There are different ways to organize a short written piece. You can present an anecdote or incident and then explain it, or you can describe two or three events and then explain what they all have in common; that is, you can begin with specific details and progress to a general conclusion. Alternatively, you can state some general principle or conclusion first, and then describe the pieces of evidence that support it.
Some essays fall more naturally into a deductive, or conclusion-first, mode of organization, while others are more effective if told inductively, or detail-first. I suggest that you practice by writing a few drafts, trying to make your point one way and then another. Don't worry if the drafts are much too long. Just try to set down all the information and tell your story as fully as possible. Include everything, even if there's repetition and duplication.
Now, having made these sketches, look them over. What points or arguments seem particularly central or important? What detail seems effective? When you see them on paper, which details seem slick, sophomoric, or insincere?
At this stage, you'll have to decide whether to use an inductive or a deductive model. You can create an outline once you've determined whether your main point will come at the end or the beginning. As you organize your ideas into an outline, ask how each detail relates to the main point, and prune away anything that is irrelevant or repetitious.
If you want your essay to be read carefully, you'll have to catch the attention of a bored and exhausted admissions official. You do this by writing a forceful first sentence. You'll be judged on it, just as you make a first impression with your smile and your handshake.
This need to stimulate the reader's curiosity isn't unique to applications essays. Professional writers routinely spend large chunks of their working time writing and rewriting their opening sentences. Some of their efforts are memorable. Here is the first line of Camus's compelling novel, The Stranger:
Mother died today. Or, maybe yesterday; I can't be sure.
Can anyone who reads that line doubt that he is in the presence of a weird and fascinating character? Here is the opening line of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years Of Solitude:
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
Garcia Marquez stimulates curiosity by juxtaposing inconsistent or contradictory images: military titles attached to a condemned man; military campaigns that are somehow linked in a character's mind to a child's sense of wonder; and a familiar object, ice, presented as a curiosity.
You can appropriate these techniques of fiction writing to make your essay more gripping. Remember the student who became interested in law after a football injury? Here is how he began his essay:
This sentence opens up a wealth of intriguing possibilities: is he going to say that he wants to study law so he can sue the linebacker who smashed his kneecap? Is he going to have the nerve to suggest that a legal career is a consolation prize for someone who is too frail to play football professionally? After tantalizing the reader with these intriguing possibilities, he developed the essay in a different direction and talked about his discovery of his characteristic interest in rules. You can use the same technique:
You may wonder why a former professional dancer wants to go to law school . . .
or
You're probably wondering why someone from a big city wants to go to law school in Wyoming . . .
or
Although working on the xxxxxx for President campaign was extremely time-consuming, I came to think of it as an essential part of my education.
In each case you've established at the very beginning of the essay that there's something unique about you as an individual, and you've presented that information in the form of a paradox or query to stimulate the reader's curiosity.
Having begun well, you then must provide exactly as much information or evidence as you need to support your point. Your essay has to be unified, in the sense that nothing in it is unnecessary. The classic old wives' tale is difficult to listen to because of a lack of unity. The narrator begins well by describing the ghost that appeared to young Johnny, but then veers off on a tangent about how Johnny's father is the second cousin of that same Jed Snopes who was hanged for murder in 1930, or about how Johnny grew up to drive Packard cars exclusively, or about how he later married the sister of this very narrator . . . until you just want to scream, "Yes, yes, but what about the ghost?'
The trick is to keep your eye on the ghost. You need to prune away everything that isn't about the ghost, or that seems repetitious, or that doesn't advance the action. You can only do this if you start with a first draft longer than what you need to end up with. You write a thousand-word essay by carving away at a five-thousand-word essay.
Having done all this, it's time to type up the draft and ask people to read it. Lots of people. At least some of them should be strangers. Acquaintances have heard your stories before and can often guess what you're trying to say even if you haven't written it clearly. If you are a traditional college-age applicant, try to find at least one middle-aged reader who will be able to spot teenage slang or juvenile humor.
