Content over style.

I recently finished reading two books that I had been putting off for a long time. Freakonomics and The Witch of Portobello (by that guy who also wrote 'The Alchemist'). Now this blog is not meant to be a critique of the two books but rather an observation of the hold the two books had over me as I read them. The Witch of Portobello is a work of fiction and therefore the author had leeway to introduce whatever he needed to spice up the plot and keep the reader enthralled. On the other hand, Freakonomics was factual in that it relied on actual real life data to draw a connection between causes and effects.

Now one would expect a work of fiction with it's implied suspense, drama and human emotions to trump a book by an economist relying on cold hard numbers. I could identify with Paulo Coelho's message and found myself nodding in agreement through many parts of the book without realizing it so it was definitely a good read. However, while I skipped through some of Coelho's dreamy passages to get to the end faster, Freakonomics kept me interested in each and every word from cover to cover. Steven Levitt achieved this without the use of metaphors and other figures of speech that come naturally to gifted writers.

This gives me hope that I don't need to be able to make the adcom laugh at my anecdotes or move them to tears on reading the story of my life. As long as I can present my ideas in a coherent, compelling manner I should be able to make my essays interesting to the reader and present a good picture of me.