Ep 73: Strengthening Your Writing Style – Part 2
Today we're going to be talking about your writing style in your writing for law school admissions. So often we focus on the content but we neglect the importance of writing style in delivering the strongest personal and diversity statements.
In part 2, we're going to focus on active and passive voice, transition variance, and some general formatting!
Episode Highlights
Active Voice vs. Passive Voice
Active Voice - subject-focused
Best used for law school essays
Uses less words to convey the meaning thus giving more space to add more details to your statement
It is more concise, direct, and persuasive in telling your story to convince law school admissions why you deserve to attend their school
Passive Voice - action-focused
Best used in academic papers or particularly in cases when trying to downplay or avoid responsibility for your client
When the focus is on the result or solution, passive voice is the best route
Takes up more space with extra words
Transitions
Transitions is what creates a smooth journey through your story for the reader. Without them, your writing will be awkward
Avoid reusing the same transition over and over again. Vary your transitions
Types of Transitions
Emphasizes what you’ve gone through—e.g. “obviously”
Adds something to what came before—e.g. “in addition to”
Contrasts what came before—e.g. “despite, alternatively, although”
Places the next event in time as related to what came before—e.g. “first, then, after”
Formatting
When writing your essay, it is not the time to be creative. Follow the directions.
Follow standard 1-inch margin, double spaced, Times New Roman.
Tweetable Quotes
“Whether that is through a part of your life, through all of your life, through particular experience, whatever it is, you are taking your reader on a journey. The goal is that they are engaged and they’re happy to be on this journey with you the entire time that they are reading. If you don’t have transitions in place, that journey is really awkward.”