Writing Feedback / toefl -- needed land / protecting environment [5]

Not bad for a TOEFL essay. You have a clear thesis, three arguments, some grammatical errors but not so many as to make your meaning unclear.


Not sure about your logic here, though. Even if it is true that not all clear-cut land is suitable for farmland, and that the processes you describe adversely affect farming in the long run, it still doesn't mean that the land should be left in its "natural" state, in which it can be expected to produce very little food compared to cultivated land.

Undergraduate / "Two cultures" - STANFORD COMMON APP ESSAY [2]

This essay is already fairly good. You could try strengthening some of your verbs, especially where you find yourself using too many forms of "to be," though. You also might want to cut your last paragraph altogether, as it consists of mostly of trite generalizations. Alternatively, you could rewrite to talk more specifically about what advantages you have, how they are rooted in your dual cultural identity, and how you plan to use them in your quest to help the environment.

Writing Feedback / A licence to Write ? [11]


Ah yes, the occasional octopii. One must definitely watch out for them, especially if the waters in question are Australian.


I love this image, though to be fair, anyone who has learned English fluently and has a taste for literature may quote Shakespeare or accumulate spears of poetic knowledge, regardless of heritage.


Um, unless it is nighttime, the driver will be able to actually see what he is passing over. Eyes on the road, remember? The metaphor is really very nice, until you stop to think about it.

Undergraduate / UT Austin undergraduate transfer essay. Issue of importance: Safe Passing Bill [10]

I like your essay. It is well-written, clearly argued, and opens with a good narrative hook. In short, you have done everything you should do. Excellent job. And I agree with you. Wheeled vehicles belong on the road, not the sidewalk, and in any city core, bikes will be faster a lot of the time than traffic. Heck, I would catch up to cars on my skateboard, and cyclists are generally much faster.


It would also be inaccurate, given that both the House and the Senate apparently voted in favor of the bill. It would seem to be more the personal biases of a single individual.

Undergraduate / "well-rounded person" - FSU entrance essay [8]

Pick a single, specific narrative incident that will allow you to show your good qualities, instead of trying to tell us about them. That will solve a lot of your problems.

Undergraduate / Undergraduate Albany Medical School Admissions Essay [5]

Or perhaps you understood from the start that people's values play an important role in how well they do in life, and that chronic, enduring poverty therefore likely has its roots in the acceptance of poor values? In which case, you could explore that belief, a perfectly reasonable one, also. I'd be more concerned with taking things away than adding, though. Could you say the exact same things you say now in about, say, 20% fewer words and then repost?

Undergraduate / "What makes Stanford a good place for you?" - LAST STANFORD ESSAY [3]

I like the overall approach. My only concern is that it answers the question of "why do you want to go to Stanford?" better than the actual prompt question. What makes Stanford a good place for you? Yes, you had a good time there, but you might have had at many other places, too. What about Stanford makes it a good place for you academically? personally?

Undergraduate / 'Finally!' - Common Application Essay (significant experience) [6]

Pick a different topic. You need a moving life experience that helped shaped the way you see the world. This isn't one. Pick one of your core values, and ask yourself where it comes from, and the experiences that spring to mind should be more along the lines of what you need.

Writing Feedback / "All Cultures Are Created Equal" - Is this categorized as an analytical paper? [3]

Your problem here is that you haven't defined "equality," or, for that matter, "culture." In a whole host of senses, your thesis is demonstrably false. Native American culture is clearly not equal to mainstream American culture, for example. It was not technologically equal when the two cultures met. It is not now socially or economically equal. Inasmuch as these are all elements of culture, your statement is clearly false. Normally, when people say "all cultures are equal," what they really mean is "we would like for people of all cultures to be socially, economically, and legally equal." Or, very often without realizing it "we want one global culture in which everyone subscribes to our core values." Also, if you hadn't noticed, most people who say that various groups are "equal" usually begin by offering an explanation for the inequalities between those groups, as if explaining something were the same as denying it. This should be an immediate clue that various meanings of equal are being employed, with a fair amount of self-deception thrown into the bargain.

The confusion in your thinking is evident from the beginning. American multiculturalism is the best culture because it believes in cultural equality, unlike most other cultures? If you can't say something without contradicting yourself, whatever you are trying to say is false.

Also, you conflate several ideas -- cultural tolerance, belief in individual equality, and belief in racial equality. None of these are necessarily contingent on one another, and all, again, rely on different meanings of equality. No one seriously believes that all people are equal in abilities, or in personality traits. What they mean is that all people are, or at least should be, equal before the law. It doesn't matter if you are stupid, lazy, and/or poor or intelligent, hardworking, and/or rich. If you kill someone in cold blood, you go to jail for the same length of time (ideally).

If you were to make it clear that you realized some of this, and to take account of it, your essay would rapidly become a lot more coherent.

Undergraduate / From a public school to a private, small, all-girls, Catholic high school - I need a simile [10]

Ah, I suppose it would be funny if it were read as a deliberately exaggerated satire. Problem with that is that it isn't immediately obvious that you know you are exaggerating, and there are people shallow enough to react this badly to having to wear a school uniform. Since we don't know you from a hole in the ground, this is a problem. Your intentions as an author might become clearer in a longer essay . . .

Undergraduate / "to expand these values" - Florida State Entrance Essay [5]


They know this already.


This too. They said so in the prompt.


That's nice, but predictable.


And here I was expecting you to say you lacked all of them. *Sigh* Your entire introduction is a waste of however long it takes someone to read it.


Yay! More quoting from the prompt.


And more vague statements of stuff everyone already knows.


Finally! Something interesting. So, start over, and make this the focus of your new, heavily narrative essay, in which you describe the experience in detail and show, rather than tell, how it built up Vires in you.

Writing Feedback / Rambo Verses the Boar; Descriptive Narrative Assignment [8]

Your new conclusion is stronger, but still not that great. The obvious approach here is to denounce gun use vehemently and call for either an outright ban or much stronger gun control. You seem reluctant to do this, though, but as all of your examples are of guns being used negatively, I'm not sure why.

Perhaps you should think more deeply about the examples and see what conclusions you could reasonably draw from what you have described. In the first case, you have an accident in which no one was hurt. I'm not sure if it could have been avoided altogether -- were there safety protocols you should have followed that you didn't? -- but what lessons did you draw from the experience? Did you give up going to the shooting range? What does the second example show about guns? You felt bad about shooting an innocent animal, but it clearly wasn't an accident, and the fault doesn't seem to lie with the weapon. The third example is very gripping, and does show how guns can escalate situations -- even if the shooter had had a knife instead, the dealer's friend might have escaped. On the other hand, is the main lesson here that guns effectively reduce the number of drug dealers on the streets? You have done a good job on the description and narration, but you need to do more interpretation and reflection, and the conclusion is a good place for that.

Grammar, Usage / How to avoid contractions in writing? [11]

Unless you have been specifically told to avoid contractions, you can usually treat them as okay. I don't know where the nonsense about avoiding them comes from, as using them is far more natural than spelling everything out. Generally, what you were doing, namely imagining how your sentences would sound if read out loud, is an excellent way to tell when contractions should be preferred. As for your second example, the best phrasing would depend upon whether or not what you go on to describe really is peculiar, or merely seems so on first glance. Using the word as an adjective or adverb might be better in any event, as neither "it is" nor "it seems" are ever going to win any awards for most interesting phrase of the year.

Poetry / What style is this? Is it even poetry? [12]


Yes, yes, they are. Still, the poetry I like was written by people who made a living writing it. Does anyone writing contemporary poetry manage to make a living doing solely that anymore? And is there maybe a reason for that? Without meter, poetry largely becomes "writing whatever you want with disregard for grammar," or "bad prose," as it would be called if presented in any other form. I grant the importance of imagery, metaphor, and other poetic techniques, but of course the metrical poets used the same things, only under more constraints, and so of necessity with more skill.

Poetry / What style is this? Is it even poetry? [12]

Your first one is, I believe. Prose poetry is a particular genre, though, that blends narrative prose with an attention to imagery and metaphor. If you break it up into lines to make it look like a poem, it just becomes free verse.

Poetry used to be pretty much all metrical. In fact, the use of meter was pretty much what made something a poem. The meter and the rhyme scheme (if any) were largely what determined what type of poem a poem was. Blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) was very popular, as it is the closest meter to regular speech. Sonnets and ballads tended to have set meter and rhyme schemes, and so on. The main skill in poetry was in finding a way to express your thoughts in your chosen meter while making it sound as natural as possible and still using strong imagery throughout. Meter began falling out of favor a century or so ago. Originally, this was just a reaction against the Victorians, who had pretty much got meter down pat, and manifested a desire for creative freedom on the part of the Moderns, who still used and understood meter, just not with strict regularity.

In any event, a good poet controls the rhythm of her words, and this requires some study of meter, even if you never want to write a particularly metrical poem. Getting stress patterns down is difficult, especially since a meter can make certain syllables stressed that normally wouldn't be. Here is an example of a poem written in iambic tetrameter:

The wrink led sea beneath him crawls ; / He watch es from his mount ain walls , / And like a thun derbolt he falls .

Notice that the meter here is so clear you can sing-song it if you want, though you absolutely should not sing-song metrical poetry unless you are deliberately trying to mock it.

Some trochaic poetry (really just iambic in reverse):

Ty ger, ty ger, burn ing bright / in the for ests of the night

Some anapestic poetry:

Twas the night before Christ mas, when all through the house / Not a crea ture was stir ring, not e ven a mouse .

You can probably hear the difference in rhythm in that one. Anapests are very distinctive.

Book Reports / Shakespeare's Henry V Paragraph (received a 65% on it) [8]

Why, it seems as if these wrought blades of knowledge and wisdom might be useful for cutting through chain links, were one weighed down by heavy strands of youthful inexperience.

Some more advice:

1. See if you can find a production of Henry V, and go and see it performed live if at all possible. A faithful movie version would be okay in an pinch, but really, a live performance would be better if you can swing it. Bear in mind, Shakespeare's plays weren't meant to be read -- they were meant to be watched performed on stage. Having body language and tone of voice to work with really helps when you're still getting use to Shakespeare.

2. At some point, you'll get some time off. Use that free time to read a lot of Shakespeare and Romantic and Victorian narrative poetry, not necessarily in that order. You might find it easier to get used to poetry written in more contemporary English first, and then poetry written in Shakespearean English later. But really, it's just another form of English, and like any language, is best acquired through practice. Plus, once you get into them, Shakespeare's plays are *good.* That's why they are still produced regularly. I'd like to say that's why they are studied in school, but I fear that's more tradition mindlessly carried out than anything else.

3. When reading Shakespeare, if you are reading in private, read his work aloud. Try to say it so that it sounds as if you have the emphasis and tone of voice right throughout. Don't be afraid to read each passage several times to get full comprehension. And, if all else fails, read it without trying to figure out each line, but only skim with a view to getting the gist. Then go back once you know roughly what is being said. Consider this passage:

"So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenced in strands afar remote.
No more the thirsty entrance of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes,
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,
Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way, and be no more opposed
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ--
Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross
We are impressed and engaged to fight--
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,
To chase these pagans in those holy fields
Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd
For our advantage on the bitter cross.
But this our purpose now is twelvemonth old,
And bootless 'tis to tell you we will go:
Therefore we meet not now.--Then let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our Council did decree
In forwarding this dear expedience."

This is my reading process, translated into text. I'm mostly just rearranging the key words a bit and adding some of my own for grammatical clarity:

we [are] shaken [and] wan [and] for a time pant for peace
[but will] commence new broils [someplace] remote.
No more blood on this soil
No more shall war [lots of imagery that makes it clear that the war was bad, mostly skippable] oppose acquaintance and kindred [against each other]

No more shall war [oh god, he's just repeating himself yet again. No wonder scholars don't find Shakespeare hard. If you miss it the first time, you have three or four more chances to get it thereafter] pit us against each other. [okay, that was a pure paraphrase, but by now you get the idea]

Therefore, now we go to Christ's sepulchre
to fight Pagans in these holy fields [Yikes! Sounds like a crusade]
Purpose is twelvemonth old though,
So you already know all of this.
Enough about me, Westmoreland, tell me about you, and what the Council did decree about me.

It becomes second nature after half-a-dozen or so plays, carefully read.

Book Reports / Shakespeare's Henry V Paragraph (received a 65% on it) [8]


1. Then why do you follow up with a list of potential themes?

2. Have you heard of Google?

3. To locate themes, ask yourself questions like "What does this play say about X," where X is something that the play clearly deals with. So, what does this play say about being a king? What does it say about war? And so on. The answers will tend to be the themes you are looking for.


Do you know, Shakespeare's copyright claims expired centuries ago. All of his plays are freely available on-line. Why, a student who felt particularly ambitious might even call up a copy and read them. Or go to that biggish building, the one with all the books that they let you borrow for free, what do they call it again . . . "library," I think it was? They might have a copy or two of the other Henry plays floating around . . .


In spite of my relentless sarcasm above, I sympathize with you, and agree that your teacher is a jerk. He wanted much more than a standard paragraph, and should have said so.


Back to this again. A quick point -- the notion of theme is confusing because of how the word is used. Often, people say that the theme of a literary work is "war" or "the power of love," or something very general. On the other hand, many teachers want something more specific, as in, what does the play say about war or the power of love. Really the themes of a work are just what its about, really about, I mean, rather than just the story details. And while some themes are rather obvious (after all, the author usually *wants* the reader to ken his message), you can say anything is a theme if you can find enough textual evidence to back up your claim, and explain away parts of the text that would seem to work against your case.


I like the reference. And how much was the essay, er, paragraph, worth, as a percentage of your final grade? I'm guessing you still have plenty of room to recover.


Good luck.

Writing Feedback / Comparison essay with subject on tolerance and power. [11]


Um, so is treating them unfairly for personal reasons. In fact, inasmuch as "unfair" and "unjust" can be read as synonyms, treating others unfairly will always be unjust.


No, actually, it doesn't. It shows that democracy need not be tolerant, and that the intolerance of a democratic nation can be just as bad as the intolerance of a tyranny (though I'm not sure that even that was Gandhi's meaning). It makes no sense at all if one believes that tolerance is innately a part of democracy, as then the notion of democracies engaging in oppressive warfare would be foolish.


No, again. It may indicate power lust, but not intolerance. If I decide to steal the wallet of a man who has collapsed on the street, for instance, then I am greedy, dishonest, and ruthless, but I am not intolerant.


Should we tolerate people who don't believe in tolerance? Because most cultures don't. The belief that one's own culture is superior is as fundamental to most cultures as the urge to fight to live is fundamental to most animals. Men may embrace tolerance in much the same way as they commit suicide, but in neither case is the condition natural. You could of course try to spread the idea of tolerance to all, but to do that, you would need to spread the ideological underpinnings of the notion of tolerance, too. In other words, you would have to subjugate everyone to a single set of core beliefs.

Overall your essay isn't very well thought out, logically speaking. It expresses the right sentiments, though, so I imagine you'll do okay.

Poetry / What style is this? Is it even poetry? [12]

Yeah, these definitely qualify as poems, which, now that "poetry" has become a catchall term for virtually any creative non-prose work, doesn't mean as much as it used to. Still, your imagery is good. If you want to improve, try studying meter. Really, meter is the core of poetry, and while you may decide not to use meter once you know it, you really should know it if you plan to be a poet, even if you only plan on being a poet for yourself.

Undergraduate / From a public school to a private, small, all-girls, Catholic high school - I need a simile [10]

Breaking down in tears is appropriate for, say, kids heading into kindergarten or first grade, who have never been away from their parents before. It merely shows a weakness of character in a high school student.


So skip the breakdown and discuss this. Show us how you learned to embrace new experiences. This should be especially interesting, because most people don't associate attending Catholic school with the opening of one's mind. This gives you a great angle to work with.

Writing Feedback / Summary/Response: Kant's Public and Private Use of Reason [4]

You can read a summary of Kant's views (which are always more accessible than the original) here: plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-social-political/

The concepts are tricky, because they go against our intuitive understanding of the words, with officials using their private reasoning when they toe the gov't line and their public reasoning when they challenge it, but you seem to be on the right general track.

I agree with Simone, though. This seems like an odd topic to use when discussing these particular concepts? Is your goal just to write an argumentative essay on music? Was "Could we have enjoyed the good aspects of rock-and-roll revolution without eventually ending up with the trash we now face in the 1990's?" the prompt question? If so, Kant can go away. You can deal with this question in much better ways without him. If your goal is to write about Kant, why not get rid of the music element? I suppose private reasoning can still apply to a person who is acting in a specific role vis-a-vis any authority, including parental authority, but really, this seems like a more trivial topic than others you could have chosen.

Writing Feedback / "Get an A, but no brain" - Cheating and plagiarism [12]

Your essay as it is posted starts off with what sounds like a defense of cheating, then ends with something that could be considered a thesis statement, though it connects not at all to the rest of your introduction. You might want to focus more clearly on the disadvantages of cheating, and how these relate to the reasons for cheating, the eventual consequences, etc. It would be easier to help you if you posted a full essay.


Let's not overdo this. The first essay students can legitimately post without giving feedback, sort of as a welcome to the community. If they don't put in any effort into their comments when earning the right to post new threads, then we can yell at them and try to reduce them to tears.

Undergraduate / "to be a Seminole" - FSU ESSAY [15]

In your second paragraph, you have a couple of interesting examples that you mention in passing. Perhaps you could pick one and rewrite the essay to focus solely on that. This would give you a more narrative, hence more interesting, essay.

Undergraduate / "trying to get into UC Davis" - My lovely personal statement! [11]


Can you guess what you don't want to tell the admissions officers? Also, it's something of a mixed metaphor -- the prime quality of most tools is not their brightness.

Writing Feedback / Critique my essay; American Sports : Sportsmanship or to win at any cost [12]

Computer programs are notoriously difficult to use as a grammar learning tool, unless you are dealing with ESL software specifically. But generic grammar checkers can only suggest when you might be wrong -- you have to know the rules yourself to be sure they are right. Pick up a grammar book, and start studying. Read a lot, too.

Writing Feedback / motherhood and father hood [4]


I know what you mean, but no. Or rather, yes, I suppose it is unfair, but genetic technology has not yet reached the point where men can "have" babies. Rephrase to say what you mean more precisely.


Unnecessary even if it were right, which it is not. I think you mean "proved" rather than "approved."


Congratulations -- you have just offended most of your childless readers. Acceptable for an argumentative essay on a different topic, but not here. Also, if having children is pure happiness, why should anyone care if men leave all the joy to women alone?


An excellent question, but not rhetorical. For instance, the obvious answer is because the role falls more naturally to women. It is the women who carry the child for nine months, giving them an arguably stronger bond to the child than the father has. Also, women are the ones who have the biological equipment to feed the child once it is born. Technology has allowed men to potentially feed child milk from other sources, but it doesn't change the basic biological imperatives or alter gender-based psychology, no matter how much some people wish it otherwise. This is not to say that your argument is wrong, btw. You can in fact make a very strong case for your thesis. But even in a TOFEL essay, you shouldn't ask rhetorical questions that are likely to provoke an answer that works better for the opposite side.

Book Reports / Shakespeare's Henry V Paragraph (received a 65% on it) [8]


Well, let's see. You focus very heavily on character development, no problem there. Thematic issues, not so much. You could easily go on to say that Henry's character development develops some theme about what a king should be, or about what it means to come of age, etc., and one gets the idea that you are aware of this, but you haven't actually done so. You're on firmer ground with "echoes of early events in this play," though it would have been nice if you had quoted a specific scene in which Henry's previous attitude is clearly revealed to contrast with his new one. You don't seem to reference any of the other plays, though. Symbolism is sort of covered, in as much as you say the whole incident is symbolic of Henry's new attitude, I guess. Your analysis could also be a bit tighter near the end. After all, if the gentler gamester is the better option, why is he not gentle to Bardolph? He has his eye on lenience to his future subjects you say, but since when has harshness at the start of a tyrants career ever led inevitably to leniency in it later on? I know what you mean to say, but I don't think you have actually said it.


Allow me to echo Simone's sentiment that your teacher is a jerk. On the other hand, the second option seems like it would work really well with what you have now. Pick three scenes in which Henry seems immature/arrogant/uncaring, etc, then one in which that idea is challenged.

Undergraduate / Why I am interested in becoming a nurse - send me your opinions [5]

A cliched list of reasons for want to be a nurse. Not too promising . . .


The same error Simone pointed out. A stylistic choice that doesn't work. Turn this and the others into full sentences.


This is better. Personal and more specific.


Actually, your first body paragraph is turning out much better than the introduction would have led me to expect. Good quote. Don't just drop Nelson Mandela in there as its own sentence, though.



Stop with the "I believe." I know you believe these things. Otherwise, why would you be writing them?


More good specific detail.

Your essay is fairly strong, then, overall. I'd cut the intro, and fix up the topic sentences as Simone suggested, though.

Undergraduate / About dancing - 150 word essay on extra curriculars [5]

It's not bad. I'd get rid of the comparison to others at the beginning:



Maybe you could use the extra space to elaborate on how ballet taught you to cooperate with others.

Writing Feedback / Skill is more important than a theory, but without any experience - knowledge, it fails. [10]

Deeply saying, The knowledge that we learned from books is called theory, which mostly containsconsists of academic information that helps people understand how things happen,and why things happen and how to solve them , while the messages formthe knowledge we learn from experience are , to a greater extent, called ability, which accentuates themostly consists of skills thean individual needs to handle with different situation in the real societyreal life situations .

This doesn't address the concerns I raised earlier, but is at least less painful to read.

Undergraduate / '2D characters in 3D world' - Intellectual Vitality Essay - Stanford [7]

Sounds sort of interesting, based on the description in wikipedia, which knows all.

Essays / Topic for essay meaning. What is "Life of the Mind?" [4]

Noto's definition is extremely good. I suspect you will find the last question easier to answer, though, once you have finished answering he the first two parts of the prompt. They really seem to build on one another.

Undergraduate / UCF ENTRANCE (family history, culture, enviornment) [5]

Yep, this essay is a dull as nails that have had their points filed down until they have become rather dull. What specifically about your Columbian heritage has shaped who you are? What narrative incident can you use to show this? How will this allow you to contribute to UCF?

Student Talk / Challenges for Chinese to Study English [20]


Yes. On this site alone, I have encountered words such as "macedoine" and "desuetude" that I had not heard before. What's more, I had look up "desuetude" again just now, because I had forgotten its meaning again. And my vocabulary is really, really good, even for a native speaker. Something to do with earning degrees in English Literature, I believe.

Also, it isn't always that obvious to a native speaker that he doesn't know a word. Most native speakers will have seen the word before, and can glean its meaning through context. So, they may think they know the word, yet be unable to tell you the definition, or else find it has a slightly different meaning than they think when they look it up.

Part of the problem is that English is really two languages mashed together. The original language, Old English, was very similar in many respects to modern German, and English is still considered a Germanic language. However, it has also been strongly influenced by French, which is a Romance language. Many "big" English words are really just ordinary French words that have been absorbed into English. "Ameliorate," for example, "voluntarily," "tardy," etc. This also means that English has far more words than most other languages (almost as if it were a composite of two languages, fancy that.) So, estimates put the number of English words at anywhere from 200,000 to a million, depending upon what you count as a word. If we go with around 200,000-300,000, which cuts out most of the prefixes, technical terms, obsolete words, etc., that puts it at around twice the number of words available in Spanish, which has around 100,000-150,000. Of course, native speakers of most languages rarely know most of the lexicon available to them. A vocabulary of 5000* or so is enough to be functional in many languages, and over 20,000 you're normally as proficient with words as any native speaker (though of course grammar is a different matter).

*Disclaimer: All of the numbers used here are very rough estimates. There seems to be no widespread agreement on these matters, probably because of the difficulty in deciding what constitutes a word. These counts generally assume words in the same family only count as one. So, "find", "found", "finding", etc. don't each count separately.

Undergraduate / '2D characters in 3D world' - Intellectual Vitality Essay - Stanford [7]

It seems on-topic to me. Simone is right, though -- you need to explain what Flatland is in order to make certain that the reader can fully appreciate your experience.

Writing Feedback / "Truth it self doesn't exist" - truth in the relationship [6]

I think, for the purpose of this essay, you can treat "telling the truth" as being understood to mean "telling the truth as you understand it when speaking." For instance, when someone asks you how their new hairstyle looks, it is generally understood that you are being asked for your opinion, which might differ from that of other people, and maybe even the majority of them. If you think it looks like the person is wearing a dead skunk on their head, but you say you think it looks wonderful, you are in fact not telling the truth, but lying shamelessly. Insisting that truth doesn't exist or is only a matter of perspective does not in fact mean that you did not blatantly lie, saying something that you clearly believe to be false. It is perfectly okay to argue that sometimes it is better to lie. It is even okay to argue that you should lie in this particularly instance. If so, you are disagreeing with the prompt statement. That's fine. Don't try and weasel out of the fact that you are taking the non-PC view, even if, like many non-PC views, it is the one most of us actually subscribe to.

Writing Feedback / Skill is more important than a theory, but without any experience - knowledge, it fails. [10]

Better, but it could still use some revision. For instance, why do you start with "accurately speaking?" Does this mean that all your other statements besides this one are inaccurate? Also, is it true that all book learning is theory while all experiential learning is ability? Cannot books also tell us how to do things, and so give us at least a partial ability to do things we could not have done at all without reading them? Can one not build up theories from experiential learning? Is this not what scientists do, in fact, in most cases?

Undergraduate / "To succeed, to leave the world a bit better" - FSU admissions essay [3]

Paragraph 2:

Yay! You're a great person! We know this because you say so, which means it must be true! Oh, wait, no, that doesn't follow at all. If you want your claims to be credible, you must show their truth with specific examples and anecdotes.

Paragraph 3:


You really don't want to say this. It makes you sound either dishonest or careless. You know perfectly well that when a group of people are evaluated (say by taking the same test) they do not in fact all get the same marks. You presumably also know that someone with, say, Down's Syndrome, does not have an equal capacity for intellectual activity as someone without Down's Syndrome. And so on. So, either you are trying to sound modest by saying something you don't believe, or you meant to say something else but phrased it poorly. Neither reflects well on you. Revise.

Writing Feedback / TOEFL: Good or bad for more information? [7]

I agree with Simone. The essay would be much more interesting if it dealt with how one chooses which sources of information to believe. Most statistics can be massaged to get the result you want without even having to resort to outright dishonesty. A great many "facts" that most people accept uncritically are in fact utter myths, and great many more are open to multiple interpretations. Even where you have actual, indisputable, incontrovertible facts, which is rare, it is not always clear which how the data should be privileged, or what the full implications of that data are in any given debate. Try looking at the "facts" involved in any controversy, such as those surrounding global warming or gun control, and you'll see what I mean.

Writing Feedback / Cbest Essay - Memories are instruments that will teach us valuable lessons [3]


This is a sentence fragment.


This isn't a valuable lesson, but a tautology. A weatherman who told you that it may or may not rain tomorrow would not deserve high praise, and neither does the self-help guru spouting similar bull excrement.


What does your teaching experience have to with memories, exactly? There are connections you could make, but you don't actually do so here.