Very open-ended essay prompts

glennmagusharvey

Give me a specific topic, and I will deliver to you a good deal of content.  Give me a very specific topic and specify the parameters (or tell me what I can assume), and I will deliver to you buttloads of content in a well-written essay, even in as little as half an hour.

Give me a general topic, and I will spend the majority of my time trying to figure out what the fuck to say about it.

Give me a completely open-ended topic, especially one asking me a question along the lines of "Tell us something that you think will help us evaluate your application", and I will hate that question.

It's a lot easier to deal with this in conversation.  The most I have to do is to think up a few key points, and then improv my way through sentence by sentence.  I have a good sense of the flow of linguistic tension, like, how much detail to go into each of my points, and then I can run with that.  But when I write an essay, I have to figure out the best way of saying...everything.  Every little detail.

RedEyedAbyss

I love these, actually, especially during exams. They permit you to put any bullshit down rather than be forced to leave good information out because it isn't exactly relevant or come up short because you can't think of enough specific stuff.

Icalasari

Pretend you're speaking to someone about it and type everything you say



What you have said are your parameters