How to Write Great Essays

HOW TO WRITE GREAT ESSAYS

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ADJECTIVES
Adjectives describe or modify nouns or pronouns. Adjectives add information by describ-
ing people, places, or things in a sentence. These words, more than any others, make your
essay a unique piece. Use them to describe people, objects, and situations to make the reader
understand your point of view and see things the way you have seen them. Too few adjec-
tives will make a personal statement a boring play-by-play that doesn’t tell the reader any-
thing about the writer.
ADVERBS
Adverbs, which describe verbs, are easily spotted because most of them end in -ly, such as
slowly, quickly, abruptly. However, the adverb that causes the most errors is not a typical
-ly form.
Well is commonly confused with its adjective counterpart, good. As an adjective, good is
used to describe nouns. In the following sentence, good describes the noun pasta: The pasta
you made last night was good. In the following sentence, good describes the verb played, which
is incorrect: I played good in the basketball game. The correct word to use in such instances
is the adverb well. Written correctly, the sentence would read, “I played well in the basket-
ball game.”
PREPOSITIONS
Prepositions are connecting words that link a noun or pronoun to another word in a sen-
tence. They are often used to show a relationship of space or time.
Examples
The box on your desk is your birthday present.
The holiday that follows immediately after your birthday is Valentine’s Day.
The first sentence uses the preposition on to describe the spatial relationship between
the box and the desk. The second sentence uses the preposition after to describe the time
relationship between holiday and birthday. On your desk and after your birthday are prepo-
sitional phrases.