Essays

I hate them. I hate everything about them. I hate their length-too long to be easy to read, too short to actually contain in-depth information. I hate the way they always have this kind of introductory paragraph. I hate the formulaic way they're always constructed.
And yet there's no escaping them. As of this moment, I've written eleven essays in the past six days (twelve if you count the one I'm writing right now). Wake Forest requires seven, count 'em, seven essays for their general admission application alone. Throw in the three catagories of scholarships I'm applying for, and I have fourteen essays to write for that illustrious institution. Davidson is next; I can't wait.
How do you write twelve essays in six days? You don't; you write about three and a half. The rest you just recycle from the essays you've already written, like thus:
Introductory paragraphs are all just generealized restatements of the prompt, so just change the syntax of what they ask you and you're in pretty good shape. Start things off with "Webster's dictionary defines ___ as..."; it's cleary the easiest and cheapest opening of all time. Be sure to throw in your thesis toward the end of that paragraph, with the requisite three subheadings (why is it that every distinguished piece of writing has three, and exactly three, subheadings?), and some kind of awkward transition to the beginning of the body.
The body of the paper is supposed to contain the substance, but substance is all in the eyes of the beholder. Just be sure to never say exactly what you mean; "It is imperative that, through the arrangement of awkward syntactical elements and careful use of diction, you dissuade any would-be interpreters of your prose from seriously attempting the considerable task of diving the ture meaning on the page." Ending deceptive sentences like that one with plain word choices, (i.e. "on the page") will wake up the reader and convince them that you are a sophisticated writer who can also be blunt when needed, rather than a pompous ass that has no real point.
Another excellent technique in writing the body of your paragraph is employing the copy and paste functions on your word processor. For example, I was asked to write an essay with the prompt, "Please give us a brief chapter from your autobiography." I did just that; I copied an actual entry from the autobiography we were required to write in freshman english.
Conclusions are, by their nature, awkward, so keep them brief. This is an excellent time to restate your thesis, pretty much word-for-word, from paragraph 1. By now any sane reader will have lost all cognisence of what's going on, so this is a good time to say things unrelated to the topic like, "Man, I'm hungry," or, "No fat chicks!" All that's left is a statement that, while not technically related in any way to what's going on, sounds deep, insightful and conclusive. Surely this will serve as a guide that, through dilligent use, will prove helpful in the future.