申请文中的vivid description－－捡垃圾的艺术 (original) (raw)

申请季时常有学生问：“什么是好的英文写作？” 写作总是目的性的，写小说和申请文技巧不同，本科申请文和学术向研究生申请的SOP不同，不同专业和学校也不同。Good writing is written for a purpose. 了解读者和写作目的至关重要。 拿本科申请举例，vivid description用精湛的文笔＋细节来营造画面感，一般比analytical essay容易上手，也更容易打动招生官。

active voice和concrete details是骨，不知疲惫的沉浸式阅读和谨慎的仿写练习是血肉生长的过程。An effective writer is inevitably an avid reader.用一篇common app上的优秀申请文举例，作者风趣幽默写了她与众不同的爱好－－慧眼识珠收集垃圾。

We had run into my mother’s friend from college at the local supermarket. “Oh!” She stepped forward with a huge grin and pinched my little brother’s cheeks in adoration. “What a handsome boy!” She then turned to me, warm smile unwavering, and patted my head semi-sympathetically. “Don’t worry. You’ll become a big, beautiful girl someday.”

Ouch.

（通过母亲友人来点出弟弟的光芒vs自己的暗淡不起眼）

My little brother and I are vastly contrasting characters. I indulge in Marvel comics. He indulges in encyclopedias. I star as Celine Dion in the shower. He stars as the lead in his elementary school play. As a technological numbskull, I was still trying to figure out how to print from the printer at age ten. As an engineering prodigy, he was helping my father rewire computers at age eight. All in all, he is an impeccable circle. I am a dilapidated square. As a little girl constantly compared to her archetypal perfect younger brother, I came to detest uniformity at a young age.

Whatever he did, I would try to do better. Except, as every such story goes, you know that’s never how it works. He excelled in school, in acting, in engineering, and to add salt to the wound, could eat Five Guys on a daily basis without gaining a single pound. Some could argue that he was better at, well, life in general. But there was one thing that belonged to me and only me. One thing my germaphobic little brother could not touch.

My precious, beautiful garbage collection.

（用细节进一步捧弟踩己。这种先抑后扬的苦难帮写法一不小心就会显得bitter，作者很好的用幽默感做了平衡，弟弟吃垃圾食物都不胖老姐我输的心服口服_(:△」∠)_ 这两段有一个和文末的呼应，还有一个悬念。弟弟是impeccable circle，对比之下老姐是dilapidated square。可是如此废柴的姐还是在一个点上打败对细菌特别恐慌的弟弟，那就是－－收集垃圾）

As a young child, I’ve never had a thing for playing doll house or racing mini plastic cars. My hobby was rather unique, an adventure inside and outside my dwelling, a constant stream of excitement waiting to unfold. I loved sorting through trash. Or rather, what others saw as trash. For me, they were colorful building blocks, unformed balls of fresh clay with a modest sheen and the musty scent of earth, waiting to be molded. Crinkled candy foil became bouquets of shiny flowers. Used electrical tape became macramé bracelets. Where others saw unusable, stained, broken, I saw art. The recycling bin was my muse. Garbagewoman was my superhero name.

（娴熟幽默的文字带来画面感）

By high school, my brother had gone on to building RC airplanes. I, on the other hand, had gone insane. Inspired by Project Runway, the local thrift store became my Mood. I bought and tore apart countless defunct three dollar dresses to combine with steel mesh and bent safety pins and grommets to form my own outlandishly imaginative Haute Couture collection. I’ve also earned a self-proclaimed medical degree in bottle dissection, the science of cleanly slicing beer and wine glass with rubbing alcohol, matches, and ice, a rebirth in fire into glittering mosaics and decorative candle holders. I folded, cut, layered, and seared plastic bags into delicate peonies, assembled into bouquets for mother’s day and corsages for homecoming. I even formed a symbiotic relationship with my little brother by collecting the broken circuit boards he discards in his engineering projects, employing the swirls of geometry and little metal knobs in my latest wire jewelry collection. Little by little, I found my own little niche amongst my family and my peers, not as my brother’s sister, but as That Crazy Art Child, the quirky artist who creates beauty from disrepair.

（大部分申请人会选择650字的大篇幅来写的经历，作者用短短200字写的更引人入胜。巧妙选择最有活力的三个经历片段来突出自己化腐朽为神奇的功力。做绣娘用3刀买来的破旧二手衣服做成想象力炸成烟花的高定，切割啤酒瓶和酒杯来做漂亮的镶嵌画和烛台，把塑料袋做成母亲节的花束礼物。简短、有力、有趣地完成了申请大学的PS应该发挥的作用－－展现乐观积极的性格，can-do attitude, 审美，创造力。）

I don’t usually try to explain my weird fascination with trash. Perhaps I feel pity for those forgotten artifacts of sepia pasts, discarded for the newer and better. Perhaps I enjoy my modest version of playing god, of idealistic rebellion, of raising the dead in Frankensteinian amalgamations of unorthodox beauty. Perhaps I see myself in all their imperfections and potential. All I know for certain is that they have taught me to believe in growth, in transformation, in the idea that there is no futile action, no useless object- only unexcavated possibilities.

I am a square. A pragmatic idealist. An unconventional artist. Garbagewoman.

I will never lose my edge.

（文末作者又幽了反骨一默。呼应了前文I am a square and will never lose my edge）

看完这篇文章，我对捡垃圾化腐朽为神奇的功力深深打动，随手搜了一下国外一个牛人的作品（不是这篇文章作者的作品）

把树林里边角的木头搬回来，施展女子力用机器切成木块

再回到申请文中，针对不同文体立意的要求，有的时候需要做个角色转换，不再是仰着头恨不能述尽自己的优秀经历希望女神校垂青的申请人，而是一位从容不迫的说好故事的人。