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By submitting my email address. i certify that i am 13 years of age or older, agree to recieve marketing email messages from the princeton review, and agree to terms of use., 6 handy grammar rules for your college application.

You’ve worked hard to craft a fantastic college application essay . The result is a draft that is genuine, clear, and that shows the admissions committee who you really are. But before you send off your application, we recommend that you let someone you trust (and whose writing abilities you trust) take a look. Why? The more time you spend with a piece of your own writing, the less likely you are to spot errors.

Colleges Do Notice Grammar Mistakes

We know from working with colleges every year that when it comes to your college application, grammatical accuracy is key. In fact, admissions officers tell us that while grammar mistakes are distracting (and can even cast doubt on the amount of care you put into your essay’s composition), good grammar fades into the background letting your ideas and unique qualities shine through.

Before you submit your application make sure you proofread your essay from beginning to end, proofread it again, and then proofread it some more. Check out these six essential grammar rules to get started. Trust us: mastery of these grammatical pitfalls will help you succeed when you get to college, too!

Read More: Set up a free college consultation!

Read More: College Essay and Application Review

How to Proofread Your College Application

It’s a good idea to edit carefully ALL portions of your application (even responses, such as your list of extracurricular activities , that you type directly into the online application form). But we highly recommend asking a counselor, English teacher, or another stickler for grammar to read your essay to ensure it’s 100 percent grammatically accurate. Try our  24-hour College Essay review for expert feedback within 24 hours.

Want more essay tips? Check out our video on how to perfect your college essay:

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Ultimate Guide to Writing Your College Essay

Tips for writing an effective college essay.

College admissions essays are an important part of your college application and gives you the chance to show colleges and universities your character and experiences. This guide will give you tips to write an effective college essay.

Want free help with your college essay?

UPchieve connects you with knowledgeable and friendly college advisors—online, 24/7, and completely free. Get 1:1 help brainstorming topics, outlining your essay, revising a draft, or editing grammar.

Writing a strong college admissions essay

Learn about the elements of a solid admissions essay.

Avoiding common admissions essay mistakes

Learn some of the most common mistakes made on college essays

Brainstorming tips for your college essay

Stuck on what to write your college essay about? Here are some exercises to help you get started.

How formal should the tone of your college essay be?

Learn how formal your college essay should be and get tips on how to bring out your natural voice.

Taking your college essay to the next level

Hear an admissions expert discuss the appropriate level of depth necessary in your college essay.

Student Stories

Student Story: Admissions essay about a formative experience

Get the perspective of a current college student on how he approached the admissions essay.

Student Story: Admissions essay about personal identity

Get the perspective of a current college student on how she approached the admissions essay.

Student Story: Admissions essay about community impact

Student story: admissions essay about a past mistake, how to write a college application essay, tips for writing an effective application essay, sample college essay 1 with feedback, sample college essay 2 with feedback.

This content is licensed by Khan Academy and is available for free at www.khanacademy.org.

Application Essays

What this handout is about.

This handout will help you write and revise the personal statement required by many graduate programs, internships, and special academic programs.

Before you start writing

Because the application essay can have a critical effect upon your progress toward a career, you should spend significantly more time, thought, and effort on it than its typically brief length would suggest. It should reflect how you arrived at your professional goals, why the program is ideal for you, and what you bring to the program. Don’t make this a deadline task—now’s the time to write, read, rewrite, give to a reader, revise again, and on until the essay is clear, concise, and compelling. At the same time, don’t be afraid. You know most of the things you need to say already.

Read the instructions carefully. One of the basic tasks of the application essay is to follow the directions. If you don’t do what they ask, the reader may wonder if you will be able to follow directions in their program. Make sure you follow page and word limits exactly—err on the side of shortness, not length. The essay may take two forms:

• A one-page essay answering a general question
• Several short answers to more specific questions

Do some research before you start writing. Think about…

• The field. Why do you want to be a _____? No, really. Think about why you and you particularly want to enter that field. What are the benefits and what are the shortcomings? When did you become interested in the field and why? What path in that career interests you right now? Brainstorm and write these ideas out.
• The program. Why is this the program you want to be admitted to? What is special about the faculty, the courses offered, the placement record, the facilities you might be using? If you can’t think of anything particular, read the brochures they offer, go to events, or meet with a faculty member or student in the program. A word about honesty here—you may have a reason for choosing a program that wouldn’t necessarily sway your reader; for example, you want to live near the beach, or the program is the most prestigious and would look better on your resume. You don’t want to be completely straightforward in these cases and appear superficial, but skirting around them or lying can look even worse. Turn these aspects into positives. For example, you may want to go to a program in a particular location because it is a place that you know very well and have ties to, or because there is a need in your field there. Again, doing research on the program may reveal ways to legitimate even your most superficial and selfish reasons for applying.
• Yourself. What details or anecdotes would help your reader understand you? What makes you special? Is there something about your family, your education, your work/life experience, or your values that has shaped you and brought you to this career field? What motivates or interests you? Do you have special skills, like leadership, management, research, or communication? Why would the members of the program want to choose you over other applicants? Be honest with yourself and write down your ideas. If you are having trouble, ask a friend or relative to make a list of your strengths or unique qualities that you plan to read on your own (and not argue about immediately). Ask them to give you examples to back up their impressions (For example, if they say you are “caring,” ask them to describe an incident they remember in which they perceived you as caring).

Now, write a draft

This is a hard essay to write. It’s probably much more personal than any of the papers you have written for class because it’s about you, not World War II or planaria. You may want to start by just getting something—anything—on paper. Try freewriting. Think about the questions we asked above and the prompt for the essay, and then write for 15 or 30 minutes without stopping. What do you want your audience to know after reading your essay? What do you want them to feel? Don’t worry about grammar, punctuation, organization, or anything else. Just get out the ideas you have. For help getting started, see our handout on brainstorming .

Now, look at what you’ve written. Find the most relevant, memorable, concrete statements and focus in on them. Eliminate any generalizations or platitudes (“I’m a people person”, “Doctors save lives”, or “Mr. Calleson’s classes changed my life”), or anything that could be cut and pasted into anyone else’s application. Find what is specific to you about the ideas that generated those platitudes and express them more directly. Eliminate irrelevant issues (“I was a track star in high school, so I think I’ll make a good veterinarian.”) or issues that might be controversial for your reader (“My faith is the one true faith, and only nurses with that faith are worthwhile,” or “Lawyers who only care about money are evil.”).

Often, writers start out with generalizations as a way to get to the really meaningful statements, and that’s OK. Just make sure that you replace the generalizations with examples as you revise. A hint: you may find yourself writing a good, specific sentence right after a general, meaningless one. If you spot that, try to use the second sentence and delete the first.

Applications that have several short-answer essays require even more detail. Get straight to the point in every case, and address what they’ve asked you to address.

Now that you’ve generated some ideas, get a little bit pickier. It’s time to remember one of the most significant aspects of the application essay: your audience. Your readers may have thousands of essays to read, many or most of which will come from qualified applicants. This essay may be your best opportunity to communicate with the decision makers in the application process, and you don’t want to bore them, offend them, or make them feel you are wasting their time.

With this in mind:

• Do assure your audience that you understand and look forward to the challenges of the program and the field, not just the benefits.
• Do assure your audience that you understand exactly the nature of the work in the field and that you are prepared for it, psychologically and morally as well as educationally.
• Do assure your audience that you care about them and their time by writing a clear, organized, and concise essay.
• Do address any information about yourself and your application that needs to be explained (for example, weak grades or unusual coursework for your program). Include that information in your essay, and be straightforward about it. Your audience will be more impressed with your having learned from setbacks or having a unique approach than your failure to address those issues.
• Don’t waste space with information you have provided in the rest of the application. Every sentence should be effective and directly related to the rest of the essay. Don’t ramble or use fifteen words to express something you could say in eight.
• Don’t overstate your case for what you want to do, being so specific about your future goals that you come off as presumptuous or naïve (“I want to become a dentist so that I can train in wisdom tooth extraction, because I intend to focus my life’s work on taking 13 rather than 15 minutes per tooth.”). Your goals may change–show that such a change won’t devastate you.
• And, one more time, don’t write in cliches and platitudes. Every doctor wants to help save lives, every lawyer wants to work for justice—your reader has read these general cliches a million times.

Imagine the worst-case scenario (which may never come true—we’re talking hypothetically): the person who reads your essay has been in the field for decades. She is on the application committee because she has to be, and she’s read 48 essays so far that morning. You are number 49, and your reader is tired, bored, and thinking about lunch. How are you going to catch and keep her attention?

Assure your audience that you are capable academically, willing to stick to the program’s demands, and interesting to have around. For more tips, see our handout on audience .

Voice and style

The voice you use and the style in which you write can intrigue your audience. The voice you use in your essay should be yours. Remember when your high school English teacher said “never say ‘I’”? Here’s your chance to use all those “I”s you’ve been saving up. The narrative should reflect your perspective, experiences, thoughts, and emotions. Focusing on events or ideas may give your audience an indirect idea of how these things became important in forming your outlook, but many others have had equally compelling experiences. By simply talking about those events in your own voice, you put the emphasis on you rather than the event or idea. Look at this anecdote:

During the night shift at Wirth Memorial Hospital, a man walked into the Emergency Room wearing a monkey costume and holding his head. He seemed confused and was moaning in pain. One of the nurses ascertained that he had been swinging from tree branches in a local park and had hit his head when he fell out of a tree. This tragic tale signified the moment at which I realized psychiatry was the only career path I could take.

An interesting tale, yes, but what does it tell you about the narrator? The following example takes the same anecdote and recasts it to make the narrator more of a presence in the story:

I was working in the Emergency Room at Wirth Memorial Hospital one night when a man walked in wearing a monkey costume and holding his head. I could tell he was confused and in pain. After a nurse asked him a few questions, I listened in surprise as he explained that he had been a monkey all of his life and knew that it was time to live with his brothers in the trees. Like many other patients I would see that year, this man suffered from an illness that only a combination of psychological and medical care would effectively treat. I realized then that I wanted to be able to help people by using that particular combination of skills only a psychiatrist develops.

The voice you use should be approachable as well as intelligent. This essay is not the place to stun your reader with ten prepositional phrases (“the goal of my study of the field of law in the winter of my discontent can best be understood by the gathering of more information about my youth”) and thirty nouns (“the research and study of the motivation behind my insights into the field of dentistry contains many pitfalls and disappointments but even more joy and enlightenment”) per sentence. (Note: If you are having trouble forming clear sentences without all the prepositions and nouns, take a look at our handout on style .)

You may want to create an impression of expertise in the field by using specialized or technical language. But beware of this unless you really know what you are doing—a mistake will look twice as ignorant as not knowing the terms in the first place. Your audience may be smart, but you don’t want to make them turn to a dictionary or fall asleep between the first word and the period of your first sentence. Keep in mind that this is a personal statement. Would you think you were learning a lot about a person whose personal statement sounded like a journal article? Would you want to spend hours in a lab or on a committee with someone who shuns plain language?

Of course, you don’t want to be chatty to the point of making them think you only speak slang, either. Your audience may not know what “I kicked that lame-o to the curb for dissing my research project” means. Keep it casual enough to be easy to follow, but formal enough to be respectful of the audience’s intelligence.

Just use an honest voice and represent yourself as naturally as possible. It may help to think of the essay as a sort of face-to-face interview, only the interviewer isn’t actually present.

Too much style

A well-written, dramatic essay is much more memorable than one that fails to make an emotional impact on the reader. Good anecdotes and personal insights can really attract an audience’s attention. BUT be careful not to let your drama turn into melodrama. You want your reader to see your choices motivated by passion and drive, not hyperbole and a lack of reality. Don’t invent drama where there isn’t any, and don’t let the drama take over. Getting someone else to read your drafts can help you figure out when you’ve gone too far.

Taking risks

Many guides to writing application essays encourage you to take a risk, either by saying something off-beat or daring or by using a unique writing style. When done well, this strategy can work—your goal is to stand out from the rest of the applicants and taking a risk with your essay will help you do that. An essay that impresses your reader with your ability to think and express yourself in original ways and shows you really care about what you are saying is better than one that shows hesitancy, lack of imagination, or lack of interest.

But be warned: this strategy is a risk. If you don’t carefully consider what you are saying and how you are saying it, you may offend your readers or leave them with a bad impression of you as flaky, immature, or careless. Do not alienate your readers.

Some writers take risks by using irony (your suffering at the hands of a barbaric dentist led you to want to become a gentle one), beginning with a personal failure (that eventually leads to the writer’s overcoming it), or showing great imagination (one famous successful example involved a student who answered a prompt about past formative experiences by beginning with a basic answer—”I have volunteered at homeless shelters”—that evolved into a ridiculous one—”I have sealed the hole in the ozone layer with plastic wrap”). One student applying to an art program described the person he did not want to be, contrasting it with the person he thought he was and would develop into if accepted. Another person wrote an essay about her grandmother without directly linking her narrative to the fact that she was applying for medical school. Her essay was risky because it called on the reader to infer things about the student’s character and abilities from the story.

Assess your credentials and your likelihood of getting into the program before you choose to take a risk. If you have little chance of getting in, try something daring. If you are almost certainly guaranteed a spot, you have more flexibility. In any case, make sure that you answer the essay question in some identifiable way.

After you’ve written a draft

Get several people to read it and write their comments down. It is worthwhile to seek out someone in the field, perhaps a professor who has read such essays before. Give it to a friend, your mom, or a neighbor. The key is to get more than one point of view, and then compare these with your own. Remember, you are the one best equipped to judge how accurately you are representing yourself. For tips on putting this advice to good use, see our handout on getting feedback .

After you’ve received feedback, revise the essay. Put it away. Get it out and revise it again (you can see why we said to start right away—this process may take time). Get someone to read it again. Revise it again.

When you think it is totally finished, you are ready to proofread and format the essay. Check every sentence and punctuation mark. You cannot afford a careless error in this essay. (If you are not comfortable with your proofreading skills, check out our handout on editing and proofreading ).

If you find that your essay is too long, do not reformat it extensively to make it fit. Making readers deal with a nine-point font and quarter-inch margins will only irritate them. Figure out what material you can cut and cut it. For strategies for meeting word limits, see our handout on writing concisely .

Finally, proofread it again. We’re not kidding.

Other resources

Don’t be afraid to talk to professors or professionals in the field. Many of them would be flattered that you asked their advice, and they will have useful suggestions that others might not have. Also keep in mind that many colleges and professional programs offer websites addressing the personal statement. You can find them either through the website of the school to which you are applying or by searching under “personal statement” or “application essays” using a search engine.

If your schedule and ours permit, we invite you to come to the Writing Center. Be aware that during busy times in the semester, we limit students to a total of two visits to discuss application essays and personal statements (two visits per student, not per essay); we do this so that students working on papers for courses will have a better chance of being seen. Make an appointment or submit your essay to our online writing center (note that we cannot guarantee that an online tutor will help you in time).

For information on other aspects of the application process, you can consult the resources at University Career Services .

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Asher, Donald. 2012. Graduate Admissions Essays: Write Your Way Into the Graduate School of Your Choice , 4th ed. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press.

Curry, Boykin, Emily Angel Baer, and Brian Kasbar. 2003. Essays That Worked for College Applications: 50 Essays That Helped Students Get Into the Nation’s Top Colleges . New York: Ballantine Books.

Stelzer, Richard. 2002. How to Write a Winning Personal Statement for Graduate and Professional School , 3rd ed. Lawrenceville, NJ: Thomson Peterson.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Grammar Do's, Don't of College Application Essays

Wise use of words, grammar and punctuation can help you write a strong, compelling essay.

College Application Essay Grammar Tips

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When writing a college application essay it's best to avoid using contractions, slang or cliches.

Serious college applicants spend a lot of time crafting and telling their stories in application essays. But it’s also critically important that the essay is well written as much as it is well planned, because a few spelling, grammar or style mishaps can give the reader a poor view of an otherwise amazing personal statement.

Just like you could spend months designing the perfect outfit for the prom but have it ruined by wrinkles or stains, you’ll want to make sure that your application essays are free from distracting elements that detract from what you want your audience to see of you.

As you edit your college essay, use this checklist to ensure you produce your best work.

• Write in active voice.
• Vary punctuation.
• Balance paragraphs.
• Don't use contractions, slang or cliches.
• Don't try to sound like Shakespeare.
• Don't jump around chronologically.

Write in Active Voice

In English, many actions can be expressed in either passive voice or active voice. For instance, you can say, “I was accepted by NYU” (passive) or “NYU accepted me” (active).

While the passive voice has its place in writing, the active voice is usually more desirable on college applications. Not only is it more concise, but it also reads as more powerful and proactive.

Consider, for example, the difference in meaning between “I was offered an internship opportunity” and “I pursued an internship opportunity.” The active voice works better because it highlights the applicant’s take-charge attitude, an attribute that colleges value.

Vary Punctuation

A few less-common yet well-placed punctuation marks can give your application essay a sophisticated edge.

For example, consider adding a semicolon to connect two closely related sentences, a colon to introduce an explanation for a claim or a set of em dashes to enclose an important interruption within a sentence. The key is to not get carried away repeating the same mark too many times or using rarer marks where a simple comma or period would do the trick.

Before submission, check your essay for comma splices, the mistake that occurs when a comma is used to separate two full sentences.

Balance Paragraphs

Even though the content may be high quality, an essay containing some short paragraphs and some lengthy ones is visually unpleasing. Readers — admissions counselors, in particular — like to see relative uniformity, or balance, in writing. Because these individuals often skim hundreds of essays a day, coming across a particularly long paragraph can be daunting.

So, keep your paragraphs on the shorter end of the spectrum. Try to limit them to five to seven sentences each, or fewer if your sentences are long. Your paragraphs do not all need to be the same length, but you should avoid significant differences in length that could be jarring.

Don’t Use Contractions, Slang or Cliches

Avoid contractions like "don’t," "it’s" and "they’re" in your essay because they will give your writing an informal feel. Instead, separate and write out the full words.

For this same reason, avoid slang and overused words like “cool” or “amazing” and replace them with longer and less-common words, such as "exhilarating" or "memorable." Also, steer away from cliches, well-known expressions such as “the last straw” or “the light at the end of the tunnel.” Rather than using recycled language, try to express the idea in your own words.

Don’t Try to Sound Like Shakespeare

In response to the previous tip, students sometimes take formal language to an extreme, endeavoring to include as many four- or five-syllable words as possible in their essay. However, this is ill-advised because it will make your essay read as stuffy and unnatural.

Your essay should sound like something you wrote, but have a few sophisticated words peppered throughout it. To that end, you may wish to consult a thesaurus a few times as you craft your essay or after you are finished. This step will help you to substitute common words for more elegant ones. However, you should not change so many words that readers would need a dictionary to make sense of your essay.

Don’t Jump Around Chronologically

In a college application essay, it is inevitable that you talk about the past (your experiences), the present (your interests) and the future (your goals). As you outline your essay, give some thought to how you will order these ideas.

Many students prefer to start with the past and progress chronologically toward the future. Others may start with the present, then discuss the past and end with the future. There is no right or wrong sequence; the order of events should match the type of narrative you want to tell.

However, jumping around too often — for example, from past to future to present within the same paragraph — could dizzy your reader. Therefore, it may be best to limit each paragraph to one general time frame.

10 Ways to Discover College Essay Ideas

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Stressed about getting into college? College Admissions Playbook, authored by Varsity Tutors , offers prospective college students advice on Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses, SAT and ACT exams and the college application process. Varsity Tutors, an advertiser with U.S. News & World Report, is a live learning platform that connects students with personalized instruction to accelerate academic achievement. The company's end-to-end offerings also include mobile learning apps, online learning environments and other tutoring and test prep-focused technologies. Got a question? Email [email protected] .

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• English - Grammar, Essay Writing & Letter Writing

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Essential Grammar Rules For Your College Apps

←Creating the First Draft of Your College Application Essay

How to Use Rhetorical Devices in Your College Essay →

There’s significant variation, in terms of advice, on what grammar to use on your college essays and free-response sections. We’ve already covered what you could talk about in your essay and how your should frame it , so now let’s dive into the way you should speak to your experience.

Some think that a college essay should resemble an academic essay (don’t use the word “I” and only use formal language, for example) but in our opinion, that’s impractical. These topics are about you. You have to speak from personal experience.

The same idea goes for a conversational style. We think that an easygoing, non-stiff tone works best. In essence, be somewhat casual while still using correct spoken grammar conventions. Luckily, since college admissions officers get applications from around the world (and since students have vastly different ways of writing and speaking) they’re used to a variety of styles. There isn’t one correct way to do it, so long as it sounds like you.

Below, we provide some examples of ways to write casually without sacrificing grammar; these are also some of the most common mistakes we see. These rules are applicable for a college essay but can also be used elsewhere in your application—the key here is consistency. Your voice needs to sound the same across essays, free-response, and short answers, otherwise it’ll sound like someone else is writing it for you.

Use Contractions

This one can generate some passionate dialogue (i.e., it’s a bit controversial) but we say go for it. Contractions are an important part of the spoken English language, and they instantly help readers get into a casual, conversational voice as they read the essays to themselves. Admissions officers may play an official role, but they’re people too. They like know that you’re confident and clear, and that you’re bringing them into the story instead of isolating them.

Take a look at these two sentences. Which makes you feel like you have a better connection with the writer?

• I do not have to provide an extra receipt, so I did not—and that is my mistake.
• I don’t have to give an extra receipt, so I didn’t—and that’s my mistake.

The shortened words of #2 help the language seem less stiff and ease the flow of the sentence. Since most people read out loud in their own voice, it reads more smoothly as a spoken, conversational sentence. It’s a small distinction, but an important one.

You won’t be able to use contractions for everything, especially if it sounds weird to do so. The best rule of thumb is to read out loud. When you’re tempted to make a contraction, do it. When it sounds weird or it sounds better to place emphasis on each word by separating them (That is my mistake), do that instead.

Focus on Active Voice

You may have heard this one before, because it’s also a tactic you’d use in more formal English. If you have never heard of this rule, in a nutshell:

• A sentence in passive voice takes the actor (the person or thing doing the action) and places it at the end of the sentence: “The ball was thrown by the boy.”
• A sentence in active voice takes the actor and places it at the front: “The boy threw the ball.”

Notice how the active sentence is shorter and clearer. Whenever you can ask the question: by whom? Or by what? That’s often a clue of passive voice. In the example above, the ball was thrown… by whom? The boy. So the boy is the actor and therefore should be the subject.

Occasionally, it won’t be very clear who the actor is. “He is under stress right now.” (by what? It might not be anything) “The racer was uninterested in running.” (by what? Unclear.) What if no actor exists? Sometimes passive construction doesn’t have an easy fix. There are better ways to create a more active sentence, though.

For example: “Right now, the stress affects him.” “The racer didn’t want to run.” In both cases, I chose a more active verb to show movement, instead of the “is (verb)” construction of passive voice. So beware of passive construction even when there’s no actor.

We also understand that sometimes passive voice is necessary. When you need to put focus on the object, not the actor, passive voice makes sense. For example, “I was led by the hand to the stage.” The essay is about you, so we don’t need to know who the actor (the hand-holder) is in this case. Just make sure that every sentence isn’t passive voice. Short, punchy, to-the-point language is a hallmark of effective casual writing.

Watch Your -Ings

In case you want to get into the details, here are the rules: a gerund is a word that adds “-ing” to a verb and uses it as a noun. “I enjoy swimming.” A present participle is a word that adds “-ing” to a verb and uses it as an adjective or part of a verb. “I’m playing soccer tonight.” But the more important point is to watch out for them, particularly the present participle. They can make sentences awkward and interrupt the flow. See the difference:

• “I enjoy swimming” (gerund) vs. “I love to swim”
• “I’m playing soccer tonight” (present participle) vs. “I play soccer tonight”

In both cases the new phrase implies action. Now, there are times when “-ing” makes sense: if the sentence sounds weird without it or if you are literally in the middle of doing something. “I’m doing my homework” makes sense because you haven’t yet completed it. Sometimes you’ll need an “-ing” to show that you were doing something when something else happened.

Again, as before, vary up your structure. If this is something you use a lot, write a first draft and then hit Command/Control+F to find all the places you use it. If it’s a lot, find other ways to convey your ideas using strong verbs.

The Pronoun Problem

This one’s a common but easily fixable problem. Whenever you use a pronoun, it should have a clear antecedent, which is just a fancy word for whatever the pronoun refers back to. So: “My sister swam in a race, and she placed third.” The antecedent for “she” is your sister.

In the case of “I,” the antecedent is already pretty clear. But it’s easy to confuse the reader by not making it clear who’s who:

• “My friends Ashley and Tamra decided to skip the event because she couldn’t miss her sister’s birthday.” (whose sister? Ashley or Tamra?)
• “Once the schools start teaching and the students come back from summer break, they need help with their studies.” (Who is they? The schools or the students?)

In the second example, the answer might seem obvious, but you still have to make it clear. This might add a little awkwardness to a sentence: “My friends Ashley and Tamra decided to skip the event because Tamra couldn’t miss her sister’s birthday.” It’s repetitive. But, now it’s also understandable. To put your reader at ease, you have to make it abundantly clear what you mean. You should never confuse the admissions officer.

One other common problem is a mismatch between antecedent and pronoun. For example, “Every time a student takes a test, they have to use their memory.” “A student” is singular, “they” is plural. You could change “they” to “he or she” or you could change “A student” to “students.” This can make construction a bit awkward, but again it’s more jarring if it looks like you don’t know the rule.

Don’t Use “You”

As we said, feel free to use “I” or “we” in your college essays. This is your story, so tell it. But it would be very rare for you to have a reason to address the admissions officer directly, unless you are somehow writing a note to a specific person. The same is true with imperative construction, a.k.a. telling someone to do something. “Please accept me!” Even though the word “you” isn’t used, the sentence directs the action to the admissions officer.

In the case of the sentence above, there are a bunch of reasons why you shouldn’t say it (don’t beg to be accepted, tell them why you deserve to be selected instead). From a grammar perspective, it takes the reader out of whatever story or anecdote you’re sharing. They expect you to write about yourself, not tell them what to do. Imperative implies an authority that you just don’t have.

It’s easy to fix this problem:

• “Please look at my attached resume for more details.” (implied: You, please look at my resume.)
• “My resume is attached for more details.”

It’s just an easier way to convey information with being overly invasive.

Proofread A Ton

For each rule we could tell you about, there are a million more that might or might not help you, depending on your own unique style. The best way to strike a conversational tone is to pretend you’re saying it to someone else, write it down exactly as you said it, and then clean it up. That might be harder for visual learners who aren’t used to processing information in an auditory way, but it comes with practice.

You could even say an entire paragraph out loud and then use talk-to-text to transcribe it, then fix your content as you go. Again, this doesn’t work for everyone, but try it out. Once you’ve got a draft, read it out loud to yourself a couple of times. Make sure it flows nicely and makes sense in your voice.

Then, because you’re presumably not an expert in English and grammar yet, you need to show it to someone who does. An English or history teacher. A friend of the family. Someone else at school who excels at writing. Ideally, you’d show it to a few people. The more eyes on this essay, the more you’ll understand how others read and interpret it. When someone reads your essay in their voice, how do they say it? What do they hear? If it helps, have someone read the essay out loud back to you to make sure you haven’t structured anything in a confusing way.

Want help with your college essays to improve your admissions chances? Sign up for your free CollegeVine account and get access to our essay guides and courses. You can also get your essay peer-reviewed and improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

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20 English Writing Apps for Checking Grammar, Boosting Vocabulary and More

Do you need to improve your writing skills ?

As with many of life’s problems, “there’s an app for that.”

In this post, I’ll recommend a range of helpful English writing apps that will help you correct your grammar, learn new vocabulary, improve your creativity and more.

These English writing apps will make a huge difference in your writing skills!

Best For Checking Spelling: iA Writer

Best for checking grammar: grammarly keyboard, best for beginners: ginger grammar spellchecker, best for boosting vocabulary: terminology dictionary, best for finding forgotten words: reverse dictionary, best for learning idioms: english idioms illustrated, best for finding rhymes: rhyme builder, best for story prompts: the brainstormer, best for practicing before exams: writing roulette, best for advanced students: creative writer, best for simple writing inspiration: brainsparker, best for formatting: werdsmith, best for native speaker feedback: hellotalk, more writing prompt apps, and one more thing....

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

In a nutshell: A word processor in which simpler is better.

Available on: iOS |   Android

Price: $$. A two-week free trial is available.

Main features:

• Syntax Control. The app will mark your writing with different colors depending on the part of speech of each word.
• Focus Mode. It focuses the view on the sentence or paragraph you are working with. The rest of the text becomes less visible to help you focus on what you are currently working on.
• Style Check. This option is only available for Mac and iOS users. It checks your writing and helps you get rid of repetitions, redundancies (unnecessary words) and clichés.
• Spellcheck. Never miss a spelling error again.

In a nutshell: A built-in virtual keyboard that checks your writing as you go.

Available on: iOS | Android

Price: $$ per month. The basic version of the app is completely free, and you get a discount with quarterly and annual plans.

• Spelling and grammar checker. If you make a mistake, the keyboard will tell you. It can also autocorrect your errors.
• Smart prediction. The keyboard is smart enough to guess what you are trying to write.
• Writing assistance. You will get suggestions on unclear sentences, synonyms, too long sentences, etc.

In a nutshell: A grammar and spelling checker with lots of extras for a one-time payment.

• Smart spellchecker. You will be able to correct all your mistakes in one click. You can ignore the corrections you do not want to change in your text.
• Rephrasing and synonyms. You will be given rephrasing and synonym suggestions whenever possible.
• Extras. The app also includes human voice text-to-speech, US/UK dialect option, a personal dictionary and machine translation of your writing into over 30 languages.

In a nutshell: A dictionary, a thesaurus and a research tool in one.

Available on: iOS

Price: $ with in-app purchases.

• Off-line US dictionary. Use the dictionary offline and find simple definitions, synonyms, antonyms, collocations and more.
• Personalization. You can create your own list of favorite terms and add notes to them.
• Resource lookup. This feature allows you to look up words on Wikipedia, Google, Dictionary.com and other websites.

In a nutshell: A twist on dictionaries to improve your vocabulary in a fun way.

Available on: Android

Price: Free.

• Reverse search. If you are writing and do not know a word (or cannot remember it), but know its definition or some keywords related to it, just write what you know and the dictionary will give you a list of words that match what you are looking for.
• Definitions. Once you have found the word you were looking for, you can view different definitions for it.
• Different options. The app will also show you anagrams, synonyms and more.

In a nutshell: A beautiful and fun way of learning English idioms.

Price: $. You can download the app for free and have the first 35 idioms right away, and the whole collection can be purchased for a one-time fee.

• Origin and meaning of idioms. You not only get what the idioms mean but also where they come from.
• Beautiful illustrations. The amazing illustrations will help you remember the idioms much faster.
• Free content. Start with 35 idioms for free.

In a nutshell: An app to find words that rhyme, perfect for writing poetry or lyrics in English.

• Rhyme search. Look for words that rhyme with your words while you write in the app.
• Save your work. You can save your writing and have a look at it later.
• Simple look. The app is very simple, which makes it easy to use.

In a nutshell: An idea and story generator for people who love a challenge.

Price: Free with in-app purchases. The app with the classic Brainstormer is free. You can buy additional content (Character builder, Creature builder, World builder, etc.) for a small fee each.

• Three wheels. Three wheels will spin to give you a conflict, a setting and a subject. The possibilities are practically infinite (go on forever).
• Creative thinking. The words in each wheel have been carefully selected to maximize creative thinking.
• Personalization. You can create and edit your own wheels.

In a nutshell: An app for people who need writing practice and inspiration.

• Writing inspiration. Get an image and a writing task and let your imagination fly.
• Different writing tasks. From the classic 100-word exercises to haikus , you will have plenty of different ways of practicing your writing before an exam.
• Personalization. You can create your own tasks and complete them in the app notepad.
• Important: There is no “save” option in the app, so if you don’t want to lose what you write, just use the app to get inspiration and do the exercises somewhere else.

In a nutshell: Recycle already written texts to create your own.

Price: Free with in-app purchases and pro version for $. The app with all the basic features is free. For a small fee, you can download Dictionary PRO and the Writer’s Pack, as well as smaller packs like Recipes or Poetry.

• Different genres. The app includes texts from genres such as poetry, prose, dialogues, lyrics, romance and cooking, among others.
• Easy to use. If you do not feel like typing (which you can also do), just choose the tapping option.
• Dictionary PRO. This is an amazing tool to learn new words and use them in your writing. It includes definitions, rhymes, antonyms, synonyms and much more.
• Writer’s Pack. A powerful tool with writing ideas and millions of sentence segments analyzed.
• Other features. The app includes a cute robot that talks and types by itself and a beautifully designed notepad. Some features can even be used offline.

In a nutshell: A deck of cards to inspire your brain to write.

Available on: iOS | Android to be launched

Price: Free with in-app purchases for $. You can buy additional specialist card packs (like Blogger’s pack, Character’s pack, Quotes pack, Numbers pack or What if? pack) or a VIP pass that includes all the specialist packs available plus all future packs.

• Inspirational prompts. Over 250 prompt cards to make you think and write on many different topics.
• Free pack for kids. The app includes a free pack for kids (which is also great for adult learners!) with over 150 creative activities.
• Free Vision pack. Another free pack that includes 52 goal-setting questions.

In a nutshell: A portable writing studio for professional writers.

Price: Free with the option to subscribe for $ per month. Members get more themes, novel and screenplay writing tools, hundreds of writing prompts and the possibility of using Werdsmith on their computer.

• Personalization. You can personalize your writing studio and change the theme and the formatting options.
• Save, sync and share. The app allows you to save your work and share it with your friends. You can also synchronize between devices—meaning that no matter where you do your writing, you will be able to access it from any other device—which makes the app totally portable.
• Goals and rituals. Create daily goals and rituals and challenge yourself to do them every day.

In a nutshell: An app to learn English through conversation and writing.

Price: Free with in-app purchases. You can also become a VIP member to get benefits like learning three languages at the same time or finding more language partners.

• Multiple languages. The app has native users from over 150 different countries, so it will be very easy to find the perfect one for you.
• Improve your speaking skills. You will be able to talk to native speakers of English, which will allow you to boost your level in a fun and easy way.
• Chat. Practice your writing skills in the chat. This is the perfect way of getting grammar and spelling feedback from your language partners.
• Moments. Use the Moments feature to share, answer and ask questions related to the culture of the language you are learning.

There are literally thousands of prompt and creative writing apps available for mobile devices. It would be impossible to include them all in one post.

However, there are some others that are worth mentioning:

• Writerly : This is a magnificent app with hundreds of exercises to practice your writing skills. It also includes tips, quests and mini-essays.
• Paperblanks Journal Prompts : This app will give you writing and drawing prompts and ideas to use in your personal journals and sketchbooks.
• Daily Prompt : Get a new writing prompt every day on your phone. The premium version allows you to enter writing competitions and receive feedback for your work.
• Writing Prompts : With this awesome app, you will get five prompt generators (News, Scenes, Sketches, Words and Texts) with literally hundreds of ideas each.
• Morning Pages : This app helps you build the habit of writing 500 words every morning. I personally love the Insights feature, which analyzes your writing and tells you what mood you are in on a specific day according to what you write.
• Writing Challenge : If you like competing against the clock, you are going to love this app. Set the timer and the app will give you a new prompt every time the clock reaches zero (you decide the length of the intervals).

So, there you go, friends.

These 20 apps will help you bring out your inner writer and improve your writing skills in ways you would never think were possible.

Stay curious my friends and, as always, happy writing!

If you like learning English through movies and online media, you should also check out FluentU. FluentU lets you learn English from popular talk shows, catchy music videos and funny commercials , as you can see here:

If you want to watch it, the FluentU app has probably got it.

The FluentU app and website makes it really easy to watch English videos. There are captions that are interactive. That means you can tap on any word to see an image, definition, and useful examples.

FluentU lets you learn engaging content with world famous celebrities.

For example, when you tap on the word "searching," you see this:

FluentU lets you tap to look up any word.

Learn all the vocabulary in any video with quizzes. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning.

FluentU helps you learn fast with useful questions and multiple examples. Learn more.

The best part? FluentU remembers the vocabulary that you’re learning. It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned. You have a truly personalized experience.

Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)

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• RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT
• 17 May 2024

Reading between the lines: application essays predict university success

Analysis of more than 40,000 university application essays found that gradual transitions between chunks of text correlated with higher marks. Credit: Dusan Stankovic/Getty

Aspiring students who wrote content-rich university admission essays were more likely to end up with higher grades in their classes 1 .

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01396-8

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