THE COLLEGE ESSAY
SELF CRITIQUE FOR DESCRIPTIVE WRITING
1. Rewrite attention getting introduction.
 Start with a description of the setting using sensory detail.
 Start with a character in action.
 Start with a character’s thoughts or a description of the character.
 Start with a conversation between characters.
Examples:
The sweat pours. Bang. The Suns T-shirt and plain shorts are sticky and dirty. Bang. The heat is a
weight on my shoulder. Bang. My arms are sore. Bang. I am in a state of delight. Crunch.
I met the Bean Counters in preschool.
They introduced me to the Bean Tray.
It was a simple concept. On the Bean Tray were two bowls, one filled with black beans, the other with white.
Each day, we took turns at the Bean Tray Table. It was here that we learned to count--we counted beans. I,
however, was a bright child.
For several decades, my father and I and other members of our family boycotted ZIP codes.
2. Rewrite the conclusion.
 Conclude with a final description of setting
 Conclude with a character’s thoughts.
 Conclude with the character in action.
 Conclude with a final conversation between characters.
 “Frame” the essay: conclude by tying back to your introduction in some way.
Examples:
Categorically, no. If it ain’t one thing, it’s another.
…
Elysium?
Categorically, maybe.
This is what I have to tell you: heaven is a full tank of gasoline. It’s in the freedom to just go, the
freedom that the American spirit so craves. I’m proud to be an American– because I’m proud to have that
spirit.
The long straight stretch on Soldier’s Trail lay out ahead of me. From here, it was just south on
Houghton and west on 22nd. West past the city lights, past the stoplights and the paved road. Home.
I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the
Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.
But I have not yet gone to college.
3. Add details. Avoid common names (like red, yellow, and blue for colors), but don’t overdo it with the
thesaurus (beryl, cyanic, pavonine—which are all blue).
Example:
At night, on the boardwalk, the lamps were sodium lamps; their cast, brandy and dandelions. The color
of a dream. There’s nothing else like it anywhere.
4. Use specific nouns. Not car, but Porsche; not store, but K-Mart; not dog, but St. Bernard; not street, but
Woodruff Avenue; not girl, but Susan.
You could follow this same desert south to Nogales and further, down into Mexico and to the Sea of Cortéz.
The north saw it change slowly into wilderness and coniferous forest that followed the Rocky Mountains up
into Canada and Alaska.
5. Use specific action verbs. Not walk, but saunter; not run, but sprint; not talk, but chatter; not see, but
glimpse.
Example:
I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice.
I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with
unflagging speed…
6. Add “sound” details, but avoid using the words hear or sound.
Example:
And as I leave for school, the papers rustle in my room, disquieted; soon enough, peace will prevail
once again, minus one warm sleeper.
Such a peace. Such a contrast. My day explodes by in a flash of garish colors and demands: the metal
crash of weights, the sound sweat makes evaporating, red pens on the projector in calculus, shouts of
nationalistic pain and anger in black and white from a video on the Nuremberg trials.
7. Add “smell” details, but avoid using the word smell.
Example:
This pair of gloves is not kept out in the dirty, dusty, backyard tool shed like the others, where gasoline fumes
have permanently left their trace. […] These gloves are tan and made of leather, the scent of which can still be
detected.
8. Add “touch” details, but avoid using the words feel or touch.
Example:
When that first performance came up, I needed a pair of gloves so the curtain ropes, worn and frayed with age,
wouldn’t leave my hands pierced with splinters and callused from rope burn.
9. Add unique and creative figurative language.
10. Vary sentence patterns. Begin with a subordinating conjunction, slip in a participial phrase, construct an
elliptical sentence, use parallelism, or repetition.
Examples:
A giant, steaming cup of Hot Cinnamon Sunset tea before me, I hunch forward over a book by Joseph
Campbell.
Buddha surveys my bathroom atop his authoritative perch on the tank of my toilet. He is the guardian of the
chaos of preparing for school, the patron of paintings of make up for formals, and the fan of horrible
choreography to cheesy eighties songs.
And in the family I grew up in, as a result, I value concepts more than crafts, ideas more than skills.
11. Vary sentence length. Include short sentences (1-5 words), average sentences (6-15 words), and long
sentences (16+ words).
Example:
I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie (12). Critics worldwide swoon over my
original line of corduroy evening wear (11). I don't perspire (3). I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail
(10). I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes (12). Last summer I toured New Jersey
with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration (12). I bat .400 (3). My deft floral arrangements have earned
me fame in international botany circles (12). Children trust me (3).
12. Vary sentence beginnings. Don’t start two sentences in the same paragraph with the same word or letter
unless you are purposely using repetition. (Challenge: Start every sentence in your piece with a different word.)
Example:
Months later, I thought of the fish again. My family was eating lunch with my Mexican greatgrandfather at his nursing home. Attempts at conversation were futile; Granddaddy was almost deaf, but he
refused to use hearing aids. Nevertheless, he looked happy eating with us. Here he was, ninety-nine years old,
living a life that wasn’t thrilling – creamed corn and applesauce at every meal and only a TV for a roommate –
but still he held onto it. My mom snapped a photo of him with my little sister, and that picture crystallized for
me the reason he wanted to keep living: our family. He was like the fish, which struggled against the hook and
the ice to get back to its nest.
13. Avoid ‘be” verbs. Am, are, is, was, were, be.
No: The open sky and the moon were above the silhouette of the mountains. I was drawn out until I was the
only car in sight. I was alone and released. I was free.
Yes: The open sky and the moon above the silhouette of the mountains drew me out further until I was the only
car in sight; alone, released. Free.
14. Show, don’t tell.
No: When I made it to high school, I did a lot of new stuff. I also met some cool people.
Yes: I burned incense, I listened to the Grateful Dead. Things were new. High school, in the beginning, was
the best thing that had happened to me—a fairyland of insightful people who knew everything, brought record
albums to school and grew their hair longer than mine.
15. Make sure organization is clear.
16. Use transition words to guide the reader through the essay.
Example:
As the years progressed, I encountered several variants of the Bean Counter Theorem, for, as I have
found, Bean Counters prevail in every aspect of life.
When the bell rang in the morning and school began, we were not allowed to simply gather at the
classroom door; we had to line up before we went inside. Likewise, when the bell rang for recess, we could not
just leave; we had to line up first.
17. Avoid overly sentimental writing: pathetic fallacies, clichés, overly dramatic language, hyperbole (unless
for comic effect)
18. Examine the effect of your punctuation. Does it clarify or confuse? Does it replicate a voice? Does it
add verve or punch to the writing?
19. Check spelling.