Technical vs. Strategic Essay Edits: Everything You Need to Know

Update: This article was originally posted on July 10, 2018. It has been updated with new information and tips below. 

You may be in the process of applying to your ideal MBA school (or schools) and are crossing your fingers for a positive response. However, part of that process is writing your admissions essays, and you need them to really shine. How do you make sure your essays are as professional as they can be, that they reflect your personality and that they are truly unique?

That’s where editing comes in.

But what is editing good for anyway?

Why do you need to get your MBA admissions essays edited? You may be an excellent writer or at least a creative and capable candidate. Do you really need to have your essay edited?

Yes. You do.

Anyone can write a good essay. But to write a great one, you need a bit of expertise and focused direction. That’s what editing can provide.

Editing an essay means taking an in-depth look at all of its aspects. This may range from simple grammar (especially if English isn’t your first language) to content itself and beyond towards storytelling techniques and organization. If you are curious, this article from the University of Leicester gives a detailed overview of the significance of editing.

You may be excellent at perfecting some of these aspects – and feel you may not need an editor – but crafting all of them together to create a truly persuasive essay takes expertise that the average applicant should take advantage of.

Think of your favorite book or that magazine article you read yesterday. The authors are both excellent writers, no doubt. Nevertheless, neither one would even think of putting their words to print before it has landed on the desk of an experienced editor. In fact, that author probably did this multiple times before anyone else even read the title.

The point is all great writers need great editors. Your MBA admissions essay should be no exception.

What does a good editor do?

So, does a good editor just correct mistakes? Shouldn’t anyone fluent in English be able to do that with a quick read?

Of course not. 

First of all, an editor does much more than just proofread your essay. Second of all, editing is not a ‘quick read’ kind of process. (If you want more information about the difference between editing and proofreading, the Writing Center of the University of North Carolina provides this comprehensive overview.)

Here at Ellin Lolis Consulting, we concentrate on two types of editing to make your essay the best it can be. We call these technical edits and strategic edits. But what are they, exactly?

Technical editing includes the mechanics of the English language, such as grammar, spelling, punctuation, syntax, and word choice. These are the edits that make sure your essay is grammatically sound. Correcting and trimming word count is also included in technical editing.

Strategic editing, on the other hand, takes an in-depth look at the content of your MBA essay. Not only does strategic editing take a look at what you say and how you say it, it also makes sure the content of your essay fits your target school, that you present just the right amount of information, and that everything you write is clear and concise.

Both types of editing are essential for a successful MBA admissions essay, so let’s take a closer look at them.

 

Technical editing: The basic ingredients of an MBA essay

 Technical editing is probably what comes to mind when you imagine someone else reading your MBA essay. It includes adapting elements like grammar, sentence structure, punctuation, spelling, word choice, and word count. However, executing these changes correctly – and comprehensively – is not always as straightforward as it may seem.

These types of corrections guarantee that your essay adheres to the standard use of the English language. On the one hand, technical editing ensures that your readers can understand what you are saying (and sometimes not even being 100% grammatically correct guarantees that!). 

As pointed out in this clarifying article by Shana Lebowitz, grammar or punctuation mistakes can often lead to misunderstandings or simply ambiguous statements – something you obviously want to avoid in your essay.

On the other hand, these adjustments are often what give your essay that professional touch. Although the admissions board is not judging you on your language skills, poor use of language could still contribute negatively to their perception of you. You wouldn’t want to give the admissions board the idea that you don’t pay attention to detail just because you use inconsistent capitalization. Not only are such oversights unnecessary, but they are also easy to avoid in the first place.

Think of technical editing as the basic ingredients of any MBA essay. They are an essential base for a successful recipe. If nothing else, you need to make sure your essay uses language correctly in order to spice it up later.

So what do these kinds of corrections look like? Here, we will examine examples of technical editing in more detail.

 

Grammar and sentence structure (syntax)

Perfecting your grammar and sentence structure will guarantee that your admissions board will perceive your essay – and your application – as professional.

‘Grammar’ may seem like an almost all-encompassing heading; indeed, there is a lot to be discussed when considering grammar, and this is not the place to list off all of the grammar sins that you could commit.

Let’s just say that your editor will be familiar enough with the English language to catch these mistakes. A professional editor will also find the ones that are not as obvious but just as important.

Last year, for example, we helped John from Brazil complete his application essay for Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Take a look at a sentence from his essay:

BANK is already disrupting the way companies do business in Brazil, we aim to becoming a full-service commercial bank with international operations.

Although his meaning is fairly clear, the grammar of his sentence needs improvement. Take a look at our edits: 

BANK is already disrupting the way companies do business in Brazil, and we aim to become a full-service commercial bank with international operations.

These adjustments make sure the sentence is grammatically correct and a complete sentence. These changes, although small, are essential for perfecting your MBA admissions essay.

 

Spelling and punctuation

Proper use of mechanics like spelling and punctuation is just as important as proper grammar. Similarly, an incorrect or inconsistent use of these can reflect badly on your application as a whole.

Take a look at this sentence, for example:

I have always sought to utilize my passion for Human Resources by organising company events.

Not only does this sentence need to be edited for capitalization, but also its use of spelling should be examined. The use of English – specifically British and American English – needs to be consistent throughout your essay. This sentence could be changed like this:

I have always sought to utilize my passion for human resources by organizing company events.

This way, there is no unnecessary capitalization and the use of American English spelling is consistent.

 

Readability

Although readability is often overlooked in academic contexts, it is important for any type of text. Readability is the ease with which a text can be read.

For example, if your essay contains many long, complex sentences, your reader may forget what the point of the beginning was by the time they get to the end. Or, if a text is very repetitive or “boring”, the reader may find their attention wandering off in the middle of your essay.

These issues can be easily avoided. The best essays will be easy to read and keep your reader engaged. A good editor will increase the readability of your essay along with its grammar and content.

This example from an application essay to Harvard Business School is clearly difficult to read:

As the university was located in an underprivileged area, we tried two strategies to help the community so first we donated money to be used at their discretion before we empowered the community, asking them what dreams they wanted to achieve and then helped them find the solutions and resources to put these dreams into practice.

Now take a look at the passage after we edited it for readability:

As the university was located in an underprivileged area, we tried two strategies to help the community. First, we donated money to be used at their discretion. Then, we empowered the community by asking them what dreams they wanted to achieve. Finally, we helped them find the solutions and resources to put these dreams into practice.

Because this passage – originally a single sentence – has been broken up into four separate parts, it is much easier to read and will be more effective at keeping your reader engaged.

 

Word choice (semantics) and formulations

Word choice is not just about choosing the right words. It is about choosing the best words for what you want to say.

The vocabulary of the English language often carries many nuances in meaning. A single word can have many meanings, just as a single concept can be expressed in many slightly varying ways. Often, words carry meanings or imply a tone that can easily be overlooked.

For example, let’s take another look at John’s Stanford essay:

BANK is already disrupting the way companies do business in Brazil, and we aim to become a full-service commercial bank with international operations. 

Although his choice of words is okay, it is not ideal. Trading out become with a more precise verb, such as transform into or expand into, for example, can help make his sentence more precise.

Here is another example of word choice editing in a Stanford essay by another client.

While thinking about my career choice, I recalled witnessing the indifference some colleagues showed when we passed a beggar crossing the street.

Here, “beggar” may not sound like an appropriate way to describe the person crossing the street. In other words, because of its connotations, this choice of word may not be considered politically correct. Take a look at this alternative:

While thinking about my career choice, I recalled witnessing the indifference some colleagues showed when we passed a homeless person crossing the street. 

It is important to always be as politically correct as possible in your MBA admissions essays – you never know who will be sitting on the admissions board or what their background may be. In any case, it is better to play it safe.

 

Word count

Your MBA admissions essay will, in most cases, be limited to a specific number of words. If it is, it is extremely important that you do not exceed the limit. Remember, you are not telling the admissions board your life story but rather concentrating on specific events.

Trimming word count may feel like one of the most difficult parts of creating a good essay. How do you say everything you want to say in so little space?

There are many strategies for reducing word count that can be applied. These include reducing wordiness, passive voice, and possessive constructions, among many, many others.

Have a look at this sentence from an early version of a successful application essay to Stanford (46 Words):

This is one of the most difficult steps as a real leader, and I think that in Stanford leaders are developed and fostered to trespass common ideals mainly by encouraging its students to take risks and throw previous conceptions out of the window, disregarding past assumptions.

Using these strategies, we were able to reduce this sentence down to only 28 words:

This is one of the most difficult steps for a real leader, however, at Stanford, leaders are developed to overturn common ideals by encouraging students to abandon preconceptions.

Despite how the sentence has been adapted and shortened, all of its intended meaning has been upheld.

Reducing word count is a step that usually comes at the end of the editing process after all your content has been solidified. Our editors have a lot of practice reducing word count and can help you overcome this challenge.

Technical editing will make your essay grammatically correct and sound professional. However, that is not enough for a thorough edit of a truly good MBA admissions essay.

Just because your sentence is grammatically correct doesn’t mean it will be understandable, let alone meaningful, to all of your readers. This is where aspects like story shaping and clarity – just some of the elements of strategic editing – come into play.

 

Strategic editing: the secret ingredient to an outstanding MBA essay

Strategic editing goes far beyond making sure your use of language is simply correct. Instead, it ensures that your use of language is effective. Effective use of language will be what makes your MBA essay stand out to the admissions board. 

Strategic editing includes relevance, story shaping, clarity, and targeting the school. In other words, strategic editing focuses primarily on fine-tuning content.

That is not to say it is your editor’s job to come up with a relevant story for your essay. Instead, it is their job to tell you if the story you’ve chosen is appropriate in the first place and how much detail that story should go into.

Strategic editing is like the secret ingredient to your MBA essay recipe. These edits are the spices that will make your readers – the admissions board – remember your essay for being profound and unique.

 

Relevance

Relevance means that what you are saying is appropriate and to the point. 

This doesn’t mean it is relevant to you (it is obvious that it is relevant to you. Otherwise, you would not have written it in the first place). Instead, it needs to be clearly relevant to your readers.

In other words, your reader should never doubt that what they are reading is important. They should never have to ask themselves, “But why is the applicant telling me this?”

Two types of relevance need to be considered here: relevance of the story to the theme and general relevance.

 

Relevance of the story to the theme

Every MBA admissions essay needs to have a theme that is supported by at least one story. Your theme is like the topic of your essay or the general point you are trying to make. Your stories then illustrate examples from your past that underline and support your theme. 

For example, if the topic of your Stanford essay is “What matters most to you and why”, your theme might be “perseverance in the face of adversity”. To convey this theme to your readers, you may tell a story that highlights the financial difficulties your family faced while you were growing up, a difficult college experience, or overcoming being stereotyped at work.

Your options for theme and story are infinite. No matter what you pick, however, the most important thing is that your stories are genuine and that you truly believe in your theme (if you don’t, your admissions board will see right through them).

So what does this have to do with relevance?

A common problem in MBA essays is that the story is not relevant to the theme. In other words, the theme and story do not match. It is absolutely essential that each and every story clearly supports your choice of theme.

For example, if we take our theme “perseverance in the face of adversity”, it would be inappropriate to talk about how you learned that teamwork is the key to success through a project you led last year at your company. If your theme is “perseverance”, then your stories need to highlight this. Featuring stories about “teamwork” will only confuse your readers.

Choosing an appropriate theme and stories to go with it can be tricky. Our editors have a lot of practice with this and are happy to help you decide if you’ve chosen well. If you want to learn more about choosing an appropriate theme or what makes a good story, you can also check out our article on this topic.

 

General relevance

General relevance means that every individual sentence is important for what you are currently saying.

Imagine if the next sentence in this paragraph was about goats instead of relevance. Goats are pretty silly creatures, don’t you think? I bet you are now wondering why the heck we are talking about goats. That is because goats are (probably) not relevant to MBA admissions essays.

You want to avoid talking about goats (or other seemingly random, irrelevant topics) in your essay. Every sentence, therefore, needs to be examined for relevance.

Take a look at the following example:

Because of the sudden shift in the story, the relevance of the highlighted passage here is unclear. That does necessarily not mean that the passage has to be deleted. Often, it just means that the relevance of the passage is not clear enough from your reader’s perspective. The simple addition of a few small details will quickly eradicate relevance issues in most cases.

 

Story shaping

While we are on the topic of stories, story shaping is also an important part of strategic editing. Story shaping means choosing what to include in your story to increase its effectiveness.

Let’s go back to our essay that features the theme “perseverance”. Talking about the marathon you ran in college may be the perfect way to highlight this theme. But what do you need to say about that marathon? Should you describe the circumstances of the race? Should you talk about why you ran it in the first place? Or what you felt like after it was over?

It may be very difficult to figure out which of these aspects is the most important. Story shaping helps you decide this while also giving those aspects the proper emphasis.

In another example, an applicant to Harvard highlights a project as a key element to a story in her essay. Although the applicant explains the circumstances and results of the project, the information is not enough for the admissions board to get to know the person behind the events. A good editor, however, will know which questions to ask to make that happen.

As you can see, a good story is not just about the details of what happened but rather about the attitudes, feelings, and motivations behind them. For your stories to be compelling, they need to be coupled with lessons learned. Our editors have a trained eye to help you recognize and emphasize these details. 

 

Clarity

Clarity is making sure everything you say is understandable from your reader’s perspective. This can be applied to single words or entire sentences.

The tricky part about clarity is the change of perspective. Although it may be very clear to you what you mean, it may still be very unclear to your reader. 

Your reader should never need to wonder what a passage in your essay means. Instead, your essay must give all the contextual clues your reader needs to immediately understand your point.

Take a look at this example. Here, we helped the client – also applying to Harvard Business School – clear up this passage. In her essay, she utilizes the theme “Head, Hearts, and Hands” to illustrate how she would like to impact the world. Here, she attempts to explain how she would like to improve in the “heart” aspect:

After a few rounds of editing, the passage read like this:

I also aspire to transform my “Heart” by learning about different global purposes from my inspiring peers and the manner in which they are pursuing their “Hearts,” enhancing the way I  empower people to obtain the tools and opportunities needed to reach their full potential and generate even more impact for organizations.

Here, the applicant’s meaning has become much more straightforward.

As you may have noticed, clarity is related to both story shaping and relevance. Only by eliminating unclear passages can your editor properly shape a story. Similarly, if a passage in your essay is unclear, its relevance will not be clear, either. 

 

Targeting the school

You may be applying to more than one school; you may be applying to only your dream establishment. Either way, each school looks for certain character traits and values in their applicants, and it is important that your essay reflects at least one of them.

Let’s take a look at Harvard, for example. The school’s values include:

Passion, vision, maturity, high-impact leadership, initiative, integrity, service, self-awareness, case study compatibility, and a focus on solutions

All of these are good values to align with when choosing the theme of your essay and the stories to go with it. Of course, no school expects your essay to reflect all of these values – rather, you should pick the one that is most important to you and focus on it. However, if your theme, stories, or elements of these reflect on more than one of your target school’s values, that’s great too!

Aligning your values with those of your school may be a difficult task. It may be hard to figure out what the school’s values are or which one you personally value the most.

Strategic editing can help determine this. Our editors are familiar with various schools and the traits they look for in their applicants. Strategic editing, however, also goes much further than simply identifying these – it involves fine-tuning your essay to make sure your stories explicitly and implicitly reflect your chosen value itself.

These are the most important elements of technical and strategic editing when it comes to MBA admissions essays. Keep in mind that many of these edits are intertwined. Adjusting the syntax of a sentence also helps improve its clarity. Adapting your stories for relevance to your theme may involve taking a second look at the values of your target school. In any case, a thorough edit combines these elements into an intensely reflective review process.

 

Editing: a feedback process

Now that you have a thorough understanding of different aspects of editing, you may have some questions about the process itself. How does it work? Do you just hand your editor your essay and wait for them to do their magic? 

Of course not. You must be ready to work together with your editor in order to get ideal results.

An editor will not be able to just magically fix your essay. Instead, the process usually requires multiple rounds of feedback. This means that the process also requires multiple rounds of editing because you will need to provide your editor with further information in order to move forward.

Let’s examine this example:

Obviously, the editor needs further information from the applicant in this example to clarify the sentence. Your editor can’t read your mind, and they can’t create the content of your essay without you. This means it is not their job to make things up but rather to ask the right questions so that you can provide the necessary information.

Only after you have provided it (and the new content has been shaped and polished by your editor) will your essay really shine. Editing is a feedback process.

This process may not always seem very straightforward, either. Although you may be very focused on word count while writing the first draft of your MBA essay, your editor will likely not take a look at that issue until the very end of the process. Your editor may begin making technical edits, for example, only after many strategic edits have already been made.

This helps not only to streamline the editing process but also to make sure the most important parts of your essay – the story you are telling – is as solid as possible. Your editor will know when to make which types of edits.

One thing remains certain: to make your essay as good as it can be, your editor will need your feedback!

 

Need an editor? We have the experience to help!

Editing is a complex process involving many steps and elements. However, it is also a necessity to create a truly compelling admissions essay that will bring you one step closer to attending your top MBA program.

Although editing may seem straightforward, it involves much more than just touching up grammar and straightening out stray sentences. Technical editing, although important, is not enough to really get your essay into shape.

Instead, it is the combination of technical editing with the more complex strategic editing that will make your MBA admissions essay truly stand out. Taking advantage of both of these is essential for creating an essay that your admissions board will remember.

Of course, there is nothing better than working with a professional. Here at Ellin Lolis Consulting, we have the experience to strategically edit your essay to make it as intriguing, unique, and professional as possible. Contact us today to help you get the ball rolling on your MBA admissions essay.