Telling vs. Showing Language

Working at university and college writing centers, the most common genres that I see—after argumentative research papers—are cover letters and personal statements. These two documents are often part of applications for jobs and internships, further degrees or training opportunities, and scholarships, grants, and fellowships. 

Many students writing these genres come into the writing center lacking confidence in their own experiences or doubting that they have anything to offer. Part of my work therefore involves brainstorming with them to discover what aspects of their experience they can showcase in their writing. Generally speaking, I’ve found that a student’s experience is never the weakest part of their application. Instead, the biggest culprit to a weak cover letter or personal statement is the presence of telling language instead of showing language.

So, in this blog post, I’ll talk to you about how you can move from telling language to showing language to make your cover letters and personal statements more engaging (and thus more persuasive) to your readers.

It is easier to talk about “telling” so let’s look at some examples of telling language, and then we’ll come back to showing. Just a note on the examples that I’m using in this post: I’m pulling examples from a workshop I did for clinical psychology students who were applying to internships, so all of my examples here involve language appropriate for that profession; however, the principles I outline are applicable to writing cover letters or personal statements for any purpose.

Here are some examples of telling language. You’ve probably seen similar statements in your own writing: 

“I am very passionate about ….”

“I am excited to....”

“I believe that x is reflected in my clinical experience.” 

These kinds of sentences state something, but they do not provide evidence to support those statements. How do your readers know that you are passionate about x? While you believe that x is reflected in your clinical experience, would your readers draw that same conclusion?

The absence of evidence means your cover letter or personal statement lacks persuasive power—which is the entire purpose of these genres in the first place.

The most common kind of telling language is pandering language. Are phrases like the following ones peppered throughout your cover letter?

“I would consider it a high privilege to…”

“I am writing to express my extreme interest in…”

“Your organization provides unique opportunities to…”

“Your counseling center is my dream placement to advance my career as a psychologist who specializes in x.”

Keep in mind that you have limited space in which to communicate your interest and fit for a position. Fill that space with evidence rather than pandering language. Evidence will be more convincing in the long run.

Other than not providing evidence, there are two more reasons to avoid telling language.  

First, everyone else will be using this language! After reading letter after letter filled with telling and pandering language, everything runs together for a hiring committee and nothing really distinguishes you from other candidates. No impression emerges of who you are and what you bring to the organization.

Second, such statements could be dropped into a letter from an entirely different discipline, and it would still make reasonable sense. If you are writing a letter in the field of clinical psychology, could you drop that same sentence into a letter for social work, education, or nursing and it still make sense? If so, your statement really doesn’t enlighten anybody.

 So now that we’ve discussed telling language, what is showing language?

Showing language paints a picture of you on the job. Those considering your application will have the details of your experience in your resume or CV, but you want to put a human face to those experiences. Can your readers see you collaborating with other professionals and working with clients?

Showing language makes it possible to leave an impression on your reader while still being polite and animated. Let’s look at some examples of showing next to examples of telling so that you can see what I mean.

Example of telling: “I learned to administer group therapy and individual consultations to numerous students during my practicum at X site.”

Example of showing: “During my practicum at X site, my crisis intervention skills strengthened as I administered group therapy and individual consultations to traditional college students. Specifically,…”

Here, instead of listing the things you did, you’ve used the same space to paint a picture of how you grew through that experience. 

Example of telling: “When I interned at AAA site, I administered x and y.”

Example of showing: “As an intern at AAA site, I used x and y to help B overcome z.”

Here, instead of just listing what you did, you used that same space to demonstrate an outcome from your work—in this case, helping a client overcome a presenting problem.

These examples demonstrate how showing language can operate at the sentence level—you don’t necessarily need more space to paint a picture of you at work or demonstrate outcomes from your experience. You can use the same amount of space to demonstrate something—show something—rather than simply list activities that you did—or tell something.  

Sometimes students become discouraged when they discover that their cover letters or personal statements have too much telling language in them. They feel like they’ve wasted time writing that particular draft of their work. In these cases, I show them how telling language can be a stepping stone to showing language.

For example, sometimes a student will protest, “But I don’t know how else to express my passion for x other than saying ‘I am passionate about x’!” In response, I ask them questions: What makes you passionate or excited about working with certain populations? Conducting specific assessments? Or implementing chosen therapies? In these cases, I’m getting them to answer the “why?” question.

Remember—we want to move from telling language to showing language. Certainly, we want as little telling language in our final draft, but it is perfectly ok for telling language to show up in that first draft. Your first draft will be full of telling language because it is so much easier to write, but you can then transform that telling language into showing language by using it as a platform to ask yourself questions about your work. Your answers to those questions will result in showing language.  

Cover letters and personal statements will be some of the hardest genres you’ll write. It will take time to draft them, tailor them, and revise them. Start your drafting process early to give yourself lots of time to revise and re-write them—and be able to move from telling language to showing language.

In this blog post, I’ve talked about the concept of telling vs. showing language. In my next blog post, I’ll talk about two notorious culprits of telling language and how to work with them: lists and dyads.