Make sure your college essay is free of these errors by sharing this list with your proofreader. Confusing its amp it's your amp you're or there, their amp they're run on sentences amp fragments verb/noun agreement and verb tense singular articles before plural nouns like ldquo an alumni rdquo misusing ldquo me rdquo and ldquo i rdquo split infinitives ending a sentence with a preposition missing apostrophes incorrect use of semicolons tip: if you rsquo re not sure about semicolons, avoid them all together. Overuse of contractions poor use of the word ldquo got rdquo or ldquo get rdquo tip: don rsquo t write ldquo get rdquo when you mean ldquo understand rdquo. Too many exclamation points we can help you write an incredible application essay for your dream school! call 800 866 0445 to book your 1:1 essay review with a former ivy league admissions officer.

No college admissions officer wants to read a college application essay full of spelling and grammar mistakes and you can be sure it wont reflect well on you. But theres also another problem you can run into you want to be sure that you say what you mean. take a look at the graphic it seems like the police are getting quite an eyeful peering through that nudist camp wall, doesnt it? of course, the person who wrote it probably meant the cops were down at the police station filling out boring paperwork. Heres another example of a silly mistake in this case one missing comma changes the entire meaning of a sentence: lets eat, grandpa. lets eat grandpa. in number one, grandpa is being called for dinner. So remember always check your spelling, punctuation, and grammar and make sure that you say what you mean or you might end up eating grandpa for dinner. Dec 09, 2013 updated feb 08, 2014 marjorie hansen shaevitz author, speaker, founder, w.admissionpossible.com i grew up in the san joaquin valley on a family vineyard and attended a four room elementary school. There were a lot of things missing at that little school that combined two grades into each classroom , but the proper use of english was not among them.

I learned all about how to correctly use pronouns, whether to employ such as or like in a sentence and what to do with periods, commas and quotation marks. As i look at college application essays these days, i am struck by how many of even the best and the brightest students seem not to know english grammar and punctuation rules. Moreover, i am shocked when i get emails and/or letters written by adults who should know better parents, grandparents and mentors using incorrect english. So naturally i decided to write a blog about that, offering a few right and wrong examples and common mistakes. From my experience, here are the most frequent grammatical mistakes college admissions applicants make: of all the writing mistakes i see, probably number one is the frequent use of a word or words over and over.

Noughts And Crosses Critical Essay

For example, students tend to overuse the word my, as well as names of people, places and things. 1. english rule: it is important for writers to use a variety of words in referring to a person, place or thing, in a given sentence, paragraph or entire essay. mistake: i fell in love with tulane when i visited the campus last spring. I was attracted to tulane because of how attractive tulane was and also how outgoing the tulane students were. I was attracted to the university another way of referring to tulane because of how attractive it yet another way was and also how outgoing the don't need to refer to tulane again leave it out students were. mistake: when i think about what i want to do with my life, my goals are probably the most important thing in coming up with my plan.

Essay on If Water Supply Fails

correction: when i think about what i want to do with my life, don't need to use my again goals are probably the most important thing in coming up with use the word a instead of my a plan. English rule: such as in a sentence suggests that what follows will be at least two examples of something. Like implies there is a comparison between one thing and another. mistake: when i look at columbia's course description on topics like global health, food systems and the economy, my heart actually begins to beat faster. correction: when i look at columbia's course descriptions on topics, such as replace like with such as global health, food systems and the economy, my heart actually begins to beat faster.

mistake: i want to be a doctor such as my grandfather. correction: i want to be a doctor like replace such as with the word like my grandfather. Sometimes such as and like are interchangeable, but have slightly different meanings, as in the following sentences. I love chocolate desserts, such as brownies, rocky road ice cream and chocolate fudge pudding cake these are examples . I love rich chocolate desserts like brownies, rocky road ice cream and chocolate fudge pudding cake brownies, rocky road ice cream, and chocolate fudge pudding cake are being compared to other rich chocolate desserts. 3. Use single quotation marks for quotes within quotes. mistake: my teacher blurted out, i am always so proud when i hear students say, i love reading the classics. correction: my teacher blurted out, i am always so proud when i hear students say, ' need a single quotation mark i love reading the classics.' need both a single and a double quotation mark for a quote within a quote 5.

English rule: use quotation marks for material that is less than three lines long. Use a block quote for material that is longer than three lines. quotation marks example: when maya angelou, author of mom me mom, visited our school, she said, i knew that i had become the woman i am because of the grandmother i loved and the mother i came to adore. to create a block quote, change to a smaller font, indent the right and left margins and note the source at the end of the quote. block quote example: i love how real maya angelou is when she writes.