anthem essay thesis

Anthem Ayn Rand

Anthem literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Anthem by Ayn Rand.

Anthem Material

• Study Guide
• Lesson Plan

Join Now to View Premium Content

GradeSaver provides access to 2357 study guide PDFs and quizzes, 11005 literature essays, 2763 sample college application essays, 926 lesson plans, and ad-free surfing in this premium content, “Members Only” section of the site! Membership includes a 10% discount on all editing orders.

Anthem Essays

The merit of ipseity anonymous 12th grade.

José Martí once asserted that “The first duty of a man is to think for himself.” When society favors mindless obedience over independent thinking, ego, forward progress, and knowledge all but disappear. Indubitably, objectivism is vital for...

Ayn Rand in Context Anonymous 10th Grade

Ayn Rand, an influential American novelist and philosopher, endeavored to offer her readers a new perspective on life’s meaning. Growing up as a Jew in a communist country, Rand struggled to find her place in society and, therefore, matured as an...

Family Sway Anonymous 11th Grade

When tyrannical governments are in charge of societies, they must eradicate possible threats to their power at all costs in order to remain in power. Underlying dangers to the power of such governments can be as common as the relationship between...

The Evolution of Equality: A Self-Liberated Character Anonymous 9th Grade

Anthem by Ayn Rand encourages readers to delve into the possibilities of a society devoid of human characteristics. The story is based in a society that worships collectivism, causing everyone to be the same, and raised as if they were livestock....

A Curious Aspect of Progress: Inquiry vs. Oppression in 'Anthem' Derrick Barger 10th Grade

“We wished to know. We wished to know about all the things which make the earth around us” (23). Herein Ayn Rand’s hero expresses a universal truth: Homo sapiens are a curious and ever-changing species. For tens of thousands of years, our...

Hopeful Dystopia Sofia Ribeiro 10th Grade

When it comes to dystopian stories, the conclusion is expected to be tragic due to the pessimistic nature of a dystopia. However, in Anthem by Ayn Rand and Welcome to the Monkeyhouse by Kurt Vonnegut, the authors go a different route because they...

Why Equality’s Primary Motivation is the Right Motivation, and Why Everyone Should Be Motivated as He is Anonymous 9th Grade

"To express yourself needs reason, but expressing yourself is the reason." These words of Ai Weiwei perfectly describe how the character Equality feels in the novel Anthem by Ayn Rand. Equality searches for a reason, an excuse, a chance, to...

Synthesis Essay: Discovering Individual Identities by Rebelling Kruthik Ravikanti 10th Grade

In today’s society, living individually to maintain a private space is as necessary as being a member of a team. Numerous individuals cannot maintain collective mindsets because independent impulses will arise in them. In the past, many slaves...

• Entertainment
• Entrepreneur

The Anthem Essay Contest – 5 Strategies to Win the Competition

NY Weekly Staff

• February 2, 2024

Anthem is a speculative fictional novella written by Ayn Rand. According to Scholastic World, this novella was first written in 1937 and then published in 1938 in the UK . It has been long hailed as Ayan’s classic work. Every year countless participants participate in the Ayan Rand Anthem essay contest. They are asked to write 600 to 1200 words to present their viewpoints on a particular stance.

A general estimation of the number of entries of the students participating in the essay contest has been given by the College Confidential Forum. It says that almost 2500 entries are recorded every year in this competition. So, it is obvious that the competition for cash prices is high.

Good essay writing is not only based on consulting numerous sources for gathering reliable data. It is about writing, formatting, and most importantly time management to meet the deadlines. If you are unsure how to implement all those details effectively in addition to gathering data, the best essay writers are there to assist you. However, you can also do it independently by considering the key strategies below.

5 Techniques to Win Anthem Essay Contest

Writing essays on the anthem essay contest requires expertise in writing, research, and understanding the topic. To craft a polished document, consider the below-mentioned key techniques. It can grant specificity to your work. So, let’s know the details.

1. Understand The Topic

The topic of your Anthem essay contest defines the boundaries of your talk. It will clarify the viewpoint so that you can communicate with the reader with your stance. So, it’s important to understand the topic first. For this purpose, you can do some background research. Ultimately it will provide you a direction to continue your essay writing journey.

2. Develop a Strong Thesis Statement

A thesis statement of essays for the Anthem essay contest is usually written at the start of your introductory paragraphs. It’s a concise summary of your stance that you will argue in the context. So, make sure to outline a main point in this single statement. This will provide the reader with a roadmap to consider while reading.

3. Plan Your Essay

One of the best ways to plan your Anthem essay contest is by outlining. It will be helpful to provide you with a clear estimation of the structure. You can also think of how to use the relevant sources. Later on, you can craft them in an essay template.

4. Write Clearly and Concisely

Use clear and concise language when writing an essay for the Anthem essay contest. For this purpose, avoid using jargon or some technical terms that can confuse the reader. Also, avoid repetition of the words. However, it may also involve constructing your sentences carefully and using grammar concisely. All will contribute to making the finest comprehensive document for the reader.

5. Edit and Proofread Your Essay

That’s where most of the students fall apart. They have been struggling for a long time to see the final document of an Anthem essay contest. They have even gone through the process of making drafts. So, in the end, they just want to hold the final document. But no, you are making a big mistake. It may accompany several writing or grammatical flaws. Don’t think of submitting the final document without making revisions. Read it again and again so that you are not prone to rejection.

Anthem Essay Contest Topics For 2024

Here is a list of the best topics for the Anthem essay contest:

• What is the role of religion in objectivism? How does the life of Christ inform the story of equality?
• What is Ayan Rand’s stance on women? Does she know her self-worth?
• Highlight the importance of Rand’s use of contrasted pairs in her imagery.

If you find crafting an organized essay independently difficult, essay writing services can be helpful at this stage. Work done by a professional is more likely to beat the competition than done by an inexperienced student.

Final Remarks

The anthem essay contest is one of the most popular competitions in the UK. The participants participate in the competition to express gratitude for Ayan Rand’s novel work. However, the winners also win cash prizes. To win the competition, the writing process is equally important as the research process is.

To make your essay writing journey smooth, the above-mentioned highlights are important. Be mindful of these strategies and get ready to beat the competition. 

Published by: Martin De Juan

LATEST POSTS

Cesar Cervantes Empowers Voices as a Distinguished TEDx Speaker and Coach

When Charity Starts Young: Michael Snell Embraces Generosity

Exploring Passover’s Profound Significance in 2024, A Time of Reflection and Unity

Unleashing a Wave of Goodness: Join the Global Movement on April 6th for 1 Million Acts Of Kindness

(Ambassador)

This article features branded content from a third party. Opinions in this article do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of New York Weekly.

© 2022 New York Weekly. All Rights Reserved A News Anchored Network Publication

Navigate Site

• Terms of Use
• Cookie Policy
• Editorial Process & Selection Criteria

Explore New York Weekly

© 2024 New York Weekly. All Rights Reserved

• Newsletter Sign Up

Impact Today

• Culture And Society
• Foreign Policy
• Government And Business
• Science And Industrialization

Celebrating 25 Years of the Anthem Essay Contest

Today, ARI celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Anthem essay contest, which launched October 2, 1992. In its first year, ARI received 2,237 essay submissions from students. Fast forward twenty-five years and, to date, 257,708 essays have been submitted, and more than $300,000 in prize money has been awarded to students across the United States and around the world.

Click here to read the winning essay in the 2017 Anthem essay contest, submitted by Elisabeth Schlossel from The Spence School in New York, New York.

To highlight this milestone, we’d like to highlight comments from students and teachers who have read and been positively impacted by the novel’s thought-provoking themes.

 “As a student in today’s fast-paced society, Ayn Rand’s novels illustrate a set of morals that provide me with a clear-cut purpose and “why” in a life that can often become mindlessly rhythmic and meaningless.”

“A truly enlightening read; it completely changed my perspective on the ego.”

“ Anthem has been a huge success with my students, and has opened their eyes to many concepts they hadn’t considered before. I look forward to teaching it again and again.”

“Every time I teach one of Ayn Rand’s novels, I hear from a former student how it got them excited about her work or sent them off into a different direction of thought about the world.”

“I am so very excited about this. I only wish I had known of it sooner. These should all be required reading for all American students! These books will be used in my Social Studies classes as supplements to understanding about economics, government, socialism, and the Soviet Union. I will encourage other teachers in English and other courses to use these as a cross curriculum tool.”

Learn more about ARI’s annual essay contests for Ayn Rand’s Anthem , The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged , here .

Forging a Path to the Future: An Interview with ARI’s New CEO

Changing the World by Reaching the Right Mind at the Right Time

Explore Topics

• Pursuit Of Happiness
• Financial Crisis
• Morality Of Business
• Labor Unions
• Middle East
• Business Ethics
• We The Living
• Church State Separation
• Founding Fathers
• Morality Of Capitalism
• Pharmaceutical Industry
• The Yaron Brook Show
• Fast Food Industry
• Conservatives
• Constitutional Law
• Health Insurance
• Capitalism And Economics
• Climate Change
• Labor And Employment Law
• National Self Defense
• Agriculture
• Atlas Shrugged
• Palestinians
• Socialized Medicine
• Paul Krugman
• Laissez Faire Capitalism
• Genetic Engineering
• Egoist Foreign Policy
• The Debt Dialogues
• Minimum Wage
• Capitalism And Free Markets
• Individual Rights
• Self Esteem
• Freedom Of Religion
• Property Rights
• Health Care Policy
• Donald Trump
• Objectivism
• Health Care
• Patents And Copyrights
• Fossil Fuels
• Campaign Finance
• Barack Obama
• Income Inequality
• Culture And Politics
• Green Energy
• Egoism And Selfishness
• Freedom Of Speech
• Rise And Fall Podcast
• Intellectual Property
• Art And Esthetics
• Reason Vs Faith
• Afghanistan
• Rational Self Interest
• Cultural Trends And Movements
• Supreme Court
• Financial Markets
• Setting Goals For Life And Happiness
• Collectivism
• Welfare State
• Sense Of Life
• Rule Of Law
• Islamic Totalitarianism
• Moral Foundations Of Freedom
• North Korea
• About Ayn Rand
• Creationism
• Business Management
• Oil Industry
• Egalitarianism
• Mixed Economy
• Islamist Movement
• Ayn Rand Biography
• Law And Courts
• Biotechnology And GM Foods
• Romantic Love
• Auto Industry
• Scientific And Technological Progress
• Policy Digest
• Individualism
• Campaign Finance Law
• Appeasement
• Department Of Justice
• Banking And Finance
• Objective Law
• Environmentalism
• Arab Israeli Conflict
• Economic Vs Political Power
• Businessmen
• The Fountainhead
• Social Security
• Ayn Rand Institute
• Epistemology
• United Nations
• Ayn Rands Life And Works
• Ayn Rand Novels And Ideas
• Regulations
• Aaron Smith
• Amanda Maxham
• Carl Svanberg
• Don Watkins
• Doug Altner
• Elan Journo
• Keith Lockitch
• Kevin Douglas
• Onkar Ghate
• Rituparna Basu
• Robert Mayhew
• Steve Simpson
• The Editors
• Yaron Brook

• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Ayn Rand Global
• Ayn Rand Institute eStore
• Ayn Rand University

Updates From ARI

Copyright © 1985 – 2024 The Ayn Rand Institute (ARI). Reproduction of content and images in whole or in part is prohibited. All rights reserved. ARI is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions to ARI in the United States are tax-exempt to the extent provided by law. Objectivist Conferences (OCON), Ayn Rand Conference (ARC), Ayn Rand University (ARU) and the Ayn Rand Institute eStore are operated by ARI. Payments to OCON, ARC, ARU or the Ayn Rand Institute eStore do not qualify as tax-deductible contributions to the Ayn Rand Institute. AYN RAND, AYN RAND INSTITUTE, ARI, AYN RAND UNIVERSITY and the AYN RAND device are trademarks of the Ayn Rand Institute. All rights reserved.

Anthem Essay Contest

Entry Deadline

Prizes Available

Eligibility

Welcome to your student dashboard for this year’s contest!

Here you can start a new application for the contest, view any of your existing saved or submitted entries, and even request a free copy of Anthem if you don’t already have access to the book. Questions? Simply write to us at [email protected] . We’re here to help!

Our Grading Criteria

Essays are judged on whether the student is able to justify and argue for his or her view—not on whether the Institute agrees with the view the student expresses. Our graders look for writing that is clear, articulate, and logically organized. Essays should stay on topic, address all parts of the selected prompt, and interrelate the ideas and events in the novel. Winning essays must demonstrate an outstanding grasp of the philosophic meaning of Anthem .

Available Essay Topics

Ayn Rand once said that chapters XI and XII of  Anthem  contain the real anthem of the story. Consider several different definitions of the word “anthem” and then explain why you think Ayn Rand called the book “Anthem.” In what sense do you think chapters XI and XII (or the book as a whole) is an anthem? How does the book’s title relate to the themes and message of the story? Explain your answer.

For the following statement from  Anthem , explain its role in the story, its relation to the themes and message of the story, and its relevance to your own life: “Indeed you are happy,” they answered. “How else can men be when they live for their brothers?”

Equality 7-2521 has committed some of the worst crimes there are in his society. If those crimes are discovered, he faces the risk of terrible punishment. Yet in the face of this danger, and despite how much Equality has suffered at the hands of his society, he resolves to bring his invention (and admit his crimes) to the World Council of Scholars. What motivates him to come forward? What does he hope to achieve? If you were Equality’s friend (like International 4-8818) or the person who loves him (like Liberty 5-3000), what would you want him to do, and why? What do you think would be right for him to do, and why?

• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Ayn Rand Global
• Ayn Rand Institute eStore
• Ayn Rand University

STAY IN TOUCH

Copyright © 1985 – 2023 The Ayn Rand® Institute (ARI). Reproduction of content and images in whole or in part is prohibited. All rights reserved. ARI is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions to ARI in the United States are tax-exempt to the extent provided by law. Objectivist Conferences (OCON) and the Ayn Rand Institute eStore are operated by ARI. Payments to OCON or the Ayn Rand Institute eStore do not qualify as tax-deductible contributions to the Ayn Rand Institute. Ayn Rand® is a registered trademark and is used by permission.

Your Saved & Submitted Entries

You must be logged in in order to see your submissions..

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Ayn Rand — Ayn Rand’s Warnings About Collectivism In “Anthem”

Ayn Rand’s Warnings About Collectivism in "Anthem"

• Categories: Ayn Rand Dystopia Novel

About this sample

Words: 1521 |

Published: Mar 18, 2021

Words: 1521 | Pages: 3 | 8 min read

Works Cited

• Rand, A. Anthem. Empire Books, 2012.
• Akbar, A. “Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years”. The Independent, 17th September 2010, independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/maos-great-leap-forwardkilled-45-million-in-four-years-2081630.html
• Fifield, A. “North Korea’s prisons are as bad as Nazi camps, says judge who survived Auschwitz”. Washington Post, 11th December, washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-koreas-prisons-are-as-bad-as-nazi-camps-saysjudge-who-survived-auschwitz/2017/12/11/7e79beea-ddc4-11e7-b2e9- 8c636f076c76_story.html
• Langevin, J. “Tiananmen Square Protests”. History, 31st May 2019, history.com/topics/china/Tiananmen-square
• Lusher, A. “At least 10,000 people died in Tiananmen Square massacre, secret British cable from the time alleged”. The Independent, 23rd December 2017, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/tiananmen-square-massacre-death-tollsecret-cable-british-ambassador-1989-alan-donald-a8126461.html
• Ramzy, A. “On Hong Kong Handover Anniversary, Many Fear Loss of Freedoms”. The New York Times, 1st July 2019, nytimes.com/2019/07/01/world/asia/hong-kong-chinahandover.html
• Smith, George. “Ayn Rand on Fascism”. Libertarianism, 8th January 2016, libertarianism.org/columns/ayn-rand-fascism/
• “The Difference Between Communism and Socialism”. Adam Smith Institute, 7th June 2009, adamsmith.org/blog/miscellaneous/the-difference-between-communism-and-socialism/
• “The People’s Challenges”. Liberty in North Korea, (n.d), libertyinnorthkorea.org/learn-nkchallenges/

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Verified writer

• Expert in: Literature

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

3.5 pages / 1676 words

3 pages / 1406 words

6.5 pages / 3030 words

3.5 pages / 2123 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Ayn Rand

Anthem by Ayn Rand is an outstanding novel purposed to glorify human potential as well as individual self-worth. Its main theme is individualism and central conflict, that is, individual versus the collective. The story of the [...]

The impact literature can impose on society remains striking even to this day. Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead contains themes that resonated so significantly with readers that it triggered a political movement, and [...]

Ayn Rand’s philosophy of individualism and freedom is crucial for a well-balanced society. The society controlled by the World Council, described in Anthem, should be avoided as it represents manipulation, segregation and [...]

Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" skillfully introduces readers to a world where actions and values are meticulously examined and weighed against each other. While the narrative also encompasses various subplots, the central conflict [...]

The fear of a dystopian future that is explored in both Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis and George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty Four is reflective of the values of the societies at the time and the context of the authors. As [...]

The power of words is enough to control an entire nation. Although many would consider physical power and brute force to be absolute power, George Orwell’s 1984 demonstrates a dystopian society where language is the ultimate [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Essays on Ayn Rand's Anthem

Utopian Studies

Related Papers

Funda AYKANAT

The novel Anthem discloses the dichotomy of collectivism and individualism regarding their consequences on the identity formation, Equality 7-2521 as the main character in the collectivist society in which the word "I" is forgotten and forbidden, tries to rediscover individualism along with his own identity which is not predetermined or constructed by the society. In this path of rediscovering, he dedicates himself to find the Unspeakable Word, the word "I" as a quest, and he first discovers his potentials and capability, then rediscovers individualism through integrating the objectivist thought. The novel emphasizes collectivism in man's soul, the alienation process which is the result of the impossibility to be different in the collectivist society, accepted altruism, objectivism and its significance in man's survival on earth and the structure of identity as suitable to construct and reconstruct like the history, language, and cultural norms. For that reason, when Equality 7-2521 rediscovers the word "I", he not only reconstructs his identity, but he also reconstructs the past, language, the culture and its norms. The aim of this paper is to present how collectivism and altruism can modify the formation of identity, how it is acknowledged and embraced by the individuals, and how an individual can rediscover individualism within the borders and enslavement of the collectivist society. In that regard, the main character Equality 7-2521 will be analysed within the framework of his relation with the society and its rules. In addition, the predetermined identity, alienation process, separation from the society, rediscovering the self, the dichotomy of collectivism and individualism and the objectivist thought will be taken into consideration. Keywords: collectivism, altruism, individualism, objectivism, identity formation.

Theological Forum

In this paper, I examine some important themes in Ayn Rand's Anthem, pertaining to the significance of ‘I’, individual happiness and the conception of ‘we’. In the second section of the paper, I raise a question if the individual freedom suggested by Rand is the best possible kind. As a response to the question, I propose a reading of Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter from Birmingham Jail, in which the values that are compatible and incompatible with Rand’s can be both explored. By examining the limitations and the contradictions between their ideas, particularly on individual freedom and the meaning of the self in relation to others, I suggest an alternative conception of ‘we’ as a shared challenge and a vision of humanity in the final part.

Shoshana Milgram

Ayn Rand’s dystopian novella Anthem is set in an unspecified future, physically and spiritually desolate, with enforced uniformity and a language bereft of all singular pronouns. Anthem, moreover, is profoundly deficient regarding onomastics in general. The society assigns personal names at birth using a fixed pattern: an abstract word, a single-digit number, a hyphen, and four additional digits. This system befits a society in which one can be condemned for committing the “Sin of Preference,” concerning professions, privacy, or partners. In a world from which most names (for cities, buildings, streets, institutions etc.) have disappeared, the system of assigned anthroponyms is not the source of a problem or the epitome of a problem, but rather, the final downward step of an increasingly nameless culture. The two main characters, in successive episodes of purposeful self-naming, subvert the discourse of the decline and thus reclaim individualism and volition.

Chris M Sciabarra

of a two-part Centennial Celebration of Ayn Rand’s legacy. Born on

Carrie-Ann Biondi

Kristina West

Arshya Gaur

This paper seeks to examine Ayn Rand’s ‘Fountainhead’ through a multi-focal dimension. It delineates the cartography of the themes of Rand’s Russian-American ethnicity and the socio-economic conditions of the post-World War II, linking it to the post-Depression world, which engendered the philosophy of Objectivism. Furthermore, the paper explores the societal beliefs and themes of Objectivism, Conformism, and Individualism by analyzing them in two different paradigms: when the novel was published and the status quo. The paper finally goes on to underline how these antagonistic views of society have been exemplified by Rand through the characters in the novel and how ‘The Fountainhead’ serves as a commentary on the schism in society over the topic of ‘individuality and conformism’.

Jacob Waldenmaier

A Companion to Ayn Rand

Gregory Salmieri

Ayn Rand is among the most outspoken, and important, intellectual voices in America, wrote Playboy Magazine in 1964. She is the author of what is perhaps the most fiercely damned and admired best seller of the decade, Atlas Shrugged. This chapter discusses some of the reasons for studying Rand and some of the challenges involved. It also discusses a few features of Rand's corpus and her life that should be borne in mind when studying her.

RELATED PAPERS

Photoniques

Florent Deloison

Vladimir Vladimirov

Jurnal Pembangunan Pendidikan: Fondasi dan Aplikasi

UDIK BUDI WIBOWO

Katrin Bandel

Revista Colombiana de Cardiología

Darío Echeverri

Cristina Palma Conceicao

davide barba

Akropolis Revista De Ciencias Humanas Da Unipar

Maria Anastácia Manzano

Journal of Neoplasm

Chinyere Adanna Opara Usoro

Lucas Othuon

Reproductive Toxicology

Mary Gilbert

Elsayed Hemayed

Ambiente e Agua - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Applied Science

Marta Eichemberger Ummus

Marine pollution bulletin

Tuğçe Çetiner

Journal of Chromatography B

Adriana Lucia Tovar Alvarez

Revista Brasileira de Climatologia

Vladimir De Souza

International Journal of Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences

Dr.Gehad Mahfood

Orvosi Hetilap

Csilla Keresztes

Oncology Letters

Aldo Spallone

The Historian of Islam at Work

Tim Greenwood

International Journal of Phytomedicine

Dunkana Negussa Kenie

See More Documents Like This

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

Ultimate Guide to Writing Your College Essay

Tips for writing an effective college essay.

College admissions essays are an important part of your college application and gives you the chance to show colleges and universities your character and experiences. This guide will give you tips to write an effective college essay.

Want free help with your college essay?

UPchieve connects you with knowledgeable and friendly college advisors—online, 24/7, and completely free. Get 1:1 help brainstorming topics, outlining your essay, revising a draft, or editing grammar.

Writing a strong college admissions essay

Learn about the elements of a solid admissions essay.

Avoiding common admissions essay mistakes

Learn some of the most common mistakes made on college essays

Brainstorming tips for your college essay

Stuck on what to write your college essay about? Here are some exercises to help you get started.

How formal should the tone of your college essay be?

Learn how formal your college essay should be and get tips on how to bring out your natural voice.

Taking your college essay to the next level

Hear an admissions expert discuss the appropriate level of depth necessary in your college essay.

Student Stories

Student Story: Admissions essay about a formative experience

Get the perspective of a current college student on how he approached the admissions essay.

Student Story: Admissions essay about personal identity

Get the perspective of a current college student on how she approached the admissions essay.

Student Story: Admissions essay about community impact

Student story: admissions essay about a past mistake, how to write a college application essay, tips for writing an effective application essay, sample college essay 1 with feedback, sample college essay 2 with feedback.

This content is licensed by Khan Academy and is available for free at www.khanacademy.org.

Maggie Nelson contemplates freedom through words and art in ‘Like Love’

The singular poet and critic gives readers a tour through her intellectual genealogy in a new collection of essays.

Though Maggie Nelson’s new collection, “ Like Love: Essays and Conversations ,” is anchored in its second half by her stunning personal remembrance, ”My Brilliant Friend: On Lhasa de Sela,” some readers may be disappointed to learn that the book is not a memoir. Instead, “Like Love” is a personal intellectual genealogy, both a chart of Nelson’s influences, collaborators, and intimate friendships, and a map of her mind at work, 2006-present.

Though she identifies as a poet, Nelson’s renown stems from her work as a memoirist, specifically “The Argonauts,” a book about queer family, transitioning, parenting, and aesthetics which exemplifies Nelson’s special talent for blending personal narrative, theory, poetics, and storytelling into potent criticism.

Advertisement

In “The Argonauts,” winner of the 2016 National Book Critics Circle citation in criticism, Nelson claims that her writing process has always felt “more clarifying than creative.” Frequently, she elucidates her thoughts in nonfiction by citing other poets and theorists. Lacing quotations from her intellectual ancestors and her literary contemporaries through her prose, Nelson models a form of thinking through discourse that underwrites her straight-ahead books of art criticism such as “The Art of Cruelty” (2011) and “On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint” (2021).

Reading “Like Love” is akin to entering Nelson’s workroom to look at her maquettes, her conceptions in development, before we see them fully realized in the works above. It opens and closes with Nelson “woodshedding” in conversation with two of her central collaborators, Wayne Koestenbaum and Eileen Myles, respectively.

Nelson was 18 years old when she first saw Eileen Myles read her poetry at a public event. Myles, a tremendous multiform literary artist, has had a generative influence on Nelson’s own writing practice. “I can still see,” Nelson writes in “On Freedom,” “the little green Semiotext(e) paperback of Myles’s 1991 collection, Not Me , lying on a table at St. Mark’s Books, can still see myself picking it up for the first time, not knowing how much ‘freedom to’ was about to rush into my world.”

Reading Myles and Nelson thinking together three decades after their “introduction” is a delicious revelation. As a conversationalist, Nelson darts between interrogative and anecdotal modes, threading in strands of analytical thought. Reading her in discourse with Björk, Brian Blanchfield, and Jacqueline Rose, I’m reminded of an insightful claim that the British writer Olivia Laing once proffered: “the Nelsonian unit of thought is the paragraph … [it] allows for swerves and juxta­positions.”

“Like Love” is a shifting collage of chronologically arrayed review-essays, conversations, forewords, tributes, elegies, and art catalog essays. The collection is born out of Nelson’s art criticism. In her brief, restless preface, she explains that at the beginning of her career, poetry led her to art writing. Each invitation to contribute to an artist or exhibition catalog teaches “me more about how the act of bestowing attention serves as its own reward. And how such engagement attaches and reattaches me to curiosity, to others, to life, especially when my own spirits have dimmed.” Her efforts on Matthew Barney, Tala Madani, Sarah Lucas, and Kara Walker engage the art works intensely; thus the essays are thorny, knotted, sometimes dizzying reading.

Nelson knows that her attempts at explanation may distract us from looking at the art itself: “Probably, language does not make art happy. Language doesn’t always make me happy. But sometimes, you must explain. And not just because someone asked, or because we live in a culture of explanation, but because one wants to. Needs to. The language rises up, an upchuck. Words aren’t just what’s left; they’re what we have to offer.”

Since we only have words to offer each other, as we attempt to hold the cruelty of others at bay while forging freer lives together, Nelson also suggests that we ought to perhaps appreciate and even learn to dwell in irony, ambiguity, complexity, and contingency. Her formidable essays on Fred Moten, Alice Notley, and Ben Lerner are strong examples of this practice.

In her essay on Hervé Guibert, Nelson, considering that author’s influence on her own writing, names her “riotous, motley heritage,” which includes Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Carolee Schneemann, Judith Butler, and everyone from “Paul Preciado to Claudia Rankine to Gloria Anzaldúa to Anne Carson to Hilton Als to . . . to James Baldwin to Roland Barthes to Audre Lorde,” among many others.

The members of Nelson’s canon are “characterized by ravenous intellectual appetite; a wry and unflinching devotion to chronicling corporality; a dedication to formal experiment, up to and including the detonation of genre; and a certain curiosity and fearlessness where others might expect (or project) shame.” They are what Ralph Waldo Emerson calls “liberating gods.”

In “On Freedom,” Nelson argues that freedom is neither a destination nor a thing to be attained or accomplished. In “Like Love,” Nelson tells us that Simone White’s poetry confronts the persistent dilemma of “trying to be in and with the impossible murk of ‘freedom as chimeric’ on the one hand, and ‘it is too much to ask, to give it up,’ on the other.” Instead of regarding this as a stifling impasse, Nelson suggests we follow White and meet this dilemma “with a questing spirit.” Throughout “Like Love,” Nelson is herself a poet of the question spirit.

LIKE LOVE: Essays and Conversations

by Maggie Nelson

Graywolf, 336 pp., $32

Walton Muyumba teaches literature at Indiana University-Bloomington. He is the author of “The Shadow and the Act: Black Intellectual Practice, Jazz Improvisation, and Philosophical Pragmatism.”

Teachers are using AI to grade essays. But some experts are raising ethical concerns

W hen Diane Gayeski, a professor of strategic communications at Ithaca College, receives an essay from one of her students, she runs part of it through ChatGPT, asking the AI tool to critique and suggest how to improve the work.

“The best way to look at AI for grading is as a teaching assistant or research assistant who might do a first pass … and it does a pretty good job at that,” she told CNN.

She shows her students the feedback from ChatGPT and how the tool rewrote their essay. “I’ll share what I think about their intro, too, and we’ll talk about it,” she said.

Gayeski requires her class of 15 students to do the same: run their draft through ChatGPT to see where they can make improvements.

The emergence of AI is reshaping education, presenting real benefits, such as automating some tasks to free up time for more personalized instruction, but also some big hazards, from issues around accuracy and plagiarism to maintaining integrity.

Both teachers and students are using the new technology. A report by strategy consultant firm Tyton Partners, sponsored by plagiarism detection platform Turnitin, found half of college students used AI tools in Fall 2023. Meanwhile, while fewer faculty members used AI, the percentage grew to 22% of faculty members in the fall of 2023, up from 9% in spring 2023.

Teachers are turning to AI tools and platforms — such as ChatGPT, Writable, Grammarly and EssayGrader — to assist with grading papers, writing feedback, developing lesson plans and creating assignments. They’re also using the burgeoning tools to create quizzes, polls, videos and interactives to up the ante” for what’s expected in the classroom.

Students, on the other hand, are leaning on tools such as ChatGPT and Microsoft CoPilot — which is built into Word, PowerPoint and other products.

But while some schools have formed policies on how students can or can’t use AI for schoolwork, many do not have guidelines for teachers. The practice of using AI for writing feedback or grading assignments also raises ethical considerations. And parents and students who are already spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on tuition may wonder if an endless feedback loop of AI-generated and AI-graded content in college is worth the time and money.

“If teachers use it solely to grade, and the students are using it solely to produce a final product, it’s not going to work,” said Gayeski.

The time and place for AI

How teachers use AI depends on many factors, particularly when it comes to grading, according to Dorothy Leidner, a professor of business ethics at the University of Virginia. If the material being tested in a large class is largely declarative knowledge — so there is a clear right and wrong — then a teacher grading using the AI “might be even superior to human grading,” she told CNN.

AI would allow teachers to grade papers faster and more consistently and avoid fatigue or boredoms, she said.

But Leidner noted when it comes to smaller classes or assignments with less definitive answers, grading should remain personalized so teachers can provide more specific feedback and get to know a student’s work, and, therefore, progress over time.

“A teacher should be responsible for grading but can give some responsibility to the AI,” she said.

She suggested teachers use AI to look at certain metrics — such as structure, language use and grammar — and give a numerical score on those figures. But teachers should then grade students’ work themselves when looking for novelty, creativity and depth of insight.

Leslie Layne, who has been teaching ChatGPT best practices in her writing workshop at the University of Lynchburg in Virginia, said she sees the advantages for teachers but also sees drawbacks.

“Using feedback that is not truly from me seems like it is shortchanging that relationship a little,” she said.

She also sees uploading a student’s work to ChatGPT as a “huge ethical consideration” and potentially a breach of their intellectual property. AI tools like ChatGPT use such entries to train their algorithms on everything from patterns of speech to how to make sentences to facts and figures.

Ethics professor Leidner agreed, saying this should particularly be avoided for doctoral dissertations and master’s theses because the student might hope to publish the work.

“It would not be right to upload the material into the AI without making the students aware of this in advance,” she said. “And maybe students should need to provide consent.”

Some teachers are leaning on software called Writable that uses ChatGPT to help grade papers but is “tokenized,” so essays do not include any personal information, and it’s not shared directly with the system.

Teachers upload essays to the platform, which was recently acquired by education company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which then provides suggested feedback for students.

Other educators are using platforms such as  Turnitin  that boast plagiarism detection tools to help teachers identify when assignments are written by ChatGPT and other AI. But these types of detection tools are far from foolproof; OpenAI shut down its own AI-detection tool last year due to what the company called a “low rate of accuracy.”

Setting standards

Some schools are actively working on policies for both teachers and students. Alan Reid, a research associate in the Center for Research and Reform in Education (CRRE) at Johns Hopkins University, said he recently spent time working with K-12 educators who use GPT tools to create end-of-quarter personalized comments on report cards.

But like Layne, he acknowledged the technology’s ability to write insightful feedback remains “limited.”

He currently sits on a committee at his college that’s authoring an AI policy for faculty and staff; discussions are ongoing, not just for how teachers use AI in the classroom but how it’s used by educators in general.

He acknowledges schools are having conversations about using generative AI tools to create things like promotion and tenure files, performance reviews, and job postings.”

Nicolas Frank, an associate professor of philosophy at University of Lynchburg, said universities and professors need to be on the same page when it comes to policies but need to stay cautious .

“There is a lot of danger in making policies about AI at this stage,” he said.

He worries it’s still too early to understand how AI will be integrated into everyday life. He is also concerned that some administrators who don’t teach in classrooms may craft policy that misses nuances of instruction.

“That may create a danger of oversimplifying the problems with AI use in grading and instruction,” he said. “Oversimplification is how bad policy is made.”

To start, he said educators can identify clear abuses of AI and begin policy-making around those.

Leidner, meanwhile, said universities can be very high level with their guidance, such as making transparency a priority — so students have a right to know when AI is being used to grade their work — and identifying what types of information should never be uploaded into an AI or asked of an AI.

But she said universities must also be open to “regularly reevaluating as the technology and uses evolve.”

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Maureen Dowd

Donald Trump’s Insatiable Bloodlust

By Maureen Dowd

Opinion Columnist, writing from Washington.

An earthquake. An eclipse. A bridge collapse. A freak blizzard. A biblical flood. Donald Trump leading in battleground states.

Apocalyptic vibes are stirred by Trump’s violent rhetoric and talk of blood baths.

If he’s not elected, he bellowed in Ohio, there will be a blood bath in the auto industry. At his Michigan rally on Tuesday, he said there would be a blood bath at the border, speaking from a podium with a banner reading, “Stop Biden’s border blood bath.” He has warned that, without him in the Oval, there will be an “Oppenheimer”-like doomsday; we will lose World War III and America will be devastated by “weapons, the likes of which nobody has ever seen before.”

“And the only thing standing between you and its obliteration is me,” Trump has said.

An unspoken Trump threat is that there will be a blood bath again in Washington, like Jan. 6, if he doesn’t win.

That is why he calls the criminals who stormed the Capitol “hostages” and “unbelievable patriots.” He starts some rallies with a dystopian remix of the national anthem, sung by the “J6 Prison Choir,” and his own reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance.

The bloody-minded Trump luxuriates in the language of tyrants.

In “Macbeth,” Shakespeare uses blood imagery to chart the creation of a tyrant. Those words echo in Washington as Ralph Fiennes stars in a thrilling Simon Godwin production of “MacBeth” for the Shakespeare Theater Company, opening Tuesday.

“The raw power grab that excites Lady Macbeth and incites her husband to regicide feels especially pertinent now, when the dangers of autocracy loom over political discussions,” Peter Marks wrote in The Washington Post about the production with Fiennes and Indira Varma (the lead sand snake in “Game of Thrones.”)

Trump’s raw power grab after his 2020 loss may have failed, but he’s inflaming his base with language straight out of Macbeth’s trip to hell.

“Blood will have blood,” as Macbeth says. One of the witches, the weird sisters, urges him, “Be bloody, bold and resolute.”

Another weird sister, Marjorie Taylor Greene, is predicting end times. “God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent,” she tweeted on Friday. “Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens.”

Like Macbeth, Trump crossed a line and won’t turn back. The Irish say, “You may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.” Macbeth killed his king, then said: “I am in blood. Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”

The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey reported that since Trump put his daughter-in-law in charge of the Republican National Committee, prospective employees are asked if they think the election was stolen. Republicans once burbled on about patriotism and defending America. Now denying democracy is a litmus test for employment in the Formerly Grand Old Party.

My Irish immigrant father lived through the cruel “No Irish Need Apply” era. I’m distraught that our mosaic may shatter.

But Trump embraces Hitleresque phrases to stir racial hatred. He has talked about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country.” Last month, he called migrants “animals,” saying, “I don’t know if you call them ‘people,’ in some cases. They’re not people, in my opinion.”

Trump’s obsession with bloodlines was instilled by his father, the son of a German immigrant. He thinks there is good blood and bad blood, superior blood and inferior blood. Fred Trump taught his son that their family’s success was genetic, reminiscent of Hitler’s creepy faith in eugenics.

“The family subscribes to a racehorse theory of human development,” the Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio told PBS. “They believe that there are superior people and that if you put together the genes of a superior woman and a superior man, you get a superior offspring.”

Trump has been talking about this as far back as an “Oprah” show in 1988. The “gene believer” brought it up in a 2020 speech in Minnesota denouncing refugees.

“A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it, don’t you believe?” he told the crowd about their pioneer lineage, adding: “The racehorse theory, you think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.”

As Stephen Greenblatt writes in “Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics,” usurpers don’t ascend to the throne without complicity. Republican enablers do all they can to cozy up to their would-be dictator, even introducing a bill to rename Dulles airport for Trump. Democrats responded by introducing a bill to name a prison in Florida for Trump.

“Why, in some circumstances, does evidence of mendacity, crudeness or cruelty serve not as a fatal disadvantage but as an allure, attracting ardent followers?” Greenblatt asked. “Why do otherwise proud and self-respecting people submit to the sheer effrontery of the tyrant, his sense that he can get away with saying and doing anything he likes, his spectacular indecency?”

Like Macbeth’s castle, the Trump campaign has, as Lady Macbeth put it, “the smell of blood,” and “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten” it.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Maureen Dowd is an Opinion columnist for The Times. She won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary. @ MaureenDowd • Facebook