long meaningless essay

Random Paragraph Generator

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If you're looking for random paragraphs, you've come to the right place. When a random word or a random sentence isn't quite enough, the next logical step is to find a random paragraph. We created the Random Paragraph Generator with you in mind. The process is quite simple. Choose the number of random paragraphs you'd like to see and click the button. Your chosen number of paragraphs will instantly appear.

While it may not be obvious to everyone, there are a number of reasons creating random paragraphs can be useful. A few examples of how some people use this generator are listed in the following paragraphs.

Creative Writing

Generating random paragraphs can be an excellent way for writers to get their creative flow going at the beginning of the day. The writer has no idea what topic the random paragraph will be about when it appears. This forces the writer to use creativity to complete one of three common writing challenges. The writer can use the paragraph as the first one of a short story and build upon it. A second option is to use the random paragraph somewhere in a short story they create. The third option is to have the random paragraph be the ending paragraph in a short story. No matter which of these challenges is undertaken, the writer is forced to use creativity to incorporate the paragraph into their writing.

Tackle Writers' Block

A random paragraph can also be an excellent way for a writer to tackle writers' block. Writing block can often happen due to being stuck with a current project that the writer is trying to complete. By inserting a completely random paragraph from which to begin, it can take down some of the issues that may have been causing the writers' block in the first place.

Beginning Writing Routine

Another productive way to use this tool to begin a daily writing routine. One way is to generate a random paragraph with the intention to try to rewrite it while still keeping the original meaning. The purpose here is to just get the writing started so that when the writer goes onto their day's writing projects, words are already flowing from their fingers.

Writing Challenge

Another writing challenge can be to take the individual sentences in the random paragraph and incorporate a single sentence from that into a new paragraph to create a short story. Unlike the random sentence generator , the sentences from the random paragraph will have some connection to one another so it will be a bit different. You also won't know exactly how many sentences will appear in the random paragraph.

Programmers

It's not only writers who can benefit from this free online tool. If you're a programmer who's working on a project where blocks of text are needed, this tool can be a great way to get that. It's a good way to test your programming and that the tool being created is working well.

Above are a few examples of how the random paragraph generator can be beneficial. The best way to see if this random paragraph picker will be useful for your intended purposes is to give it a try. Generate a number of paragraphs to see if they are beneficial to your current project.

If you do find this paragraph tool useful, please do us a favor and let us know how you're using it. It's greatly beneficial for us to know the different ways this tool is being used so we can improve it with updates. This is especially true since there are times when the generators we create get used in completely unanticipated ways from when we initially created them. If you have the time, please send us a quick note on what you'd like to see changed or added to make it better in the future.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can i use these random paragraphs for my project.

Yes! All of the random paragraphs in our generator are free to use for your projects.

Does a computer generate these paragraphs?

No! All of the paragraphs in the generator are written by humans, not computers. When first building this generator we thought about using computers to generate the paragraphs, but they weren't very good and many times didn't make any sense at all. We therefore took the time to create paragraphs specifically for this generator to make it the best that we could.

Can I contribute random paragraphs?

Yes. We're always interested in improving this generator and one of the best ways to do that is to add new and interesting paragraphs to the generator. If you'd like to contribute some random paragraphs, please contact us.

How many words are there in a paragraph?

There are usually about 200 words in a paragraph, but this can vary widely. Most paragraphs focus on a single idea that's expressed with an introductory sentence, then followed by two or more supporting sentences about the idea. A short paragraph may not reach even 50 words while long paragraphs can be over 400 words long, but generally speaking they tend to be approximately 200 words in length.

Other Random Generators

Here you can find all the other Random Generators:

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• Random Verb Generator
• Random Name Generator
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• Random Sentence Generator
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What’s a good, super long paragraph of meaningless nonsense that you can send to someone to confuse them?

The Needless Complexity of Academic Writing

A new movement strives for simplicity.

“Persistence is one of the great characteristics of a pitbull, and I guess owners take after their dogs,” says Annetta Cheek, the co-founder of the D.C.-based nonprofit Center for Plain Language. Cheek, an anthropologist by training who left academia in the early 1980s to work for the Federal Aviation Commission, is responsible for something few people realize exists: the 2010 Plain Writing Act. In fact, Cheek was among the first government employees to champion the use of clear, concise language. Once she retired in 2007 from the FAA and gained the freedom to lobby, she leveraged her hatred for gobbledygook to create an actual law. Take a look at recent information put out by many government agencies such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—if it lacks needlessly complex sentences or bizarre bureaucratic jargon, it’s largely because of Cheek and her colleagues.

The idea that writing should be clear, concise, and low-jargon isn’t a new one—and it isn’t limited to government agencies, of course. The problem of needlessly complex writing—sometimes referred to as an “opaque writing style ”—has been explored in fields ranging from law to science. Yet in academia, unwieldy writing has become something of a protected tradition. Take this example:

The work of the text is to literalize the signifiers of the first encounter, dismantling the ideal as an idol. In this literalization, the idolatrous deception of the first moment becomes readable. The ideal will reveal itself to be an idol. Step by step, the ideal is pursued by a devouring doppelganger, tearing apart all transcendence. This de-idealization follows the path of reification, or, to invoke Augustine, the path of carnalization of the spiritual. Rhetorically, this is effected through literalization. A Sentimental Education does little more than elaborate the progressive literalization of the Annunciation.

That little doozy appears in Barbara Vinken’s Flaubert Postsecular: Modernity Crossed Out , published by Stanford University Press, and was recently posted to a listserv used by clear-language zealots—many of whom are highly qualified academics who are willing to call their colleagues out for being habitual offenders of opaque writing. Yet the battle to make clear and elegant prose the new status quo is far from won.

Last year, Harvard’s Steven Pinker (who’s also written about his grammar peeves for The Atlantic ) authored an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education in which he used adjectives like “turgid, soggy, wooden, bloated, clumsy, obscure, unpleasant to read, and impossible to understand” to describe academic writing. In an email, Pinker told me that the reaction to his article “has been completely positive, which is not the typical reaction to articles I write, and particularly surprising given my deliberately impolite tone.” (He didn’t, however, read all of the 360-plus comments, many of which were anything but warm and fuzzy.) A couple of weeks later, The Chronicle had a little fun with with a follow-up to Pinker’s article, inviting researchers to tweet an explanation of their research using only emoji :

I 🔬new 🐰acting and 🐢acting 💉 for diabetes. They are tested on 🐭🐷🐶 and 👨👩 to make them 🎯 and ✅ before we ship 🌍 to help🙍be 🙆. I used 💎ography to 🔍 at the molecular 🔪🔫💣 of a 🌱 pathogen, which destroys 💷💵💶 of 🍟 and 🍅 around the 🌍.

In 2006, Daniel Oppenheimer, then a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University, published research arguing that the use of clear, simple words over needlessly complex ones can actually make authors appear more intelligent. The research garnered him the Ig Nobel Prize in literature—a parody of the Nobel Prize that, according to a Slate article by the awards’ creator, Marc Abrahams, and several academics I consulted, is always given to improbable research and sometimes serves as a de facto criticism or satire in the academic world. (Oppenheimer for his part believes he got the award because of the paper’s title: “Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly.” The title made readers laugh, he told me—and then think.) Ultimately, Oppenheimer says the attention the Ig Nobel brought to his research means it’s now being used to improve the work of students in academic writing centers around the country.

A disconnect between researchers and their audiences fuels the problem, according to Deborah S. Bosley, a clear-writing consultant and former University of North Carolina English professor. “Academics, in general, don’t think about the public; they don't think about the average person, and they don't even think about their students when they write,” she says. “Their intended audience is always their peers. That’s who they have to impress to get tenure.” But Bosley, who has a doctorate in rhetoric and writing, says that academic prose is often so riddled with professional jargon and needlessly complex syntax that even someone with a Ph.D. can’t understand a fellow Ph.D.’s work unless he or she comes from the very same discipline.

A nonacademic might think the campaign against opaque writing is a no-brainer; of course, researchers should want to maximize comprehension of their work. Cynics charge , however, that academics play an elitist game with their words: They want to exclude interlopers. Others say that academics have traditionally been forced to write in an opaque style to be taken seriously by the gatekeepers—academic journal editors, for example. The main reason, though, may not be as sinister or calculated. Pinker, a cognitive scientist, says it boils down to “brain training”: the years of deep study required of academics to become specialists in their chosen fields actually work against them being able to unpack their complicated ideas in a coherent, concrete manner suitable for average folks. Translation: Experts find it really hard to be simple and straightforward when writing about their expertise. He calls this the “curse of knowledge” and says academics aren’t aware they’re doing it or properly trained to identify their blindspots—when they know too much and struggle to ascertain what others don’t know. In other words, sometimes it’s simply more intellectually challenging to write clearly. “It’s easy to be complex, it’s harder to be simple,” Bosley said. “It would make academics better researchers and better writers, though, if they had to translate their thinking into plain language.” It would probably also mean more people, including colleagues, would read their work.

Some research funders, such as National Institutes of Health and The Wellcome Trust, have mandated in recent years that studies they finance be published in open-access journals, but they’ve given little attention to ensuring those studies include accessible writing. “NIH has no policies for grantees that dictate the style of writing they use in their research publications,” a spokesperson told me in an emailed statement. “We do advise applicants about the importance of using plain language in sections of the application that, if funded, will become public on the RePORT website.”

Bosley is ever so slightly optimistic for a future of clear academic writing, though. “Professors hate rules for themselves,” she says. “They become academics because it’s almost like being an entrepreneur. So academia isn’t like government or private business where laws or mandates work. But if we get more people like Pinker taking a stand on this, the culture could change.”

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Indeed, there are an increasing number of academics taking it upon themselves to blog, tweet or try other means to convey their research to wider audiences. The news site TheConversation.com , for example, sources authors and stories from the academic and research communities. Academics get the byline but are edited by journalists adept at making complex research clear and writing palatable, according to the outlet’s managing editor, Maria Balinska. “We see a real interest among academics across the board in what we’re doing,” Balinska says. “Our editing process is rigorous, but they still want to learn how to communicate their research and reach more people.” She says The Conversation, which is being piloted in the U.S. and currently features articles by 1,500 academics from 300 institutions, is already getting hundreds of thousands of unique visitors each month mostly through word of mouth and social media.

Will this kind of interest in communicating about research by some academics help change status-quo academic writing? “Believe it or not,” when compared to their peers in other parts of the world, “U.S. academics are probably the most open to the idea of accessible language,” says Bosley. “I gave a presentation in France and academics there flat out told me that academics shouldn’t write to express, they should write to impress.” Bosley says bucking tradition and championing the clear-writing cause would be to an academic’s advantage, to a university’s advantage, and certainly to the public’s advantage. “Here in the U.S. at least we’re seeing some academics acknowledge this reality.”

But don’t look for the clear-writing pitbull Cheek to solve this problem. She’s working on one more bil l that calls for government regulations—not just info put out by agencies—to be written in clear language. Another try at getting that legislation passed and she’s truly retiring.“I think the government is easier to change than academics,” says Cheek. “I’m not going to get into a battle with academia.”

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Advice on writing from The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Eliminating Words

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1. Eliminate words that explain the obvious or provide excessive detail

Always consider readers while drafting and revising writing. If passages explain or describe details that would already be obvious to readers, delete or reword them. Readers are also very adept at filling in the non-essential aspects of a narrative, as in the fourth example.

2. Eliminate unnecessary determiners and modifiers

Writers sometimes clog up their prose with one or more extra words or phrases that seem to determine narrowly or to modify the meaning of a noun but don't actually add to the meaning of the sentence. Although such words and phrases can be meaningful in the appropriate context, they are often used as "filler" and can easily be eliminated.

Here's a list of some words and phrases that can often be pruned away to make sentences clearer:

• for all intents and purposes

3. Omit repetitive wording

Watch for phrases or longer passages that repeat words with similar meanings. Words that don't build on the content of sentences or paragraphs are rarely necessary.

4. Omit redundant pairs

Many pairs of words imply each other. Finish implies complete, so the phrase completely finish is redundant in most cases.

So are many other pairs of words:

• past memories
• various differences
• each individual _______
• basic fundamentals
• important essentials
• future plans
• terrible tragedy
• final outcome
• past history
• unexpected surprise
• sudden crisis

A related expression that's not redundant as much as it is illogical is "very unique." Since unique means "one of a kind," adding modifiers of degree such as "very," "so," "especially," "somewhat," "extremely," and so on is illogical. One-of-a-kind-ness has no gradations; something is either unique or it is not.

5. Omit redundant categories

Specific words imply their general categories, so we usually don't have to state both. We know that a period is a segment of time, that pink is a color, that shiny is an appearance.

In each of the following phrases, the general category term can be dropped, leaving just the specific descriptive word:

• large in size
• often times
• of a bright color
• heavy in weight
• period in time
• round in shape
• at an early time
• economics field
• of cheap quality
• honest in character
• of an uncertain condition
• in a confused state
• unusual in nature
• extreme in degree
• of a strange type

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Very Long Sentences: How to Write and Make Them Shorter (with Examples in English)

Using complex sentences in your writing is fine, but too many very long sentences can be exhausting for your reader. If you have too many very long sentences in your writing, your reader will struggle to remember what you're trying to say and to engage with your ideas. Break your very long sentences into shorter sentences to help your reader.

You can shorten long sentences by:

1. Separating independent clauses Look for conjunctions like "and" in your sentences and see if the part after the "and" could be written as an individual sentence.

2. Eliminating extra clauses Remove sentence starts such as "in my opinion", "as a matter of fact", "as far as I am concerned". They add nothing to your sentence.

3. Cutting out glue words Glue words are the 200 or so most common words in the English language. They're grammatically correct, but often make your sentences unnecessarily long.

4. Look for repetition and redundancy Have you called something a "true fact"? Find places where you've repeated the same idea three times or used unnecessary words that you can easily remove.

How to Cut Glue Words from Your Sentences

In every sentence, there are "working" words and "glue" words. Working words are words that are essential to the meaning of your sentence. Think subjects, verbs, objects. Glue words, on the other hand, are words that hold your sentence together and help it make sense. They're not necessary to convey your meaning—if you rewrite your sentence without glue words and have the same working words, it will still make sense.

Very long sentences are often overstuffed with glue words. These extra words make the sentence difficult to read and needlessly complex. If you reduce the number of glue words in your sentences, you can make your sentences shorter and easier to understand.

Here's an example of a sentence with a lot of glue words:

• It doesn't matter what kind of coffee I buy, where it's from, or if it's organic or not, I need to have cream because I really don't like how the bitterness makes me feel.

This sentence is long and complicated. There are lots of extra words and thoughts in it. Here's what it looks like rewritten:

• I add cream to my coffee because the bitter taste makes me feel unwell.

This second sentence says exactly the same thing (that the narrator adds cream to their coffee to get rid of the bitter taste) but it does so in half the words, making it clearer and easier for the reader to understand. If you have very long sentences, try rewriting them to remove glue words.

Common Questions about Very Long Sentences: How to Write and Make Them Shorter (with Examples in English)

Why you should avoid very long sentences, learn more about sentence length:.

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Application Essays

What this handout is about.

This handout will help you write and revise the personal statement required by many graduate programs, internships, and special academic programs.

Before you start writing

Because the application essay can have a critical effect upon your progress toward a career, you should spend significantly more time, thought, and effort on it than its typically brief length would suggest. It should reflect how you arrived at your professional goals, why the program is ideal for you, and what you bring to the program. Don’t make this a deadline task—now’s the time to write, read, rewrite, give to a reader, revise again, and on until the essay is clear, concise, and compelling. At the same time, don’t be afraid. You know most of the things you need to say already.

Read the instructions carefully. One of the basic tasks of the application essay is to follow the directions. If you don’t do what they ask, the reader may wonder if you will be able to follow directions in their program. Make sure you follow page and word limits exactly—err on the side of shortness, not length. The essay may take two forms:

• A one-page essay answering a general question
• Several short answers to more specific questions

Do some research before you start writing. Think about…

• The field. Why do you want to be a _____? No, really. Think about why you and you particularly want to enter that field. What are the benefits and what are the shortcomings? When did you become interested in the field and why? What path in that career interests you right now? Brainstorm and write these ideas out.
• The program. Why is this the program you want to be admitted to? What is special about the faculty, the courses offered, the placement record, the facilities you might be using? If you can’t think of anything particular, read the brochures they offer, go to events, or meet with a faculty member or student in the program. A word about honesty here—you may have a reason for choosing a program that wouldn’t necessarily sway your reader; for example, you want to live near the beach, or the program is the most prestigious and would look better on your resume. You don’t want to be completely straightforward in these cases and appear superficial, but skirting around them or lying can look even worse. Turn these aspects into positives. For example, you may want to go to a program in a particular location because it is a place that you know very well and have ties to, or because there is a need in your field there. Again, doing research on the program may reveal ways to legitimate even your most superficial and selfish reasons for applying.
• Yourself. What details or anecdotes would help your reader understand you? What makes you special? Is there something about your family, your education, your work/life experience, or your values that has shaped you and brought you to this career field? What motivates or interests you? Do you have special skills, like leadership, management, research, or communication? Why would the members of the program want to choose you over other applicants? Be honest with yourself and write down your ideas. If you are having trouble, ask a friend or relative to make a list of your strengths or unique qualities that you plan to read on your own (and not argue about immediately). Ask them to give you examples to back up their impressions (For example, if they say you are “caring,” ask them to describe an incident they remember in which they perceived you as caring).

Now, write a draft

This is a hard essay to write. It’s probably much more personal than any of the papers you have written for class because it’s about you, not World War II or planaria. You may want to start by just getting something—anything—on paper. Try freewriting. Think about the questions we asked above and the prompt for the essay, and then write for 15 or 30 minutes without stopping. What do you want your audience to know after reading your essay? What do you want them to feel? Don’t worry about grammar, punctuation, organization, or anything else. Just get out the ideas you have. For help getting started, see our handout on brainstorming .

Now, look at what you’ve written. Find the most relevant, memorable, concrete statements and focus in on them. Eliminate any generalizations or platitudes (“I’m a people person”, “Doctors save lives”, or “Mr. Calleson’s classes changed my life”), or anything that could be cut and pasted into anyone else’s application. Find what is specific to you about the ideas that generated those platitudes and express them more directly. Eliminate irrelevant issues (“I was a track star in high school, so I think I’ll make a good veterinarian.”) or issues that might be controversial for your reader (“My faith is the one true faith, and only nurses with that faith are worthwhile,” or “Lawyers who only care about money are evil.”).

Often, writers start out with generalizations as a way to get to the really meaningful statements, and that’s OK. Just make sure that you replace the generalizations with examples as you revise. A hint: you may find yourself writing a good, specific sentence right after a general, meaningless one. If you spot that, try to use the second sentence and delete the first.

Applications that have several short-answer essays require even more detail. Get straight to the point in every case, and address what they’ve asked you to address.

Now that you’ve generated some ideas, get a little bit pickier. It’s time to remember one of the most significant aspects of the application essay: your audience. Your readers may have thousands of essays to read, many or most of which will come from qualified applicants. This essay may be your best opportunity to communicate with the decision makers in the application process, and you don’t want to bore them, offend them, or make them feel you are wasting their time.

With this in mind:

• Do assure your audience that you understand and look forward to the challenges of the program and the field, not just the benefits.
• Do assure your audience that you understand exactly the nature of the work in the field and that you are prepared for it, psychologically and morally as well as educationally.
• Do assure your audience that you care about them and their time by writing a clear, organized, and concise essay.
• Do address any information about yourself and your application that needs to be explained (for example, weak grades or unusual coursework for your program). Include that information in your essay, and be straightforward about it. Your audience will be more impressed with your having learned from setbacks or having a unique approach than your failure to address those issues.
• Don’t waste space with information you have provided in the rest of the application. Every sentence should be effective and directly related to the rest of the essay. Don’t ramble or use fifteen words to express something you could say in eight.
• Don’t overstate your case for what you want to do, being so specific about your future goals that you come off as presumptuous or naïve (“I want to become a dentist so that I can train in wisdom tooth extraction, because I intend to focus my life’s work on taking 13 rather than 15 minutes per tooth.”). Your goals may change–show that such a change won’t devastate you.
• And, one more time, don’t write in cliches and platitudes. Every doctor wants to help save lives, every lawyer wants to work for justice—your reader has read these general cliches a million times.

Imagine the worst-case scenario (which may never come true—we’re talking hypothetically): the person who reads your essay has been in the field for decades. She is on the application committee because she has to be, and she’s read 48 essays so far that morning. You are number 49, and your reader is tired, bored, and thinking about lunch. How are you going to catch and keep her attention?

Assure your audience that you are capable academically, willing to stick to the program’s demands, and interesting to have around. For more tips, see our handout on audience .

Voice and style

The voice you use and the style in which you write can intrigue your audience. The voice you use in your essay should be yours. Remember when your high school English teacher said “never say ‘I’”? Here’s your chance to use all those “I”s you’ve been saving up. The narrative should reflect your perspective, experiences, thoughts, and emotions. Focusing on events or ideas may give your audience an indirect idea of how these things became important in forming your outlook, but many others have had equally compelling experiences. By simply talking about those events in your own voice, you put the emphasis on you rather than the event or idea. Look at this anecdote:

During the night shift at Wirth Memorial Hospital, a man walked into the Emergency Room wearing a monkey costume and holding his head. He seemed confused and was moaning in pain. One of the nurses ascertained that he had been swinging from tree branches in a local park and had hit his head when he fell out of a tree. This tragic tale signified the moment at which I realized psychiatry was the only career path I could take.

An interesting tale, yes, but what does it tell you about the narrator? The following example takes the same anecdote and recasts it to make the narrator more of a presence in the story:

I was working in the Emergency Room at Wirth Memorial Hospital one night when a man walked in wearing a monkey costume and holding his head. I could tell he was confused and in pain. After a nurse asked him a few questions, I listened in surprise as he explained that he had been a monkey all of his life and knew that it was time to live with his brothers in the trees. Like many other patients I would see that year, this man suffered from an illness that only a combination of psychological and medical care would effectively treat. I realized then that I wanted to be able to help people by using that particular combination of skills only a psychiatrist develops.

The voice you use should be approachable as well as intelligent. This essay is not the place to stun your reader with ten prepositional phrases (“the goal of my study of the field of law in the winter of my discontent can best be understood by the gathering of more information about my youth”) and thirty nouns (“the research and study of the motivation behind my insights into the field of dentistry contains many pitfalls and disappointments but even more joy and enlightenment”) per sentence. (Note: If you are having trouble forming clear sentences without all the prepositions and nouns, take a look at our handout on style .)

You may want to create an impression of expertise in the field by using specialized or technical language. But beware of this unless you really know what you are doing—a mistake will look twice as ignorant as not knowing the terms in the first place. Your audience may be smart, but you don’t want to make them turn to a dictionary or fall asleep between the first word and the period of your first sentence. Keep in mind that this is a personal statement. Would you think you were learning a lot about a person whose personal statement sounded like a journal article? Would you want to spend hours in a lab or on a committee with someone who shuns plain language?

Of course, you don’t want to be chatty to the point of making them think you only speak slang, either. Your audience may not know what “I kicked that lame-o to the curb for dissing my research project” means. Keep it casual enough to be easy to follow, but formal enough to be respectful of the audience’s intelligence.

Just use an honest voice and represent yourself as naturally as possible. It may help to think of the essay as a sort of face-to-face interview, only the interviewer isn’t actually present.

Too much style

A well-written, dramatic essay is much more memorable than one that fails to make an emotional impact on the reader. Good anecdotes and personal insights can really attract an audience’s attention. BUT be careful not to let your drama turn into melodrama. You want your reader to see your choices motivated by passion and drive, not hyperbole and a lack of reality. Don’t invent drama where there isn’t any, and don’t let the drama take over. Getting someone else to read your drafts can help you figure out when you’ve gone too far.

Taking risks

Many guides to writing application essays encourage you to take a risk, either by saying something off-beat or daring or by using a unique writing style. When done well, this strategy can work—your goal is to stand out from the rest of the applicants and taking a risk with your essay will help you do that. An essay that impresses your reader with your ability to think and express yourself in original ways and shows you really care about what you are saying is better than one that shows hesitancy, lack of imagination, or lack of interest.

But be warned: this strategy is a risk. If you don’t carefully consider what you are saying and how you are saying it, you may offend your readers or leave them with a bad impression of you as flaky, immature, or careless. Do not alienate your readers.

Some writers take risks by using irony (your suffering at the hands of a barbaric dentist led you to want to become a gentle one), beginning with a personal failure (that eventually leads to the writer’s overcoming it), or showing great imagination (one famous successful example involved a student who answered a prompt about past formative experiences by beginning with a basic answer—”I have volunteered at homeless shelters”—that evolved into a ridiculous one—”I have sealed the hole in the ozone layer with plastic wrap”). One student applying to an art program described the person he did not want to be, contrasting it with the person he thought he was and would develop into if accepted. Another person wrote an essay about her grandmother without directly linking her narrative to the fact that she was applying for medical school. Her essay was risky because it called on the reader to infer things about the student’s character and abilities from the story.

Assess your credentials and your likelihood of getting into the program before you choose to take a risk. If you have little chance of getting in, try something daring. If you are almost certainly guaranteed a spot, you have more flexibility. In any case, make sure that you answer the essay question in some identifiable way.

After you’ve written a draft

Get several people to read it and write their comments down. It is worthwhile to seek out someone in the field, perhaps a professor who has read such essays before. Give it to a friend, your mom, or a neighbor. The key is to get more than one point of view, and then compare these with your own. Remember, you are the one best equipped to judge how accurately you are representing yourself. For tips on putting this advice to good use, see our handout on getting feedback .

After you’ve received feedback, revise the essay. Put it away. Get it out and revise it again (you can see why we said to start right away—this process may take time). Get someone to read it again. Revise it again.

When you think it is totally finished, you are ready to proofread and format the essay. Check every sentence and punctuation mark. You cannot afford a careless error in this essay. (If you are not comfortable with your proofreading skills, check out our handout on editing and proofreading ).

If you find that your essay is too long, do not reformat it extensively to make it fit. Making readers deal with a nine-point font and quarter-inch margins will only irritate them. Figure out what material you can cut and cut it. For strategies for meeting word limits, see our handout on writing concisely .

Finally, proofread it again. We’re not kidding.

Other resources

Don’t be afraid to talk to professors or professionals in the field. Many of them would be flattered that you asked their advice, and they will have useful suggestions that others might not have. Also keep in mind that many colleges and professional programs offer websites addressing the personal statement. You can find them either through the website of the school to which you are applying or by searching under “personal statement” or “application essays” using a search engine.

If your schedule and ours permit, we invite you to come to the Writing Center. Be aware that during busy times in the semester, we limit students to a total of two visits to discuss application essays and personal statements (two visits per student, not per essay); we do this so that students working on papers for courses will have a better chance of being seen. Make an appointment or submit your essay to our online writing center (note that we cannot guarantee that an online tutor will help you in time).

For information on other aspects of the application process, you can consult the resources at University Career Services .

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Asher, Donald. 2012. Graduate Admissions Essays: Write Your Way Into the Graduate School of Your Choice , 4th ed. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press.

Curry, Boykin, Emily Angel Baer, and Brian Kasbar. 2003. Essays That Worked for College Applications: 50 Essays That Helped Students Get Into the Nation’s Top Colleges . New York: Ballantine Books.

Stelzer, Richard. 2002. How to Write a Winning Personal Statement for Graduate and Professional School , 3rd ed. Lawrenceville, NJ: Thomson Peterson.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Writing Resources

Four types of unnecessary words and phrases.

This handout is available for download in DOCX format and PDF format .

Dummy Subjects

Dummy subjects are expletive words—words that take up space without adding meaning—and occur in phrases like there is , there are , there was , there were , it is , and it was . Because they are usually unnecessary and wordy, avoid using dummy subjects whenever possible. (For more details, see the handout on dummy subjects .)

• Wordy: There are many great skiing resorts in Colorado.
• Concise: Colorado has many great skiing resorts.

Nominalizations

Nominalizations are nouns that are created from adjectives (words that describe nouns) or verbs (action words). For example, “decision” is a nominalization of “decide” and “argument” is a nominalization of “argue.” The endings of the nominalized forms vary, but many end in “-ion/tion”, “-ment,” “-ity/–ty”, and “-ness.” While they can be useful and effective if used in moderation, they frequently make sentences longer, wordier, and more difficult to understand.

• Wordy: The conjugation of verbs can be fraught with difficulties.
• Concise: Conjugating verbs can be difficult.

Infinitive Phrases

Infinitive phrases are phrases that contain verb infinitives (to + verb). While these are useful, they often add wordiness and length to sentences for no reason. Instead of an infinitive phrase, try using finite verbs or noun phrases.

• Wordy: Our duty was to clean the floor and to wash the dishes.
• Concise: We cleaned the floor and washed the dishes.
• Wordy: The three-car accident on I-95 has caused traffic to become delayed.
• Concise: The three-car accident on I-95 has caused traffic delays.

Circumlocutions

Circumlocutions are commonly used roundabout expressions that take several words to say what could be said more succinctly. We often overlook them because many such expressions are habitual figures of speech. In academic writing, though, they should be avoided since they add extra words without extra meaning.

• Wordy: Owing to the fact that at the present time it is necessary to maintain the wellbeing of everyone, each person has the obligation to wash their hands subsequent to bathroom use.
• Concise: Since we currently need to maintain everyone’s wellbeing, each person must wash their hands after using the bathroom.

The next page contains a list of common circumlocutions along with their concise counterparts. (The attentive reader will recognize a few dummy subjects and nominalizations in the list!)

Credit: Adapted from the Purdue OWL Guide (https://owl.purdue.edu/) and Christina Thompson (https://blog.dce.harvard.edu/extension/cut-clutter-17-phrases-omit-your-writing-today), 2020.

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1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time

The Meaning of Life: What’s the Point?

Author: Matthew Pianalto Categories: Ethics , Phenomenology and Existentialism , Philosophy of Religion Word Count: 1000

Editors’ note: this essay and its companion essay, Meaning in Life: What Makes Our Lives Meaningful? both explore the concept of meaning in relation to human life. This essay focuses on the meaning of life as a whole, whereas the other addresses meaning in individual human lives.

At the height of his literary fame, the novelist Leo Tolstoy was gripped by suicidal despair. [1] He felt that life is meaningless because, in the long run, we’ll all be dead and forgotten. Tolstoy later rejected this pessimism in exchange for religious faith in life’s eternal, divine significance.

Tolstoy’s outlook—both before and after his conversion—raises many questions:

• Does life’s having meaning depend on a supernatural reality?
• Is death a threat to life’s meaning?
• Is life the sort of thing that can have a “meaning”? In what sense?

Here we will consider some approaches to questions about the meaning of life. [2]

1. Questioning the Question

Many philosophers begin thinking about the meaning of life by asking what the question itself means. [3] Life could refer to all lifeforms or to human life specifically. This essay focuses on human life, but it is worth considering how other things might have or lack meaning, too. [4] This can help illuminate the different meanings of meaning .

Sometimes, we use “meaning” to refer to the origin or cause of something’s existence. If I come home to a trashed house, I might wonder, “What is the meaning of this?” Similarly, we might wonder where life comes from or how it began; our origins may tell us something about other meanings, like our value or purpose.

We also use “meaning” to refer to something’s significance or value . Something can be valuable in various ways, such as by being useful, pleasing, or informative. We might call something meaningless if it is trivial or unimportant.

“Meaning” can also refer to something’s point or purpose . [5] Life could have some overarching purpose as part of a divine plan, or it might have no such purpose. Perhaps we can give our lives purpose that they did not previously possess.

Notice that even divine purposes may not always satisfy our desire for meaning: suppose our creator made us to serve as livestock for hyper-intelligent aliens who will soon arrive and begin to farm us. [6] We might protest that this is not the most meaningful use of our human potential! We may not want our life-story to end as a people-burger.

Indeed, a thing’s meaning can also be its story . The meaning of life might be the true story of life’s origins and significance. [7] In this sense, life cannot be meaningless, but its meaning might be pleasing or disappointing to us. When people like Tolstoy regard life as meaningless, they seem to be thinking that the truth about life is bad news. [8]

2. Supernaturalism

Supernaturalists hold that life has divine significance. [9] For example, from the perspective of the Abrahamic religions, life is valuable because everything in God’s creation is good . Our purpose is to love and glorify God. We are all part of something very important and enduring : God’s plan.

Much of the contemporary discussion about the meaning of life is provoked by skepticism about traditional religious answers. [10] The phrase “the meaning of life” came into common usage only in the last two centuries, as advances in science, especially evolutionary theory, led many to doubt that life is the product of intelligent, supernatural design. [11] The meaning of life might be an especially perplexing issue for those who reject religious answers.

3. Nihilism

Nihilists think that life, on balance, lacks positive meaning. [12] Nihilism often arises as a pessimistic reaction to religious skepticism: life without a divine origin or purpose has no enduring significance.

Although others might counter that life can have enduring significance that doesn’t depend on a supernatural origin, such as our cultural legacy, nihilists are skeptical. From a cosmic perspective, we are tiny specks in a vast universe–and often miserable to boot! Even our most important cultural icons and achievements will likely vanish with the eventual extinction of the species and the collapse of the solar system.

4. Naturalism

Naturalists suggest that the meaning of life is to be found within our earthly lives. Even if life possesses no supernatural meaning, life itself may have inherent significance. [13] Things are not as bad as nihilists claim.

Some naturalists argue that life—at least human life—has objectively valuable features, such as our intellectual, moral, and creative abilities. [14] The meaning of life may be to develop these capacities and put them to good use. [15]

Other naturalists are subjectivists about life’s meaning. [16] Existentialists , for example, argue that life has no meaning until we give it meaning by choosing to live for something that we find important. [17]

Critics (including nihilists and supernaturalists) argue that the naturalists are fooling themselves. What naturalists propose as sources of meaning in life are at best a distraction from life’s lack of ultimate or cosmic significance (if naturalism is true). What is the point of personal development and good works if we’ll all be dead sooner or later?

Naturalists may respond that the point is in how these activities affect our lives and relationships now rather than in some distant, inhuman future. [18] Feeling sad or distressed over our lack of cosmic importance might be a kind of vanity we should overcome. [19] Some also question whether living forever would necessarily add meaning to life; living forever might be boring! [20] Having limited time may be part of what makes some of our activities and experiences so precious. [21]

5. Conclusion

In Douglas Adams’ novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , the supercomputer Deep Thought is prompted to discover “the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.” After 7 ½ million years of computation, Deep Thought determines that the answer is…

forty-two .

Reflecting on this bizarre result, Deep Thought muses, “I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.” [22]

Adams may be wise to offer some comic relief. [23] Furthermore, given the various meanings of “meaning,” perhaps there is no single question to ask and thus no single correct answer.

Tolstoy’s crisis is a reminder that feelings of meaninglessness can be distressing and dangerous. [24] However, continuing to search for meaning in times of doubt may be one of the most meaningful things we can do. [25]

[1] Tolstoy (2005 [1882]). For discussion of Tolstoy’s rediscovery of meaning that extends his ideas beyond the specific religious outlook he adopted, see Preston-Roedder (2022).

[2] For more detailed overviews of the meaning of life, see Metz (2021) and the entries on the meaning of life by Joshua Seachris and Wendell O’Brien in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy .

[3] Ayer (2008) suspects the question is incoherent. For a response, see Nielsen (2008). For helpful discussion of the meanings of meaning, see Thomas (2019).

[4] For discussion of meaning beyond humans (and agents), see Stevenson (2022).

[5] Notice that purpose appears to be one type of value, as discussed in the preceding paragraph.

[6] Nozick (1981) develops this point about purpose; Nozick (2008) offers the key points, too. In a different spirit, the ancient Daoist philosophy of Zhuangzi (2013) provides some perspective on the advantages of being “useless” (having no purpose) and the dangers of being “useful.”

[7] On this proposal of the meaning of life as narrative, see Seachris (2009). A similar approach that emphasizes the notion of interpretation rather than story or narrative is proposed in Prinzing (2021).

[8] A starter list of life’s features that might lead one to tell such a story about life: war, poverty, physical and mental illness, natural disasters, addiction, labor exploitation and other injustices, and pollution. For more, see Benatar (2017).

[9] Some, like Craig (2013), argue vigorously that life can have meaning only if supernaturalism is true. For further discussion and examples, see discussions of supernaturalism in Seachris, “The Meaning of Life: Contemporary Analytic Perspectives” and Metz (2021).

[10] See Landau (1997) and Setiya (2022), Ch. 6, for discussion of the origin of the phrase.

[11] Nietzsche’s discussion of the “death of God” in The Gay Science (2001 [1882]) reflects these sorts of concerns.

[12] For recent defenses of this view, see Benatar (2017) and Weinberg (2021).

[13] See I. Singer (2009) for a wide-ranging naturalist approach. Wolf’s (2010, 2014) approach to meaning in life is one of the most widely accepted views amongst contemporary philosophers.

[14] For a helpful discussion of the idea that some things might be objectively valuable, see Ethical Realism by Thomas Metcalf.

[15] Metz (2013) and P. Singer (1993) defend this sort of view of meaning in life. Transhumanists would argue that the best uses of our abilities will be those that help us overcome the problems, like disease and mortality, that beset humans and may transform us in substantial ways: perhaps we can achieve a natural form of immortality through technology! On transhumanism, see Messerly (2022).

[16] Representative subjectivists include Taylor (2000) and Calhoun (2015). Susan Wolf’s works (2010 and 2014) develop a “hybrid” account of meaning that combines objective and subjective elements.

[17] For classic expressions of this existentialist view, see Sartre (2021 [1943]) and Beauvoir (2018 [1947]). For a brief overview of existentialist philosophy, see Existentialism by Addison Ellis. For a more detailed, contemporary overview, see Gosetti-Ferencei (2020).

[18] On this point, see Nagel (1971), Nagel (1989), and “The Meanings of Lives” in Wolf (2014). For further discussion see Kahane (2014).

[19] Marquard (1991); see Hosseini (2015) for additional discussion. Albert Camus makes a similar point, invoking the notion of “moderation,” at the end of The Rebel (1992 [1951]).

[20] Williams (1973) gives the classic expression of this idea. For a brief overview of Williams’ argument, see Is Immortality Desirable? , by Felipe Pereira.

[21] Of course, this outlook does mean that death can sometimes rob people of potential meaning, since death can be untimely. But death would not erase the meaningfulness of whatever one had already experienced or achieved. For arguments concerning whether death harms the individual who dies, see Is Death Bad? Epicurus and Lucretius on the Fear of Death by Frederik Kaufman.

[22] Adams (2017), Chapters 27-28. Asking a computer to give us the answer might also be a problem.

[23] For additional comic relief, see the film Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983). Such playfulness may seem irreverent of these “deep” philosophical questions, but Schlick (2017 [1927]) argued that the meaning of life is to be found in play!

[24] For discussion of crises of meaning and an introduction to psychological research on meaning in life, see Smith (2017).

[25] William Winsdale relates that the existential psychiatrist Viktor Frankl was once asked to “express in one sentence the meaning of his own life” (in Frankl (2006), 164-5). After writing his answer, he asked his students to guess what he wrote. A student said, “The meaning of your life is to help others find the meaning of theirs.” Frankl responded, “That is it exactly. Those are the very words I had written.”

Adams, Douglas (2017). The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy . Del Rey. Originally published in 1979.

Ayer, A.J. (2008). “The Claims of Philosophy.” In: E.D. Klemke and Seven M. Cahn, eds. The Meaning of Life, Third Edition . Oxford University Press: 199-202.

Beauvoir, Simone de (2018). The Ethics of Ambiguity . Open Road Media. Originally published in French in 1947.

Benatar, David (2017). The Human Predicament . Oxford University Press.

Calhoun, Cheshire (2015). “Geographies of Meaningful Living,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 32(1): 15-34.

Camus, Albert (1992). The Rebel . Vintage. Originally published in French in 1951.

Craig, William Lane (2013). “The Absurdity of Life Without God.” In: Jason Seachris, ed. Exploring the Meaning of Life . Wiley-Blackwell: 153-172.

Frankl, Viktor E. (2006). Man’s Search for Meaning . Beacon Press.

Gosetti-Ferencei, Jennifer Anna (2020). On Being and Becoming: An Existentialist Approach to Life . Oxford University Press.

Hosseini, Reza (2015). Wittgenstein and Meaning in Life . Palgrave Macmillan.

Kahane, Guy (2014). “Our Cosmic Insignificance.” Noûs 48(4): 745–772.

Landau, Iddo (2017). Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World . Oxford University Press.

— (1997). “Why Has the Question of the Meaning of Life Arisen in the Last Two and a Half Centuries?” Philosophy Today 41(2): 263-269.

Marquard, Odo (1991). “On the Dietetics of the Expectation of Meaning.” In: In Defense of the Accidental . Translated by Robert M. Wallace. Oxford University Press: 29-49.

Messerly, John (2022). Short Essays on Life, Death, Meaning, and the Far Future .

Metz, Thaddeus (2013). Meaning in Life . Oxford University Press .

— (2021). “The Meaning of Life.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.).

Nagel, Thomas (1971). “The Absurd,” Journal of Philosophy 68(20): 716-727.

— (1989). The View From Nowhere . Oxford University Press.

Nielsen, Kai (2008). “Linguistic Philosophy and ‘The Meaning of Life.’” In: E.D. Klemke and Seven M. Cahn, eds. The Meaning of Life, Third Edition . Oxford University Press: 203-219.

Nietzsche, Friedrich (2001). The Gay Science . Translated by Josephine Nauckhoff. Cambridge University Press. Originally published in German in 1882.

Nozick, Robert (1981). Philosophical Explanations . Harvard University Press.

— (2018), “Philosophy and the Meaning of Life,” in: E.D. Klemke and Seven M. Cahn, eds. The Meaning of Life, Fourth Edition . Oxford University Press: 197-204.

O’Brien, Wendell. “The Meaning of Life: Early Continental and Analytic Perspectives.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Last Accessed 12/19/2022.

Preston-Roedder, Ryan (2022). “Living with absurdity: A Nobleman’s guide,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (Early View) .

Prinzing, Michael M. (2021). “The Meaning of ‘Life’s Meaning,’” Philosopher’s Imprint 21(3).

Sartre, Jean-Paul (2021). Being and Nothingness . Washington Square Press. Originally published in French in 1943.

Schlick, Moritz (2017). “On the Meaning of Life,” in: In: E.D. Klemke and Seven M. Cahn, eds. The Meaning of Life, Third Edition . Oxford University Press: 56-65. Originally published in 1927.

Seachris, Joshua. “The Meaning of Life: Contemporary Analytic Perspectives.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Last Accessed 12/19/2022.

— (2009). “The Meaning of Life as Narrative.” Philo 12(1): 5-23.

Setiya, Kieran (2022). Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way . Riverhead Books.

Singer, Irving (2009). Meaning in Life, Vol. 1: The Creation of Value . MIT Press.

Singer, Peter (1993). How Are We to Live? Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest . Prometheus.

Smith, Emily E. (2017). The Power of Meaning . Crown.

Stevenson, Chad Mason (2022). “Anything Can Be Meaningful.” Philosophical Papers (forthcoming).

Taylor, Richard (2000). Good and Evil . Prometheus. Originally published in 1970.

Thomas, Joshua Lewis (2019). “Meaningfulness as Sensefulness,” Philosophia 47: 1555-1577.

Tolstoy, Leo (2005). A Confession . Translated by Aylmer Maude. Dover. Originally published in Russian in 1882.

Weinberg, Rivka (2021). “Ultimate Meaning: We Don’t Have It, We Can’t Get It, and We Should Be Very, Very Sad,” Journal of Controversial Ideas 1(1), 4.

Williams, Bernard (1973). “The Makropulos case: reflections on the tedium of immortality.” In: Problems of the Self: Philosophical Papers, 1956-1972 . Cambridge University Press: 82-100.

Wolf, Susan (2010). Meaning in Life and Why It Matters . Princeton University Press. ( Wolf’s lecture is also available at the Tanner Lecture Series website ).

— (2014). The Variety of Values . Oxford University Press.

Zhuangzi (2013). The Complete Works of Zhuangzi . Translated by Burton Watson. Columbia University Press.

Related Essays

Meaning in Life: What Makes Our Lives Meaningful? by Matthew Pianalto

Existentialism by Addison Ellis

Camus on the Absurd: The Myth of Sisyphus by Erik Van Aken

Nietzsche and the Death of God by Justin Remhof

Is Death Bad? Epicurus and Lucretius on the Fear of Death by Frederik Kaufman

Ancient Cynicism: Rejecting Civilization and Returning to Nature by G. M. Trujillo, Jr.

The Badness of Death by Duncan Purves

Is Immortality Desirable? by Felipe Pereira

Hope by Michael Milona & Katie Stockdale

Ethical Realism by Thomas Metcalf

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About the Author

Matthew Pianalto is a Professor of Philosophy at Eastern Kentucky University. He is the author of On Patience (2016) and several articles and book chapters on ethics. philosophy.eku.edu/pianalto

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Forget Having It All. Let’s Try Having Enough

I had the perfect job—a high-powered magazine editor. I sat in the front row at New York Fashion Week, got to work on interesting stories and photoshoots, and had dinners on the company's dime. On the outside, it looked like I had it all: an office on the 25th floor of the World Trade Center, an apartment in a luxury building, and a new designer handbag every season. I was the executive editor at  Teen Vogue , and I was living the dream. 

Well, at least someone’s dream. 

Behind the facade of hair, makeup, and designer clothes, I was unhappy. I hadn’t dated in months. My father was sick and dealing with his care made me resentful. I wasn’t taking good care of myself, and I could feel it. And I was managing an increasingly agitated team. This all came to a head in 2020 when the pandemic hit, and I realized that for me, having it all meant I was  doing  it all—and not particularly well. I didn’t want to do it anymore. 

I wasn’t alone. In the last few years, we’ve seen a series of workplace trends, from the Great Resignation to quiet quitting. But what has been most notable is how these trends have either been led by and impacted women , especially mothers, who left the workforce in droves during the pandemic. While their employment numbers have now been restored and surpassed pre-pandemic levels, women’s desire to submit themselves to the hamster wheel of ambition is slowing down. And it’s not because women are less ambitious; it’s because our ambitions have not been met with enough support for them to truly come to fruition.

The debate about whether women can “have it all” has plagued discussions about women’s career progress for decades. As much as we acknowledge that it is a flawed concept— first coined by longtime Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown in her 1982 book  Having It All: Love, Success, Sex, Money—Even If You’re Starting with Nothing —every few years, it reemerges through a series of think pieces and debates about what it means and how, even though we all know it’s not really possible, we are still expected to strive for it. Rarely do we talk about what “all” means.

Brown’s definition of it was, as her subtitle suggests, about professional success while also having fun (sex). Today, it’s become a stand-in for women who are trying to juggle care work (usually parenting, but also elder care) with their careers. (Ironically, Brown was not impressed with the idea of having children at one point, claiming that it made you “fat.” )

But despite its origins, “having it all” continues to be a myth force-fed to women. It promotes the idea that life is about the abundance of infinite choices we make. Of course, we can have it all— as long as we are willing to do it all. 

Read More: There’s No Such Thing as Getting Ahead

When the pandemic hit, I realized I wasn't in my dream job, especially without the glitz and glamour of fabulous events out on the town to distract me. The job was a  dream  I never thought would become a reality, so I never felt I had permission to say I didn’t want to do it. I had to do it; after all, what did I work so hard for? “This is what it means to be successful,” I’d tell myself, coming home late from the office, my feet hurting, my body stuffed into Spanx, another takeout dinner on the horizon. 

So, I did the unthinkable and I quit, hoping to find a better way to balance what I believed and how I could execute it. I quit because I realized I alone can’t overcome the obstacles ambitious women face to have happy, sustainable, creative lives and careers. I quit because I wanted to learn what it meant to have  enough . 

We are now four years out from when a global catastrophe fundamentally shifted our lives, and our desire to work as hard has faded: people have resigned themselves to their jobs because most of us have to work. But you rarely talk to someone who  loves  their job these days.

People's dreams have shifted (they do not dream of labor!), and the ethos of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps to get everything you need has come undone. Younger generations, in particular, aren’t willing to sacrifice their health and well-being in the service of a job that ultimately won’t help them pay off their student loans or allow them to one day buy a house. Work-from-home employees aren’t interested in returning to the workplace regularly, and employees generally appear to favor  work-life balance  over working with no boundaries. 

What if we took it one step further and started considering what it would look like to have  enough ? What if instead of asking can women have it all, we ask them—do you have what you need?

After I left my big fancy job and tried to live life on my own terms, I still had to face the reality that to live and eat, I needed to hustle. I had to patch together enough work to sustain myself, ideally with work that I didn’t hate. I needed health insurance. And I also had to work hard to sell a book—and then write that book.

My hustle is far from over. But I’ve grown comfortable knowing that I alone can’t fix the plague of inequality in the workplace. As I have taken myself off the hamster wheel of the endless scrabble to make it to the top (I still have a job; I just don’t feel the need to “dominate” at it.), I have started identifying the places where I can change my own circumstances and where we need to work together to create the reality we deserve. 

Asking women what it means to have enough in their lives does run the risk of suggesting that women settle for less, something we are already expected to do. Women’s ambitions regularly face barriers at work: bad parental leave policy, unequal pay for equal or better work, and no pathway to promotion. If we stop fighting and trying so hard, will it turn back the clock on women’s progress?

Not if we all do it together.  What if instead of striving to “have it all” (and in turn, do it all) we started to ask if we have enough? What if we took an internal journey to reassess what it means to be ambitious and what success ultimately look like in each of our humble lives. What if we, together, said “I have enough, I don’t need or want anything else.”

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How to Use meaningless in a Sentence

Meaningless.

• He felt that his work was meaningless .
• The movie was filled with meaningless violence.

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'meaningless.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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Build a Corporate Culture That Works

There’s a widespread understanding that managing corporate culture is key to business success. Yet few companies articulate their culture in such a way that the words become an organizational reality that molds employee behavior as intended.

All too often a culture is described as a set of anodyne norms, principles, or values, which do not offer decision-makers guidance on how to make difficult choices when faced with conflicting but equally defensible courses of action.

The trick to making a desired culture come alive is to debate and articulate it using dilemmas. If you identify the tough dilemmas your employees routinely face and clearly state how they should be resolved—“In this company, when we come across this dilemma, we turn left”—then your desired culture will take root and influence the behavior of the team.

To develop a culture that works, follow six rules: Ground your culture in the dilemmas you are likely to confront, dilemma-test your values, communicate your values in colorful terms, hire people who fit, let culture drive strategy, and know when to pull back from a value statement.

Start by thinking about the dilemmas your people will face.

Idea in Brief

The problem.

There’s a widespread understanding that managing corporate culture is key to business success. Yet few companies articulate their corporate culture in such a way that the words become an organizational reality that molds employee behavior as intended.

What Usually Happens

How to fix it.

Follow six rules: Ground your culture in the dilemmas you are likely to confront, dilemma-test your values, communicate your values in colorful terms, hire people who fit, let culture drive strategy, and know when to pull back from a value.

At the beginning of my career, I worked for the health-care-software specialist HBOC. One day, a woman from human resources came into the cafeteria with a roll of tape and began sticking posters on the walls. They proclaimed in royal blue the company’s values: “Transparency, Respect, Integrity, Honesty.” The next day we received wallet-sized plastic cards with the same words and were asked to memorize them so that we could incorporate them into our actions. The following year, when management was indicted on 17 counts of conspiracy and fraud, we learned what the company’s values really were.

• EM Erin Meyer is a professor at INSEAD, where she directs the executive education program Leading Across Borders and Cultures. She is the author of The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business (PublicAffairs, 2014) and coauthor (with Reed Hastings) of No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention (Penguin, 2020). ErinMeyerINSEAD

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Whoever i am: on the quality of life.

1. That This

I must interrupt to say that ‘X’ is what exists inside me. ‘X’—I bathe in that this [ esse isto ]. It’s unpronounceable. All I do not know is in ‘X’ … Always independent, but it only happens to whatever has a body. Though immaterial, it needs our body and the body of the thing. –Clarice Lispector, Agua Viva

The structure of the question is implicit in all experience. –Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method

Life is a series of experiences which need innumerable forms. –Meher Baba

2. Everyone First!

3. is a bone, 4. facing the face, 5. who am i, 6. ellipsis, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Share and Cite

Masciandaro, N. Whoever I Am: On the Quality of Life. Religions 2024 , 15 , 735. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15060735

Masciandaro N. Whoever I Am: On the Quality of Life. Religions . 2024; 15(6):735. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15060735

Masciandaro, Nicola. 2024. "Whoever I Am: On the Quality of Life" Religions 15, no. 6: 735. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15060735

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• Knowledge Base
• College essay

How Long Should a College Essay Be? | Word Count Tips

Published on September 29, 2021 by Kirsten Courault . Revised on June 1, 2023.

Most college application portals specify a word count range for your essay, and you should stay within 10% of the upper limit. If no word count is specified, we advise keeping your essay between 400 and 600 words.

You should aim to stay under the specified limit to show you can follow directions and write concisely. However, if you write too little, it may seem like you are unwilling or unable to write a thoughtful and developed essay.

Table of contents

Word count guidelines for different application types, how to shorten your essay, how to expand your essay, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about college application essays.

Each university has a different suggested or required word count depending on which application portal it uses.

Some application portals will allow you to exceed the word count limit, but admissions officers have limited time and energy to read longer essays. Other application portals have a strict limit and will not allow you to exceed it.

For example, in the Common App , the portal will not allow you to submit more than 650 words. Some colleges using the Common App will allow you to submit less than 250 words, but this is too short for a well-developed essay.

For scholarship essays , diversity essays , and “Why this college?” essays , word count limits vary. Make sure to verify and respect each prompt’s limit.

Don’t worry too much about word count until the revision stage ; focusing on word count while writing may hinder your creativity. Once you have finished a draft, you can start shortening or expanding your essay if necessary.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

On some application portals, you can exceed the word limit, but there are good reasons to stay within it:

• To maintain the admissions officer’s attention
• To show you can follow directions
• To demonstrate you can write concisely

Here are some strategies for shortening your essay.

Stay on the main point

It’s good to use vivid imagery, but only include relevant details. Cut any sentences with tangents or unnecessary information.

My father taught me how to strategically hold the marshmallow pierced by a twig at a safe distance from the flames to make sure it didn’t get burned, ensuring a golden brown exterior.

Typically, my father is glued to his computer since he’s a software engineer at Microsoft. But that night, he was the marshmallow master. We waited together as the pillowy sugary goodness caramelized into gooey delight. Good example: Sticks to the point On our camping trip to Yosemite, my family spent time together, away from technology and routine responsibility.

My favorite part was roasting s’mores around the campfire. My father taught me how to hold the marshmallow at a safe distance from the flames, ensuring a golden brown exterior.

These college essay examples also demonstrate how you can cut your essay down to size.

Eliminate wordiness

Delete unnecessary words that clutter your essay. If a word doesn’t add value, cut it.

Here are some common examples of wordiness and how to fix them.

Use a paraphrasing tool

If you want to save time, you can make use of a paraphrasing tool . Within the tool you can select the “short” mode to rewrite your essay in less words. Just copy your text in the tool and within 1 click you’ll have shortened your essay.

If you’re significantly under the word count, you’re wasting the opportunity to show depth and authenticity in your essay. Admissions officers may see your short essay as a sign that you’re unable to write a detailed, insightful narrative about yourself.

Here are some strategies for expanding your essay.

Show detailed examples, and don’t tell generic stories

You should include detailed examples that can’t be replicated by another student. Use vivid imagery, the five senses, and specific objects to transport the reader into your story.

Reveal your feelings and insight

If your essay lacks vulnerability or self-reflection, share your feelings and the lessons you’ve learned.

Be creative with how you express your feelings; rather than simply writing “I’m happy,” use memorable images to help the reader clearly visualize your happiness. Similarly, for insight, include the follow-up actions from your lessons learned; instead of claiming “I became a hard worker,” explain what difficult tasks you accomplished as a result of what you learned.

If you want to know more about academic writing , effective communication , or parts of speech , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Academic writing

• Writing process
• Transition words
• Passive voice
• Paraphrasing

 Communication

• How to end an email
• Ms, mrs, miss
• How to start an email
• I hope this email finds you well
• Hope you are doing well

 Parts of speech

• Personal pronouns
• Conjunctions

Most college application portals specify a word count range for your essay, and you should stay within 10% of the upper limit to write a developed and thoughtful essay.

You should aim to stay under the specified word count limit to show you can follow directions and write concisely. However, don’t write too little, as it may seem like you are unwilling or unable to write a detailed and insightful narrative about yourself.

If no word count is specified, we advise keeping your essay between 400 and 600 words.

If you’re struggling to reach the word count for your college essay, add vivid personal stories or share your feelings and insight to give your essay more depth and authenticity.

If your college essay goes over the word count limit , cut any sentences with tangents or irrelevant details. Delete unnecessary words that clutter your essay.

You can speed up this process by shortening and smoothing your writing with a paraphrasing tool . After that, you can use the summarizer to shorten it even more.

There is no set number of paragraphs in a college admissions essay . College admissions essays can diverge from the traditional five-paragraph essay structure that you learned in English class. Just make sure to stay under the specified word count .

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San Francisco Giants week in review: An off-the-wall call, long home runs, and a perfect bunt

After losing their first game of June, the Giants were a game under .500. Since then, they’ve been a game under .500 on four separate occasions, and they’re 0-4 in those games. They were 3-3 last week, and they want to be .500 so bad . They’ve scored 66 runs this month, and they’ve allowed 66 runs. All they want to be is the take-a-penny, leave-a-penny tray of the National League.

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Of course, so does every other team in the NL. Which is how the Giants are still a half-game back of postseason position, behind … squints …  the Washington Nationals.

The third wild card is a crime against the sport. Except the Giants are also just a game behind the Cardinals for the  second wild card. This has the potential to be the dumbest season in recent memory, and that’s at least a partial compliment. Dumb seasons can end in parades. And abject misery. But also parades.

Here’s the week that was in Giants baseball:

A new call in the Giants announcer canon

It’s not dag-yabel-got-em , if only because nothing ever will be. It’s not “ Aaaaarrrrrriaasssss from deeeeeeep thirrrrrd ” because the stakes weren’t nearly as high, and they weren’t in the same galaxy. But Duane Kuiper had another all-time call that should live in our brains for a while, if we’re lucky.

when someone asks you what your favorite Michael Jackson album is and you panic https://t.co/aOEwSShNyt — Grant Brisbee (@GrantBrisbee) June 11, 2024

That’s six full seconds between “ hits it deep ” and “ off the wall .” Six seconds shouldn’t feel that long, but when the wiring of your brain is soldered into place, you expect a half-second between “ hits it deep ” and “ outta herrrreeeee ” on a walk-off, max. Any longer, and it starts to feel like you’re being set up for something, like with the extremely literal doctor in “Arrested Development.” Three seconds would have been agonizing. Watch the video again and count along. One, two, three, please give me closure. This was six seconds.

My hypothesis — completely unconfirmed — is that an extra two or three seconds weren’t a part of the initial confusion. They were added for the viewer’s benefit. It was way to turn a simple, understandable mistake (I, too, thought it was 14 rows back off the bat) into something more, a walk-off call that still resonated, even after the specific moment was missed. Kuiper saw everyone running out of the dugout, and he saw Slater stop at first to await the scrum. But the extra beat gave it something extra, as did the as-if-nothing-was-out-of-the-ordinary intonation of “ off the wall .” He had to build back up to get to that kind of call, as if he were parodying himself.

Am I reading too much into this? Yes, but only because I’ve spent about 10 to 15 percent of my life listening to this guy’s voice. I get to extrapolate. And this was a perfectly imperfect call. I love it dearly.

Also, Austin Slater is hitting .409 with a .500 OBP since coming off the injured list. His slugging since then is only .546 because that hit counted as a single. Seems encouraging.

Home run of the week

I regret to inform the haters that Soler Power is in fact, back ☀️ pic.twitter.com/CKfid2v5yk — SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) June 16, 2024

When I watch a home run like this one — hit so hard that you can feel the sound off the bat — my initial impulse is to laugh. They say there’s no cheering in the press box, but you can definitely laugh. And when I’m watching at home, I can laugh hard enough to annoy the people around me because they have no choice.

But if I see a home run like this while I’m online, even if I’m watching it live, but on my phone or computer, this tweet takes over:

do enough people know the classic Hanna-Barbera character Snagglepuss to get how funny it would be to hear him say the phrase "lol, lmao even" — Jackson McHenry (@McHenryJD) April 14, 2024

I hate this tweet! It’s ruined my internal monologue. For Jorge Soler’s home run, it’s all I could think about.

This is because nobody can possibly think of a better description. A thousand poets, given a thousand years, couldn’t come up with a better description. In your best Snagglepuss voice: “lol, lmao even.” That baseball is not with us anymore.

(Of course, the real home run of the week was probably this one from Logan O’Hoppe , and now you can react like a very  sad Snagglepuss. Still works.)

Home run of the week (runner up)

If you’re a completionist, make sure to listen to the radio call from Jon Miller on KNBR (about 3:30 in) . There’s nothing better than a no-doubt homer call from a master of no-doubt homer calls. Heliot Ramos hit .370/.400/.667 with two homers, two doubles and seven RBIs last week, and he did it while playing a solid center field. Seems good? Seems good.

Here’s something else to stuff in that corncob pipe of yours: Ramos currently leads all NL outfielders in WAR, according to Baseball-Reference. We’re still a couple of weeks away from All-Star selections, and a lot can go wrong, but is this where the madness ends?

As a reminder: The Giants haven’t sent a homegrown outfielder to the All-Star Game since Chili Davis in 1984. Davis was drafted when “Star Wars” was still in the theaters. He was drafted before I was born, and I’m both completely gray and entirely washed. That’s how long it’s been. So let’s look for which homegrown Giants outfielders have had the best arguments for an All-Star selection since Davis in ’84.

The criteria:

• The outfielder had to have been drafted by the Giants or signed as an international free agent

• At least 150 at-bats

• An OPS over .800 in the first half of the season

Doesn’t seem that complicated or difficult. Especially when you consider this search encompasses the last 40 seasons of Giants baseball. There has to be a long, long,  long list, right?

Here is that list.

Please, check my work . If I’ve omitted someone or miscategorized them, I beg you to correct me. Because this should not be a correct list. This is a dumb, impossible list. This is every Giants homegrown outfielder with a first-half OPS over .800 in the last four decades, and it makes no sense.

Does Ramos make it? With another couple of weeks hitting at this level, I’m confident he does. But that’s a huge caveat. There are a lot of at-bats involved with those couple weeks. Still, we’re having this conversation, which is an unambiguously good thing. Is Ramos the best homegrown Giants outfielder since Nate Schierholtz or Marvin Benard? Feels like that shouldn’t be the highest bar to clear.

Requiem for a bunt that didn’t mean a whole lot, but could have, and we should all appreciate the effort

This bunt came after a Ramos homer brought the Giants to within two runs. It was a perfect bunt. It was a beautiful bunt. It was worthy of a comparison to Grégor Blanco’s best bunts in 2014. It ended up meaning nothing. But listen to the crowd as Patrick Bailey is stepping into the box. They’re buzzing. The camera is literally shaking. Everyone is looking for another reason to scream.

It’s a single in the box score now, and nothing more. But look at how perfect the bunt was. Look at how perfect the timing was. If you can’t celebrate moments like this, even when they don’t lead to a win, you’re baseballing all wrong.

(As an aside, I was watching the game with my wife, and I said “They’re going to score five runs here, just watch,” and they did, so she got mad at me for pretending that the game was live and not recorded. Except it was a live game and my wild guess was just that good. I wasted all that premonition for nothing. No monetary rewards. No good results for the game in general. All I got was this lousy paragraph. But it was really funny to watch her search and search again for the current state of the game.)

Spencer Bivens has a major-league win

Kyle Harrison is on the IL with an ankle sprain, which is bad news, but Spencer Bivens is up in his place, and you should be excited. If you can’t commit to being excited, you should at least be curious. In 2022, Zach Buchanan wrote an excellent feature on Bivens that started with Bivens in Gastonia, N.C., and playing with the Honey Hunters. The first time Bivens played baseball for money was in France, which isn’t where a baseball player’s first pro experience should happen. That’s where you should go if you want to play pétanque for money.

Bivens has been on the radar since spring training, when he impressed the coaching staff, especially Dave Righetti . You can see why he was impressing wizened eyes. Look at this sinker. It’s goofy.

Spencer Bivens: 🔥 3 IP 🔥 1 H 🔥 4 Ks 🔥 1 W pic.twitter.com/2tkhKEKSYg — SFGiants (@SFGiants) June 16, 2024

That’ll play, although he’ll need to keep honing his command and control. If you needed another reason to root for Bivens, here’s sample of his general vibes:

Who is Spencer Bivens, the prospect the Giants recently moved from minor-league camp to major-league camp? I could bore you with stats to make you excited about him, or I could take a screenshot of his Instagram account (and incredible username). pic.twitter.com/LxJxa9RQNb — Grant Brisbee (@GrantBrisbee) March 5, 2024

That’ll play. That will also play. A bullpen with Camilo Doval, different Rogeresres and a side-stepping Ryan Walker is fun enough. Add in a 6-foot-11 Sean Hjelle and a 99-mph throwing left-hander like Erik Miller, only then to introduce Bivens as an under-the-radar funk maestro?

It might not be the best bullpen you’ve ever seen, but it won’t be a boring one. May this bullpen pitch in interesting times.

(Top photo of Slater after his walk-off hit: John Hefti / USA Today)

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Grant Brisbee is a staff writer for The Athletic, covering the San Francisco Giants. Grant has written about the Giants since 2003 and covered Major League Baseball for SB Nation from 2011 to 2019. He is a two-time recipient of the SABR Analytics Research Award. Follow Grant on Twitter @ GrantBrisbee