What Students and Young Adults Can Learn from On Writing
Jordan had rewritten the opening line of a scholarship essay six times, each version reaching for a bigger word: "utilize" instead of "use," "endeavored" instead of "tried." A friend read it and said, flatly, "I don't know what you're actually trying to say." Jordan almost got defensive, then reread the paragraph and saw it: underneath the inflated vocabulary was one real sentence about a summer spent tutoring a younger cousin who was struggling to read. Jordan deleted three paragraphs of throat-clearing and started with that sentence instead, plain and specific. It felt like a risk, handing in something so simple. It also felt, for the first time in six drafts, like Jordan's own voice instead of a voice borrowed to sound impressive.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Strip your essays and applications down to honest, plain language
A student drafting a college essay or cover letter reaches for impressive-sounding vocabulary — "utilize," "endeavor," "multifaceted" — assuming bigger words signal more capability. The actual, specific story underneath gets buried under language that sounds like nobody's real voice, and the reader learns less about the student, not more.
Find the one true, specific sentence at the center of what you're trying to say, and put it first. Then go through the rest of the draft and replace every inflated word with the plainest word that means the same thing — "use" instead of "utilize," "tried" instead of "endeavored."
Protect a consistent block of time for writing, even a small one
A student only writes papers and essays the night before they're due, in a panic, because there's never an obviously free block during the week, and the result is rushed, generic writing that doesn't reflect what the student is actually capable of when unhurried.
Pick one fixed 25-minute slot in your week — even between classes — reserved only for writing, not research or formatting. Protect it the way you'd protect a class you can't miss, and use it specifically for getting words on the page, not for perfecting them.
Read other students' and writers' work as ongoing education
A student reads classmates' shared documents and group chat messages constantly but never notices which sentences actually communicate clearly and which ones confuse everyone, so the same unclear habits spread through the group unexamined.
Once a week, pick one piece of writing you read — a classmate's paper, an article, even a good text message — and identify the one sentence that worked best. Ask specifically why it worked, and try using that technique in your next piece of writing.
Your own life so far is material, but craft decides if it lands
The ordinary parts of your life — a job, a family responsibility, a failure you recovered from — are legitimate material for personal essays and applications, even if they don't feel dramatic enough. But that material only lands when it's told with specific, honest detail and disciplined editing, not when it's inflated to sound more impressive than it needs to be.
Protecting writing time is hard when your schedule isn't yours to control, and plain language can feel like it risks sounding less impressive to an evaluator. Don't let either pressure win by default. Use whatever small block of time you can actually protect for the writing that matters most this week, and trust that a specific, honest sentence beats an inflated one with an evaluator far more often than it seems like it will.
Name one thing, honestly
Which sentence in something you've recently written sounds more like "impressive" than it sounds like you?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
Once a week, pick one piece of writing you read — a classmate's paper, an article, even a good text message — and identify the one sentence that worked best. Ask specifically why it worked, and try using that technique in your next piece of writing.