Scholarship season is here, and it’s time to start thinking about your essay. How do you write an essay that stands out from the crowd? In this post, we’ll walk through some tips on how to prepare for the scholarship-writing process.
Understand The Topic And The Question
The first step to writing a winning essay is understanding the topic and question. Before you start writing, make sure that you know what is expected of you and what the question is asking.
This sounds like an obvious thing to do but many students fail this step because they don’t read instructions carefully enough. In order to win any scholarship, it’s important that you understand exactly what your essay should be about and how long it should be (see point 3).
Define Your Goals
Before you start your essay, it’s important to define your goals, says Dr Eugene Kramer. You should ask yourself: “What do I want to achieve with this contest?”
This is a crucial step because it allows you to set the right expectations for yourself and helps prevent disappointment later on. It also makes sure that when someone asks what your goal is for entering their contest, they will know exactly what kind of response they’ll get from you. For example, if someone asks me what my fitness goal is as part of an application process (which happens quite often), my answer would be: “I want to lose 20 lbs. by December 31st so that I’m below 200 pounds at the start of 2019.” That way there are no misunderstandings about whether or not I am being ambitious enough or realistic enough with my expectations!
Create A Plan Of Action
Creating a timeline and plan of action will help you stay on track and make sure you don’t miss any steps in the process. You should consider creating one for each essay contest you are entering, so that if one deadline passes without an acceptance letter or notification from the judges, Dr Eugene Kramer there is still time left to submit your entry elsewhere. A good rule of thumb is to set deadlines for each step in writing your essay; this way if something does come up unexpectedly, then there will still be time before submission day rolls around again!
