Understanding the Fine Line Between Confidence and Arrogance

â€Å"Tone† is often one of the aspects of writing that applicants find most difficult to pin down. And yet, when you’re writing, it is also one of the most important to control so that you maintain an appropriate tone for your purpose. One way to think about â€Å"tone† is to understand it as conveying your attitude toward your subject. Two key steps can help you become more aware of your tone: First, pause and consider who your audience is and what you are trying to communicate to them. Second, read your writing aloud: hearing your words can enable you to recognize connotations and overtones that you missed on the page. What type of tone should you strive for in your admissions essay? For starters, you should ensure that your writing is confident, but not arrogant. How do you draw the line between these two similar tones? Confidence Let’s start with confidence. Here are five tips for staying on the confident side of the confidence-arrogance continuum: When you describe your skills and qualifications, do so with self-assurance. Don’t diminish or hide your contribution – and don’t sound uncertain of yourself. At the same time, focus on showing what you did, how you contributed, and what you learned from it, instead of simply making unsupported statements. For example, instead of just saying â€Å"I have strong communication skills,† illustrate those skills in action: â€Å"As a research assistant, I met regularly with all members of the research team and made formal presentations of my findings each week.† Quantify whenever possible and provide relevant, impressive specifics. â€Å"Led team of five on three continents† is better than â€Å"Led team.† Beware of words and qualifiers that make you sound uncommitted to your position. (â€Å"Seems,† â€Å"appears,† â€Å"might be,† etc.). If you mean â€Å"is,† say â€Å"is.† Better yet, use strong verbs. (If you’re describing provisional research findings, provisional-sounding words are ok!) Remember what you’re interested in. What truly attracts you to this program? Highlight your real enthusiasm, and let your confidence shine. To summarize: Back up your assertions with illustrations and details. Watch out for words that weaken your position by making you sound uncertain. Find the source of your confidence: the reasons you’re applying to the program in the first place. Arrogance The negative flip-side of confidence is arrogance. It is an application killer and a quality you must avoid. We can’t really overstate how important it is to root out any whiff of arrogance in your essay. Since so many grad programs rely on teamwork, adcoms are looking for candidates who will be good colleagues. It’s critical to come across as someone who works well with other people. How can you avoid errors in tone that project arrogance? Here are six tips to eradicate arrogance from your essays: As you describe your contribution, don’t make your team’s work sound less important, inflate your work, or (explicitly or implicitly) describe yourself as being smarter or better than your colleagues. †¢Ã‚  Most people don’t make this error explicitly, but I have seen essays where people wrote some variation of â€Å"I left this job because I was so much more advanced than my colleagues there.† Please don’t write that or anything close to it. †¢Ã‚  If you’ve left a position, express the decision in a positive way: instead of saying, â€Å"I was more advanced than my colleagues there,† or â€Å"I didn’t like the environment,† write that you moved to the new position in order to do XYZ, or develop your skills in ABC, or because it gave you more responsibility. Don’t present yourself as being the only qualified candidate. No matter how great you are, there are a lot of other great candidates. So don’t say things like â€Å"I am the only one to†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Don’t belittle other people. If you excelled or had a great opportunity, talk about that opportunity and what you did; don’t imply that other people from your school or company were not as successful, ambitious, or prepared. In other words: †¢Ã‚  Instead of: â€Å"Coming to college was a revelation, because I had been surrounded by unmotivated students all my life.† †¢Ã‚  Try: â€Å"In college, I was in my element, surrounded by other motivated students.† Don’t boast about test scores, grades, or other info that probably shouldn’t be in your essay anyway (i.e., things that are on your CV or application form). Avoid words that can connote arrogance, especially if you use them primarily in reference to yourself and your own accomplishments. (Words like â€Å"superior† or â€Å"exceptional.†) Similarly, make sure you convey genuine enthusiasm about the program: don’t write as though they should be lucky to have you, but as though you know that it is the right place for you. To summarize: Don’t belittle other people. Don’t exaggerate your contribution. Remember the adcom is considering you as a potential colleague – not just weighing your stats. Remember, a helpful way to check your tone is to read your essay aloud. Ask yourself: Do I sound confident? Do I sound like I am making a judgment about something I don’t really mean to be judgmental about? Have I used â€Å"I† too much when talking about a group project? This is also where it’s very helpful to ask someone else to read your essay. Ask them to pay attention to your tone, and mark any places that sound negative or un-collegial. An upcoming post will address how to maintain a professional tone. The expert advisors at Accepted can help you ensure that you are projecting a voice of confidence in your application essays. Learn more about our Admissions Consulting Editing Services here. hbspt.cta.load(58291, '51424c96-469e-4b9d-a401-247d2f92bd6d', {}); By Dr. Rebecca Blustein, former Accepted admissions consultant. Dr. Blustein has a BA and PhD from UCLA in English and Comparative Literature. She formerly worked as a Student Affairs Officer at UCLA’s Scholarship Resource Center where she gained experience guiding applicants in areas of admissions and funding. Dr. Blustein’s clients have been accepted to top Master’s and PhD programs in dozens of fields across all disciplines.  Want an admissions expert help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch! Related Resources: †¢Ã‚  From Example to Exemplary, a free guide †¢Ã‚  Generic-itis Prevention [Warning: If Untreated, Can Cause Rejection] †¢ Writing Techniques From a Pro

Juvenile vs. Adult Criminal System - Free Essay Example

Due to the advance of youth development age and impact of frequent acceptance of the violence culture. The violence behavior carried by the minor under age 18 gradually increased which not only affects the victims but also jeopardizes the community. Therefore, the issues and debate around the how to punish the juvenile was been bring up again. Should they be treated as an adult and sentenced to life in prison if they committed murder? My answer is no. The first juvenile court established in Cook County by 1899 and further spread led the formation of a juvenile justice system. Which shows the whole world paid close attention to juvenile crime and had noticed the essential difference between the adult and juvenile crime. Here are three difference between juvenile and adult crime we should take into count when dealing with the juvenile case brain, rehabilitation ability, and surrounding influence. First, the juvenile is in a transitional period between childhood and adulthood. In this period, they enter the social world little by little. Because of their immature view of life, values and the world, they are easy to be affected by the circumstances and follow some bad examples. Compared with an adult, juvenile crime shows an obvious feature of passive and occasional. The jurors, by returning a verdict of second-degree murder instead of first, indicated that they believe Brazills actions, while not accidental, were not fully thought out, either. Although, taking the effects of misconduct and its motivation into consideration is crucial for ensuring the justice of the law. There should not be tolerant punishment for all youth crime. For example, homicide will inevitably distress the sufferers and endanger the society. Conversely, relatively tough punishment for hardened criminals will not only embody the justice of law but also exert a deterrent effect on those potential malefact ors. Second, the mind of the juvenile is quite plastic which makes them easier to reform than the adult. After the punishment they will realize their fault and build a right outlook, thus will contribute to our socialist modernization and a more harmonious and stable society. Such change is the goal of the punishment. Children and young adolescents are developmentally different from adults and are therefore more amenable to rehabilitation. The juvenile is the future of our country, the hope of our nation, and the successor of our modernization construction. Their quality is related to the countrys development. Instead of pushing them to the opposite side against us, we should save them, educate them and reform the Third, the reason for juvenile crime is not only the juvenile themselves but also the lack of supervision of families, schools and the social. For example, the medium today is excessive propagate erotica and violence, which set a bad model to the juvenile. Conecquencyly, immature and inexperienced are some youngsters that they tend to blindly imitate wh they have seen, especially when they expose to pornographic movies and violent online games. In this sense, their cause of committing crimes can be owed to the negative influence of the mass media. The Inuit people of northern Canada had no juvenile crime at all until 1980 and the introduction of television into their culture. Nobody is an innate perpetrator, during the journey of life, those who are in the formative years are sometimes derailed by manifold causes such the negative influence of negative mass media, the disadvantaged family background or external factors. In this sense, the strict penalty for the first offenders, unintentional lawbreakers is far from rational, especially when taking the teenagers immature mentality into account. Nevertheless, these factors cannot be an excuse for juvenile offenders to escape legal sanctions. Virtually, the appropriate punishment is commendable, let those teen deliberate murder be imprisoned for several years can be reasonable measures.