Now there are questions about essays in every single school thread. While that is the right place to address school specifics and essay specifics. I feel that it would be nice to have a place to discuss generic essay information such as: formatting and gammar (how formal to be)

I know in several areas we have talked about layout of the page, ie margins and also the font type and size. Instead of crowding tons of different threads with the same information and making it hard to find...if you have a general essay question not aimed at a specific school post it here. Lots of stuff will probably be debated but at least it will be easier to find. I can try and maintain this post to contain any "rules"

***Stickied if for no other reason than ncprasad's extremely useful post below.

Wow this is an excellent tool ncprasad. From now on I am even going to check my post entries with it. Only one of my essays was over 50. All the others were low to mid 40s on this scale. I guess I will never write for Reader's Digest.

ps. This post reads 96.80 ...

Yes the infamous over the limit problem. So much information on the 10% over rule and then some schools really looking down on essays beyond limits.

I have read several of the MBA admissions books and it seems all the essays are way too long. Especially in Montauks book, those essays are all incredibly long, some are like 3 times the limit. That is the one thing i have a problem with in those books. I could write killer 3,000 word essays but its the 500 word ones that seem impossible.

Fantastic tool...

But it gave my strongest essay (based on feedback from others), a very low 20 odd marks only.

Glad to say that the rest of my essays are scoring 40 and above... yay..

ncprasad, this is an excellent tool. I am sure that this is going to help us all a lot with keeping the essays simple.

ps. The first essay that I checked got a 65 .. yey !! And it correctly pointed the sentences that could use some "simplification"

EDIT: Darn, the other essay got a 45. And I can now see what horribly complex sentences that essay has ncprasad, if I get in Wharton or Columbia, then half of the credit will go to this tool of yours.

wow! this tool is just fantastic!... ncprasad, thanks for sharing.

Prasad ! An amazing tool and thanks a lot for sharing the info

cheers !!

Here are 2 great tips!

First, if you want to rewrite a passage to get a higher score, you'll have to cut the average sentence length. This means you'll have to break up long, complex sentences and change them to two, three or four shorter ones. In other words, sprinkle periods over your piece of writing. When you're turning subordinate clauses into independent sentences, you'll find that a lot of them will start with And, But or Or. Don't let that bother you. It's perfectly good English and has been good usage for many centuries. The Old Testament says, "And God said, Let there be light; and there was light." The New Testament says, "But Jesus gave him no answer." And Mark Twain wrote, "Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to." So never mind that old superstition. And don't-please don't-put unnecessary commas after your And's, But's and Or's.

Second tip: When it comes to replacing complex words with simple ones, take first aim at words with prefixes and suffixes, like establishment, available or required. Often the best Plain English replacement is a two-word combination like setting up, in stock or called for. If you can't think of a good substitute, use any good thesaurus or book of synonyms. You'll find that there's s no complex, legalistic word that can't be translated into Plain English.

These tips are not mine. They were given by Rudolph Flesch who got a PhD from Columbia for his research on readability.

Yes, the other problem is if you try to compact an essay, chances are you will decrease readability. Fix a readability goal and after any change you make in order to compact the essay, validate if you negatively impacted readability.

aurobindo, Read this.

http://www.mang.canterbury.ac.nz/writin ... esch.shtml