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Its college essay time.

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Youve popped a squat and are ready to take the bull by the horns.

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You feel like youve got an ace up your sleeve and all bets are off.

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Uhyou may want to take five buddy.

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Sounds like you may be cruisin for a bruisin.

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Clich may be a French word but we Americans certainly seem to have welcomed the

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practice into our own language.

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A clich is anything that is overdone. Ehalmost. More like...a

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common saying or turn of phrase that gets beaten to deathooh theres another one by

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people who are too lazy or unoriginal to come up with their own way of saying something.

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Its okay if the occasional clich shows up in your writing provided its not too

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offensive but you should just stay away from them altogether when writing your college application essay.

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If your paper is riddled with phrases like chaps my hide or pass the buck

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or world of trouble youre going to be in aworld of trouble.

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Because we can guarantee you that the people reading these essays are going to be

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looking specifically for clichs such as theseand trust us they have very itchy marker fingers.

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Okay sohow do you know if something is a clich Wellhave you heard it before

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Is it something that might have been clever once but is now so overused that

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the novelty has worn off Likethe novelty has worn off Taking the path of least

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resistance sounds goodbut not the 500th time someone sees it.

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So any time you find yourself about to use wording that feels oddly familiar Stop drop andrephrase.

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But be carefulits not only words and phrases that are clich ideas can also be clich.

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Are you writing about how you struggled early in school but then through hard work

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and perseverance you turned things around Even if you dont use either of the phrases

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hard work and perseverance or turned things aroundboth of which are clichs the topic itself is clichd.

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Well of course you started succeeding once you put your nose to thestopped ourselves that

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time once you began applying yourself.

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They want you to go deeper than that.

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Talk about your unique personal experiences and how they informed your particular viewpoint.

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Dont write the same old predictable garbage that 90 of the other applicants are going

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to be submitting. Stand out. Be you.

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Butmaybe in small doses.

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Okay so suppose youve got an idea and youre not sure how to communicate itother

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than as a clich.

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Youre trying to say that you want to put your best foot forward.

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Lets break it down.

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You know intuitively what that clich means buthow else to phrase it Well the clich

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is saying that we have two feet or sides to ourselves.

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Weve got the good version of ourselves andthe version of ourselves that is tempted to

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make fart jokes in interviews.

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The clich is saying that we should avoid the temptation of exposing our bad traits

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while allowing ourselves to shine by putting our better aspects on display. Okay so...say that.

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Or something like it.

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It may be a tad wordier but it sounds a heck of a lot more

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interesting more honest andmost importantlymore original.

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So yeahits definitely easier to fall back on clichs.

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Butthis getting-into-college business isnt supposed to be easy.

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The practice of using clichs will make you look lazy unintelligent and disinterested.

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So buck up dig in your heelsand get rid of those nasty little buggers. NOTE end of file

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