College Admission Essays: Getting the Grammar Right the Second Time Around - Pronouns

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No one writes a perfectly grammatical first draft. Not even me . . . er, I. See what I mean? While you’re creating the rough draft, you’re concentrating on content and, to a lesser extent, style. The picky stuff — commas, spelling, the selection of “is” or “are” — doesn’t flow from anyone’s pen in an uninterrupted stream of correctness. Not in this universe, anyway.

Nevertheless, you can’t leave those errors in your admission essay. The admissions committee (or the scholarship committee, if you’re begging for bucks) is judging your level of education. Rightly or wrongly, they will see the quality of your grammar as an indication of academic accomplishment. And if you’re writing an essay as part of a job application and your grammar is faulty . . . well, as we say in New York City, the job “ain’t gonna happen.” Employers generally hold applicants for professional positions to strict standards of written and verbal expression.

Memorizing grammar rules is a waste of time. If you’re normal (that is, not an English teacher), all you want to do is to correct any errors in your essay as quickly as possible and then move on to bigger and better things.  A good strategy is to go over your essay four times. With each rereading, check for one type of problem, consulting the rules and examples as necessary. After four check-ups, take up the issue of spelling. 

Pronouns

You’ve got to love pronouns, but they sure are annoying little guys. Pronouns take the place of nouns (the names of people, places, things, and ideas) and save you from sentences like “Albert took Albert’s little sister to the pool, and Albert’s little sister swam in the pool.” How much simpler to say, “Albert took his little sister to the pool, and she swam in it.” The pronouns in that sentence are his, she, and it. Other pronouns include I, me, our, you, your, they, him, their, and us (the easiest pronouns to spot), as well as everyone, someone, anyone, no one, everybody, somebody, anybody, nobody, everything, something, anything, nothing, each, every, most, more, some, who, which, that, whose, others, and lots of other words.

Pronouns have two qualities that may make you stub your toe on the path to correct English: case (the difference between, for example, who, whom, and whose) and number (the singular/plural quality, as in he and they).

Case

Fortunately, your “ear” for grammar recognizes case errors most of the time. Not many Tarzans write admission essays stating, “Me want to attend college.” But a couple of situations pose problems:

• Compounds. In sentences with long strings of nouns and pronouns, all jumbled up, you may find it hard to choose the correct pronoun. Even if only one pronoun and noun are grouped together, you may become confused. The solution is simple. Isolate the pronoun and check the sentence. If the pronoun sounds okay alone, chances are it is okay. If it sounds strange, adjust the singular/plural form of the verb. Now does the pronoun sound better? If so, go with it. If not, try another. Here are some examples of this technique in action, all from imaginary sentences answering a real college-essay question, “Describe an expressive silence”:

Sentence with dilemma unsolved: As Mom plucked shards of glass from the baseball, the living room rug, and the window frame, she glared silently at the culprits — Jessup, Millie, and (I, me).

Untangled version: . . . she glared at I . . . or she glared at me

Answer: . . . she glared at me.

Another sentence with dilemma unsolved: The completely innocent baseball players — Jessup, Millie, and (I, me) are now glaring at each other as we spackle in a new pane of glass.

Untangled version: I are glaring . . . or me are glaring

Answer: Here you have to adjust the verb number because isolating the subject in this sentence changes the subject from plural to singular. So check the pronouns with am, the singular verb. I am glaring? Me am glaring? I is clearly the correct choice. Go back to the original sentence and insert I.

Bottom line: Isolate the pronoun you’re worried about, and chances are you’ll immediately identify the correct choice.

• Possessive pronouns with “ing” words. Lots of “ing” words for actions — swimming, sailing, sighing, for example — may be used as nouns, as in these sentences:

I just adore applying to college! Filling out hundreds of forms is so much fun!

The “ing” words — applying, filling — are derived from verbs (apply, fill), but they are being used as nouns. For those of you who love terminology (time to say hello to the future English majors), these “ing” words are called gerunds. When you place a pronoun before a gerund, use the possessive form, as in this example:

Incorrect: My parents are thrilled about me applying to college.

Correct: My parents are thrilled about my applying to college.

Why it’s correct: Possessive pronouns are the 98-pound weaklings on Grammar Beach; they don’t have much clout. In the correct sentence, the focus is on applying, where it should be, because the possessive pronoun my doesn’t carry much weight. In the incorrect version, me is an “I can bench-press my body weight” pronoun. Me takes the attention away from applying and stresses that my parents are thrilled about me — possibly true but not the intended meaning of the sentence.

• Who/Whom. Who is for subjects, and whom is for objects. Sorry to hit you with two more grammar terms, but I’ll try to keep it simple. In most sentences, a subject identifies who or what is performing the action or who or what is in the state of being you’re talking about. (The exception? Sentences in passive voice.) If you’re deciding between who and whom, locate the verbs and make sure that each one has a subject. If you’ve got a verb flapping around with no subject, chances are you need who to act as a subject. If all the verbs have other subjects, you probably need whom. Very, very occasionally, you need who for another grammatical job in a sentence with a verb expressing being. (For grammar mavens: the predicate nominative after a linking verb.) This situation is quite rare, so my advice is not to worry about it.

Ninety percent of the time, who is correct, so if you’re in a muddle and can’t crack the sentence, play the odds and go with who.