Tag: words

Word choice in a personal essay

03/09/2011

Image credit: east718

When in doubt, stick to words you would use when writing a term paper. That means avoiding words like awesome, rad, or gnarly. Definitely don’t use words or phrases associated with the “valley girl” talk of the 80’s. Not only is it no longer timely, but annoying.

Also, avoid using these words in cover letters or professional correspondence. Something to keep in mind down the road when applying for a job. Awesome, rad, or gnarly doesn’t exactly convey professional job seeker.

And even more important than word choice, never use an emoticon to convey a sentiment in a personal essay. Never. This also applies to cover letters and job related emails, just don’t do it. It’s comes across as unprofessional and weird.

Don’t use slang in a personal essay

02/17/2011

Even candy hearts use slang

Even though my advice in this post may seem obvious, it’s worth repeating: don’t use slang in a personal essay! (Also, avoid using exclamation marks.)

Thanks to text messaging and twitter, certain acronyms and abbreviated words incorporating numbers have become common place, such as lol, ur, 2morrow, etc. But no matter how universally understood these terms are, don’t use them in a personal essay. It comes off as unprofessional and annoying.

Even if you think it’s cute or some sort of play on words that people will think is funny, don’t do it! If you want to add cool words, revisit the list you memorized studying for the SAT and incorporate some of those. But even then I urge caution, make sure you use the words correctly otherwise it could weaken your essay. My essay rules are: when in doubt delete and have at least three different people read through your essay to check for mistakes. The last thing you want is a perfect essay marred by a typo.