Chapter 4: Choosing Your Tone

 

How to Find the Right Voice for a College Admissions Officer

Think about some of your favorite songs and the parts of them that stand out. In the last chapter, we looked at some techniques for how you might use hooks to catch the audience’s attention. Here, we’ll look at how you can modulate your written “voice” to keep the reader engaged. This is true of movie directors, pop stars, even fashion designers. Finding that unique angle—that personal flair—is what distinguishes the ordinary from the extraordinary.

Even if you don’t think of yourself as an artist, you can still apply artistic techniques to your personal statement and writing in general. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to:

SPEAK FROM THE HEART

Some people are born with a natural ability to tear their hearts off their sleeves and slap them down on the page. The real trick is for the rest of us to be as open with our essays. Have no fear. Here are few great ways to get started.

Try one, two, three, or even all four of these. See what works best!

“At its core, an honest personal statement from a student about who they are that is articulate and to the point is the best use of that college essay space.”

—George Mason University

ACTIVITY

No, Seriously, Speak from Your Heart

Choose a voice-to-text transcription software (like Google Keyboard, which is free), or just record yourself with a microphone or your phone. Now, speak for at least two minutes on the following prompt, without holding anything back:

What is the most memorable meal I’ve ever eaten?

Once you’re done, listen to your recording or read the transcript. Write out the three sentences that felt most honest to you.

Now choose one of the sentences to write as a warning, one to write as a funny story, and one to write as an important secret, and write them out. (You may notice that some sentences are easier to adapt than others.)

  • As a warning to someone

  • As a funny story

  • As an important secret

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FORMAL AND INFORMAL TONE

Normally, academic essays are written in a formal, professional style. But your college essay is an exception to the rule, because above all, the reader wants to get to know you, which means that your writing should be personal, even if that means being a little informal.

The trick is to avoid crossing any inappropriate lines, or to go too far in any one direction. And the best way to do that—to be informal without forgetting that it’s formal—is to fully understand how each type of tone works.

Formal Tone

Listing all the elements that constitute a formal tone would fill this entire book. Let’s limit it to the most relevant stuff. For college application essays, a formal tone should include the following:

Read the following paragraph and see if you can identify any of the above elements:

The verb use here is in the active voice. Note the contrast between the first, short, sentence, and this longer one. I had done enormous amounts of work for my school trip to Nicaragua. For six months, I had organized fundraisers such as bake sales, walkathons, car washes—it seemed as though raising money had become a part-time job. For the trip to be cancelled so quickly because of a silly bit of excessive bureaucratic caution infuriated me. The world couldn’t completely slam to a halt over a virus, could it? Look at the difference between this verb and the next sentence’s use of “slam.” Especially given the use of “slam,” it’s good that the more formal “completely” is chosen here instead of “totally” or any other informal adverb.

Informal Tone

Unless you were raised by nineteenth-century Brit lit professors, you know what an informal tone is. Most of us speak informally every day of our lives.

The problem is that there are limits to that informality on your personal statement and especially on supplemental essays. Here are some tips.

Avoid curse words. This should be obvious. Even if swearing is central to your story or anecdote, you don’t have to be strictly verbatim. Consider how much more interesting it is to read “From my brother’s mouth came a silky string of obscenities that nobody could quite believe” as opposed to the obscenity itself.

Avoid sarcasm. On the page or screen, sarcasm looks exactly the same as sincerity! Sarcasm itself is transmitted through non-written stuff like voice, mannerisms, and shared history, so keep it out of college applications where it may be misunderstood.

Avoid using real names. Talking about an unusual friend or acquaintance is totally fine, but don’t use his or her real name. Assign a fake name! After all, your friend might be applying to the same university, and that could cause massive awkwardness.

Avoid vague or basic verbs. Experienced admission officials often look at your verbs to see what kind of thinker you are. Sticking to a basic set of verbs like got or is limits both your vocabulary and what readers are able to learn about you.

Your essay is, above all else, an opportunity for you to show how you stand out. A common curse or petulant tone isn’t anything new, but the creative way in which you write around such vague, basic, or overused expressions can be!

It may be easier to see the difference between verb choices by looking at some examples. Each of the following sentences has been rewritten to eliminate the vague or basic verbs and replace them with more descriptive ones.

Vague or basic: After that, I got an A on my final paper, and it felt so good.

Specific: After that, I earned an A on my final paper, an experience that counts as one of the crowning moments of my junior year.

Vague or basic: My father is one of the strongest people I know, and he is one of the better mechanics out there too.

Specific: My father, one of the strongest people I know, has built a reputation as an even better mechanic.

Here’s a longer form example of how shifts to individual sentences can carry over throughout an entire essay. Read both essays, then carefully look at the differences, and not just the ones we’ve already called out!

Formal
The mother is not the subject—her problems are. This passively removes blame from the mother. Contrast this formal usage with the informal one on the next page. Formal verb usages such as “descend the staircase,” if desired, can be written more informally. Passive verb construction is a formal choice. Contrast this with how the next essay handles this construction. A direct quotation is quite formal. Navigating my mother’s moods occupied years of my life. While she tried her best to raise me, her problems often resulted in the reverse: I often was forced to guide our lives. Then, our relationship took a more serious turn two years ago, when she attended a 90-day rehabilitation program for alcoholism. I would be lying if I said that this event had surprised me. On many school nights, after I finished my homework, I would descend the staircase, shut off the television, throw away the empty liquor bottle, and lift my drunken parent onto my shoulder. As I hoisted her upstairs to bed, she would awaken and insist on carrying herself the rest of the way. Nothing was ever said, no apologies were ever uttered. This was simply the way things were during my ninth and tenth grade years. I had no power over the situation, and so I lived according to that famous prayer. I asked God to “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.” My mother came back from the rehabilitation facility a very different woman. The nights of drinking were gone, replaced by a deep obsession with following recommended videos on YouTube. Her already short temper became nonexistent, and she moved around the house in a constant state of agitation. I had traded one problematic mother for a different problematic mother.
Informal
I was young—knee-high to a coffee table, as my uncle would say—when I realized that my mother had problems. I can tell you that she tried her best to raise me, but the honest truth is that she failed. I ended up being the parent in our relationship. That is, until our relationship took a nosedive two years ago, after she checked into a 90-day rehabilitation program for people addicted to adult juice. That’s what she called alcohol. It wasn’t any surprise—no way, absolutely not. Most of the time, after I finished my homework, I would go downstairs, shut off the television, throw away the empty liquor bottle, and lift my passed-out mother onto my shoulder. She would wake up before we reached the bedroom and try to twist away. She didn’t like me to carry her all the way to bed. She never said sorry. Not for any of it. This was simply the way things were during my ninth and tenth grade. I couldn’t do a single stupid thing about us, so I just said that famous prayer to myself, the one where you ask God to give you the serenity to accept the things you can’t change. My mom came back from the rehabilitation facility, and—wow—was she different. No more booze—her new obsession was YouTube, and she fell down those rabbit holes until the sun came up on the horizon. Her temper grew awful. She’d snap at me for the massive sin of leaving a dirty butter knife on the counter. She stumbled around the house muttering to herself. It was an even trade, as far as I was concerned—one bad mom for another. At least the new one didn’t smell like stale booze. Unlike “her problems often resulted,” this is the direct active voice, and it puts blame squarely on the mother’s shoulders. This is much more informal than “took a more serious turn.” Cute nicknames are another sign of informality. An em dash followed by a childish “no way”? This is informal to the max! Fragments are permitted! An indirect quotation—reported speech—can be more informal, and even preferable. Conversational interjections? Hey! That’s informal! Metaphorical language is usually informal. Be careful deploying sarcasm like this. It’s not usually advisable. Beware getting too personal when using an informal voice. The language here reads angry and bitter, which might raise flags to the reader.

When to Use Informal Language

Right now, you might feel totally jittery about crossing linguistic lines that you probably weren’t even thinking about. Relax! Just as there are certain topics to avoid, there are also certain words and phrasings to steer clear of. On the whole, however, informal language is not only allowed, it is encouraged.

First-person Pronouns

Did you grow up feeling that if you ever turned in a paper with an “I” that you would be booted out of school? You’re not alone. Here’s the truth: Yes, you can use first-person pronouns such as “I” in your personal statement. Teachers tend to crack down hard on that kind of usage because it can lead students to make unsupported statements rather than to rely on the facts at hand. But in this case, the facts at hand are about you: remember, it’s a personal statement.

Formal: The student sat at the desk, thinking long and hard about what to write.

Informal: I sat there, swiveling in my chair, trying to come up with the right words.

You don’t have to use something just because you can. Try to avoid the same repetitious constructions, as they suggest a laziness to your writing or, worse, will make you seem self-absorbed.

Contractions

As with the first-person, teachers tend to shun contractions because they can lead to your papers sounding conversational, as opposed to carefully researched or diligently argued. But your college applications is, to some degree, a conversation between you and the reader. If a contraction helps you set a mood or better communicate a topic, it’s—see what we did there?—up to you.

Formal: It is very difficult to write well when you are tired, so do not stay up all night.

Informal: It’s very difficult to write well when you’re tired, so don’t pull an all-nighter.

The reason many of these usages are okay is because they’re still grammatically correct; they’re just informal. You can use “it’s” or “it is,” but don’t accidentally use the possessive “its” when you mean “it is” or, worse, “its” ’—a word that doesn’t exist.

Reported Dialogue

Teachers usually drill the use of quotes for dialogue because they want to make sure that their students understand how to properly cite a source. They cared at least as much about the accuracy of the statements as the underlying story. But because the personal statement is from your point of view and often from your memory, you’re free to report what someone said instead of quoting it.

Formal: “PewDiePie made the best vlogs,” said my sister. “Then he lost his mind.”

Informal: My sister believes that PewDiePie made the best vlogs until he lost his mind.

Don’t dismiss quotes entirely! They can help to make a conversation easier to follow and, if properly used, help to distinguish your essay. Just critically think about whether each element of your essay is useful, and avoid too much of any one style.

Fragments

As long as they are used artfully, by which we mean with intent, fragments are okay. You can’t just. Add random punctuation. You should, however, feel free to use them the same way that fiction writers do: to change the rhythm of the sentence or to shake up the structure of a list.

Formal: Reasons to avoid a trip to Nepal include the weather, the risk of avalanches, and the overpriced guides.

Informal: There were many reasons to avoid a trip to Nepal. Weather. Avalanches. Guides. Guides! There were some good ones, but I’d only ever found them to be overpriced.

Rhythm can be particularly important in an essay. Remember that these readers are going through multiple essays in a row. An effective shift in tone that forces readers to slow down or focus on something can help them remember your essay.

Miscellaneous

There are plenty of other rules you’ve been taught that would still be grammatically correct if broken. Like starting a sentence with a conjunction or preposition! Or ending with one, like so. Believe it or not, your teachers have been drilling these rules into your head so that you know when and how to break them.

Formal: Samantha made a turkey-swiss-and-avocado sandwich because she felt hungry.

Informal: Because Samantha felt hungry, she made a turkey-swiss-and-avocado sandwich.

Before you look at the annotations to the paragraph below, see if you can figure out what’s being done and whether you find it effective or not.

First-person pronoun and contraction. Two for one! Both usually indicate informality, especially the contraction. I’d been worried about my second-semester physics project ever since that meeting with my counselor. In between bites of baby carrots and hummus, she’d told me that the last person to attempt something this ambitious was a girl everybody called The Caffeineator. I remembered her and she was an extreme character. Hyperactive. Controlling. Brilliant. Reported dialogue. This is often more informal than reporting the dialogue directly. Three fragments, three bits of informality.

ACTIVITY

A Tone for All Seasons

Rewrite the following informal paragraphs to create a formal tone. Remove curse words, sarcasm, real names, and simple or vague verbs. Add active voice, vary the syntax (focusing on longer sentences), and add one or two more sophisticated vocabulary words.

a) It felt like it took forever but my Uncle Joe finally said, “Look, you’re too smart to be hanging around with those boys down at the dump.” Whatever, I thought. I was so cocky then. Arrogant.

b) Who’s the GOAT? I told myself. I said it over and over and over again. It’s so important to always be telling yourself those kinds of things. It’s not even fair how some people are just born with that self-confidence. Not me, I have to earn it.

Rewrite the following paragraphs to create a more informal tone. Add contractions, first-person pronouns, attributed dialogue, and fragments.

a) My team’s soccer coach, Hal Merrington, was screaming from the sidelines: “Play the ball to Bryan! No railroad tracks! Give and go!” He originally hailed from England, and few were those who could easily understand him. There were many rumors about Coach Hal, some of which were accurate and others that were less accurate. Some said that he had been a taxi driver, while others said that he had been a roadie for the Rolling Stones. A credible rumor was that Coach Hal had played with West Ham United, in the Premier League, for a few months before being cut.

b) Vaulting itself from zilch to a revered citywide event in a mind-boggling twelve months, the Value Volleyball tournament could be viewed as my brainchild; more specifically, it has been portrayed by those closest to me as a channel through which my deepest yearnings as a person of athletic strength could express his myriad needs for community participation and public excellence.

For these last two paragraphs, first identify whether it’s formal or informal and then rewrite each in the opposite style.

a) In my head, the offending passage could’ve been anything, an arpeggio, a prechorus, a single discordant note. But it wasn’t clear what sounded so horrible or why.

b) Before I knew it, my friend Renee fell flat on her face. “Nice job,” I said. “You’re such a jerk,” she replied. We had a weird relationship. It wasn’t like the others, it was open flirty, more so than with others, but we both knew that it wouldn’t ever be more than that. Kissing her would’ve been as gross as kissing my sister!

FINDING YOUR VOICE

Have you ever heard a brand-new song—and without looking at your playlist, from just the opening chords, or perhaps from the first word, you knew exactly who made it?

Some people have a very identifiable voice. If you’re one of those unicorns, then congratulations. So long as you choose the right topic and don’t break the wrong rules, your personal statement will likely stand out, though it’s still on you to make sure the college admissions officers like what they’re reading.

Most of us, however, don’t have a strong written voice. That’s not a problem if you’re writing technical manuals or scientific research; those are places where a lack of personal voice is necessary. For example:

The corrected instructions regarding the process of decontaminating the intake valve prior to desalinization can be found in section 7.8 of the Fourth Edition of the official Field Manual.

But a personal statement is different. It needs your personality. It needs to show the admissions committee your quirks, oddities, and weird observations. These are not to be hidden or ironed out—display them!

For your first drafts, go overboard with your voice. It is much easier to edit a statement to make it more conservative than it is to try and find your voice on the second pass!

Here is one anecdote:

When I was in Madrid one time, an American girl walked into the restaurant. She said in Spanish that she wanted a churro and hot chocolate, but the man behind the counter didn’t understand her because of her accent. I translated for her, and he brought her the churro and chocolate. She didn’t say anything. It taught me that practicing languages can really help people.

Does it leave you flat? Here is another version of the same anecdote:

Sensory description for the win! Comparisons are a very effective way to describe things with a personal touch, but make sure they’re understandable. Had this author just said “like my seventh-grade sister,” the reader would be missing context. The remainder gives us that vital context about her casualness and her phone fixation. “Yo quiero un chocolate con churro,” the American girl said, “por favor.” She was dressed in ratty red sweatpants and her hair hung in a sloppy ponytail. A wad of gum snapped in her mouth. She looked like my seventh-grade sister when she’s lying on the couch on a miserable Saturday afternoon in February, eyes glued to her phone. But we were in a fashionable Madrid bar, and I felt sorry for this stranger because the man behind the counter clearly had zero idea what she was saying. So I repeated her order the best I could, using my newfound fluid Madrileño accent. He understood and quickly brought her the hot chocolate and churro. She looked upset and went to the other side of the room without thanking me. I didn’t care. I was too hungry to care about anything except getting that plate of fried shrimp goodness. Reconstructed dialogue is very professional. A little goes a long way, though. Don’t forget to track the emotional state of your main character, which is you. This is easy to forget for applicants who are overly brainy. Emotions matter!

What does the second version have that the first one lacked?

A personal statement that doesn’t reveal your personality is forgettable—and that is the biggest problem of all!

ACTIVITY

Rewrite both of the following anecdotes in a way that highlights your personal voice. Don’t focus on each individual sentence—your voice might not emphasize all of the points in these samples. Do, however, try to stick to the same subject, much as you will have to stick to your chosen topic.

It was disappointing when my principal read the name of the winner of the contest out loud. It had been a lot of hard work but ultimately I had not won the prize. I was very sad and that night I didn’t really feel like doing my homework, or anything else. So my mom took me to my favorite restaurant to cheer me up. It worked. I was back to normal the next day. My mother is very loving, and she always knows how to build me up—she’s always going to be my biggest fan.

My interest in physics has been very long and intense. I have been studying the topic ever since I was little, and my family members have always encouraged me. They don’t really know much about physics because I am the first person in my family to apply to college, but my father says that he used to dream about me becoming a famous physicist while he was working in the kitchen of his restaurant. I don’t want to disappoint him, so I have always worked very hard to be the best that I can be.

THE DETAILS

Selection of details is key. This isn’t a scale from 0 to 10 where 0 means that a lack of details has led to a boring essay, but 10 means that a surplus of details has created a captivating one. The scale actually looks like this:

Both extremes result in a negative outcome, which means the sweet spot is in the middle. Professional writers learn, over months and years of practice, exactly where that sweet spot lives. They discover which details to leave in and which to leave out. For now, as with your voice, fill your early drafts with as many details as you can think of. Just be prepared to cut many of them as you edit.

If you’ve taken creative writing classes, you’ve probably heard the expression “Kill your darlings.” No, creative writers aren’t secretly a bunch of bloodthirsty murders! They are, however, expected to recognize when their favorite lines just aren’t working and need to be cut.

Brain Types

Some types of brains see in less sensory detail than others. Future engineers, for example, often write with no detail because they’re so focused on abstract process. These personal statements tend to be dry as a result.

Other types of brains see too much sensory detail. Many artists, for example, are open to the world. When they decide to fill the page with detail, it can be overwhelming. And then there are completist brains, which catalogue and record as much as possible.

Your job is to find a balance between all of these.

When describing a new person, place, or thing, make a separate list of adjectives or details that describe it or them, and then try to narrow it down to the most relevant single detail. Add only if a reader wouldn’t understand, and only then if you can’t think of a more precise word that might help you sum the noun up.

Here’s what it looks like when there aren’t enough details:

When we finally arrived at the debate tournament, we were totally exhausted. We looked terrible. We all forgot to set the alarm, so Mr. Linder had to wake us up the next morning and we barely made it to the tournament. (41 words)

Notice the lack of sensory information and concrete nouns. It has no specificity. Your eyes glide past the paragraph without lingering over anything.

Now let’s flip the script. Here is the same story with way, way, way too many details:

Our flight to the debate tournament arrived four hours late because a passenger in row 27 decided they needed to get something from their stowed baggage RIGHT THEN, and refused to sit down. So we had to make an emergency landing in Kansas City, kick out the unruly passenger, and then wait while the staff filed a report on the man’s behavior. Finally we took off and continued onwards to Austin. By the time we had pulled up to the gate, disembarked (which took forever), got our bags at the baggage claim, found our van, and driven to the center of the city, it was already three o’clock in the morning. Check-in was slow that time of night, so it was 4:15 before our heads hit the pillows. I had to share a saggy queen bed with Ryan, one above and one below the sheets. It was weird enough sleeping in the same bed as a friend, especially one who snores louder than a piece of farm equipment. It’s hard to believe that people shared beds with strangers all the time in the nineteenth century—that’s actually where we get the term “strange bedfellows.” Anyways, I had trouble falling asleep so I stared at the ceiling for at least an hour, imagining that the little swirls in the panels were like chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, which is my favorite, though I think many could say the same. By the time we fell asleep, nobody had remembered to set an alarm—well, actually, Timmy did set his, but he accidentally set it for 7:00 pm. Coach Linder pounded on the door at 8:00 the next morning and shocked us out of bed. We didn’t have any time to shower or brush our teeth or drink water. We just leapt out of bed, put on our suits, and did our ties in the elevator downstairs. When the elevator doors opened at the mezzanine level, we bolted out and ran to the ballroom to find our room assignments. (353 words)

The key difference between the two, from a drafting perspective, is that you can at least get a sense of the story being told in the second example. There are too many extraneous details in the second version—the use of the word “Anyways” is a clear sign that someone has gotten off-topic—but at least you can focus now on cutting.

Ask yourself “What’s the story that I want to tell?” and then circle the supporting details. Keep what works and revise as necessary. If it’s still too long, answer the question more specifically to further pare things down. Here’s an example of how this story might read as a finished body paragraph:

Our flight had unfortunately been delayed by an unruly passenger who had to be deposited in Kansas City. By the time we burst into our hotel room in Austin, it was already 4:15 in the morning. A loud pounding on the door the next morning jerked me awake. It was Coach Linder, screaming. Timmy had accidentally set our alarm for 7:00 pm, and we’d overslept by an hour. Unshowered, filthy from the night before, we leapt out of bed, threw on our suits, and raced downstairs to the ballroom to find our room assignments. The debate tournament was about to begin. (102 words)

To borrow from a children’s story—this porridge is not too hot, not too cold. It’s just right.

“The essay topic or theme is not usually the issue at hand. It is what an applicant does with the topic that often separates an interesting and effective essay submission from the more typically banal essay.”

—Earlham College

Read the following essay excerpt and think about what works and doesn’t work for you, then go back and read the annotations. Don’t feel as if you have to make changes like this in your own work, but at least be aware of the decisions you are making not to, so that your essay reads with purpose and voice.

This is a vague beginning. Who is the other co-chair? What organization? Consider instead the more active “As the co-chair of our school’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity, I had spent…” What’s the important detail? If it’s trying to keep down the costs, the number of rooms is worth mentioning. If it’s about the people in the rooms, it might be better to state that there were two people to a room. The other co-chair and I had spent all winter planning the trip to Louisiana with our school’s chapter of Habitat For Humanity. We were going to help rebuild homes after Hurricane Katrina. True, that disaster had devastated the region ten years earlier, but the regional director of the organization told me that they were still rebuilding. We had seven students signed up, so we rented a big passenger van. One of the parents volunteered to chaperone and found four rooms in a cheap motel. We bought a large box of instant noodles to save money. As the time drew closer, I grew less confident in my decision. Were we really going paint walls and hammer shingles on a roof in the swampy humidity? I wanted to back out. But the person who reminded me of my responsibility, of finishing what you start, was my aunt. When introducing topics, always consider how much information is necessary. The focus here stays on the work the student is doing as opposed to getting bogged down in descriptions of a national nonprofit. Here, the impact of the hurricane is being described as it pertains to the work the writer would be doing for the organization. Always aim for personal context! This isn’t just a detail of the type of work—it also emphasizes the narrator’s indecision because it’s phrased as a question. Always keep an eye out for places like this where you can do more.

ACTIVITY

Getting It Just Right

Rewrite the following paragraphs with an appropriate amount of detail. Though these likely aren’t your experiences, try to identify which details would be important to you, and condense or expand them. In other words, keep the structure while adding or subtracting details.

Too Long

Standing there in the classroom, with blue, red, and green dry erase markers in my hand, I looked down at the little boy, who was not even four years old. His name was Erik, but everybody called him Captain Crybaby, including the teacher, Mrs. Schmittel, privately. I heard that Erik’s mother had been an opera singer who now was battling multiple sclerosis. I don’t know anything about his father, if he was even present. Erik was staring at me with two crayons shoved up his nostrils, his little lower lip jutting outwards like a boxer daring a fight. He’d tied a cape around his shoulders. His long-sleeved shirt was soaked up to the elbows with snot. I noticed that his Velcro shoes were old and barely hanging onto his feet. He stood there, a tiny king daring me to defy him. Then, as I watched, he snatched a pair of blunt red plastic scissors from a little girl and charged at me. I caught his hand and diverted the sharp instrument away just before it drove into my crotch. He started crying and stamping his feet and screaming. I saw snot bubbling from his nose and saliva from his mouth. I didn’t know if I should touch him or not because he seemed like a tiny contaminated germ factory. This was my first week as a teacher’s aide, here in room 204, and I was sure it was going to be my last.

Rewrite this paragraph with just the right amount of detail.

Too Short

My grandfather told me to come over on Friday because he had a surprise for me. He never gave surprises to me or my sisters. I wondered what it could be, and it was hard to sleep that week because I kept wondering. That Friday I got to his house and he was sitting outside on the porch. He pointed at his old car in the street and said, “That’s yours.”

Rewrite this paragraph with just the right amount of detail.

HUMOR

Evaluate this joke:

A man walked into a bar…and said ouch.

Funny? Not funny? It depends on context. To people who’ve heard a lot of A man walked into a bar jokes, this rates pretty high on the funny meter. To people who’ve never heard this type of joke, it’s mildly funny. To other people, it’s just plain dumb.

We hate to repeat a point, as we mentioned this back in Chapter 1, but humor is largely dependent on context. That context includes many things, such as geography, language, age, and even time—the moment at which a joke is delivered will change its reception. What makes humor so high stakes, particularly in a personal statement, is that the cost of offending a reader with a joke that’s in poor taste far outweighs any gain from amusing another reader. Think long and hard about the possible effect your joke may have and remember that you won’t be in the room to explain yourself, so make sure it can’t be misinterpreted.

The target of the joke also matters. It’s one thing to be self-deprecating and to find humor in your own situation, but it’s another to mean-spiritedly mock someone else. That shows a lack of character.

So, What’s Up, Princeton Review?

So yes, you can use humor in your personal statement. The question is whether you should. To answer that, you need to honestly decide if humor is a natural part of your voice. If you’re already doing stand-up routines, writing jokes for your school’s newspaper, or would be described as the class clown or life of the party, you might want to give it a try.

If the people in your life do find you funny, you’ll want to determine what makes them laugh. Is it physical comedy? Is it lowbrow humor? Unless the point of your essay is to show how your humor evolved or landed you a notable opportunity on a respected website, you might want to hold back on certain types of jokes. Your readers are likely going to be older and wiser than your peers, so even if your friends laugh at your jokes, this might not be the best time or place to make someone you’ve never met crack up.

Humor doesn’t always mean big laughs. One pun, a funny analogy, or even a sassy rejoinder can produce a moment of lightheartedness, which can be a relief to the reader if you’re handling an otherwise weighty topic.

So, Where’s Up, Princeton Review?

Once you’ve decided to include humor, know that it doesn’t matter where you put it. If you find yourself second-guessing whether a joke is appropriate in the first sentence, second paragraph, or conclusion, what you’re really questioning is whether that joke is appropriate at all, in which case the answer is no, it’s not.

The amount of humor, however, does matter. Remember, you want your personal statement to honestly reveal something about yourself. By being overly lighthearted, you can make it difficult for the reader to connect to you. Humor is, like everything else we’ve talked about in this chapter, a device to help you stand out. Overusing it, just like being too informal or too detail-oriented, can wear down a reader.

When you should use humor to show the reader something not in your transcript. If you suspect that you come off as an arrogant know-it-all, add a moment of self-deprecating humor. If you have a reputation as a slacker who can’t settle on any one thing, then try a joke about how Shakespeare never signed his name the same way twice. (That’s true, by the way, and is not actually a joke.)

If you do choose to employ humor, test it out on a counselor or teacher—someone likely to be a peer of the average college admissions reader. Watch their reaction as they read it; you should see a smile, some kind of delight.

Be careful not to set the bar too high—no pun intended! Unless what follows is actually depicted in an epic way, saying that it will be is setting yourself up for failure. The author is trying to make a humorous contrast, but be careful to what extremes you go, especially as many athletes have wound up in this situation. A better attempt might be to pull from something unrelated and unexpected: “I could’ve stepped into an alternate dimension where every food tasted like cinnamon.” Avoid being cruel, including to yourself. Be careful not to use too much self-deprecation. The readers want to see that you have some pride and some confidence. That’s certainly a vivid example! Consider whether the negatively charged word “rancid” helps or hurts. The first time I ever tried the high jump was a disaster of epic proportions. It could’ve gone worse. After all, I could’ve ended up paralyzed! The first step in my flight to ignominy occurred at 4:00 pm on a Saturday—the occasion of my first track meet. I was wearing high-cut shorts that displayed my pasty, chunky white thighs to the world. I took a deep breath, then began my trip into hell. First, I did the bunny hop that my coach had showed me, where you do a bizarre vertical movement that kind of looks like an exaggeration of a person running in slow-motion. Then came the acceleration, which was barely perceptible in my case. Then came the planting of the foot—and the launch— Oh, but there was a problem. It’d just rained, and the asphalt was slick. I planted my foot, but it unfortunately had other ideas. The cursed little thing slid out from underneath me, and I went down to the ground like a sack of rancid butter. My body, now horizontal, collided with the thick mat. To make matters worse, the bar itself fell off its holder and hit me in the head. Looney Tunes couldn’t have scripted it better. If you have to keep telling (or explaining) the joke, it isn’t a good one. We know it was a “disaster of epic proportions.” We know it “could’ve gone worse.” By this point, we want to know exactly what was so bad. Personifying the foot is a good use of self-deprecation. There’s already been a bit too much in this essay of that, but at least this is taking a different tack, and in a way that actually paints a funny picture. When making references, be sure to use ones that the majority of readers would be able to get. Looney Tunes, which has been around for decades, is something accessible to all audiences.

ACTIVITY

Funny (or Why?)

In each of the following paragraphs, underline the things that are funny, and then identify whether the overall tone and topic are appropriate or not.

Looking at the red D at the top of my essay, I felt filled with indescribable rage. Mrs. Mooney was a bona fide witch. She was about ninety-nine years old and walked around in front of our class in her unbearable stupid sunflower sweater with her nose tilted up in the air. Clearly she believed that she pooped lavender brownies. But the fact was that she was a bitter, angry, miserable old woman who liked to penalize intelligent students just because she liked to be sadistic.

Appropriate or inappropriate?

One thing that most people don’t know about me is that I am a terrible cook. It’s embarrassing. My family refuses to eat anything I make. A tray of cookies inevitably slides out looking like a volcanic landscape of burned rocks. Without supervision, I could burn water. I break into a cold sweat just looking at a spatula. It’s a truly serious problem, and it makes me feel utterly inadequate. I’m not sure if I’m emphasizing this enough. When I get older and live on my own, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ll probably just buy hot dogs from street vendors and sodas from 7–11. That’s how pathetic I am.

Appropriate or inappropriate?

END OF CHAPTER REVIEW

In this chapter, you’ve learned about striking a balance between a formal and informal tone. You’ve discovered the importance of discovering your voice. You’ve learned about the importance of detail selection. You’ve admitted that not all humor is made equal, and that you should almost certainly dial back the fart jokes.

How would you characterize the voice you currently have? On a sheet of paper, describe the different aspects of it as discussed in this chapter.

  • My Tone: Formal or informal? Somewhere in between?

  • My Details: Sparse or overflowing? Somewhere in between?

  • My Humor: Serious or funny? Somewhere in between?

Then, note whether you want to shift your voice at all, and if yes, how you might do so.