College Admission Essays: Selecting Strong Verbs and Nouns

Verbs

Verbs are the words in the sentence that express action or state of being, as in the following:

Carmeline swished the damp mop over Engelbrot’s bald head. (swished = verb)

Engelbrot has been upset ever since that incident. (has been = verb)

Now that the term is clear, I’ll get to the point: verbs are the most important words in your vocabulary. You want the souped-up, strong-as-a-weightlifter verbs, not the boring, found-on-every-corner words. Check out this example:

Tourmaline went to the gem store.

Ho hum. “Went.” There’s a great verb. Haven’t seen that one since two whole seconds ago! Plus, “went” is so general that it tells me practically nothing, just that Tourmaline was somewhere other than the gem store, and now she’s not. How about these alternatives?

Tourmaline ambled to the gem store.

Tourmaline strode to the gem store.

Tourmaline slithered to the gem store.

Tourmaline boogied to the gem store.

I don’t know which of these sentences is “right,” because I don’t know how Tourmaline in fact got to the gem store. For all I know, the best possible sentence is “Tourmaline drove to the gem store in her very own Lamborghini.” But I can declare confidently that any of the alternate sentences is more specific than the original, and specific is good. General is bad. In general, that is.

Here’s another example:

Tourmaline said that she would go.

“Said,” in all its variations (“says,” “say,” “will say,” and so on) is the first runner-up of the All-Time Boring Verb Contest. (Who won? I’ll tell you in a minute.) You can get so much more mileage out of other words for verbal self-expression, such as these:

Tourmaline declared that she would go.

Tourmaline conceded that she would go.

Tourmaline whispered that she would go.

Tourmaline bellowed that she would go.

Now for the winners of the All-Time Boring Verb Contest. Yes, two verbs tie for the trophy: “be” and “have.” Okay, I know you need these verbs. They play a part in tons of sentences and often cannot be replaced. But sometimes you can dump them in favor of much more interesting choices. Compare these two passages, in which the verbs are italicized:

The chair is metal and has curved legs. The seat is wood, and so is the back, which is shaped to support the spine.

Three-feet tall metal legs curve up from the floor. The wooden seat and back mirror and support the spine.

The verbs in the second passage are more interesting. Also, you saved five words and said the same thing, a real plus in the admission essay, because you’re working with a word limit and tired readers.

Bottom line: As you work on the rough draft of your essay, pay special attention to the verbs. Think of the verbs as the tires on a truck that carry your meaning to the reader. Go for the best tires you can afford; in the verb world, best means most specific.

Nouns

Nouns are words that name persons, places, things, or ideas. Read this sentence:

Carmeline values cleanliness, so she rubbed polish on Engelbrot’s bald head. (Carmeline, cleanliness, polish, Engelbrot’s, and head = nouns)

If you’re a stickler for terminology, Engelbrot’s is a possessive noun because it shows that a person — Engelbrot — possesses a bald head. (Actually, he’s a real chrome dome. If he stands in the sunlight, the glare from his forehead alone will blind you.)

Nouns, like verbs (check out the preceding section on verbs) can be general or specific. As always in writing, go for the specific over the general. Compare these sentence pairs:

Berylium contemplated the flower as she switched on her computer.

Berylium contemplated the dahlia as she switched on her lilac-tinted iMac.

Nasturtium patted her pet and sustained an injury because the animal was not in a good mood.

Nasturtium patted her pet python and sustained a puncture because the animal was not in a good mood.

Xanthium cooked dinner and fell victim to an illness.

Xanthium cooked Tuna-Strawberry Surprise and fell victim to botulism.

In each pair, the second sentence contains more specific nouns — “dahlia” instead of “flower,” “Tuna-Strawberry Surprise” instead of “dinner,” and so on. The second sentence packs more meaning into its words. The moral of the story, one more time: Go for the specific over the general!

When you’re aiming for specifics, adjectives and adverbs are tempting. (I know, I know. I said only two grammar terms in this section, and here I am using two more. Sorry.) Adjectives and adverbs are descriptive words. They’re great, and you can’t express yourself in English without them. But don’t get lazy and try to beef up weak nouns and verbs by slathering them with descriptions, as in this sentence:

He walked slowly.

 Simply choose a better verb:

He strolled. 

A Little Metaphor Won't Kill You

Describing everything literally — with the actual facts — gets your point across. Unfortunately, the literal truth may bore your reader to tears (or giggles, depending upon how late they’re reading your essay and how loopy they’re feeling). Sometimes the best writing veers away from facts and into the realm of metaphors and similes.

Don’t let those English teacher terms throw you. A metaphor is just a poetic comparison. “Happiness is a warm puppy,” as the Peanuts comic strip declares, is a metaphor. A simile is also a poetic comparison, this time with the words “like” or “as,” as in “as pretty as a picture” and Madonna’s “like a virgin.”

Metaphors and similes can really liven up your admission essay. I once read a piece about a young man’s experience attending a religious service of another faith. The essay was meant to show how this event deepened his appreciation of the many traditions that constitute American life. In the essay he described a partition that separated the male and female worshippers. His description included exact measurements of this wall — length, width, and height. (I have always wondered how he knew. Did he creep in after the service with a tape measure or check the blueprints?) His exciting sentence read something like this:

The wall is 5’11” high, 21 1/2 feet long, and 2” thick.

Yawn. Next, he changed the sentence this way:

The wall is just high enough so that men and women can’t see each other from anywhere in the sanctuary.

Much better! The description now gives the purpose of the wall as well as a fair idea of its dimensions. Okay, you don’t know how thick it is in version two, but do you really, really care about thickness? I don’t think so. The final version hit the metaphorical level nicely:

The wall is a boundary between the world of men and the world of women.

Poetic descriptions are great, but don’t overload the reader with your brilliant creations. A little poetry goes a long way, at least when you’re writing an admission essay. I’ve read some essays that make me imagine a writer who declares, “I sat through three months of sonnets last year and by golly I’m going to use that stuff if it kills me.” If you have ten details, one might be a good candidate for a metaphor or a simile. Not nine!

Metaphors and similes tend to catch the reader’s attention because they change the pace of your writing. The reader is zipping along and suddenly stops to ponder the comparison. Milk the reader’s reaction for all it’s worth by placing the metaphor or simile at a pivotal point in the essay, a time when you want the reader to pay special attention. Such a point might be a detail that emphasizes the theme of your essay.

Lots of metaphors and similes express the most common human emotions and the most universal life experiences. Unfortunately, many of these comparisons have turned into clichés — overused, stale phrases such as “raining cats and dogs” and “as happy as a clam.” (Does anyone know where that last one comes from? All the clams I’ve seen seem fairly neutral in their emotions, not that I’d know how to recognize an annoyed shellfish.) Take care to avoid clichés in your essay.