Each and every point that you make needs to be backed up by specific instances， examples， and scenarios from your experience. These details make your story special， unique， and interesting. Look at the detail used by the writer of Essay 12， for example， in the second half of the essay entitled "Learning to Surf." She moved in "last August， " lived in "Paris for 21 years， " averaged "90 hours a week， " started "Bright and early on a sunny Saturday afternoon" despite" pale skin and weak arms. " This could have easily boiled down to， "I moved from another country to the United States. Since I was working long hours， I decided to learn how to surf. " This shows the difference between a fun， interesting treatment of a story and a yawn- inducing account that could be attributed to any of a thousand different people.

　　Develop the good habit of backing up all your assertions and claims of success with detailed descriptions of results. Use actual numbers and statistics if you have them. Essayist 19， for example， asserts， "I was quite successful as a tutor. " That statement standing alone would not convince anyone. It would probably seem like little more than an inflated （and pompous！） claim had the author not backed it up with the following： "One young man increased his Math S.A.T. by 150 points. Another student improved so dramatically in geometry， her test scores jumped from about 55 percent to over 90 percent， that her teacher kept her after class and asked if she was cheating. "

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