Writing Feedback / Criminal records, British and Australia laws - IELTS Essay [9]

Your arguments aren't very strong, and you make no attempt to address any of the counter-arguments.


Really? A single sentence added to the trial, say, "The defendant has been convicted of rape three times before," is going to overwhelm the jury?


This is an argument against trial by jury, not against releasing criminal records of defendants.


This is a somewhat stronger argument, and the main reason for the current policies. The idea is that a person should be found guilty or innocent based on the facts of the case, not on past history that may be irrelevant to the case. However, you need to deal in some way with the obvious counterargument, which is that past behavior is the surest predictor of future behavior, and that a person's propensity to commit crimes is in fact relevant in assessing his likely guilt.

Undergraduate / "BODY SLAM"; Wrestling - Common App Short Essay [9]

What did the experience teach you, and how does whatever you learned from the experience make you a good applicant? You need to revise your essay to focus more on the answer to these questions.

Undergraduate / Volunteerism is like this: Rewarding Experience [7]

Um, where to start . . . try going through and replacing weak verbs with stronger ones, and cut back on the word count, saying everything you do now in about 2/3 of the space. And as you revise like this, make sure that everything you say is clearly expressed, and isn't likely to have any unintentionally humorous effects on the reader.

Undergraduate / Compare yourself now to when you were younger.. [12]

If you are going to cut the current introduction, you will need to add something else to explain how exactly your list answers the prompt. Otherwise, you're waiting until halfway through the essay to explain the relevance of everything you are saying to the reader, which isn't a good idea.

Writing Feedback / parents and relatives make the decisions [3]


Whereas parents and relatives never do this? No parent has ever pressured his or her child to be, say, a doctor or a lawyer, or to enter into the family business? Your logic here escapes me.

Undergraduate / "I say China, I say America" - UC Transfer Essay [4]

Good overall. A couple of minor things:


Every country? I see references to two, here. So, maybe, "both countries"?


Oh dear. So you are, at best, apathetic and unconcerned, or at worst approving, of iron-fisted dictatorships and a social system that produces starving children? I don't think you mean this. It is one thing to say that you are hopeful in spite of these things, quite another to imply approval of them.

Graduate / "The burgeoning field of Computer Science" - my Statement of Purpose [6]

This is a very nice letter that explains why you would be a good candidate for admissions into the program you are applying for. It is not, however, a statement of purpose, inasmuch as you don't really state your purpose, beyond getting into a Masters degree to study Distributed Systems and Parallel Programming. The very fact of your application tells everyone the first part of this. The second part is more on-topic, but you never develop it. What do you hope to do with a Masters in Distributed Systems? How do you plan to apply the knowledge you gain? What research contribution would you like to make to the field?

Undergraduate / "A well informed family" - MSU personal statement [9]

The approach is promising, but your use of language forms a barrier to the reader fully understanding your point.


Do we read, in contrast, for religious reasons? That is what your use of the word "secular" here implies. And what's wrong with getting a good job? And what makes you think that this is the main reason for going to school?


How exactly does reading help us to construct an opinion of the world? Why not base your opinion on your personal experiences instead? How does reading help us learn morality? I can sense the sort of ideas you want to go with here, and I think they'd be very interesting, but you need to unpack them more.


Is reading not useful for those aiming for a Nobel Prize? Do such people not need to know right from wrong? And what's wrong with aiming for a Nobel Prize, anyway?

And so on.

Undergraduate / creating music - Common App 150 word essay [6]

You might want to personalize this essay a bit. At the moment, it sounds very much like the sort of essay anyone who has learned to play the piano might write. Can you say something about your experience that would be personal to you, and that would show rather than tell the qualities you describe in the essay?

Writing Feedback / Spanish Language proficiency [15]

Your overall approach is good -- you have already proved that you can pick up new languages, one of which will be a great asset when it comes to learning Spanish. But, you need to start off by saying this and talking a bit about Spanish. At the moment the essay seems to jump around a bit too much, often touching on things that don't seem relevant at the time they are introduced, though you explain the relevance later on.

Undergraduate / Prepare to serve - a medical practice in an underserved area [5]


This sentence sounds incomplete, because of the first "the."

Never mind. I just finished reading your essay, and editing specific sentences is pointless. The entire thing needs rewriting. I can't picture a single experience you had, or see how it affected you. You write in terms that are far too abstract and vague for this sort of prompt. Try writing a short narrative anecdote for each experience you want to mention, one that shows rather than tells the reader how it has prepared you to serve. Then write a new essay around those anecdotes.

Graduate / Master of Finance - Statement of Intent Essay; 'Paul approached me...' [10]

"Instead , Kevin kept using his vast knowledge in the technology industry to persuade the fund managers to review his proposal again."

"When he was informed that his forecasts were exceedingly overconfident "

"They assigned me to analyze his company's financial package, ascertain weak points, and to provide counsel with regards to improvement strategies." Alternatively, you could add a "to" before "ascertain," but you either want a "to" in each item or only in the first, not one in the first and third and none in the second.

Writing Feedback / toefl: We live in a world of music - Why is it important to so many people? [13]

Better. Now let's make it more concise:

Many people who sit in offices all day suffer from mental exhaustion.

Try to avoid using forms of "to be" wherever possible, and to focus on using strong verbs:

Writing Feedback / GRE Essay on "skepticism in student's learning" [6]

Your essay mainly seems to be arguing in favor of the idea, rather than against it as your introduction suggests. You should in fact point out some of the problems with too much skepticism, but only to either dismiss them or to point out the limits within which skepticism is acceptable. Simply stating that it is bad contradicts your actual thesis.

Writing Feedback / "Questioning authority" - GRE topic. [4]

You need to elaborate more on your examples. At the moment, you are not using them to actually prove your points. You are simply assuming that the reader will see what you intend the examples to prove, but this isn't necessarily the case.


You're right. If Darwin had not questioned authority, there would be unity where there is now bitter acrimony, and traditional values would have been strengthened rather than weakened, and the current cultural malaise that afflicts us would have been avoided. Questioning authority is therefore clearly wrong . . . oh, wait, no, you want to argue the opposite of that. So, you need to take the next step and explain why Darwin's theory was such a good thing, rather than waiting for the reader to fill in the blanks.


Why? How? Again, you don't take the final step and answer these important questions. Perhaps allowing people to question the Dear Leader's supreme authority would in fact lead to civil war and a worsening of conditions. You provide no reason to believe otherwise in your essay as it stands.


And again . . . The solider questioned authority, and as a result almost died. If he had not questioned authority, he would have been much safer. How does this show that questioning authority is a good thing?


But you haven't shown that there is a positive impact, which is the main problem with this essay throughout.

Writing Feedback / Should government withhold information?--A GRE Issue topic [12]

The essay could be strengthened if you were to articulate what principles should govern what sorts of information can be legitimately concealed and under what circumstances. You only give specific examples at the moment. Examples are good, and you should keep the ones you have, but you need to derive general principles from them, too.

You do sort of hint at principles in parts of your essay, but they aren't very good ones. At the moment, you imply that concealing information from the public for the public good is okay, but concealing information for political gain is not. However, the Chinese government may have believed that protecting the nation's reputation was more important for China's long term good than moving to prevent the spread of a disease little worse than the flu, especially when the causalities were likely to be poor rural farmers the government might well think society would be better off without. Likewise, I have no doubt that Nixon thought that keeping the Democrats out of power would be better for America than letting them win power. In other words, politicians, like most people, are adept at rationalizing their actions, and seeing their personal interests as being aligned with that of the public good. This isn't necessarily hypocrisy or dishonesty, btw. They may be quite sincere in their beliefs. So, since the "public good" is a very vague, malleable concept, you need a better metric by which to gauge things.

Letters / A letter to congress - RE: Cash For Clunkers [8]

Typing a letter also gives you the advantage of a spellchecker, not to mention much greater ease in editing and revising your thoughts. As to the issue of older citizens, I suppose there must be some who still don't have access to computers, especially among the lower classes, but that will change. It won't be long now before everyone has grown up with computers, or at least been forced to familiarize themselves with how to use one for work. It's much the same as the decreasing popularity of landlines among people under 30. One technology is being replaced by another, so that soon anyone who doesn't use the new technology will seem like a living anachronism.

Undergraduate / Stranded in an airport COMMON APP ESSAY [11]

But the essay has to say something good about you, highlight some quality or set of qualities that make you an appealing applicant. I doubt you learned much of value from being stuck in an airport. I assume, or at least hope, that you learned something useful from traveling abroad.

Undergraduate / During my life I learnt a wealthy amount of things, things that have come to define me. [6]

Try condensing the rest of your essay a bit too, making everything more concise and using stronger verbs wherever possible, then repost. At the moment, you make what could have been a very well-described, exciting basketball game into something dull that the reader can't really picture or care about.

Undergraduate / Diabetes in my family - Common Application Essay [11]

As others have pointed out, the essay doesn't really show anything much about you that would make you seem like a good applicant. You could take Simone's suggestion, if in fact you want to go into social work, or have some interest in that aspect of the disease. Or, you could talk about how the experience has taught you patience and compassion, and then discuss whatever activities you engage in that show that you have these qualities. Or, you could talk about how the experience has influenced your choice of major. Anything, really, that makes the essay relevant to you as an applicant.

Undergraduate / Stranded in an airport COMMON APP ESSAY [11]

The intro is a list of items you say you could tell us about, but aren't going to. Since you have decided not to tell us about them, why mention them? Either they are less interesting than the event you have chosen to focus on, in which case you are wasting our time making us read less interesting material before getting to the good stuff, or else they are more interesting, and your decision was a poor one. Either way, the effect isn't great.

Undergraduate / Caltech Essay Prompt - Interest in math, science, or engineering [4]

The second half of your essay doesn't really deal with the "how," either, though it is marginally more relevant. I'd suggest brainstorming answers to the prompt question, and writing a more tightly focused essay that directly addresses it.

Undergraduate / Stranded in an airport COMMON APP ESSAY [11]

Hmmmmm . . . the rest of your essay seems to deal mostly with your decision to study abroad. How that experience actually affected you seems likely to be more interesting than reading about you daydreaming about it while stuck in an airport. Maybe you could think of a specific incident that happened to you while you were studying abroad that can stand as a symbol for the entire experience, and write about that?

Undergraduate / Fireflies - "Significant experience" essay [14]

I'd say you definitely want to spell out what you learned from the experience and how it applies to university. If you don't, people are free to draw their own conclusions, which may not be the ones you intend. For instance, my first thoughts, upon reflecting a bit more deeply on the essay, is that it is vaguely chilling. You start out trying to capture a living thing to deprive it of its freedom for your own benefit, and in so doing accidentally kill it. This then fills you with a dark joy. In fact, the essay ends with you smiling softly as you gaze down upon the corpse of your helpless victim.

Alternatively, the story can be read as a conversion moment, in which you decide that you believe in an afterlife and in the persistence of the soul. Depending upon what university you are applying to, and on the biases of the application officers, this might actually be worse, as far as your chances of getting in go.

So, while it is a beautiful essay, make sure you tell the readers exactly what you learned from the experience, and how this makes you a good applicant.

Writing Feedback / "Justice can only exist when people obey laws that are not to their liking." [3]

Simone is right -- you need to start by defining what you mean by "justice". Virtually any definition you choose is going to make supporting the statement much harder than disagreeing with it. Consider the most basic definition of 'justice,' the giving to each that which their actions have merited, an eye for an eye, etc. What if a nation has laws that inflict punishment that a person doesn't merit, or assigns rewards that they haven't earned? So, for instance, what if a law says that a person can be reduced to property merely by virtue of his or her skin color? Such a law is unjust, by the definition of justice given above. What if a law were passed allowing the government to take a portion of wealthy entrepreneurs' revenue to support programs meant to help the homeless? That law, too, would be unjust, by the definition above.

There are other definitions of justice you could go with, though many end up being variants on the one I've been using, but very few of them line up inexorably with the law. You could of course argue that justice is merely a social construct, a subjective notion reflected by and sustained by the law, but you don't seem to be doing this at the moment . . .

Letters / A letter to congress - RE: Cash For Clunkers [8]

I don't know about the handwritten letter thing. I sort of suspect that such correspondence would simply mark you out as an eccentric whose opinion doesn't need to be taken very seriously. I'd stick with a typed letter, if I were you.

Writing Feedback / What do you want most in a friend TOEFL [7]

Most of your intro can be cut. Start right in with reliability, and a summary of your reasons for you choice of reliability as a characteristic.

Your first body paragraph example seems a bit random, and to involve perhaps a wider definition of reliability than most people would be comfortable with.

Your second body paragraph could use a specific example to demonstrate your point.

Your last two paragraphs need elaboration, as they are a bit too short at the moment.

Writing Feedback / Travel Versus Saving Money (IELTS test prep essay) [4]

A start on the grammar for you:

First, people should save money in consideration of the financial difficulties they might face in the future. Nowadays, it is hard to find a stable job because of the worldwide financial crisis worlwide . It would bea wise decision for people to save money in case they lose their jobs. Therefore they might spend those saving and save time until they find a new job. Otherwise, if they spend money on travel instead of saving for the future, they may struggle with financial difficulties if they get laid off.

Undergraduate / Interests and aspirations in engineering (UMich essay prompt #2) [12]


The rest of your essay is mostly full of generalizations that I don't want to read (nor will the application officers, I assure you.) This, on the other hand, sounds fascinating. Why don't you talk more about this experience, and show, rather than tell, how it influenced you?

Undergraduate / UT austin personal essay A, but to write about family is little cliche.. [8]

Bear in mind, too, that your choice of topic will also show how deeply aware you are of your surroundings. Everyone knows that their primary caregivers have influenced them. It can require more careful, critical thinking to see how a teacher, friend, or even chance acquaintance or bystander, has had an effect on your life.

Writing Feedback / toefl: We live in a world of music - Why is it important to so many people? [13]

Your writing style shows a great deal of promise. A few things, though:

Try to avoid minor spelling errors: "Music has been spread in people's life for a long time." Also, who has been spreading it? The phrasing is awkward even when the grammar is fixed.


Also, be sure to avoid odd biases. Are you sure that white collar workers are busier, or more likely to be physically exhausted, than blue collar ones?

And, please, take Simone's suggestion about adding spaces between your punctuation marks. Your essay really is quite difficult to read without them.

Undergraduate / Fireflies - "Significant experience" essay [14]

The essay is very well-written and touching. If you were writing this for an English class, it would be just the thing you needed. However, I'm not entirely sure it works for this particular assignment. You would normally want to write this essay about an experience that cultivated in you a quality or a set of qualities that would make you a good candidate for admission to the university. On the other hand, its originality might balance out the lack of explicit relevance. Either way, it is something you might want to think about carefully before sending it off.

Writing Feedback / TOEFL: Movies or television now play an important role in our life [14]


This is of course hyperbole, which is a valid rhetorical technique. That said, the entire sentence is sort of vague and doesn't really help your essay much. If you want to provide this sort of background info in your intro, why not provide some statistics about how much time people actually spend, on average, watching television? Of course, you wouldn't be able to do that sort of research on the TOEFL test, but that would be the obvious approach for a real essay.

Undergraduate / UT austin personal essay A, but to write about family is little cliche.. [8]

Instead of starting with what you shouldn't write about, why don't you start by explaining who you can write about? I imagine there aren't that many people who have influenced you so strongly that they spring readily to mind as a potential subject for this essay. So, let us know who you are considering, and for what reason, and we can help you decide which narrative seems most likely to end up being original and interesting.

Undergraduate / "to have clear & consistent values" - FSU "Vires, Artes, Mores" [3]

And if you could then show how Mores leads to or supports Vires and Artes, then your essay would be much better unified than it currently is.

Writing Feedback / Frankenstein Essay: Critiques? [3]

A thesis needs to be debatable. Your isn't. Say something about the message of the book, preferably something that some people might disagree with, but that you think you can defend. Then, construct your essay as that defense.

Letters / A letter to congress - RE: Cash For Clunkers [8]

Your concern about the safety of the destruction of the cars seems misplaced. I assume that will be carried out by people who know what they are doing, and who will take precautions to ensure their own safety, even if they don't care that much about bystanders.

Also, you might want to deal more comprehensively with the environmental aspect of the program. How much pollution will be prevented by having more fuel efficient cars on the roads? How much pollution will be created by the manufacture of new cars? What exactly is the net reduction/increase in pollution?

Beyond that, though, you do a good job of pointing out that, as an economic policy, the program is a poorly thought out one meant to do more to make the government seem responsive to hard economic times than to actually improve the economy in any meaningful way.

Undergraduate / Failing in school - Significant experience [10]

This is probably too negative for an application essay on this topic. You were a lazy student who did poorly academically. Is this what you want the application officers to know about you? You do mention that you are trying hard to improve yourself now, which could be good, but only if you actually are doing better now. Maybe you are. I don't know, because you don't say. If you came to the decision by yourself to try to improve, that would have been marginally better, but you imply you just gave in to your mother's demands. Worse, none of this is illustrated with anecdotes that show any real change in your attitude or performance. As a result, the essay leaves the reader with a fairly dim view of you as a student, which is not what you want in this sort of essay. Pick a different experience or accomplishment, one that will put you in a better light in the telling of it.

Letters / 'working in teams' - admission to a PhD program - cover letter [5]

Even for a cover letter, the lack of specifics is a bit of a problem. You have background and practical skills, you say? That tells the reader nothing about you. Everyone has a background, and you must have some skills or you wouldn't have made to the PhD level in the first place.

As for your second paragraph, you say you are reliable, a good team player, etc. These are things anyone can claim to have, and don't relate particularly specifically to the program you are applying to.

So, you might want to highlight one or two key details in each paragraph that show why you are more worthy of being admitted than your competitors are.

Student Talk / Exam passing tips - its my final year [71]

Where time permits, strive for understanding, rather than for rote memorization when studying. It may take a bit longer, but you'll find studying much more rewarding, and will likely do a lot better on your tests.