Great, tight essays are written; they’re rewritten. Once there is a solid draft, revision is a requisite to ensure clarity, authenticity, and policy. Below is a practical 10-step checklist:
Step 1: Reread the Prompt
Does your statement/essay directly answer the question? If not, refocus.
Step 2: Identify Your Main Idea
Especially for longer-form statements/essays, can you summarize your essay in one sentence? If not, it's probably doing too much.
Step 3: Check the Opening
Does it start directly, or with throat-clearing? With your limited number of characters, unless your intro is adding relevant content, it's probably best to cut the warm-up lines.
Although it still feels counterintuitive to me—who was trained in school to build up to a point—I constantly challenge myself to BLUF (bottom line up front). The acronym is a communication technique that comes from the military; and I remind myself to BLUF all the time when I realize my work e-mails need to cut to the chase.
Step 4: Look for One Clear Story or Example
Where you identify noise, or where there are too many ideas, lose any emotional attachment you may have, and pick the strongest, singular point/idea that best represents you.
And as a reminder, as I'd mentioned in [Link - to #4.1], while you may be burdened by a character count, schools offer you several prompts—across which you can spread out your ideas (no need to jam them into one response).
Step 5: Trim Filler Phrases
Examples to delete:
- 'I think that'
- 'It was really interesting when'
- Unnecessary qualifying words like 'really' or 'very'
- 'In my opinion'
- 'In a way'
Step 6: Replace Generalities with Specifics (Show vs. Tell)
- The word 'leadership' should be demonstrated by a concrete moment that describes how you *showed* leadership
- 'Curiosity' should be demonstrated by an example of what specifically you are curious about, or an event that engendered or augmented your curiosity
- 'Resilience' should be demonstrated by an action you took, or a decision to commit that you made
Step 7: Strengthen the Reflection
Remember to conclude with the "so what," which is often times what you learned and/or how you've changed and/or how you will apply the thing learned in the future.
Step 8: Check the Word Count
If you've not hit the character limit, do not add padding for the sake of it. If you've hit the character limit, go back to Steps #2-5 to reduce characters—without using unnecessary abbreviations that will confuse or slow down your reader.
Step 9: Read It Aloud
Does it sound like you? Does it flow? Does it sound awkward? Do some sentences run on too long? Do some sentiments detract from your main points?
Step 10: Let It Rest
Re-read with fresh eyes. Improvements—small, and sometimes big—will reveal themselves.
In our case, my daughter let her essays rest for a minimum of two weeks before revisiting them, and making final revisions (just prior to submitting them before the deadline).