Or So It Seems by Holland

Or So It Seems by Holland - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

I once turned in a short essay where almost every sentence started with “it seems” or “it appears.” My teacher’s first comment at the top of the page was, “Get rid of ‘It seems.’ BE MORE ASSERTIVE.” He had a point. I was just trying to avoid stating my opinions as fact, but I went a little overboard. From that point on, I stopped using “it seems” and was a little bolder with my opinions.

Here’s the thing—sure, I was using “it seems” to avoid coming on too strong, but that wasn’t the only reason. The essay was about these two ancient Chinese poets who I sort of imagined were in a long-distance relationship. I didn’t really want to mention this in class, so I decided to sneak hints into my essay. I wrote things like, “It seems like this poem is about someone who he longs to be with,” and, “It appears that he longs to reunite with someone who he deeply cares about.” It was all my ingenious, not-so-ingenious plot to secretly inject romance into my analysis.

I don't know if my teacher noticed the romance part, but he did notice where I was trying to tone down my opinions. He told me to just state what I thought instead of hiding behind “it seems,” and I've been doing that ever since. I also learned not to pair up real-life historical figures in my scholarly essays. That's probably the more important lesson.