A rhetorical analysis essay can become difficult when you can identify techniques but are not sure what to say about them. The goal is not to collect rhetorical devices. It is to build an argument about how a creator’s choices…
When you report what someone said, you do not have to rely on say and tell every time. English has reporting verbs that show more precisely what the speaker did. Someone can admit, deny, promise, warn, suggest, explain, or refuse.…
Verbs to replace “said” are words you can use in dialogue to show how something is spoken. Instead of repeating “said” in every sentence, you can choose verbs that express tone, emotion, or intent more clearly. For example, compare these:…
Writing a personal statement gets easier once you stop treating it as a summary of your life. The real task is narrower: understand what the application still needs to learn about you, choose the experiences that answer that need, and…
Powerful verbs help you express ideas clearly by showing exactly what is happening in a sentence. Instead of using general verbs like make, do, go, or say, you use more specific verbs that give your sentence a sharper meaning. What…
Wordplay is the clever or playful use of words, their sounds, spellings, or meanings to create humor, surprise, or an unexpected connection. It may involve a word with more than one meaning, two words that sound alike, or an unusual…
A strong Common App essay does not need an extraordinary event behind it. A quiet conversation, an unusual interest, a mistake you kept thinking about, or a routine you slowly learned to see differently can reveal more about you than…
The AP Lang rhetorical analysis essay is not a test of how many rhetorical devices you can identify. Your job is to make a defensible claim about a writer’s rhetorical choices, support that claim with specific evidence, and explain how…
At, on, and in are prepositions of time, but they are used with different time expressions. We generally use at for clock times, on for days and dates, and in for months, years, seasons, and longer periods. Suppose you are…