How To Write A College Level Essay (Simple Guide for Newbies)

August 20, 2019 by Akanksha Aggarwal Leave a Comment

Colleges, as well as scholarships, often require students to write a college essay during the application. The reason for having you write a college level essay is to see how you can tell important information about yourself or why you are willing to get a higher education. Such essays allow learning more about you and your personality before they decide if you are a good fit.

It can be a rather daunting task to craft such as essay and make it sound persuasive. So, here is a simple guide on how to write your first college essay.

Don’t Panic!

Writing your college essay for the first time can be a challenging task. It certainly requires lots of time and effort. We can even say this task is not for everyone. Some students may have excellent writing skills and great imagination, while for others this paper would mean lots of sleepless nights full of stress. Then turning to the essay writer can be a smart idea. Remember that you are not alone.

There is no need to worry or think that others are better at this task than you. Nobody is waiting for you to submit a perfectly-written essay. After all, you will go to college or university to acquire new skills there. In other words, your aim is not to hand a flawless scientific paper but rather to showcase your personality and your major strengths.

Basic Essay Writing Rules

Experts suggest starting with creating a base essay and gathering all the relevant information you would like to include in the final paper. Later on, you will be able to edit, cut and add any necessary parts of the document. This is a great tip for students who apply to various colleges, universities or scholarships. You don’t want to rewrite every other essay from scratch. Thus, having an initial base document will facilitate future work significantly.

Every student wants to reduce stress and avoid time-consuming projects. While you can’t postpone writing a college essay, you can learn the basic strategies and make this process easier and hassle-free.

Don’t make the paper too personal or include too make details. Express how you can reach self-realization in life, what helped you grow as a person and develop during different periods of life. Tell about your accomplishments and what you’ve learned from them, including some inspirational examples and just create a pleasant atmosphere so that it would be a delight to read your essay.

Tips For Writing a College Essay

Be honest

You may desperately want to win this scholarship or enter a certain college. However, it’s important to be honest and tell only true things in your essay.

Although having to deal with this task seems complicated, you just need to make it as simple as possible. Remember that it’s your essay and you can choose which parts to include and which information to omit.

Select certain events in your life that helped you achieve something and develop over time. Ask yourself if the information you want to include is relevant and important to the topic of your essay. Don’t mention too personal details and events as your paper should still be written in the formal style.

Format and Proofread It

Once the writing part is completed, you need to take some time and make sure all the style guidelines are followed. Every college or scholarship provider may have different requirements, so check them out before you submit the final document.

Also, it’s essential to use proper grammar and spelling. Always proofread and edit the final draft of the paper to be sure that it’s flawless and error-free. Nobody wants to read papers with silly mistakes. You can also ask a friend or a family member to reread the paper for you and let you know about any typos or misspellings.

Follow these basic rules for college essay writing and craft an outstanding paper. Remember that you are not alone and thousands of other students are doing the same thing.

End Note

You have two options when you need to get your college essay written: you may either do it yourself using this helpful information, or you can opt for a professional essay writing agency and get your paper edited or even written from scratch by experts.

Understanding Search Intent/Query – Keyword Intent For Beginners

July 19, 2019 by Akanksha Aggarwal Leave a Comment

Planned to start a blog of your own? Have you read carefully about Search Intent and why is it necessary? If not, you must start right now, right here. Search or Keyword Intent is basically how you are selecting what must be put on your blog and whatnot. To be straight forward, by doing the correct research you are making it possible for your blog to reach to the audience and earn respect in the market. Not only you will be able to attract your target audience, but the conversion rate will also be higher. Already have a blog but weren’t sure about this? Go and optimize your posts after reading this article.

What is Search Intent/Query?

Search query or intent is what a user is looking for on a search engine. The keywords or search phrases that potential clients/customers/readers put up in the search bar of a search engine which lead them to various platforms that will provide them what they are looking for. Search results are based on what their goal is, where they want to reach, and what they want to see. They could be looking for a place to buy iPhones, so the search result will show them the best websites/online marketplaces selling the iPhone.

Importance Of Search Query

If you are thinking that how does that benefit us – the bloggers? Well, the most important thing in a bloggers work is satisfying the needs of the target audience. And how can you fulfill that need? That could be done when you give them exactly what they asked for. So, if you follow and research a little about the search intent of a user regarding any topic, you will be able to reach out more. What do we get from this? Optimizing your content according to the intent of the users is very important from SEO point of view too. And obviously you got to take care that your content satisfies the search intent of a user when you are working on On-Page SEO.

As an entrepreneur, if you want to convert more customers than your competitors, then you need to provide them the content based on their requirements, not based on what you can write.

Let’s see an example of this. Suppose someone, say X opened her browser and looked up “how to use shampoo”. Now, what do you think that the results should be? Does she want a long list of shampoos that she could use? Would she like if she got contact information of salons where shampoo service is provided? OR Is she looking for a blog where she could find a tutorial on how she should apply shampoo on her hair? Did you choose the third option? Of course, she is looking for a blog. So, her intent is to find an informational post. On the basis of the requirement of users, the search question intent is classified in 3 different types. Let’s see what they are.

Types Of Google Search Queries

As I pointed out, there are three types of search queries or intents. This is based on what the users look for on search engines.

Informational Searches
Transactional Searches
Navigational Searches

Informational Searches – What do they mean?

These searches are those which you just type in to find the meaning/information/tutorial on any topic. Suppose you are looking for a way to clean that greasy stain on your white shirt, what will you type in Google search bar? I know I would type “how can I remove pasta sauce stain from white shirt” or something straight like “greasy stain what to do?” I would get results based on this query. And how does the Search Engine know which results to show? It will fetch the most relevant webpages which will contain the given keyword or near to it. Ranking for such informational search keywords is an easy way to increase your organic keywords better than your competitors.

Transactional Searches – What are they?

When a user goes to a search engine to buy a certain product or service, that search is known as Transactional search.

When a user is going to make a purchase, or they want to compare prices/products they will want to look at pages who provide them correct prices, specifications, and ways to buy those products. For example, there is Amazon where users can find these products to buy. But those sites which provide information plus links which lead to such online market websites are the once providing results to help consumers in such queries.

So what kind of keywords do a user use for such an intent?

Suppose someone, sat Y has to buy a new laptop for work. They might type in the query box “Best laptop for office under $1000” or “buy laptops” or “Apple MacBook Pro buy”.

Navigational Searches – User Knows The Destination

These types of searches require very less amount of optimization as compared to others. When a user has there Destination in mind and knows which website they want to access, their intent is called Navigational. We could say they are asking Google to give them the right path to a certain website whose website address they don’t know.

For example, if you type in “How To Wiki” in the search bar, it means that you are looking for this website but might not remember the website address correctly.

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Now which type of results will satisfy the need of a user is all up to SERP. If they are looking for a definition, a Snippet will be best; but if they are looking up details about a University, then a knowledge graph will cut the deal. Similarly, if someone looks up “latest movies” then the Carousels element will show up.

Tell me, which of the various search query intent does your site serve?

10+ Do’s And Don’ts Of Cover Letters For Resume | Writing Tips

July 17, 2019 by Akanksha Aggarwal Leave a Comment

We all know how Cover letters are necessary for every application you submit online. They not only enhance our possibility of bagging the jobs but also help the recruiter get to know us in a way much better than they could ever know about us from our resume. Cover letters, in general, are a great way of introducing us to any organization in a simple yet effective way.

If you are a newbie and want to know why cover letters are necessary or how to craft a cover letter on your own, then you can read my blog here – writing a killer cover letter in no time.

In this article, we are going to take a step further and understand what are the things that we must include and what things are better left omitted.

Tips For Writing A Cover Letter

Let’s begin with the elements of a cover letter that everyone must remember and master. These elements are as necessary as adding your experience in the resume. Why is that? Because these elements describe you and let the readers know what they can expect.

1)) The first thing that you must always remember to add in a cover letter is the letter heading. What does that mean? A letter heading is just like a company’s letterhead which will include your name, contact information, social profiles, instead of any company’s information.

Not sure what information you must include? Here is a list of things that a recruiter will expect your cover letter to have:

Your name (duh!)

Contact Number (most important)

Address of correspondence

Social Profiles (LinkedIn, email address)

Website (if available)

Apart from these, if you have any other information that you think might interest the reader, you can include that too.

2)) Next, the address of the addressee and their correct names plus their designation is important. Why is that? You see, when you send someone a letter, they expect you to know that you are sending it to them and not a random person. Also, it will make your letter personalized and won’t look like you have used the same letter for all your applications. Don’t do that too though!

3)) After you have written the proper address of the addressee, write the date and subject like any other letter. Then you can start writing your letter.

4)) At the end, don’t forget to include your signature to maintain authenticity.

Easy, right?

Writing a simple cover letter that goes with most of your applications is easy, but writing a cover letter that bags you an interview in your dream company is not that easy. You might think that you will just add the summary of your resume and all will be done – It’s a big no!

There are certain things that you might understand for crafting a letter that catches the eyes of the recruiters in a second and compels them to open and read your resume. There are a lot of resumes in many corporations that go unseen just because the HR was bored while reading the cover letter. True story!

So, what makes a good cover letter? Well, not much! You just need to be true, relevant, impressive – together.

Let’s talk about some things that you can add and should take care of in the cover letter if you want them to hire you!

Cover Letter Do’s and Don’ts

Do’s Of Cover Letters

Make sure you understand the job profile and know what you are applying for. If you are unsure you can re-read the posting. The thing is that the cover letters are supposed to be personalized according to the job profile. If you are not clear what the job posting is then you won’t be able to write it properly. And a general letter will not be sufficient for different companies and roles.
Address the letter to the intended reader only. Suppose you have written the letter to HR manager of the company but it turns out that the recruiter is someone else – that wouldn’t cut the deal right? So, how do you know who to write the letter? As I have already talked about on my other blog about perfect cover letters, you can always call them to know who will be the recruiter. Sometimes the job postings mention who to address the letter to, but you get the idea.
Check and highlight the keywords relevant to the job. Not sure what those keywords are? You will find them in the job posting. Just go to the requirements sections and you can see for yourself. Why is it necessary? If you are applying online, your cover letter will be scanned to check if you have required experience or not, and that will be done by checking those major keywords.
Your passion must show in your letter for the job position, for the company. Show that you are committed to what you do and are enthusiastic for future roles you will be playing.
Along with your passion, show them that you are the person they are looking for. Mention how you can overcome hurdles on your way, give some real-life examples if possible. Tell them how your past experiences made you fit for that job.
Keep the letter short, straightforward, and free of grammatical errors. No one would like to read a foot long letter which is actually just a story about your life. Be logical and put in only what matters for that job. Everything else is right there in your resume already.
Don’t just talk about you require and are seeking. Talk in the language of the company and speak about what you can bring to the company.
Make sure you end the letter with a call to action asking for what the letter is for. It could be to set up a meeting or to make an appointment for an interview.

Don’ts Of Cover Letters

As I mentioned in the Do’s section, don’t bore your reader. The application that you created and sent with such expectations will be sent down the shredder in no time if you do so! Make the presentation of the letter unique so that it stands out and lets the recruiter understand that you mean business.
Don’t repeat things, keep the flow, and give the reader plenty of time to digest what you are writing. Don’t ramble or confuse the recruiter.
Opening statement must be attention-seeking so don’t start it with a boring statement that would just kill the mood of the reader.
Make sure you don’t use slangs or unprofessional language in the text. It will just deduct your points instead of making the letter interesting.
Never ever think that cover letter is not of importance. Most companies don’t even expect applications if they don’t include a cover letter.

Conclusion

To say that we succeed in the first attempt is an exaggeration, never happens in real life. But, we can practice and use these tips on the internet to polish our skills until we make it. Right?

What are your opinions on this article? Do write in comments.

How To Write A Cover Letter For Job – Format, Example, Importance

July 15, 2019 by Akanksha Aggarwal Leave a Comment

Cover letters are of various kinds, and writing a cover letter could really be a task for creative people. This is because even if it is just a piece of paper, it will help the reader decide whether they are going to open the application or not. If your cover letter is not eye-catching or attracts the attention of the reader, then there might be a high chance that your application will be seeing the face of a shredder real soon.

But who said that you cannot create a good cover letter if you are not creative? Or who said that you cannot create a really successful letter without a little help? No one! If you are short on time, or just don’t know how you can create an awesome cover letter – read this guide till the end to understand the basics and advanced rules that you must remember while writing the letter.

What Is The Purpose & Importance Of A Cover Letter

Before we begin with the how-to part, let us see what are the different reasons for which a cover letter is important. If we talk about the basic purpose, your cover letter will introduce you to the reader, the organizations, and your potential employers.

A cover letter will essentially describe your interest in the organizations and draw their attention towards the resume. This will surely motivate the reader to consider you as a potential employee. Remember that a cover letter that you share along with your application is your very first contact with the organization, so a neat and well-written letter would be key to gain further correspondence.

Cover letters are important because they tell the intended reader exactly what they need to know. This includes the type of position you are seeking, and that you are qualified for it. One more thing you can share in the cover letter is any gap or change that you might have taken in your employment history. You can mention the circumstances in a positive way.

An ideal cover letter must – > Introduce you > Mention the job or position you are seeking or applying for > Showcase your skills and experiences that are relevant to the job > Attract the attention of the reader and prompt the reader to read your complete resume > End with you asking for a meeting or interview

How To Start A Cover Letter

To start writing the letter, you must first find out some details about the job and the organizations you are writing the application for.

Yes, just like when you write your resume you research on the company and write the application to match the job – you do that here too.

What you need to know –

1. Check who you should address the letter to. You don’t want to start your letter with just sir or madam, mentioning the person who you think will be reading the letter will increase your chances to get that job. How to find the name of that person? If you found the job posting in an advertisement, they generally mention who to send the application to. Otherwise, you can just give them a call or send an email prior to sending the application and ask.

2. As mentioned above, do your research. About the job, the organization, their website, the employees. Try to find everything you can about the company so that you can make a cover letter that will match the job as well as have the tone of the company.

Having the tone of the company just means that you are talking in their language. You can understand that by visiting their website, reading about them online, connecting to the employees on LinkedIn. You can take this information and include it in the cover letter. For example, you can include that you are good at working in a team and mention your previous experience if the job has a requirement for the same.

Cover Letter For Job Or Internship

After gaining enough information about the desired job, you must start writing your cover letter:

Start by writing a really good introduction/opening line to get your reader hooked. It’s already been mentioned, I know! But it is really important to have your readers more attentive and wanting to read more.
Introduce yourself in the opening line. Make a snappy sentence that will show your enthusiasm and interest in the job position.
Usually, people think that cover letters are just a summary of your resume. But it is not that way. You must go beyond what you have mentioned in your resume. You can expand the points included in the resume and show off what skills you have that would benefit the company.
Don’t talk about what you expect from the company, rather point at the things that you can and will be bringing to the company. For this look into what the job position requirements are and see if you have those qualities. If you do – mention them.
Focus on those past experiences that are necessary for the job you are applying for. If you are looking for a job as a programmer and focusing on how you are good at writing emails, that is just not going to be profitable for you. You can also add details about any summer internship or part-time job that you might have taken which are relevant to the position.
Have worked on a project? Got improvement in the success graph? How about mentioning the numbers in the cover letter itself? This will give your application a boost as you would be providing details about what you can do in very few words.
Share feedback from former co-workers or clients or your ex-boss. It will surely illustrate your skills and passion for the company.
Don’t end with just mentioning your experience, insert a call to action statement at the end. You can include “Awaiting your positive response” or something like that which must highlight your excitement towards the company.

Good Cover Letter Format With Examples

The format of a cover letter starts like any other letter that you work on. It includes your contact information, information of the person it is intended for, the body of the letter, conclusion or ending note, and finally your signature.

The format is always the same for any formal letter; what changes are the details that you include. Let’s break down the cover letter format –

1. Start with the heading of the cover letter. It is just like you see in any company’s letters – a letterhead. You include all your contact information here. This is important to make your letter more precise and less space-consuming.

You must include:

Your name: Full name, and try to make it easy to read. Use a clean font and have the font size more than other elements.

Current Residential Address: Important for any letters or feedbacks the company want to send to you.

Phone number: Include a backup number in case your personal number is unreachable and they want to set up an interview.

Email Address: A professional email address must be included. Online profile: If you have a website, you must include that. Also, share your LinkedIn profile.

2. The date on which you are writing the letter. Necessary to make sure they know that you have created the cover letter fresh and personalized for them.

3. Information of the intended person. The next will be to add the contact information of the person who is going to read your application. It could be the HR of the company or the employer. Use correct and full name and designation. As I have already mentioned, you must dig in to know who will be taking your interview so that you can fill in the details correctly.

Include these details: Name of the Hiring Manager along with the designation Company’s name and address, city, state, and zip code

4. Use correct salutation and address the reader in a respectful manner. You can use a generic greeting too if you don’t know what salutation you must use. Definitely, don’t go for “whoever it may concern”.

5. Next element will be the body of the letter. Start with the introduction paragraph, introduce yourself as I have mentioned before. Then share your experience, highlight any skill that is relevant to the profile. End with the conclusion paragraph in which you will be adding the call to action statement.

6. Finally, end the letter with a generic “thank you” and include your signature and your full name at the end.

Cover Letter For A Job Example

Applying for a job? Here is a sample that you can refer to when you are writing a cover letter for a new job.

PDF Download Word Download

Cover Letter For An Internship Example

For those who are applying for an internship just after college or during there college, can take a look at how simple a cover letter could be kept.

PDF Download Word Download

Conclusion

There are various types of cover letters, for various jobs, businesses and more. The writing style is almost the same for all the job profiles, you just need to take care of the elements that you must include in the piece. I hope you got what you were looking for. Share with us your cover letter story.

5 Things About Black Holes | How Are Black Holes Formed

July 3, 2019 by Akanksha Aggarwal Leave a Comment

With the release of a picture of the Black Hole, everyone is asking How Are Black Holes Formed. It surely has made a really huge impact on Astro fans around the world. And not only the astronomy lovers but everyone around the globe wants to know more about these black holes. Everyone wants to know what the black holes are, and how they are formed. I, myself, am very intrigued and wanted to know about. So, I did a little study about black holes to get a basic understanding of how it works.

So far, I have understood that Black Holes are the objects in the universe which do not have a surface like planets or stars. It is a region in space where matter collapsed in on itself. This collapse has resulted in a huge amount of mass to concentrate in an incredibly small area. The gravitational pull of this area is so strong that not even light can escape it.

The image that we got was the first ever image that could be captured of a black hole which allowed us to have a clear image of how it looks like. Before this, only human imagination, theories, and Christopher Nolan’s take on Black Holes were the only ideas that hinted about how black holes must look like. But now, with this achievement, we all know how the unobservable cosmic abyss might look like.

The first image released by Astronomers taken using the Event Horizon Telescope on 10th April 2019. It is the first ever image that could be taken of the black hole. The supermassive black hole has a mass 7 billion times the Sun’s and is at the core of the supergiant elliptical galaxy Messier 87.

What Is A Black Hole

A region of spacetime that exhibits strong gravitational effects. The gravitational pull of this region is so powerful and strong that not even light could escape from inside it. The general relativity theory predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can deform spacetime to form a black hole. The boundary, from which no escape is possible, is called the event horizon. In many ways, the black hole acts like an ideal black body that reflects no light.

Nasa has provided a video explaining how the black holes are formed in the space science for kids on YouTube –

How Big Are Black Holes

According to NASA, black holes vary in sizes but basically, they are of three types – Primordial, Stellar, and Supermassive Black Holes.

Primordial Black holes

These ones are the smallest and scientists believe that the size of these black holes could range from as small as a single atom with mass near that of a mountain.

Stellar Black holes

These medium-sized black holes are most common ones, they can have mass up to 20 times of the Sun in our Solar System. There are dozens of such Stellar Black Hole within Milky Way Galaxy.

Supermassive Black holes

Then we have supermassive ones, which as the name suggests are the largest of them all. They can have masses up to 1 million times our Sun and diameter even more than the size of our Solar System. A supermassive black hole in Milky Way Galaxy is called Sagittarius A. The mass of Sagittarius A is about equal to 4 million Suns and would be able to fit inside a ball of diameter equal to the size of the Sun.

It is said that every big Galaxy has a Supermassive Black Hole in the center.

How Are Black Holes Formed In Simple Terms

Now, coming to the point. I wanted to know how a black hole is formed so I visited NASA’s web page on “black holes” and did a little reading. According to them, the smallest black holes, Primordial ones, might have been formed just after the big bang. Stellar ones form when a star collapses and its center collapses in upon itself. The collapse causes what we call a Supernova, or an exploding star. Scientists believe that the supermassive black holes are formed along with the galaxies they are in, considering their sizes are relevant.

So, in simple terms, if we explain how black holes are formed then it will go something like this – When a giant star explodes, part of that star is blasted into space. This explosion is called Supernova. Now, if the start had enough mas, its center will collapse on itself to a very small size. With such a small size and huge mass, the gravity of this region will be very strong. It will absorb light due to high gravitation pull and will become a black hole. Black holes keep on absorbing light and mass around them and that is why they grow incredibly huge.

How Many Black Holes Are There

According to Hubblesite, there are some 100 billion stars alone in our Milky Way Galaxy and about 100 million black holes. There are many distant galaxies apart from Milky Way Galaxy, and each probably has millions of black holes of various sizes and masses. So it is impossible to count the number is black holes in the Universe.

Black Hole Theory

Conclusion

I liked reading about it a lot, I got to know various facts that I didn’t know before like Cygnus X-1 is an object that was considered as a black hole for the first time. And that if any start passes really close to a black hole, it might get torn apart. And that if a human ever fell into a black hole, they might turn into noodles.

Which part of Universe baffles you? Share in the comments. And do not forget to share if you liked this piece.