I had a colleague review my essays and offer criticism. She offered note on revised a little here and there and added EM dashes. After looking up how to properly use them, I added a few of my own to help make parts of my personal statement more concise. I know the known assumption tends to be that ChatGPT wrote your essays if it includes EM dashes. Would it be better to remove them before submitting my application, so that admissions does not think I used AI to write my essays?
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I'd say write as you normally write, not whether AI or not. There will be people who use em dashes like myself, and that's just a stylistic choice. But as a general rule, you should use em dashes sparingly. Also, if you use an em dash, then there should be some intent of using it, not because it looks "fancy".
I wasn't aware people did things in essays to "look fancy". I just used them because it made the wording seem to flow better.
Unless you’re doing lots of other things that tend to be indicators of AI writing, don’t worry about it. Em dashes can just be another way of offsetting asides. Heck, you can just use en dashes to achieve the same basic effect!
@JacobBaska thank you! All I have left is my resume. In my education section, should I separately list all the times I made the dean’s list, just list it once and add the different dates or only add it once and put that it was multiple instances?
I love using the em dash too, but I am aware of the growing stigma against its use due to LLMs loving to use them. I'd continue using them if you have purpose for it. You shouldn't be discouraged from writing the way you yourself love to write, but just act accordingly to what the social situation is I suppose.
@180UChicagoOrBust The essays just felt like they flowed better with them. But I'm worried it may put me at a disadvantage if they think I had AI write my paper for me.
I use em dashes only when I have time to perfect my writing. On the argumentative writing I did not use em dashes so I decided to not use them on the personal statement or essays. If you use em dashes automatically and you used them in the argumentative writing, I think you are fine.
@Peter888 I did not use them in my argumentative writing since I had never used one before. It was not until this week that I even looked up what they were and how to use them properly. I have been working on my essays for quite a while now. But I don't want to use them if admissions will automatically think it equates to using AI. I have never even used ChatGPT before and I don't want my essay to be flagged.
this sounds like too many em dashes for a 2-page essay
@blueorbit2400 Not sure how you came to that conclusion based on what I said. Especially when I said I had her review essays, as in plural. I have 3 of them.
Your posts suggests there could be, maybe, more than 4 em dashes in the personal statement, which is just a 2-page essay. That's too many. We don't know exactly how many em dashes were used, but if it's more than 2, that's a lot. "She... added EM dashes. I added a few of my own to help make parts of my personal statement more concise." The personal statement is one essay. Having multiple EM dashes from a reviewer, then adding a "few," is a lot. That could be 2-3 per page. Regardless, they should be used very sparingly. More than 1-2 in a 2-page essay could look excessive or throw off AI flags.
@blueorbit2400 This reply itself was actually helpful, thank you! And my personal statement is actually 3 pages but I had 2 additional required essays that are 2 and 1 pages long. I went through and made sure there were not an excessive amount.