Your reader is tired and easily bored. It’s the dead of winter and he is curled up in front of his space heater, drinking tea, trying to get through as many applications as he possibly can tonight before he starts all over again in the morning. Your essay is the 65th he has read today, and very few have been memorable. He yearns to be entertained. He wants to see something fresh and interesting. He wants to appreciate a creative twist on the same-old essay prompts. He wants something that reads well…like a mystery novel, a juicy gossip column, or at least a well-crafted feature in the Chicago Tribune. So punch it up. One of the best ways to do this is to pay close attention to the first and last lines of the essay. The first sentence or two, especially, is worthy of your careful consideration: give your reader some reason to sit up and take notice. - See more at: http://greatcollegeadvice.com/how-to-write-the-perfect-college-essay-consider-your-audience/#sthash.OM81sOS2.dpuf
Your reader may scan your essay first, just to see if it’s worth reading carefully. Again, these essays all begin to sound the same after a while. So it’s natural to imagine your reader scanning it first to discern whether this is just one more formulaic piece about the happy poor people you served at the soup kitchen one evening, or about how you saved the big game by throwing the touchdown pass in the final seconds of the game. Therefore, you can help your reader do the scanning by using some of those excellent writing devices you began learning in primary school. Clear structure: introduction, body, conclusion. Strong paragraph form. Clear transitions. Chronological sign posts: “first did this, then I did that, finally I did that other thing.” You learned these techniques years ago: now is the time to deploy them.
Your reader does not have any inside information about your life. So assume nothing. If you’re writing about skiing, pretend your reader is an