How to Edit Your College Essays to Perfection (Step-by-Step)

A question you might have is: When should I start editing?

For your longer essays like the Common App essay, I recommend writing at least 2-3 drafts or more before focusing on editing.

Drafting is the most important part of the process because that's where you develop your ideas and stories, which are the foundation.

One question to ask yourself to determine whether you're ready to edit is: Does my essay have unique insights?

Remember that unique insights are reflections, or in other words, your thoughts about something that happened.

But unique insights are not surface-level insights, they go deeper.

It's hard to quantify what "deep" means, but one way I like to think about it is in terms of the number of questions you've asked yourself to get to those ideas.

Surface-level ideas can be found by asking only 1 or 2 "Why" questions. And this is where most students stop in there reflections.

They write a story, and then ask themselves "What did I learn?" or "Why is this important?". But unique insights come once you've asked many rounds of questions that go deeper and deeper.

If you don't feel like you have unique insights, you should keep asking reflecting questions.

An example of surface-level insights would be something like this: "[Being a football manager] taught me that even if I make mistakes, I will always learn from them no matter how much hard work it takes."

To go deeper, you'd need to ask yourself things like, "What does it mean to work hard?" "What does it mean to learn from mistakes?" "What are mistakes in this context?"

Now, here's an example of what unique insights might look like:

Storytelling is one of the most human things we do. As far as we know, humans are the only species who do this. From cave walls to the Globe Theatre to online fanfiction, humans have been telling stories since we could think. Now, I find myself considering a career path, and I have concluded with certainty that I want–no, need–to collaborate with others to celebrate the human experience.

Why is this unique?

Because it goes deeper than saying "I love storytelling because it lets me connect with others."

It asks "Why" and "How" questions, which pushes the student to think deeper.

In the end, they come up with "Storytelling is one of the most human things we do," and connect this interesting insight to their own motivations of their need—not just a desire—to celebrate the human experience through storytelling.

By asking multiple rounds of questions to themself, this student was able to push past the surface-level ideas and go somewhere more nuanced and interesting.

If you're unsure whether your ideas are unique insights, try asking a parent or teacher.

Summarize your main idea or takeaway in one sentence, and then ask them: does this sound generic or cliché?

If they're honest, you'll be able to tell if you have unique insights or not.

And once you feel confident you have deeper reflections, then you're ready to start editing.

The goal of editing is to tighten up your writing, make it more enjoyable to read, and express your ideas in the best possible way.

Over the next few lessons, I'll share some specific editing tips and mistakes to look out for, but for now let's explore what the editing process looks like.

Editing shouldn't be overcomplicated. In fact, my favorite way to edit is similar to revising in that it starts with taking a break.

Revision means re-vision. In other words, seeing things again.

Take a break, maybe sleep on it, and then once you return to your writing, start by reading it aloud.

Don't mumble or whisper the words to yourself. Actually read it aloud, like you're giving a speech.

This is the best way to spot what works and what doesn't.

Maybe shut your bedroom door or take your phone with your essay on it outside if you don't want anyone to hear, which trust me I understand.

Then, read aloud.

Hearing words is a lot different than thinking them, which is why mumbling doesn't work because you're still mostly doing thinking rather than hearing.

Here's a golden rule of thumb for editing your essays: if it sounds good, it is good.

If you read your essay aloud and parts of it sound good, those parts are good.

Good writing is what sounds good to read.

Another tip is to print out your essay onto paper.

I know this is an old-fashioned way of doing things, but it works.

Reading your essay on paper, where you can mark it up with a pencil or highlighter, makes a difference because you have a new perspective, which lets you spot things you might not when reading on a screen.

Here's my favorite step-by-step method for editing:

Read sentence-by-sentence out loud. For each sentence, ask yourself these 4 questions:

• What am I trying to say? Is this repeating or does this add something new?
• Can I say this more concisely?
• Have I said anything that is ugly that I could avoid?
• Will an image or metaphor make this idea clearer?

These are my 4 favorite questions to ask when editing, and they'll help you have better quality writing.

Now, to wrap up this introductory lesson, I'd like to share a few of my favorite editing tips before I dive into more specifics in the next lesson:

First, your goal is to express the most using the least words.

College essays are unique in that you only have so many words you can use. Even your longest essays are not going to be much more than 650 words, which is pretty tiny compared to most writing.

Second, more often than not, simple words are better than complex words.

A good rule of thumb is: don't use a long word where a shorter word would suffice.

Longer words don't necessarily make you seem smarter.

In fact, it's much harder and, therefore more impressive, to express big ideas in a clear and simple way.

Lastly, each word needs a purpose in your essay.

If you can take out a word and keep the same meaning, you should take it out.

As we edit, remember that every word matters. Every word should be absolutely necessary, and if it's not, cut it out.

So in summary, the editing process shouldn't be complicated, but it does take time and deliberate focus.

Try reading your essay aloud (not mumbling) and printing it out on paper.

Make sure to take ample breaks between editing and writing in order to refresh your perspective.

In the next video, I'm going to share some tips and strategies for meeting word count, whether you need to cutting down words or add more words.

Thanks for watching, and see you there!