The testing service instructs GMAT readers to place less weight on writing style and mechanics than on content and organization. But, this doesn’t mean that the first two factors won’t influence the reader or affect your Analytical Writing Assessment score. Indeed, they might! If the way you write interferes with the reader’s understanding of your ideas, then be prepared for a disappointing score. And, in any event, poor writing will predispose the reader to award a lower score, regardless of your ideas or how you organize them. To ensure yourself a high Analytical Writing Assessment score, strive for writing that is:

• Appropriate in tone and “voice” for graduate-level, academic writing
• Varied in sentence length and structure (to add interest and variety as well as to demonstrate maturity and sophistication in writing style)
• Clear and concise (easy to follow and direct rather than wordy or verbose)
• Correct in grammar, mechanics, and usage (conforming to the requirements of Standard Written English)
• Persuasive in style (using rhetorical devices effectively)

All of this is easier said than done, of course. Don’t worry if you’re not a natural when it comes to writing effective prose. You can improve your writing for your exam, even if your time is short. Start by reading the suggestions and guidelines in the following pages. But, keep in mind: improvement in writing comes mainly with practice.

Overall Tone and Voice

In general, you should try to maintain a somewhat formal tone throughout both your essays. An essay that comes across as conversational is probably a bit too informal for the GMAT. Here’s a brief list of additional guidelines:

1. The overall tone should be critical, but not inflammatory or emotional. Don’t try to overstate your position by using extreme or harsh language. Don’t attempt to elicit a visceral or emotional response from the reader. Appeal instead to the reader’s intellect.
2. When it comes to your main points, a very direct, even forceful voice is perfectly acceptable. But don’t overdo it; when it comes to the details, use a more dispassionate approach.
3. Don’t try to make your point with “cutesy” or humorous remarks. Avoid puns, double-meanings, plays on words, and other forms of humor. Not that GMAT readers don’t have a sense of humor; it’s just that they leave it at the door when they go to work for ETS. (That sentence exhibits just the sort of “humor” you should avoid in your essays.)
4. Sarcasm is entirely inappropriate for your GMAT essays. Besides, the reader might not realize that you’re being sarcastic, in which case your remark will only serve to confuse the reader.

Sentence Length and Variety

To ensure a high Analytical Writing Assessment score, strive for sentences that are varied in length and structured in a manner that helps convey their intended meaning, rather than obscuring or distorting it. Here are some specific warnings and suggestions:

• Sentences that vary in length make for a more interesting and persuasive essay. For rhetorical emphasis, try using an abrupt short sentence for a crucial point, either before or after longer sentences that elucidate that point. For additional variety, use a semicolon to transform two sentences involving the same train of thought into one; and use the word “and” to connect your two independent clauses (just as in this sentence).
• Sentences that use the same essential structure can help convey your line of reasoning to the reader. Try using the same structure for a list of reasons or examples.
• Sentences that essentially repeat (verbatim) throughout your essay suggest an immature, unsophisticated writing style. Try to avoid using so-called “template” sentences over and over—especially for the first (or last) sentence of each body paragraph.

Clear and Concise Writing

You’re more likely to score high on your GMAT essays with writing that is clear and concise. Frequent occurrences of awkward, wordy, or redundant phrases can lower your Analytical Writing Assessment score by a notch—especially if these problems interfere with the reader’s understanding of your essay. And, although punctuation is the least important aspect of your GMAT essays, the habitual overuse, underuse, or misuse of commas can also contribute to lowering your score.

Wordy and awkward phrases

With enough words, anyone can make the point; but it requires skill and effort to make your point with concise phrases. As you proofread your essay, if a sentence seems clumsy or too long, check for a wordy, awkward phrase that you can replace with a clearer, more concise one. Here are two examples (replace italicize phrases with the ones in parentheses):

Discipline is crucial to the attainment of one’s objectives. (attain)

To indicate the fact that they are in opposition to a bill, legislators sometimes engage in filibusters. (To show their)

Look for the opportunity to change prepositional phrases into one-word modifiers:

The employee with ambition . . .

The ambitious employee . . .

You can often rework clauses with relative pronouns (that, who, which, etc.), omitting the pronoun:

The system, which is most efficient and accurate . . .

The most efficient and accurate system . . .

In your Argument essay, you can replace wordy phrases that signal a premise with a single word:

Wordier: the reason for, for the reason that, due to the fact that, in light of the fact that, on the grounds that

More concise: because, since, considering that

Redundant words and phrases

As you proofread your essays, check for words and phrases that express the same essential idea twice.

Both unemployment levels as well as interest rates can affect stock prices. (Replace as well as with and, or omit both.)

The reason science is being blamed for threats to the natural environment is because scientists fail to see that technology is only as useful, or as harmful, as those who decide how to use it. (Replace because with that, or omit the reason and is.)

Using too few (or too many) commas

Although punctuation is the least important aspect of your GMAT essays, too few or too many commas might interfere with the reader’s understanding of a sentence. Too few commas might confuse the reader, while too many can unduly interrupt the sentence’s flow. Here’s the guideline: Use the minimum number of commas needed to ensure that the reader will understand your point.

Your Facility with the English Language

To ensure yourself top scores on your essays, strive to convince the readers that you possess a strong command of the English language—in other words, that you can use the language correctly, clearly, and persuasively in writing. To show the reader the requisite linguistic prowess, try to:

• Demonstrate a solid vocabulary.
• Use proper idioms (especially prepositional phrases).
• Use proper diction (word usage and choice).

Demonstrating a solid vocabulary

By all means, show the reader that you possess the vocabulary of a broadly educated individual, and that you know how to use it. But keep the following caveats in mind:

• Don’t overuse SAT-style words just to make an impression. Doing so will only serve to warn the reader that you’re trying to mask poor content with window dressing.



• Avoid obscure or archaic words that few readers are likely to know. The readers will not take time while reading essays to consult their unabridged dictionaries.



• Avoid technical terminology that only specialists and scholars in a specific field understand. GMAT readers are typically Englishlanguage generalists from the academic fields of English and Communications, not economic-policy analysts.



• Use Latin and other non-English terms very sparingly. After all, one of the primary skills being tested through the GMAT essays is your facility with the English language. However, the occasional use of Latin terms and acronyms—for example, per se, de facto, ad hoc, and especially i.e., and e.g.,—are perfectly acceptable. Non-English words used commonly in academic writing—such as vis-à-vis, caveat, and laissez faire—are acceptable as well. Again, just don’t overdo it.



• Avoid colloquialisms (slang and vernacular). Otherwise, instead of hitting a home run with your essay, your essay will turn out lousy, and you’ll be out of luck and need to snake your way into a bottom-barrel B-school. (Did you catch the five colloquialisms in the preceding sentence?)

Your diction and use of idioms

In evaluating your essays, GMAT readers also take into account your diction and use of idioms—again, especially when problems in these areas interfere with the readers’ understanding of your essays. Here you’ll learn tips for avoiding, or at least minimizing, diction and idiom errors in your essays.

Diction (word choice and usage)

Diction refers to word choice as well as to the manner in which a word is used. For instance, you might confuse one word with another because the two words look or sound similar. Or you may choose a word that doesn’t accurately convey your idea. Here’s an example of each type of diction error:

One type of diction error:

The best way to impede employees to improve their productivity is to allow them to determine for themselves the most efficient way of performing their individual job tasks.

(The word impede means “to hinder or hamper”; in the context of this sentence impede should be replaced with a word such as impel, which means “propel or drive.” The test-taker might have confused these two words.)

Another type of diction error:

Unless the department can supply a comparative cost-benefit analysis for the two alternative courses of action, I would remain diffident about following the department’s recommendation.

(The word diffident means “reluctant, unwilling, or shy.” A more appropriate word here would be ambivalent, which means “undecided or indecisive.” Or perhaps the test-taker meant to use the word indifferent (thereby committing the first type of diction error).

What appear to be diction errors might in many instances be mere clerical (typing) errors. Accordingly, problems with your word choice and usage will adversely affect your scores only if they are obvious and occur frequently.

Idiom

An idiom is a distinctive (idiosyncratic) phrase that is considered proper or improper based upon whether it has become acceptable over time— through repeated and common use. Here are two sentences, each of which contain an idiomatic prepositional phrase as well as another idiom.

Example (from a typical Issue essay):

The speaker’s contention flies in the face of the empirical evidence and, in any event, runs contrary to common sense.

Example (from a typical Argument essay):

For all we know, last year was the only year in which the company earned a profit, in which case the vice president’s advice might turn out especially poor in retrospect.

Tips for avoiding diction and idiom errors

Idioms don’t rely on any particular rules of grammar; hence, they are learned over time by experience. As you might suspect, the English language contains more idiomatic expressions than you can shake a thesaurus at. Moreover, the number of possible diction errors isn’t even limited to the number of entries in a comprehensive unabridged English dictionary. Although it is impossible in these pages to provide an adequate diction or idiom review, here are some guidelines to keep you on the straight and narrow when it comes to these aspects of your writing.

• If you’re the least bit unsure about the meaning of a word you intend to use in your essay, don’t use it. Why risk committing a diction blunder just to impress the reader with an erudite vocabulary? (And if you’re not sure what “erudite” means, either find out or don’t use it in your essays!)



• If a phrase sounds wrong to your ear, change it until it sounds correct to you.



• The fewer words you use, the less likely you’ll commit an error in diction or idiom. So when in doubt, go with a relatively brief phrase that you still think conveys your point.



• If English is your second language, take heart: In evaluating and scoring your essays, GMAT readers take into account diction or idiom problems only to the extent that those problems interfere with a reader’s understanding of your sentence’s intended meaning. So as long as your writing is understandable to your EFL (English-as-first-language) friends, you don’t need to worry.

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