Blog Archive Monday Morning Essay Tip Captivate with Experience, Not Extreme Descriptions

Blog Archive Monday Morning Essay Tip Captivate with Experience, Not Extreme Descriptions This week, we discuss an oxymoron of sorts: extreme humility. One candidate could be more humble than the next, we imagine, but one could never refer to oneself as “extremely humble,” because doing so would undermine the very claim to humility. Our philosophy at mbaMission is that candidates should let their experiences, not just their word choices, captivate the admissions committees. Sometimes we find that applicants attempt to emphasize their actions with “extreme” adjectives and adverbsâ€"an approach we strongly discourage. Example:  â€œAs others withdrew their support, I remained remarkably dedicated to our crucial fundraising efforts. I dramatically increased my participation in our strategic planning meetings and insisted that we push forward with a wildly creative  guerrilla  marketing plan, which brought forth tremendous resultsâ€"$1M in ‘instant’ proceeds.” In these two sentences, the writer uses the descriptors “remarkably,” “dramatically,” “wildly,” and “tremendous”  to make his impression. We find that a more effective approach is to eliminate these “extreme” descriptions and let the experiences do the “talking.” Example:  â€œAs others withdrew their support, I remained dedicated to our fundraising efforts. I increased my participation in our strategic planning meetings and insisted that we push forward with a  guerrilla  marketing plan that brought $1M in ‘instant’ proceeds.” In this second example, the writer does not need to say that the results were “tremendous,” because the $1M in proceeds speaks for itself; we do not need to be told that the marketing campaign was “wildly creative,” because this is implied in the nature of  guerrilla  marketing. In addition to truly showing a level of humility on the part of the candidate, this approach is also less wordy. Although the eight words saved in the latter example may seem inconsequential, we removed them from only two sentences. If you can remove four words from every sentence in your original draft, you could significantly but humbly augment your essay with other compelling ideas. Share ThisTweet Monday Morning Essay Tips Blog Archive Monday Morning Essay Tip Captivate with Experience, Not Extreme Descriptions This week, we offer an oxymoron of sorts: extreme humility. One candidate could be more humble than the next, we imagine, but one could never refer to oneself as “extremely humble,” because doing so would undermine the very claim to humility. Our philosophy at mbaMission is that candidates should let their experiences, not just their word choices, captivate the admissions committees. Sometimes we find that applicants attempt to emphasize their actions with “extreme” adjectives and adverbsâ€"an approach we strongly discourage. Example:  â€œAs others withdrew their support, I remained remarkably dedicated to our crucial fundraising efforts. I dramatically increased my participation in our strategic planning meetings and insisted that we push forward with a wildly creative  guerrilla  marketing plan, which brought forth tremendous resultsâ€"$1M in ‘instant’ proceeds.” In these two sentences, the writer uses the descriptors remarkably, dramatically, wildly, and tremendous to make his impression. We find that a more effective approach is to eliminate these “extreme” descriptions and let the experiences do the “talking.” Example:  â€œAs others withdrew their support, I remained dedicated to our fundraising efforts. I increased my participation in our strategic planning meetings and insisted that we push forward with a  guerrilla  marketing plan that brought $1M in ‘instant’ proceeds.” In this second example, the writer does not need to say that the results were “tremendous,” because the $1M in proceeds speaks for itself; we do not need to be told that the marketing campaign was “wildly creative,” because this is implied in the nature of  guerrilla  marketing. In addition to truly showing a level of humility on the part of the candidate, this approach is also less wordy. Although the eight words saved in the latter example may seem inconsequential, we removed them from only two sentences. If you can remove four words from every sentence in your original draft, you could significantly (but of course humbly) augment your essay with other compelling ideas. Share ThisTweet Monday Morning Essay Tips Blog Archive Monday Morning Essay Tip Captivate with Experience, Not Extreme Descriptions This week, we discuss an oxymoron of sorts: extreme humility. One candidate could be more humble than the next, we imagine, but one could never refer to oneself as “extremely humble,” because doing so would undermine the very claim to humility. Our philosophy at mbaMission is that candidates should let their experiences, not just their word choices, captivate the admissions committees. Sometimes we find that applicants attempt to emphasize their actions with “extreme” adjectives and adverbsâ€"an approach we strongly discourage. Example:  â€œAs others withdrew their support, I remained remarkably dedicated to our crucial fundraising efforts. I dramatically increased my participation in our strategic planning meetings and insisted that we push forward with a wildly creative  guerrilla  marketing plan, which brought forth tremendous resultsâ€"$1M in ‘instant’ proceeds.” In these two sentences, the writer uses the descriptors “remarkably,” “dramatically,” “wildly,” and “tremendous”  to make his impression. We find that a more effective approach is to eliminate these “extreme” descriptions and let the experiences do the “talking.”  Example:  â€œAs others withdrew their support, I remained dedicated to our fundraising efforts. I increased my participation in our strategic planning meetings and insisted that we push forward with a  guerrilla  marketing plan that brought $1M in ‘instant’ proceeds.” In this second example, the writer does not need to say that the results were “tremendous,” because the $1M in proceeds speaks for itself; we do not need to be told that the marketing campaign was “wildly creative,” because this is implied in the nature of  guerrilla  marketing. In addition to truly showing a level of humility on the part of the candidate, this approach is also less wordy. Although the eight words saved in the latter example may seem inconsequential, we removed them from only two sentences. If you can remove four words from every sentence in your original draft, you could significantly but humbly augment your essay with other compelling ideas. Share ThisTweet Monday Morning Essay Tips Blog Archive Monday Morning Essay Tip Captivate with Experience, Not Extreme Descriptions This week, we offer an oxymoron of sorts: extreme humility. We suppose that one candidate could be more humble than the next, but one could never refer to oneself as “extremely humble,” because doing so would undermine the very claim to humility. Our philosophy at mbaMission is that candidates should let their experiences, not just their word choices, captivate the admissions committees. Sometimes we find that candidates attempt to emphasize their actions with “extreme” adjectives and adverbsâ€"an approach we strongly discourage. Example:  â€œAs others withdrew their support, I remained remarkably dedicated to our crucial fundraising efforts. I dramatically increased my participation in our strategic planning meetings and insisted that we push forward with a wildly creative  guerrilla  marketing plan, which brought forth tremendous resultsâ€"$1M in ‘instant’ proceeds.” In these two sentences, the writer uses the descriptors  remarkably,  dramatically,  wildly  and  tremendous  to make his impression. We find that a more effective approach is to eliminate these “extreme” descriptions and let the experiences do the “talking.” Example:  â€œAs others withdrew their support, I remained dedicated to our fundraising efforts. I increased my participation in our strategic planning meetings and insisted that we push forward with a  guerrilla  marketing plan that brought $1M in ‘instant’ proceeds.” In this second example, the writer does not need to say that the results were “tremendous,” because the $1M speaks for itself; we do not need to be told that the marketing campaign was “wildly creative,” because this is implied in the nature of  guerrilla  marketing. In addition to truly showing a level of humility on the part of the candidate, this approach is also less wordy. Although the eight words saved in the latter example may seem inconsequential, we removed them from only two sentences. If you can remove four words from every sentence in your original draft, you could significantly (but of course humbly) augment your essay with other compelling ideas. Share ThisTweet Monday Morning Essay Tips