Writing Feedback / Living in a big city or staying in a village? Both have definite benefits for people. [2]

Nguyet, you cannot separate the word cannot into "can not" as that would be a conflicting reference. "Can" means you are able to while "not" means unable to. using the words separately means you are both able and not able to, that results in a confusing reference. While "cannot", the contracted form of the two words clearly means "unable to".

You need to learn to develop your discussion points such as "... more advantages than you can imagine." what advantages are these? Such topic references should be used only as separate paragraph openers, not as a part of a single paragraph presentation. Your paragraph is scattered and does not have any particular discussion focus which means there is no sense to the discussion that a reader can follow. It does not have a clear discussion point that tells the reader what direction the writer is leading into. That is caused by your inability to separate and properly develop your discussion topics as you are presenting partial discussions throughout one paragraph. Overall, the essay has good discussion points but makes little sense in terms of properly explanining what these discussion points are about.

Writing Feedback / Learning to distinguish between the right and wrong at an early age is very essential for children [2]

D, the format of your essay is incorrect. You do not place the degree of your agreement at the end of the essay. You need to place that at the beginning of the essay as part of the paraphrasing of the question provided. You should have said:

Youngsters should learn the difference between correct and incorrect actions early in life. Some people believe that the best way to teach this lesson is by disciplining them. I do not agree with this form of lesson because there are other ways by which good behavior may be taught to children.

The response goes at the start of the essay because the rest of the body paragraphs should explain why you support that point of view and how you think the lessons and discipline should be administered. All threshed out within 2 paragraphs of 5 sentences each. The reasoning paragraphs can be divided as:

Par. 2 - Reason for disagreement
Par. 3 - Alternative punishments or forms of teaching obedience

Your essay seems to be focused only on the discussion of the alternate forms of punishment. It does not try to convince the reader that there is no need for punishment first. That is the main focus of this discussion and a whole paragraph should be allotted to that discussion alone. You need to learn how to identify what sort of discussions are required based on the prompt requirements, then provide that discussion and any other discussion required. You cannot focus only on the part of the discussion that you feel confident about discussing. When you discuss one aspect but little discuss the other, you will end up with very low TA and C&C scores. Therefore, a balanced discussion of each required topic is required.

Undergraduate / Colgate Supplemental (3 words your friend would use to describe you) [2]

Leyla, never deviate from the prompt instructions regardless of how useless you think the instructions are. You are being tested in your ability to follow instructions during this written interview. Don't change the instructions just because you feel the prompt is insufficient or because you want to be more creative in your presentation. The reviewer asks for 3 words, then you must deliver 3 words that will describe you as a person. That is not hard to do considering this is a manners, conduct, and character essay response.

How would your friend describe you? Some of the single word references that come to mind are honest, helpful, caring, trusting, trustworthy, kindred, moral, friendly, just, among other single reference words that can be used by someone to describe a friend's character and conduct. Revise the essay. Follow the instructions. You can choose any of the above single reference words or develop your own. Just stick to the required format. Don't create your own because you will never know better than the reviewer. Going against the discussion instructions will never be a good thing for you to do as it will give the reviewer a clear reason to reject your application. Stand out using the basic one word descriptions to describe 3 aspects of your personality. Use one word then explain the circumstances that led to the choosing of that description for your action or personality. That is what you have to do.

Writing Feedback / Ielts Task 2：Increasing the price petrol is the best ways to solve growing traffic and [3]

Paimar, your response to the "extent" portion of the essay only lacks the degree of measurement in order to create the proper response statement. You could have said that you "totally agree", "wholeheartedly (dis)agree". "fully (dis)agree", "(dis)agree to the highest extent", "(dis)agree without question", and other variations thereof that show the measurement of your belief in the given statement. Without that reference your response is only partially correct as you would have converted this from a single point of view measured response essay to a simple single point of view response essay. Those are two different essay response formats. You need the "extent response" for this one.

Now, in this type of essay, you are not being asked a direct question, therefore a direct response is not required. You are required to only paraphrase the prompt and respond to the given question, without any reasoning provided due to the lack of discussion space. The discussion subjects must be presented in the next 2-3 reasoning paragraphs. The number of reasons presented (2 or 3) will depend upon the extent of your knowledge of the discussion topic.

You have a problem with singular / plural references in this essay. You mention "advocate" but then use plural references throughout the paragraph, which means you are referring to the plural form "advocates", not the singular reference. Along with this problem, you also present a lack of understanding as to when to use the present form of a discussion as opposed to a part form of presentation. For this essay, I am unsure as to whether you wanted to stick to a present or past time frame. These problems all have a direct effect on your GRA score due to grammatical problems and sentence structure problems.

There is also the LR problem in your essay. Occlusion means any one of the following:
-the blockage or closing of a blood vessel or hollow organ.
-the momentary closure of the passage of breath during the articulation of a consonant.
-a process in which the cold front of a rotating low-pressure system overtakes the warm front, forcing the warm air upward above a wedge of cold air.

-the position of the teeth when the jaws are closed.

None of the above definitions apply to what you were trying to say in that phrase. You used the wrong word / term / vocabulary in this instance. You meant to use the word "conclusion" which means:

-the end or finish of an event or process.
-a judgment or decision reached by reasoning.

Both of the above definitions apply to what you were trying to say and do in that paragraph which was, to end the essay discussion. Mistakes like these will have a direct effect on the lowering of your LR score. Be careful. Don't just use words because "it sounds right" to use it. Make sure the word you are using has the meaning you wish to convey. Don't risk points deductions based on avoidable reasons. I urge you to build up your English vocabulary and also, develop an understanding of the most common words used in essay writing to avoid a repeat of this mistaken word usage in the future.

Writing Feedback / Task 1: 2 flow chart (average monthly spend on children's sports and participation in 3 sports) [3]

Cao, your first sentence is confusing to read. It tends to confuse the reader because, rather than separating the data content for the two graphs, you decided to create a run-on sentence that combines 2 separate discussion points in one sentence. Thus making is difficult for the reader to comprehend. It becomes confusing to understand in this instance. A separation is required for the presentation. Here is a sample:

Two line charts have been provided for this discussion. The first chart indicates the amount of money that British parents tend to fork out in terms of fees for the sports their offspring played in 2008 and 2014. The second line chart, deals with information regarding the juvenile participants in football, athletics, and swimming. The number of young participants was counted in the millions. The trend for the first graph shows and increasing amount of spending for sport participation while the second graph indicates a plateauing for child participants in the 3 sports.

A separation of information presentation helps the reader keep track of the presented information and also, allows the reader to understand the series of upcoming presentations for the succeeding paragraphs.

There best way to ensure that you will be presenting a clear explanation of the data is by allowing your information to be presented over a series of 4 paragraphs. That way you can allot the presentation this way:

Par. 1 - Summary overview (with optional trending statement)
Par. 2 - First chart discussion
Par. 3 - Second chart discussion
Par. 4 - General trending statement

The trending statement can be presented anywhere within the 4 paragraphs. While I opted to include it in the summary overview in my presentation, you may wish to present it as a separate paragraph in order to allow yourself more space to explain your understanding of both charts. Never present a stand-alone single sentence as the minimum sentence requirement per paragraph is 3 sentences. Write less than that in your essay per paragraph and you could risk a lower GRA and C&C score.

Work on the grouping of your information presentation so that your essay will be more coherent and cohesive in discussion. As of now, your presentation suffers due to the length of blurred information presentation on your part.

Writing Feedback / A Treacherous Trip to Ratchaprapa Dam [2]

Thaksanpaphon, please remember that you use the determiner "an" before any word that starts with a vowel or vowel sound. You made that mistake in this essay when you said "... by a immense tide." Then there is the subject-verb agreement situation in the essay where you said "... boat were intensively shaken" when it should have been "was intensively...". You also forgot to hyphenate your essay when presenting connected reference words like "100-meter-deep" in your writing. I am also not sure if you meant to say "dum" or "dam" in this essay. You also need to brush up on the use of connecting words such as when you said "favorite place travel". The correct presentation is "favorite place TO travel." You need to familiarize yourself with similar sounding words in English. " with out" is different from "without". "With out" means in the absence of while "without" means to be deprived of.

Most of your errors in this essay are related to word confusion on your part. Something that can be corrected once you better understand the meaning of similar sounding, but different meaning words. You also need to remember that timelines are important when writing narratives such as these. So you either write about the present ( I notice you are not wearing a jacket) or the past (I noticed my life jacket belt was...) To correct these errors, you need to keep on reading English materials and writing in English. Downloading the English grammar apps will also help you with your grammar lessons and it can also provide you with useful practice tasks to help you put your lessons into actual use. Your errors should diminish as you become more adept at writing in English.

Undergraduate / "Don't screw up your life like she did." College App Essay for Ivy leagues [3]

@Mia2000 when I finished reading your essay, I had learned a tremendous amount of information about the background of your mother. Unfortunately your mother is not the applicant so as a reviewer, I could care less about her background in such detail. The background that is being required of this essay pertains to YOUR background, not the background of your mother. The latter part, which finally came back to focus on your came in too late in the presentation. By then, the reviewer will most likely have lost interest in your essay describing your mother and would have decided to reject your application already, or place it in a pile for possible consideration later on. The common app prompt you chose is wrong. That is why this essay will not work to your benefit.

You should have instead, used the open topic essay prompt. The one that allows you to design your own discussion topic That way you could have spoken about your mother in the essay and the influence she had on you because of her background. That would have been the more appropriate place for this essay writing piece. Using this prompt, I did not learn anything about you, which was the whole point of this writing exercise. To ask you to talk about something that you feel would be important for me, as a reviewer to know about you, which could strengthen your application. Your mother's background does not tell me about that. I did learn that your mother is an admirable person who should be considered a role model by other single mothers today.

Undergraduate / I am answering the why NYU Abu Dhabi question. Will it catch the attention of the admissions officer [3]

No. This will not catch the attention of the reviewer because you totally skirted having to respond to the prompt question. You could have just taken the opening presentation from a YT video of the university, where you merely gave a physical description of the surroundings without any reason that connects that to the education you will be receiving. There are only 2 aspects to develop for your essay response. You can build a more appropriate essay by focusing your presentation on the following:

- The biochemistry courses ...at the university.
- I look forward to work in the Dore laboratory ...autism children.
- I really want to spread t... being part of the Fikret Science Club ...spread the joy of science.*

*How does the Fikret Club translate to spreading the joy of Science? Does this have an academic or professional relevance on your part? If so, please explain to further clarify your paragraph.

Only the aforementioned parts of your original essay need to be developed for the response question. These are the main reasons why you chose to seek acceptance into NYU-AbuDhabi. The choices cover your academic and professional goals, build the new essay from there.

Letters / Writing to a hotel to ask for support in getting a forgotten papers [2]

Han, it would be better to indicate that you either misplaced or left your documents behind. Don't say "forgotten" because that means you are not sure you left it at the hotel. When indicating that you left something, you need to be sure that you left it at that place and you should make the hotel manager believe your statement by using words that determine an assuredness in your statement.

A hotel has several meeting rooms. You need to be specific in this instance. You should mention (though not specified in the instructions, do it for clarity and cohesiveness purposes):

1. The name of the conference room
2. The date of the meeting
3. The time and duration of the meeting

For clarity purposes, in the second paragraph, you should have said "the third table at the second row". You don't need to present that as a conjunction at that point. You need to be coherent in your presentation.

You are not asking the manager to find "texts" you are asking him to find "documents". Text means the written word on the paper or within the file. The document is what the text is written on.

While your letter does contain several errors, I get a sense that you will be able to improve your letter writing task because you show that you can follow instructions in English, you understand what the letter should be about, and you are able to get your point across to the reader. While your grammar is still unpolished at this point, your written English should continue to show signs of improvement as you progress with your supervised writing exercises.

Scholarship / Erasmus Master Scholarship Essay - motivation for choosing the GLOCAL programme [2]

Vania, your essay is extremely choppy to read. It needs to be edited for continuity, transition, and chronological significance. It is hard to keep track of your statements because you are not really working at presenting the required elements in the manner indicated by the prompt requirements. In fact, you fail to address 2 specific required discussions in your essay. The missing references include:

1. How your previous studies relate to specific courses offered in the program over 2 years;

2. How your professional activities connect with your interest in the GLOCAL courses offered with a specific focus on your personal reasons for seeking higher education. These reasons need to be indicated on a personal and professional basis.

Overall, the essay needs to address the areas I indicated above. It should also be edited for content to make it shorted but more informative.

Writing Feedback / ARGUEMENTATIVE ESSAY: CRIME PUNISHMENT FOR YOUNGSTERS. I'm pro applying yet harsher actions. [4]

Ta, make sure that you are using words that are actually found in an English dictionary. Do not make up terms such as "unawared". There is no such word, but there is such a term as "unaware" or "unawares" in the English dictionary, both UK and American dictionary versions. Your essay also suffers from a lack of clarity in its paragraph / sentence presentations.

It would be better if you used actual topic sentences as the first sentence of every paragraph instead of counting out your discussion numbers. That is not going to help increase your scoring consideration because those are regular memorized writing styles of ESL learners. In order to prove that you have an advanced grasp of the English language, you should not be using elementary transition styles such as counting. Use transition sentences and subject sentences instead for the last sentence of every paragraph and first sentence of every paragraph respectively.

Use emotional responses such as "I strong advocate" only when responding to extent essays. This single opinion essay would have done very well without the exaggerated response. A simple agree/disagree sentence would have sufficed. This is a single opinion essay so a comparison discussion regarding those who do not share your POV was totally unnecessary and only pulled down your overall scoring consideration in the process.

You basically have the foundation to build upon your English writing skills. You just need to better understand how the Task 2 essays are written, based on specific prompt requirements, samples of which you can easily find at this forum for your reference.

Writing Feedback / IELTS writing task 2: This is an essay about reports of media - almost all bad news and emergencies [4]

Nguyen, you have written too many words for this type of timed essay. You wrote over 300 words when, during an actual test, the most you will be able to write is 300, and that is you do not edit your paper before submission. The ideal number of words to write is 275. Please make sure to practice writing the essay using a timer next time. That way you will get an idea of how fast or how slow you actually write. This will help you adjust your writing style to meet the time allocation requirements.

Now, I will be direct to the point here and tell you that you will get a score of 1 for this essay because you did not use the provided prompt requirement. You wrote your own discussion topic. Compare the two:

Prompt Question: To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your Response: I believe that this situation could have both negative and positive consequences.

It is obvious at this point that you do not understand the discussion instructions beyond what you think it means. What you think you are instructed to you and what you are actually instructed to do are two different things. Since you have shown that you do not understand English instructions, there is no reason for the examiner to give you a passing test score. You will be unable to learn in an English school setting since you cannot even follow simple English discussion instructions.

Writing Feedback / People are more likely to go fast food restaurants instead of the ones offering tradition food. [4]

Nicoel, you were remiss in your proof reading. You missed the comma after the conjunction when you said "idea but". The comma goes in-between. GRA wise, I don't see any other problems with your sentence structures and development save for that missing punctuation mark in the first paragraph of the essay. Please remember to proof read and correct the essay whenever required prior to submitting your paper to maximize your scoring consideration.

As for your prompt paraphrase, you were able to properly paraphrase the first 2 discussion points in the essay. However, when you presented your response, you should not have included a reference to "but fast-food can..." because you are limited in presentation scope for the first paragraph. That should only be a paraphrase with a quick response to the question when required. No reasoning or alternate reasoning should be presented due to the 5 sentence limitation. If you cannot develop your presentation of a reason, then you should not present it in that paragraph. You have 3 body paragraphs within which to present your alternate reasoning for this type of discussion.

Now, since you partially agreed with the given statement, I can say that your discussion body is properly presented. You are allowed, in this instance, to present one discussion representing each side of the discussion. For this essay though, you should have gone for the 4 body paragraph instead. That would indicated the following:

1. Paraphrase
2. Reason 1 (POV1)
3. Reason 2 (POV 2)
4. Conclusion

This essay is not meant to be stretched to 5 paragraphs since it is not a comparison essay. You did not present a properly concluding summary in this essay so you are really limiting your scoring potential at this point.

Undergraduate / A never-ending pile of whys. I am applying to some top universities. [2]

HI Leyla, your essay is very engaging. It is a presentation of a life of understanding, realization, and learning. However, I do not believe that the events led to a realization and understanding of yourself and others. I believe that this essay will be better served under one of these two prompts:

Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

You could also consider:

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

Personally, I would go with the second suggestion that I made because your essay covers a series of interconnected stories that don't really blend well with the discussion requirements of your prompt choice or my first prompt choice.

Now, you will still need to edit the content of this essay because you are over the word count by 11 words. The maximum word count for the common app essay is 650, regardless of the prompt. So you will need to figure out which parts you can either shorten, cut down in the presentation, or simply delete without affecting the overall message of your essay.

Writing Feedback / The obesity is been considered an issue nowadays. It impacts the human health in many ways. [2]

Leo, the way I see it, the strengths of your essay comes from three points. These are the sources of information, the type of information presented, and your understanding of the given topic. Please allow me to go into deeper detail regarding my choice of your strengths.

With regards to the type of information you presented, you really worked on presenting an informative overview for your essay, considering all the possible avenues for discussion, then presenting it in a manner that guides the reader to understand what the discussions shall be about. All the time, you avoided lecturing the reader and you did not sound like you were merely doing a cut and paste of existing information to thresh out your thesis statement.

The fact that you took the time to go into great detail about the background of obesity and even delved deeper into the various causes of the illness indicates that you enjoyed writing about this topic and that you threw yourself into the research to make sure that your research paper would deliver clear information and help the reader understand every aspect of the illness as presented in your paragraphs.

It was great that you showed an almost personal understanding of the topic. You used proper examples in the presentation, that could have been better developed, but it helped in the overall research presentation. This essay is very well researched and helps the reader understand more than just the superficial presentation of what obesity is all about. I believe you did a good job with this paper.

Writing Feedback / There is no doubt that children can learn about cooperation via team sports [6]

Neither approach is correct because the prompt is asking for a measured response to the question. The proper reference for your response should be indicated in the following forms (but are not limited to this presentation alone)

I completely agree/disagree
I totally agree /disagree
I agree / disagree with reservations
I consider myself in full support / not in full support of
I would consider only partially supporting an agreement/ disagreement

... and other variations thereof. Always remember that the prompt instruction will include a clear instruction regarding your discussion pattern in the essay. In this case, it is a 4 paragraph measured response essay. It is not a simple agree/disagree essay. The discussion for this essay is based on a strong personal opinion, experience, or understanding of the given topic. That is why you are being asked to figuratively quantify your agreement or disagreement with the discussion. It is only after you properly assess the discussion requirements of the essay that you can begin to formulate the proper supporting reason paragraphs. After properly assessing the essay discussion requirements, you can use either structure one or two for the reasoning paragraphs. Not before then.

I I don't advise you to post a new version of the essay based on the same prompt. The admin will consider that multiple postings on the same topic and delete the new / additional essay. It could lead to the eventual banning of your account. You will need to pick a new topic to discuss that uses the same discussion instruction instead.

Scholarship / I want to be a participant in the Global Ugrad program not only for my own benefit [2]

Maria, the essay shows that you have good academic qualifications for the program. You have admirable intentions for your future and your future as an educator. You might even be a competitive applicant for the semester abroad because of your academic, cultural, and personal considerations. However, you lack a representation of your desire to return to you home country after you have completed the semester abroad. While it would seem that you implied this in the essay, it is not clearly referenced in any given statement. A clear statement of your desire to return is required for this essay.

Along with that, you should remove the reference to wanting to become a Spanish teacher abroad. That is irrelevant since you are applying for a semester abroad to an English speaking country. America is not a predominantly Spanish speaking country so that reference is not useful in this essay. You will be learning about the English language and the American customs, nothing about Spanish traditions so references to learning about languages other than English will be irrelevant and not considered during your application assessment.

Writing Feedback / The life abroad can create both social and practical issues due to the lack of language knowledge [3]

Vu, this essay contains a series of grammatical problems that cannot allow you to score more than a 3 overall. The reasons for this score are based on your lack of control over word usage, sentence structure, and inability to develop properly referenced English sentences. The presentation is so bad that the meaning of every paragraph is either non-existent or distorted in meaning.

Your essay lacks a clear position based on the extent requirement of the essay discussion. Your ideas require more development in order to make its meaning clearer to the reader. There is a lack of relationships between your ideas. You barely use cohesive devices, and your English vocabulary use is difficult to understand due to the lack of logical sentence presentations. This is basically a very badly developed essay that cannot allow you to pass the test in an actual setting.

Writing Feedback / Health care and education funding to be among the top priorities of a government's agenda? [4]

The main problem with your essay is that you are not discussing the prompt requirements in full. You are only partially responding to the prompt and as such, cannot expect to get a passing score due to a selective response presentation. The prompt clearly indicates the following:

Discussion Instruction: Please discuss both views and give your own opinion.
Discussion Paraphrase: In my opinion, I believe that the government should cover some parts of the bills at least.
Correct Discussion Paraphrase: I will review both public opinions in an effort to establish a clear personal opinion on my part.

Your whole discussion presentation did not provide a clear idea of public points of view presentations as there were no public acknowledgement phrases in your topic sentences for every paragraph. As such, the presentation of the discussion, based on your incorrect paraphrase is that the whole essay is from your personal point of view. This means you are answering only one part of the essay requirement. This means you did not write the correct number of words for the essay either as deductions are made for missing word count based on irrelevant paragraph discussion presentations. If you did not clearly indicate the two public points of view, then the whole essay comes from your personal point of view. You cannot pass the test because of this error.

Undergraduate / All the typical hopes and expectations, of being a studious person, were placed on me [3]

Sailesh, the essay does not respond to the prompt. You are being asked to describe yourself from the POV of your friends, family, or members of your community. However, you are describing yourself in the essay coming from your personal point of view. You must talk to your family, friends, or community members and ask them to describe who you are as per their perception of you as a child (parents point of view), confidante (friends point of view), or member of a local youth group (community point of view). You cannot use this essay because you wrote a personal statement instead of a point of view response.

By the way, about the word count, you cannot go over the word count for any reason. If the maximum is 250 words, then present 250 words or under. The system is designed to cut your essay off at 250 words. While you might be able to edit it in real time before submission, there is a big possibility the system will lock you out during the editing process. Don't take chances, write the appropriate word count before you submit the essay.

Graduate / SOP for MCS - attach to the application a brief narrative outlining your academic interests. [2]

Rayan, this is not an effective statement of purpose. It only provides your undergraduate academic interests and totally avoids representing any interest in teaching, research, or professional objectives. Your professional objectives being of the utmost importance since you are applying for a masters course admission. MS students are required to have a professional objective for their statement of purpose. T

he professional objective is always related to their current work experience and their future plans as opposed to their undergraduate courses and accomplishments as these are no longer supportive of their MS interests. While the college course can provide the basis of your professional experience, it fails to represent a forward thinking or outlook for you as a professional. That is why this SOP is not useful for your application. The reviewer is not interested in your undergraduate experiences. He requires you to represent your current academic interests through continuing education on your own or through company sponsored training and seminars, along with notable professional accomplishments that could have led to your interest in this graduate course. All of which culminate in your 5 year career plan.

Review the SOP requirements again. This time, make sure to use bullet points for each requirement. Then fill in an outline for each prompt requirement. This will guide you in developing a proper statement of purpose as required by the university. Do not use this current essay as it does not meet the prompt requirements.

Writing Feedback / There is no doubt that children can learn about cooperation via team sports [6]

Nicoel, you are confusing your English words. You need to brush up on your English vocabulary due to your tendency to confuse similar sounding words that have different meanings. The term. "be cause" normally has the connecting word "the" in between to connote the result of an action (ex. ... a delay will be the cause which will... ). When using the word "because", that word is used to introduce a word or phrase that stands for a clause expressing an explanation or reason (e.g. It is because of that reason...).

It appears that you have written a very long essay in an effort to show off your English vocabulary and sentence structure skills. The problem is that you did not discuss the given topic as required so the long essay did not serve any purpose. You failed the test right from the start. The basis of your failure is as follows:

Prompt Question: .. to what extent do you agree or disagree?
Discussion Response: .. there are other methods to teach them with collaboration.

Since you are not offering a measured opinion of your response to the question and are instead, discussing a prompt topic of your own design, you will be considered to have discussed a totally unrelated topic, scoring a 1 in the TA section because of it. Therefore, your whole essay has failed to pass the test. If you do not discuss the required topic, then you have shown that you lack English comprehension skills and as such, cannot be considered for academic learning in an English based curriculum.

Undergraduate / Assistant Coach - UBC short answer - an activity [2]

Emma, the presentation is a bit scattered. I would divide this presentation into 2 paragraphs. The first paragraph would be an introduction to the activity while the second paragraph focuses on what I learned and skills I developed through the activity.

I would present the first paragraph in this manner:

Volleyball has always been my favourite sport...offer was an easy choice. My role as an assistant coach... confidence in my abilities. Walking into the first practice...product of my effort come alive.

The second paragraph would discuss:

I began to see my confidence ... beyond the basic definition.

The problem with the essay is not so much the content as it is the presentation. You need to separate the discussions to make the role you played and the learning process clear to the reviewer. The first half, indicates a description of your role how you portrayed it. The second, was about how you developed your leadership skills, which is part of your learning process. When clearly set out as separate paragraphs, the reviewer will be able to better scan, find important elements, and remember your application. It is difficult to track your discussion at the moment because all of the information is squished together in a single paragraph.

Writing Feedback / Should or should not provide personal information in job application [5]

Han, let's look at the GRA and C&C problems of your essay first. When considering the clarity of your essay, it normally comes across as redundant because you are being too wordy in your presentations. Take for example when you said "... indicate particular information", you could simply said "indicated information" because "information" is understood to be "particular" to the discussion. Therefore, "particular information" does not help to clarify what you are trying to say. Avoid saying "... has to" when indicating "required" information. In this instance, the information is required so you could have said "must fill in information", as the information is not optional. Saying "has to" is not very academic sounding.

A bigger point of clarity in your essay is in your discussion instruction paraphrase. There is a missing subject in the sentence "It is going to discuss both points of view in this essay." The more proper presentation would have been:

After carefully considering the two public points of view, I believe that I can formulate an educated personal assessment of the discussion.

The above discussion instruction paraphrase is clear and to the point. Your version is lacking in clarity and conciseness.

Do not cite research, specially non-sourced sources in this type of essay. You will score best when using personal examples and experiences. Your presentation would have been stronger if you had instead said:

Employers often wish to get to know their applicants better during the interview process. That is why they require additional data during the registration process. The employers believe that there are benefits to requiring background information because...

However, there are some concerns regarding this requirement coming from some job-seekers because...

Personally, I believe that...

In the end, it appears that...

Watch out for your vocabulary usage. Reclined means to set at an angle while decline means to reject. The latter is the word you wanted to use.

You almost got the concluding summary right. The problem is that you introduced new information at the end, which resulted in an open ended essay rather than a concluded essay. Remember, the last paragraph is a discussion wrap up that simply repeats the prompt topic, reasoning subjects, and personal opinion to close the essay.

Writing Feedback / Some people say that TV advertisements have benefits, while others believe the opposite. [3]

There is a clear noun-phrase disagreement in this section of your essay : "... major breakthrough during the 20th century." Since there wasn't just one breakthrough during that century, you should be presenting that word in its plural form; "breakthroughs". You also do not need a comma between "only" and "but" because that is a continuing statement rather than new idea for the continuing sentence. These are the major GRA problems that exist in your essay that could have an adverse effect on your bracket score.

The main reason that your essay will automatically fail though is because you are not discussing anything in relation to the given prompt requirements. Let me outline the errors that led to the automatic failing score for this essay.

Prompt Topic: Some people say that TV advertisements have benefits, while others believe the opposite.
Your Topic: The introduction of television was one of the major breakthrough during the 20th century.

Based on the prompt topic comparison alone you can see that you have deviated from the discussion topic. Showing that you do not have the ability to understand any English discussions. The original topic was about advertisements, your topic was about the invention of television. The two topics shall never meet. Your discussion topic is non-existent as far as the examiner is concerned.

Discussion Instructions: Discuss both views, give your own opinion and include examples from your experience.
Your Instruction: Non-existent. You do not properly paraphrase the discussion instruction at all.

Based on these mistakes alone, disregarding your GRA problems, your TA score would automatically be a 1. Your answer is completely unrelated to the task. With such a score, you will never pass the test. All because your English comprehension skills are extremely poor thus preventing you from properly understanding and discussing the essay in the manner required.

The proper discussion approach to this essay is really very simple. You just need to provide a 5 paragraph essay that sticks to the requirements every time. Let me show you a sample of how to approach this essay in a manner that will, at the very least, get you as close to a 7.5-8 as possible.

These days, people are considering whether TV advertisements have positive effects or if it delivers negative feedback instead. There are several public opinions to consider for each side, but for this essay, only one aspect of each public discussion will be considered. These will be the basis of my personal opinion aside from additional information coming from my own experiences and explanations.

The positive occurrences coming from televised advertisements are believed to come from the influence it provides. The people who see an advertisement as a good influence base their opinion on...

Others though believe that there are negative aspects to be seen from such media influenced based sales promotions because...

My personal insight is that... I base this opinion on my experience with...

Finally, we can deduce that...

These are the only requirements you have to present when discussing such a prompt. It does not have to be turned into an overdrawn discussion as you have done above. All you need are the basics; 5 paragraphs composed of 5 sentences each. For this essay the format is:

Par. 1 Paraphrase
Par. 2 POV 1
Par. 3 POV 2
Par. 4 Personal Opinion
Par. 5 Concluding summary

There is always a preset format for each discussion type. Familiarize yourself with the discussion types and methods of discussion and work on improving your work from there. There are ample samples to be found here. Just click on the Similar Discussion [+] link to get started.

Undergraduate / Achievement Supplement for CWRU - we are interested in hearing more about you. [2]

Abby, the reference to your 4 year old self is irrelevant to this discussion. You are stretching your perceived lackluster achievements in this essay. Stick to expanding the debate team accomplishment instead. That has a more of a bearing towards your character and conduct as a potential college freshman. There are 2 aspects that you can develop in this essay using the debate reference. The first reference is to how you started to come out of your shell, developed yourself as a speaker, and ultimately, started becoming a winner in the debate state. The second and, as far as I am concerned, your most notable, pivotal, and under represented achievement, is how you developed your leadership skills through your establishment of PenOhio. Discuss what this team is all about, what drove you to create the team and what the team has achieved so far under your leadership. These are the 2 most important discussions that best align with the prompt requirements. I hope that you will reconsider the content of the current version and revise it to be more impressive to the reviewer by focusing on your little known achievements that have a great impact upon yourself and your student community. Those are the sorts of important achievements that reviewers and admissions officers take note of.

Writing Feedback / IELTS WRITING TASK 2: PRESERVING WILD ANIMALS IS VERY IMPORTANT [2]

Moon, you should be using the verb "being under major threat" instead of verb "are". This paragraph has a singular-plural problem as you refer to "human" in connection to "people". The proper plural reference "humans" must be used in connection with the term "people" which is the plural form of "person". The opening paragraph is also a run-on sentence. Please remember to split-up your paragraphs into short or medium length sentences for clarity and conciseness.

You cannot say that "It appears to me" because the proper phrase is "It appears to be that... " or the simpler "it appears that..." which both means you are delivering an impression of something. By saying "It appears that", you would be totally omitting a direct reference and keeping it general instead to avoid any confusion in the phrase usage. Do not use the ownership form "human's" when you mean to use the collective form "humans" in reference to the ecosystem. Do not say "dies out" as that is a redundancy you could use any form of the word "extinction" instead which means a total loss of one species within the ecosystem without possibility of regeneration. The additional information at the end of the second paragraph is under discussed and creates an under developed paragraph and confusing paragraph presentation.

You cannot use the word "because" to start a sentence as there is no previous thought process to connect in the presentation. You could instead say "Due to their importance..." Which creates a more authoritative presentation of your thought process for that sentence. Regardless of these errors, you are not being asked for a solution as there is no problem presented in the essay. This is only a discussion essay, not a solution essay. So your last paragraph is totally out of place and creates an incorrect discussion presentation of the prompt requirements. You will only be scored on the applicable areas of your discussion which will result in a less than minimum word count, for which you will receive point deductions in the final scoring consideration. The second reasoning paragraph should have clearly explained why you believe that the animals need to be protected, You could have used the under developed aesthetic discussion in that paragraph instead, which would have resulted in a well developed discussion presentation.

I am sure you already know what the problem with your concluding paragraph is as I keep reminding you of that error yet you keep doing it. What is the concluding basis for your declaration that wildlife should be preserved? Complete the concluding summary.

Writing Feedback / Students to be allowed make comments or criticism on their teacher to improve the teaching quality [3]

Andy, please note the subtle differences between American and British English spelling. "Favor" rather than the British "favour" or "misbehavior" rather than the British "misbehaviours" are some of the spelling errors in your essay. Knowing the differences in spelling of the two types of English can help you impress the examiner, who in turn just may decide to increase your LR score because of this knowledge of yours.

Please remember that a comma accompanies a conjunction so the term "teachers" in the first paragraph should have a comma after the word, before the next word "but". You also have a noun phrase problem with the term "this misbehaviors". "This indicates a singular form of the word so you cannot use the plural form "behaviors". It should be the singular "behavior" or replace the phrase with the plural form "these behaviors" as "these" is the plural form of "this". These are simple GRA errors that can have a direct effect on the score for that particular band which could result in a lower than expected band score on your part.

As for the content of your discussion, your prompt paraphrase is not proper as it does not represent the correct discussion instruction of the original prompt. Your discussion instruction paraphrase should indicate something similar to:

Based on a consideration of both points of view, I will be able to formulate my own conclusion regarding this situation.

As the prompt indicates a discussion of both public points of view through the reference to "Many people..." That means you must show that each public point of view is represented in the discussion paragraphs prior to your personal opinion. That is why I clarified that in the discussion instruction paraphrase I provided here.

Discussing the points of view from "One the one hand" and "On the other hand" does not accurately represent the group-think being represented in the essay. These are default phrases taught to you in IETLS classes and textbooks. These phrases will not help to increase your GRA or C&C score because these words do not show ownership of the public and personal discussion presentations in the reasoning paragraphs. You need to use second or third person references in these presentation parts to show a clear reference to whose point of view is being discussed. The way you have it presented now indicates that all of these views belong to you instead of creating a comparative discussion of a public opinion prior to your personal opinion.

The concluding paragraph is not the place for the personal opinion. This essay is a 5 paragraph discussion. The prompt will always tell you if you have to present a 4 paragraph or 5 paragraph essay presentation. Anything that asks for 2 POV+ Personal POV = 5 paragraphs. The fifth paragraph being the concluding summary, which is similar to the opening prompt paraphrase with the only difference being that the discussion points from the 3 reasoning paragraph will be rephrased in the presentation instead.

Writing Feedback / Living in large urban areas has turned into the most attractive choice of many. It may be an issue. [4]

Mahdi, aim for clarity in your sentence presentations. While meeting the minimum word count is important, you should learn to do that using words that give a better meaning to your presentation rather than several words that add confusion to your presentation. For example, instead of saying "a large number of issues", you could simply say "many issues". The latter phrase creating clarity in the presentation as opposed to "a large number of issues" which makes the reader think about what you are trying to say. As for your sentence structure, simple errors like a missing hyphen in high-quality and one-meter can help to increase the complexity of your sentence presentation as per GRA standards.

Observing your discussion style, it is obvious to me that you do not know how to respond to a direct question essay yet. In this instance, there are two direct questions being asked:

1. What are the most significant of these problems?
2. How can these problems be tackled?

Both these questions require direct responses in the prompt paraphrase as the basis of your thesis presentation. The 2 significant problems need to be presented along with the one or 2 possible solutions to the problems. The related and complete discussions should be presented in a 2reasoning paragraph format.

In this type of essay, you must use connecting phrases or sentences to connect 2 related ideas in one paragraph. Therefore, rather than presenting 2 reasons in 2 separate paragraphs, you must present the problems as 2 connected problems in one paragraph. The problems must show a connection to one another in order to meet the cohesiveness and coherence requirement of the essay as indicated in the first question response requirement. At least 2 connected solutions must also be presented in the solution discussion paragraph. Your current presentation does not score well in this aspect because of the lack of connection in the discussion of both questions.

The biggest error in this essay is that you discussed the requirement for a solution as simply saying the government has to solve it when the prompt is asking what you can do to help solve the problem. Those are two different things. Also, the solution cannot be discussed as the concluding paragraph. The concluding paragraph must never continue the discussion because that last paragraph is called the concluding summary. Which means you merely remind the reviewer about the topic for the discussion and the proposed solutions, with a concluding sentence to close the essay. Try to read the sample direct question essays at this forum for a better idea as to how you can approach the various question styles provided.

Writing Feedback / Writing IELTS: Adolescents have fewer responsibilites, is this a good thing or a bad thing? [8]

You have a problem with vocabulary usage and therefore, lexical resources because even though you understand the meaning of the word, you are unable to apply it to your own English grammar requirements in various settings. There are times when you misuse an English word because of what you "think" it means as opposed to what the word "actually" means. Knowing the English words and knowing how to sometimes use it is different from the English fluency of a native speaker who knows how to properly use the word, along with the synonyms and antonyms of the word(s) all the time. Your English vocabulary is only of the beginner kind, not intermediate, not advanced.

If you want to continue to build your vocabulary, then read more advanced English reading materials. These would include text or ebooks of anything of interest to you such as a hobby or any anything. Documentary and historical books written by American and British authors would be your best bet for improving your lexical resources from your current basic English word skills to intermediate or advanced. This will also give you a template from which you can learn how to write complex sentences. Watch English documentary films so that you will be exposed to advanced academic English words and complicated sentence structures. By learning more complicated English words, you will improve your LR and GRA scores.

Take note of words you do not understand the meaning of then look it up in the dictionary, then do a search for the same word in a thesaurus. Note the different words for the positive and negative representations, look up the meaning, note and remember the meaning, then practice writing sentences that use the same word(s) until using the word becomes natural to you, making sure the words are always used in the appropriate reference format (vocabulary meaning, definition) in your writing. Do the same when speaking English as part of your regular English usage practice.

Writing Feedback / Writing IELTS: Adolescents have fewer responsibilites, is this a good thing or a bad thing? [8]

Hoang, stop over writing in your essays. Your work still suffers from lack of clarity and coherence in the paragraph presentations. Don't say it the long way when you can say it in a simpler, clearer manner. You won't be graded for writing short sentences, you could lose points for writing run-on, unclear, and incoherent paragraphs as you are constantly doing in your essays. You are not practicing using a timer and you are not proof reading your essay. If you did, you would know that you are taking too much time to write these essays and you are not reviewing it for presentation problems. Which is why the essays are unclear in its idea presentations per paragraph.

Since you lack familiarity with English word usage and its synonyms and antonyms, I urge you to download a thesaurus app and try to memorize the synonyms and antonyms for various English words as listed in the app. For responsibilities, some synonyms are : burden, liability, obligation, answerability, culpability, and so on and so forth. Positive = clear, conclusive, specific, absolute, etc. Negative = adverse, unfavorable. Remember, the synonym you use must also correspond to the meaning of the sentence as you want the word to indicate. So just knowing another term for the word does not mean you will be using it properly. You need to understand the meaning of the word before you use it otherwise it will confuse the reader if the word you use has a different meaning from your intended one.

You can only increase your English language vocabulary if you build on your vocabulary. Read in English, watch movies in English, speak in English as much as possible, surround yourself with English 24/7. That's the only way to build your vocabulary skills.

Undergraduate / UBC PERSONAL PROFILE - something about yourself, also according to opinions of others [2]

Try to not be a one trick pony. You will bore the reviewer by your constant reference to your desire to become a lifeguard. Surely there are some other aspects in relation to your other interests that you can cite for this essay. Always citing the same reference point in every essay tends to create boredom in the reviewer, who does not get to know you better through this written interview because you are focused on only one aspect of your interests and personality. The reviewer needs to get to know more about you other than your lifelong desire to become a lifeguard. Are you a well rounded person who has developed into adulthood in several ways? Can he consider you an adult who is ready for college? Or are you still a juvenile who doesn't have a vision of a broad future to speak of ? Get over that aspect of lifeguarding and present some new information, if you can. Otherwise, you are bordering on repetitive information which is frowned upon in admissions essays.

This essay requires you to use the second person point of view in reference to telling the reviewer about who you are. Don't show him, he is asking you to TELL him. Don't change the instructions to suit your wants and personal intentions. Don't be creative when it is not required by the instructions. Follow the prompt instructions to the letter. Otherwise, your essay becomes useless. He doesn't have the time to analyze who you are by showing him. He has 50 other essays to read that day. Forcing him to analyze your essay could get your application into the reject pile. Tell him. That is all he wants from you. Tell him from the second person point of view because he wants to know about how other people view you as a daughter, a friend, a classmate, a peer in the community.

I would ask you to write this essay from the second person point of view rather than the first person as you are doing now because it sounds like you are describing yourself rather than having other people describe you. Just change the POV for the presentation, try to find a different accomplishment to be proud of, and work on a smoother presentation of the revised essay. That should help you develop a better essay that shows a different aspect of your personality for the reviewer to get to know and consider during the review process.

You said that you "take thing seriously" Did you mean to say "I take everything seriously?" I would not say that if I were you. Instead, say you are a passionate person when it comes to specific things. You may specify what these things are in that aspect. When you say you take everything seriously, it is a generalized presentation that doesn't really have a particular focus, which means the reviewer will be lost as to what you mean by that statement.

Undergraduate / Essay on how I deal with the overstimulation of information [2]

Giuliana, you never responded to the question you posed for yourself in the essay. The main question is how you deal with over stimulation. You discussed where the over stimulation comes from, but not how you deal with it directly. The whole paragraph about your mother, her background, and how she raised you is not even related to the question so I do not understand why you felt the need to include it in this presentation. You have asked a direct question, "How do I deal with over stimulation?" The response should be direct.

You deal with over stimulation by clearing your mind through the arts. You paint, you draw, you sketch. You let the crazy thoughts and over information flow out through the images you create. That is how you clear your mind. That is how you analyze the issues and situations, that is how you deal with over information. Working on art is the method by which you deal with over stimulation and that should be the focus of your response. By drawing or painting, you manage to paint an understanding of the information presented somehow. You better understand the situation when you can decipher it through related images. That is what the response to this essay should focus on, not what you have written at the moment.

I feel that you need to change your response from the one you have now because it doesn't apply to the main question. You need to focus your response on the actual activity of dealing with over stimulation. Directly respond to the question using relevant responses, which mainly deal with art as your avenue of release, contemplation, and understanding.

Graduate / Correlation between your studies and economic growth in your country [3]

Adil, what is the big problem with your essay ? You did not respond to the prompt requirements at all. You have not written a workable study plan. You only wrote a personal observation of the problems in your country. There is no reference to a specific plan of action that you hope to implement when you get back home. You do not refer to a time frame for the completion of your project. You do not indicate any reference to a research that you will be conducting as a student which you can develop into a workable career plan upon your return home that can be implemented in the problematic sector.

Do not portray just the problems in your essay, and you previous academic and professional experiences. That isn't what a study plan is about. What you need to do is indicate what the problem is, how you hope to resolve it, why researching possible solutions are important to the development of this sector in your country, and what changes you hope to make upon implementing these changes. You will need to delete this essay in totality and write a new essay.

Write one paragraph for each prompt requirement. Then review it for relevance to the given instruction. Make sure your response is in accordance with the given instruction. Then work on blending the information you have written down to create a smooth presentation for the essay. You still have time to make the necessary changes by writing a new essay. I strongly urge you to do that.

Writing Feedback / IELTS Task 2 - Opinion - The meaning behind traditional or religious festivals [2]

Nguyen, when you write an extent essay, you need to pick a specific side to write about or, in instances when you have a reason to agree with both sides, at least have a more dominant side to have represented in the essay. As such, you cannot say that you both agree and disagree with the statement given. You have to word it in a manner that make the extent of your (dis)agreement clear to the reader. You should have created a more proper paraphrase by saying:

There is a growing belief that people are beginning to lose the meaning of traditional festivals. The new concept is that people use the festivals only for personal enjoyment. I partially agree with this statement for a number of reasons.

Since all opinion essays need to discuss only one major opinion, when discussing 2 opinions in an extent essay, a clear measured opinion needs to be presented. While the body of your discussion is supportive of the "partial" point of view, you did not properly frame your response in the paraphrase section so the essay did not become totally proper in terms of task accuracy. Wording is important in the essay. Be sure to deliver a clear response every time you are asked for one.

Please remember that you are supposed to use "an" when the word after it starts with a vowel. Use the proper indefinite article in order to strengthen your sentence structure. Look out for your spelling. Do not spell English words in American English when taking the British English based IELTS test. You will end up spelling the word wrong. Examples of these in essay include the word "fulfilment" which you accidentally spelled in American English.

Your paragraphs are not properly structured in the sense that you are overusing commas in every sentence, creating run-on sentences. Shorten these sentences for clarity and conciseness. Do not try to connect too many ideas in one sentence. The most proper presentation is one idea per sentence. Use 3-5 sentences per paragraph. You used only 2 sentences in your opening paragraph and only one sentence in your concluding summary. Improper formatting does not allow you to completely explain the requirements of the paragraphs. The concluding summary is incomplete and so is your opening paraphrase due to the improper content and low sentence count. This adds to the confusion while reading your essay.

Book Reports / I want to write an rehtorical analyizes paper about Gladwell the tipping point book chapter 4 [2]

There is a subject-verb disagreement when it comes to your use of the word "influence" the reference points indicate that this should be written in plural form as "references". You could use more clarity in the sentence presentation by providing only one word choice instead of two in the "environment/situation" and presenting/explaining" presentations. Don't make the reader choose an option. That is something you should do as the writer. This is all about your research and your information, as authoritatively presented to the reader. Make up your mind about what you want to present the reader and then use that descriptive word. Since this is an authority based paper, your indecision regarding certain word choices tend to cloud the reading material. It becomes confusing when the reader is left to make choices regarding your presentation as the reader is not totally sure about which word choice would be proper for the representation of the implied discussion in the sentence and the overall paragraph.

Writing Feedback / IELTS Writing: Should the jury get access to the defendant's past criminal record? [2]

Ngo, Let's start with the response errors that you made. For starters, you are not properly paraphrasing the given prompt. Neither are you presenting a proper response to the discussion instruction. The basic error can be seen as follows:

Original Prompt: Do you agree or disagree?

Your Response: From my perspective, this issue is still controversial.

Your response should have only been either agree or disagree. Your written response does not respond to the question provided at all. In relation to that, the correct prompt paraphrase would have been similar to:

The criminal record of the accused in Britain or Australia is sealed. This is done to prevent any undue influence on the jury. Due to certain important data coming from the existing record of the accused, some legal minds are pushing for the jury to have access to this particular record before coming to a decision. I an in agreement with this belief due to several considerations.

As a single opinion essay, your dual point of view discussion is out of place. An essay is only dual discussion based if the instruction says "Discuss both points of view..." The only reference to be made in the discussion / reasoning paragraphs should only cover the reasoning that you support with ample examples as to why your opinion is the correct one. This essay will be deemed only partially responsive to the prompt, even though your TA score will fail due to an improper response to the instruction sentence.

Writing Feedback / IELTS writing: Some people say History is one of the most important school subjects. [3]

Amo, aside from clarity issues, the only GRA related problem I can find in this essay is the missing comma after your introductory element within the last sentence of your concluding summary. There should be a comma after the word "So" to indicate a pause for the reader who should consider the content of the statement afterwards.

While your approach to this essay paraphrase is different, I would not say that it is an accurate paraphrase. That is because the prompt paraphrase should not contain the reference to the pronoun "I" when indicating the topic instructions. This is not a direct response essay so you should not be making any direct declarations in the paraphrase because you will not be able to justify your presentation. I would have presented this, in what I believe is a more appropriate presentation as follows:

There is an ongoing discussion as to whether history or Science and Technology are more marked educational topics at the moment. Both sides have valid discussion points. I have my own opinion regarding this discussion. However, it would be better if a discussion of both sides are presented before I make any personal declarations.

Using the above prompt presentation, it becomes clear that a 5 paragraph essay will be presented using 3 reasoning paragraphs. This isn't a 4 paragraph essay because you need to present the following discussion points as individual paragraphs:

1. Public POV 1
2 Public POV 2
3. Personal Opinion

Do not use the collective first pronoun "we" in the discussion because you are not discussing a personal opinion at first. The public POV should be presented using the third person pronouns instead. Secondary pronouns are indicated by: they. him, her, them. Ownership words or phrases can only be used such as "Groups that believe" or "There are some people", or even "The supporters..." Are some ownership phrases that show a clear reference to whose point of view is being discussed. The "I" pronoun should not come into play until the third reasoning paragraph. Based on these requirements, you can see why your discussion is not clear in terms of reference and how this essay can tend to confuse the reader. This is not a well written essay due to the improper use of reference pronouns.

These mistakes however, are not the main reason that this essay will automatically get a failing score. You have written only 242 words. The essay is 8 words under the minimum word requirement of 250. As such deductions will be made for the missing word count and added to the other errors in your essay. This is the main reason why your work does not have a prayer of getting a passing score in an actual test setting.

Undergraduate / I spent this past summer performing in a show at the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival ACTIVITY ESSAY [3]

Hi Victoria, the essay in itself needs to be better presented. The strength of the essay and the interest of the reviewer will come from the proper "hook" that you will be using. I suggest that you open the essay by saying:

The activity that's most important ... Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival. I learned ... importance it plays in my life. The opportunity I had with the Fringe Festival ... without that amazing opportunity.

By using parts of your second paragraph to create the stronger interest in your presentation, the reader is enticed to know more about the festival and what your participation was. Then you can use all of the first paragraph, this time using the first person pronoun "I" instead of we since this essay is all about your experience and why it became very important to you. Try to highlight any weak skills that you had in relation to theater production that you found yourself strengthening towards the end of the activity. Then close the essay by indicating that you continue to develop the skills you learned through this activity or, let us know if you are continuing to hone your skills through your continued participation in the activity.

Letters / This is the letter by my advisor - applying to the physics graduate program [4]

Sheng, the recommendation letter should be written not by your undergraduate adviser, but you masters degree thesis adviser instead. That is because you are applying for a doctoral program, a PhD program, which means you have learning abilities and experiences far beyond your college level skills at this point. This recommendation letter does not tell the PhD application reviewer what he wants to know about your advanced learning skills and accomplishments. Therefore, this recommendation letter will carry very little weight. Your recommendation letter for a doctoral course needs to highlight your ability to combine both a work and academic load. Therefore, your recommendation should come either from your masters academic adviser or your immediate supervisor at work.

Another reason why this letter will not be taken seriously is because it is highly obvious to the trained reviewer that this was not written by a professor but rather the student himself, posing as his professor. The information clearly comes from your resume because of the way that the information is presented more as a personal statement rather than a recommendation letter. This is not a recommendation letter that will be taken seriously. Have a professor from your masters course or your immediate supervisor write the recommendation letter and have it reviewed here. That is the only authoritative recommendation letter that you can submit with your application. You cannot use this letter at all.