Tone of Arrogance
Remember, it is up to the college to decide whether or not to accept you. They are on the higher end as far as admission is concerned. Demanding admission arrogantly from a college is never a good idea. Humility creates more positive overtones than arrogance.

Do Not Use a Cookie-cutter Approach
A cookie-cutter approach is when you submit the same college essay to ten different colleges without tailoring each one separately. It is also known as the shotgun approach. Using the cookie-cutter approach is disadvantageous because the guidelines of each college are different. You may have to reduce the word count, rewrite some of the paragraphs, and do some editing of text. It is critical to tailor your proposal for

each college and to format it specifically to the individual funding source. Writing a single “boilerplate” college essay that can be sent out to many colleges is not recommended. A single college essay is right only for the funder for which it is written. Sending it to dozens at once is usually a waste of resources. Sending a boilerplate proposal skips over the important steps of matching the potential college with your program and presenting the match in a way that the particular reviewer will find pertinent and compelling.
Read More : Write Right—College Essay Writing Techniques

Writing College Essays

Often, the essay may be the entry point of saying hello to a college. Writing essays is one of the most essential components of your scholarship search when applying for college and financial aid. Essay composition is required for most college and private scholarship applications and is probably the most important part. This is the spot where admission reviewers get to see what you are like as a person and what you want out of life. In addition, they simply get to see how you develop an argument and where your writing skills are in comparison to those of other applicants. Either way, the essay is extremely important and a good one can make your application stand out.

Learning to write a good essay is important to your success. In many cases, this letter may be an applicant’s first and only chance to make a good impression. In fact, there are many scholarship competitions that are based solely on the quality of your essay. The essay is your opportunity to take charge of the impression you
make on a college or a scholarship committee and to provide information that does not appear in grades, test scores, or other materials. The main purpose of the essay is to give an in-depth view of you as a unique individual.

Most essay questions are designed to help evaluators discover the values, ideals, achievements, and traits that make up your personality. Therefore, a well-written essay may give evaluators a glimpse of your inner self through your ability to compose a cohesive, well-thought-out writing sample. The essay allows you to reveal your talent, intelligence, sense of humor, enthusiasm, maturity, creativity, sincerity, and writing ability. These factors all count in an admission evaluation and financial aid.

When admissions officers read essays, they search for evidence of curiosity, strong moral character and the capacity to commit to meaningful endeavors. They want to get a sense of your unique voice and distinctive
qualities. Write in a way that holds the reader’s interest. The admissions reviewers and scholarship judges read plenty of really boring essays about “how wonderful I am” and “my plan to end world hunger.” You will likely be asked to provide an essay related to a specific topic. Different schools might ask for different essay topics. The idea of writing dozens of essays for the possibility of a scholarship award may seem like a waste of your vital time and effort. But if you gather your potential scholarship applications together and review the specifics of what the essays are supposed to address, then you may find that one or two well-crafted essays
can be used for multiple applications.

Basic Steps in the Essay-Writing Process
Writing an admissions essay involves much more than simply putting pen to paper. There are no hard and fast rules on what steps you should follow. Adhering to some of the steps described below may help. Here is how to get through the process, from the first inkling to the final revision.

Brainstorm
You will need to brainstorm to come up with some ideas for topics. Even though you may be given a prompt on the application, you will still most likely need to come up with a unique and creative topic that allows you to write an interesting and compelling essay. Brainstorming involves more than coming up with a topic, however. It also involves seeing whether or not you can expand upon a topic. Basically, you have to determine whether or not a topic is worth writing about.

Outline
With your subject securely implanted in your mind, it is time to do some preliminary writing work. You need to flesh out the topic into an outline for your essay. You can do this by thinking of the various approaches
you can take on a topic. If the essay is to be argumentative, you will need to develop an outline that emphasizes the main argument and the supporting points you will make. If you are writing about your life, you may want to steer clear of the five-paragraph essay and go for something a little more linear or narrative in form, as though you were telling a story. The outline of the essay will mirror the structure the essay will take, and the structure the essay will take is based heavily on the content your essay will contain.

Talk with People
Before you dive into actually drafting your essay, take some time to talk to someone who is familiar with the process of essay writing. Your high school counselors are there to help you with precisely this sort of
thing, so be sure to take advantage of their services. If you don’t have a counselor, why not ask for help from an instructor? More often than not, they are delighted to help students who want to go to college.
You need to talk to someone before you set your draft down onto paper so that you get an idea of what is at stake and what your competition is like. You will probably be able to get your hands on sample essays, and your counselor can give you some hints and tips on what admissions reviewers are looking for. Don’t go into the essay-writing process without having this knowledge.

Write It Out
With all of this fresh knowledge in your head and your outline in hand, you can finally begin drafting your admissions essay. Don’t worry too much about structure at first. After all, you want to get your most creative ideas out on paper first, before you start complicating it with structure. You probably have the ideas in your head, so just let them flow out as naturally as possible. Once you have them all down on the page, try to set the whole thing aside for at least a week—preferably, two. This is the “marinade” stage. This way, you can come back to the table with a fresh perspective.

Revise
Revision is probably the most important step of the entire essay-writing process. When you revise your essay, you will be looking first at the content you have created. Do you support your points logically? Is your thesis clear? Is the focus of your essay concise? Do you provide enough examples for each point you make? Is any one point “heavier” in content than another? If you find issues in these areas, fix them first. You will also want to double-check your facts, if any, at this time.

Next, you will need to revise for structure. Does your essay have a solid introduction, supportive body paragraphs and a strong conclusion? Do you make smooth transitions from one paragraph to the next? Does anything seem out of place? If so, rework these parts until they are clear and consistent. You want one sentence to flow logically to the next.

Edit, Edit, Edit
Once you have completed the big revisions on your essay, it is time to get down to the nitty-gritty stuff like fixing grammar issues and spelling errors. Edit your essay several times. Cross out unnecessary words, fix punctuation errors, and watch your word usage. These may seem like nit-picky things to be concerned with, but you have to show the admissions reviewers that you take your writing very seriously. The more you edit it, the stronger it becomes. Avoid doing the writing, editing, and submission of the application in one sitting. Come up with a fairly finished draft and let it sit for a few days. You will notice things you may have overlooked had you done it all in one sitting.

Peer Edit
Once you have gotten your essay as good as it can be, let someone else have a glance at it. There is always room for improvement in writing and another set of eyes can help catch those small mistakes you might have
skipped over. Peer editors usually don’t catch big mistakes, but they do catch grammatical errors. Make sure you select someone you trust for this duty, like a counselor, teacher or parent.

Adhere to Deadlines
Keep track of your deadlines. As you start researching colleges, you will find that there are many places where you can apply. Being aware of their deadlines is important. Develop your own method of keeping track
of deadlines. Technologically savvy writers can use Outlook. Old-fashioned writers can jot down the deadlines on a calendar or post them on the refrigerator door.
Don’t put off writing your essays until the last minute. Plan them during the summer before your senior year, if you can, or early in your senior year, and write an individual essay for each college. Spend quality time
with your essay. Give each application individual attention. Don’t rush your writing because you have to meet an overnight deadline. Simmer your writing, research your topic, and spend time with your application. Seasoned reviewers can detect whether or not an application has been crafted at the last moment.

Attune Yourself with the College
Attuning, or finding your voice, refers to the way you decide to approach the essay. During the process of attunement, you are likely to find your unique voice. There are several ways of seeking attunement. Visiting
the college website is an excellent start. Although every college website is different, most of them follow similar formats and include the academic calendar, student activities, financial aid, faculty, course curriculum, and more. Know your prospective college: research, research, and research some more. Obtain as much information as possible about a prospective college. Understand the mission of the college, and study its programs and focus. Be sure to make a note of any academic preferences and/or limitations. See if your ideas fit within the guidelines of the college. Read through them and get a feel for the school.

When possible, talk with someone in the financial aid college who has a decision-making role or capacity. This gives you a sense of their preferred style of communication. Note whether their style is formal, scientific/
technical, or community oriented.
Read More : Writing College Essays

Idea To Writing Grant Proposal - Gathering Basic Agency Individual Information

Now that we have some of the legal paperwork started, let’s look at the information you need to gather about your agency or, if you’re applying as an individual, about yourself. First, collect what you already use to describe yourself and your work—agency brochures, résumés, mission statements, previous grants, press releases, elevator speeches you use to introduce yourself in 10 seconds anything and everything you have that says, “This is who we are and what we do.” These are good places to begin because we will adapt them for each proposal.

Now look at each piece from the perspective of your proposed project.

• Mission Statement: Summarize the mission of the agency or your individual career goals in two or three sentences. Reduce that to one sentence or one phrase. Keep all of your notes because eventually you will mix and match words to fit your mission to the mission of the funding agency.

For example, a music academy’s mission statement in its entirety could be:
• To enrich the lives of individuals and the community through music
• To provide outstanding instruction for amateur and aspiring professional musicians of all ages
• To reach out to the community through diverse programs and public performances
• To promote and nurture a lifelong passion for music
• Most importantly, to make music education available to all . . . one note at a time

Each of these phrases might be used alone for a different funding source. The first phrase could accompany a request for a series of community concerts. The second would fit either training for instructors or scholarship funds. I might combine elements of the first and third phrases into something like “to enrich the lives of individuals and the community through diverse musical programs and public performances” in proposals for a jazz summer camp, concerts at elementary schools, student recitals at retirement communities, or the creation of a mariachi band or African drumming group. The final phrase might even find its way into an appeal for a customized software and data entry staff person to computerize student, alumni, and donor records.

• History: Condense 50 years or expand 3 years into a single paragraph that explains how you started and how far you’ve come. Our music academy could write: Four music teachers responded to budget cuts in public school music education by creating a community school of music in a church basement in 1970. During the first year, they struggled to keep music alive for 43 young people from 31 families with volunteers providing individual and group lessons with a poorly tuned piano. Today, approximately 600 students between the ages of 6 months and 83 years choose from a wide variety of instruction and performance opportunities facilitated by a staff of 30 professional voice, percussion, woodwind, and brass musicians operating from two classrooms, 18 teaching studios, a keyboard lab, and an 80-seat recital hall.
• Specific Research or Program Activities in the Past Five Years: What concrete success stories can you tell? Collect both quantitative and qualitative examples that show your work is important and makes an impact. Gather information that demonstrates the ripple effect of your work. To continue with our example, the music academy could outline the introduction and growth of two or three major activities and list the accomplishments of several alumni.
• Current Research or Program Activities: This variation of the previous section allows you to provide more details about one program, describe the progress of a “typical” student, and show how the proposed project will strengthen your current work. Use concrete specific examples to show how what you are doing now relates to both the past and the new direction you want to take. Will the grant help you extend current work to a new population? Add new elements? Explore a new direction?
• Major Sources of Funds: Know where you get your money now. Find a copy of this year’s total agency operating budget. In addition, create a list of all grants and large donations from the past five years. Finally, you will need copies of the latest audited financial report for the agency to enclose as an attachment. If you don’t have an audited report, you can ask if a review by an outside source will suffice. Often, if the grant request is small and the agency is new, reviews will be accepted.
• Professional and Community Organizations and Awards: List them all in one place so you have everything spelled correctly and don’t forget any. You can choose which to use for which proposal just like you do with listing community organizations on your personal résumé. The music academy will want to mention membership in the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts and the National Federation of Music Clubs in all of its applications. If the funder places a high value on local community involvement, they might want to add their participation in three Chambers of Commerce and the award they received from a mayor for contributions to city life.

At this point collect everything. Make notes. Play with the words. Add things as you think of them. You will be condensing this material to one or two paragraphs in the proposal, but you want to be sure you remember the important details.
Read More : Idea To Writing Grant Proposal - Gathering Basic Agency Individual Information

Idea To Writing Grant Proposal - Brainstorming with People Who Know

You may think you know what research should be done or how a human service project should be structured, but the real people who know are those who will reap the benefits of your proposal and those who have conducted similar projects. Your next task will be to gather a sizeable group of those people and hold a brainstorming session to generate and record even more ideas about your preliminary project idea. Because the rules are simple and familiar and the process is fun, brainstorming can be used effectively in a large, disparate group of people who may not know each other. It’s messy sometimes, but again, the information you gather will be invaluable for a winning proposal and an effective project.

Choose people you identified as program staff, current clients, “alumni,” potential program participants, colleagues in related or complementary fields of work, support staff, vendors, and community members who have an interest in your field. You’ll want at least 12 to15 people, so invite 30–40. Include people who surfaced in the questorming because this time you will be looking for:
• Potential partners
• Elements to add or subtract from your initial project design
• Barriers and gaps that need attention
• Community resources to augment your project
• History of what does and doesn’t work locally and in other communities
• Perceived benefits of your proposed effort
• Community supporters
• Prospective funding streams

By now you know the steps of holding a productive meeting, but let me add a few additional suggestions because this will be a larger group and you‘ll need to be a bit more organized.

• Phone, email, or otherwise personally invite each person. Follow up a verbal invitation with a written notice that includes the estimated time (90 minutes for this group) and purpose of the meeting.
• Reserve a room and arrange for a recorder. If you have invited 40 people, set up the room for 30 and have spare chairs handy. It’s better to have every chair filled than to have large empty rows or a single person at a table with eight chairs. You also want everyone to participate easily so if you expect more than a dozen, arrange for two recorders and/or someone to tape the session.
• Plan to have some kind of refreshments. You are building relationships, as well as gathering information, so prepare as if you are inviting people to your home. If you serve coffee, make arrangements for tea, add bottled water to a selection of soft drinks, and show that you are attentive to individual differences by your choice of food.
• People may not know each other (so nametags will probably be appropriate) and they will undoubtedly arrive at different times so I suggest you begin with the kind of flexible, interactive activities that Eva Schindler-Rainman called “raggedy beginnings.” Start a graffiti wall and invite people to respond to posted words and phrases or build a group mind map surrounding your proposed project. Pass out forms for people to interview someone to introduce later. Even do a silly party ice breaker that can be easily stopped when most of the group has arrived.
• Thank everyone for coming. Remind them of the purpose of the meeting (to help the agency collect ideas and resources about XYZ). If the raggedy beginning didn’t involve interviewing someone else, ask everyone to introduce themselves and answer one specific question related to the topic of the day. (Give your name, agency or job title, and one service that would make life better for homeless/elderly/young people in our community. Or, tell us how you would benefit if we expanded the music academy.)
• Restate the purpose and expectations of the meeting • once again and review or teach the four basic guidelines for brainstorming:

• Criticism is ruled out.

• Freewheeling ideas are welcome.

• Quantity is wanted.

• Combination and improvement are sought.

• Decide which of the eight possible outcomes (potential partners; additions or subtractions from your project design; barriers and gaps; community resources; history of what does and doesn’t work; desired benefits; community supporters; and prospective funding streams) you want to elicit through group process and which you want to collect through personal observation.
• You may want to brainstorm more than one question, but limit the number to three. If you used the graffiti wall as a raggedy beginning, start with one of those topics and add suggestions. Look at the questions from the questorming session to see which ones might be applicable.
• Expect a pause after a rush of ideas. Be patient and give people permission to dig deeper for comments they think are silly or impractical. You’ll find someone brave enough to make a suggestion—and then the ball will get rolling again.
• If there is time and you want help in setting priorities, ask people to rank the suggestions that have been made. An easy way to do this if ideas are posted on newsprint around the room is to give each person three colored stickers to affix to the three suggestions they think have the most merit, should be implemented first, or another ranking criteria you select. If ideas were taped or are not easily accessible, distribute half sheets of brightly colored paper and ask people to list three answers to the ranking question you raise. (Brightly colored paper is as an important ingredient as the choice of refreshments, since it’s another detail that says you put time and energy into planning this day and you will find and appreciate the feedback they provide.)
• Ten minutes before you said the meeting would end, ask if there are any final comments, summarize the main contributions, and thank everyone for coming. Stand by the door to say thank-you and good-bye to everyone as they leave.
• Clean up and transcribe the notes. Condense them to one page and send them with a thank-you note to everyone who attended. Also send them with a note to the people who didn’t attend saying you missed them and wonder if they have anything to add to the group’s feedback.

Read More : Idea To Writing Grant Proposal - Brainstorming with People Who Know

Idea To Writing Grant Proposal - Questorming with Key People

Let’s go back a step and examine the basic questions and problems your project is addressing by asking questions like those raised earlier when you were refining a purpose statement. Questorming is a variation of brainstorming developed at MIT in the 1950s that focuses on asking questions rather than seeking solutions. If your proposed project is broad and somewhat fuzzy (and it should be at this point), questions like those below will help you develop a more concise, focused problem formulation.
What are the best questions we should be asking in order to do this project?

• What should we ask to determine whether or not this project should beundertaken?
• What do we need to ask to evaluate the impact of this project?
• What are likely to be the consequences of implementing this project?
• Are we lacking critical information before proceeding further? If so, how can we get it?
• What cross-disciplinary skills and information would be useful in conducting this research?
• Who are the stakeholders? How do we include them in meaningful ways?
• Have we covered all the major possibilities? Are we overlooking anything?

Gather two or three people who are key to the success of your project. If you are the executive director of a community agency, you might invite the board president and/or appropriate committee chair, the advisory committee chair, and the program director or a key staff member already working in this field. If you are considering a research project, choose people in your own and related departments who have the experience and skills you will need. If this is a thesis project, ask your committee. Send an invitation memo that invites them to a 30- to 40-minute session to consider the questions you need to ask about the proposal focus from your mind map. If your office is too small to meet comfortably, reserve a conference room. Ask a friend or clerical support person to be your recorder and you’re all set. You can either ask the questions yourself to guide the discussion or enlist the help of your advisor or a facilitator but your main role is to listen.

Remember this is questorming, so focus on eliciting questions rather than answers. The results of the meeting should be another list of questions. Here are some that came from asking the question: “What are the best questions we need to ask to provide support services for unemployed residents in our community?”
What services are currently provided by the state, • county, community colleges, and other agencies?

• What kinds of jobs are available? For unskilled workers? For high school graduates? For seniors? For people with an arrest record?
• What are the characteristics of people who are unemployed? Of discouraged workers?
• What job search skills are most effective?
• Who is providing job training?
• What skills do previously employed workers have? Those who have never been employed? What new skills do they need?
• What barriers exist for job seekers? Transportation? Relevant skills? Uniforms or professional clothing? Child care? Other?

If the questions expand your list of things to do, that’s okay. The process will help refine and make the finished program design sharper and more realistic. For a sense of closure, however, you might finish with questions like:

• Is the research question I’m asking answerable?
• Have the questions underlying the proposed project been addressed?
• Are we asking the best questions for this stage of the proposal process?
• What kind of resources do we have within this group? Time? Space?  Information? Skills? Materials? What do we need?

Finish the session with a brief recap of the main questions that have emerged, thank the participants for their time and assistance, and promise to keep them in the loop as you move forward. Within the next couple of days, transcribe and condense the questions that were generated into a one-page document. Send this sheet to each person at the meeting with another note of thanks. File the back-up material because you will want to use some of the details in your proposal. Keep the summary handy, however, to serve as a road map for the work you will be doing in the next few weeks.

Read More : Idea To Writing Grant Proposal - Questorming with Key People

Essays Writing: Dotting the I’s and Crossing the T’s

If you’re looking for the simplest way to improve your essay, we can summarize it in three words: edit, edit, edit. Then proofread and edit some more. Too many students spend countless hours on their essays, then get an itchy trigger finger and submit them before correcting obvious spelling mistakes, grammatical inconsistencies, words that have been left out—and worse.

Don’t underestimate your ability to make silly mistakes when you’ve been staring at your essay for a week. When students are under pressure they just want to be done, but to do your best essay it may be necessary to prolong the agony a little longer. We’ll assume that you’ve followed our advice about doing your essay in time to edit it properly. Once you get a draft we think you need at least two weeks. Set it aside for the first week without looking at it.

When you do pick it up again, you’ll be able to look at it with fresh eyes. Material that seemed to flow logically after you had been staring at it for hours may now seem disjointed. Errors that had camouflaged themselves will jump out. After you have gone over the essay yourself, get an adult such as your English teacher, guidance counselor, or parent to read it. Hopefully, he or she can give you two kinds of advice:

• Big-picture feedback about your ideas and whether your essay says what you want it to say.
• Micro-level feedback on details like typos, word choice, and spelling.

If you don’t agree with the advice, get a second adult and see what he or she says. Though we respect the fact that some students want the essay to be theirs alone, we cannot overemphasize the importance of having another pair of eyes go over it.
The following is a laundry list of things to look for when you edit:

• Lack of a main idea—The college essay is often a one-shot deal, and the impulse to cram in as much as possible can be strong. If you start out talking about why you love debate and finish with a discussion of your relationship with the debate coach—who also happens to be your English teacher—you may need to sharpen your focus and expand on one or the other.
• Weak verbs—How strong and precise are your verbs? List every one of them in your essay and see how good they are. Too many “to be” verbs are a bad sign, as in, “Jessica’s dance across the floor was graceful.” Better would be “Jessica danced gracefully across the floor.” Best would be “Jessica glided across the dance floor.” Notice that a strong verb—“glided”—provides a much more vivid description than “danced gracefully” or “was graceful.”
• Passive voice—Sometimes, the person doing the acting disappears altogether, as in, “It is clear that the job must be done.” Even if the sentence were to say, “The job must be done by Tom,” it would still be convoluted and passive. An active sentence would say, “Tom must do the job.” Notice, too, that passive voice uses a “to be” verb. Avoid it.
• Failure to use “I”—Most students have had at least one teacher who told them never to use “I” in a paper. (Instead of “I think,” you might say something like “One can conclude.”) But in a college essay, always use “I” when you’re talking about yourself. It is far more honest and direct than cloaking yourself in phony third-person omniscience.
• Double-dipping adjectives—If you describe a “cool, clear, sparkling mountain stream,” you’ve overdone it. Instead of using two or three adjectives at a time, choose the one best, as in “the sparkling mountain stream.” Go back over your essay and see how many times you used one adjective versus two or three. Were two really necessary? Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes no.
• Too many simple sentences—A few simple sentences are great for effect—just make sure that your entire essay isn’t made up of them. A bunch of simple sentences merely list disconnected ideas; compound and complex sentences establish relationships between those ideas and allow you to explore nuances. For instance: “I had a headache. I went home.” Or again: “I went home because I had a headache. “ Or finally: “Though I went home with a headache, it wasn’t as bad as the one that sent me to the hospital last year.” The first example makes no connection between the headache and going home; the second describes a cause-and-effect relationship; and the third retains the relationship while adding more perspective.
• Wordiness—Even good essays are full of words that aren’t necessary. Any word that does not add insight or specificity should be cut. Likely candidates include clauses like “as you can see” and “it is obvious that” and words such as “basically,” “perhaps,” and “additionally.” Scrutinize your essay one word and one clause at a time. Is everything necessary? If you think your prose is wordy but have trouble cutting, ask a reader to mark words and passages that seem superfluous. It is always easier to cut someone else’s essay than to cut your own.
• Messed up tenses—When in doubt, use the present tense rather than the past. When both the present and past are technically correct, the present is more immediate. When we refer to the essays in this book, we say that the author “writes” about a particular subject rather than “wrote” about it. While this may be a matter of preference, it is crucial is to avoid inconsistency among tenses from one sentence and paragraph to the next.
• • Trusting the spell check—It won’t catch some of the most common errors, like when you write “an” and mean “and,” when you leave out a word, or when you write “there” and mean “their.” Definitely do the spell check, but don’t make it a substitute for human editing.
• • Unwillingness to start over—Sometimes it takes three or four hours of work, and maybe even a complete first draft, to realize that your topic isn’t working. Some students can’t bear to let what they have written go to waste, and end up with an inferior essay. Don’t be afraid to cut out entire sections or chuck the whole thing—even if some of it is good material. Two really good pages that don’t mesh will make a worse essay than one good page standing alone.

When you finally think you’re ready to click on “send,” hit “save” instead and come back again for one last review. The vast majority of essays, even the good ones, include at least one misspelling, typo, or other error. Only after you have proofread yet again, and found nothing, should you consider yourself done.
Read More : Essays Writing: Dotting the I’s and Crossing the T’s

Essays Writing: How Long Should It Be?

We ask this question tongue-in-cheek—it drives teachers crazy. Students keep asking, of course, and the real answer is going to sound teacherly. An essay should be long enough to be good. One of the best essays in this book, Essay 107, is also the shortest. It includes all of seventy-eight words on why the author wanted to attend Yale. (He got in—and the admissions office made a point of commending the essay to his school counselor.)

The longest, Essay 99, tips the scale at 1,172 words. There are times when it is possible to be more precise about a suggested length. For those who still apply on paper, colleges sometimes ask that students “use the space provided.” In such cases, we recommend doing so. (Play with your margins if you need to shoehorn in a few extra lines.) Online, students may occasionally find that their cursors stop moving at the end of the allotted space. If you simply can’t wedge your essay into the field, consider applying on paper, or contact the admissions office to get help with your dilemma.

A few colleges specify a word length. In recent years, Princeton has asked for essays on various topics of about 250 and 500 words, respectively. Two hundred forty or 520, respectively, would fill the bill, but not 700 or 1,227. When the question specifies neither a length nor an amount of space, a reasonable target for those in doubt is not more than four to five hundred words, which means about two-thirds of a page to a page, single-spaced. (Write less for a sidebar essay about your favorite activity or why you are interested in the college.)

There is an interesting footnote to the length issue that we must fess up about. In previous books, notably The Fiske Guide to Getting into the Right College, we have preached the virtues of brevity, or at least of not going on forever. Yet in sifting through the essay submissions for this book—all from successful applicants to highly selective colleges, all identified as excellent by college counselors— we were surprised by the number of nominations that were longer than five hundred words. (There were also plenty of short and sweet ones like our seventy-eight-word masterpiece.)

Our theory is that when an essay is outstanding—really outstanding— the reader doesn’t mind if it goes on longer. Doing so gives the author more space to add the concrete details that make it memorable. You’ll see a number of these longer essays in this book. We are at pains to add that the number of brilliant long essays is far outnumbered by the long ones that could be improved by cutting, sometimes ruthless cutting. If you’re in doubt, consult a teacher who can give you feedback. We’ll say more about that in chapter 3. There are good essays and bad essays of all lengths. We recommend that your first concern be writing a good one.
Read More : Essays Writing: How Long Should It Be?