Writing Feedback / traditional foods vs international fast food (which is bad) [6]

Some grammatical fixes for you:

"On the one hand, although the fast food companies, likeMcDonald'sand KFC, seem to be more concerned about healthy diet by offering more nutritional options on the menu, recent research data show that the majority of fast foods have the potential to posecause health problemshazards , such as obesity and heart disease."

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

This is interesting, a topic in which drawing on your own personal experiences might be better than more objective examples. After all, surely you must watch television yourself. So, how has it influenced your behavior? Has it made you more relaxed and pleasanter, or has it convinced to go out on a homicidal shooting spree? Why not talk about what you know about he subject from firsthand experience?

Essays / Analytical Assignment: use the images in the picture to show our culture [6]

I don't see why you couldn't write a 4-5 page essay on the three groups of people you have chosen. You might want to change the "people who don't care" group to "independents" or some such, though. Obviously the people cared, or they wouldn't have shown up at the town hall at all. Perhaps, though, they didn't have a pre-existing stance on the issue. The Obama supporters did, clearly, and were probably there because the Democratic Party had sent them to provide the photo op. The protesters, likewise, were probably there because the Republican Party had sent them to ruin the photo op. In any event, the partisans on both sides already had set stances. The Democrats would like, by and large, to ultimately nationalize the health care system, though they are willing to settle for doing it in increments if the political will isn't there to do it all at once. The Republicans would like, by and large, to keep the health care system in private hands as much as possible.

The independents and moderates, though, are the ones whose support will ultimately determine what actually happens. They include the vast majority of people who recognize that both the Democrats and the Republicans are fundamentally wrong. Anyone who looks at any existing government system in America can see plenty of proof that the government couldn't run a lemonade stand without going horribly overbudget while providing only mediocre service. Worse, it would probably manage to completely ruin the lemonade stand industry in the process. On the other hand, the current, mostly privately run system, is clearly untenable. Insurance companies jack up premiums when people get sick, attempt to find ways to avoid paying out, and will even refuse to renew coverage for people who develop longterm illness. Essentially, they are not providing the coverage people are ostensibly paying for with their regular payments when they are healthy. Also, the current system is not actually privately run. The government provides millions in coverage to the very poor, making the American healthcare system among the most expensive in the world.

So, maintaining the status quo won't work. Putting more trust in the insurance companies is foolish, as they've already proven that they won't operate in good faith. Turning control over to the government would probably be even worse, given how poorly the government has run everything else it has ever touched. Also, for reasons I won't get into here, government programs are generally destined to end up being costly and inefficient, no matter how well-run they are at their inception. Reform is necessary, but none of the alternatives seem particularly appealing. So, the partisans and ideologues yell at each other, while the rest sit by in silent despair. That gives you plenty of material for analysis. You may have to research the various positions a bit to flesh out your points, but there should be plenty of material available, give how topical this is.

Undergraduate / Personal Essay, "Life Defining moment" [8]

It was a cold and rainy morning, so it was even more difficult to leave my cozy bed behind. I made my bed and went straight to the showers, the cold water dripping on my head slowly, woke me to my senses. It was not a usual day, it was the day of the DYS Youth Summit, and my cast's "The Secret Garden". Since I was the facilitator of a workshop that day I quickly got into the car and started the engine. The sun had not risen yet, and while the whole village was silent and asleep, I broke the silence with the roar of my t-100.

Note how often you are using "was", and that frequently in the "it was" construction, one of the weakest you can employ. Try revising your essay to use stronger verbs:

Once you have gone through your essay tightening up the writing, post the entire draft for more feedback.

Essays / Differences between 'to cow' and 'to bull' - Examsmanship & the Liberal Arts [14]

Well, why don't you start by brainstorming aloud, as it were, on this forum? What do you think the theme is? What point is the author trying to make? What parts of the work seemed interesting to you? Why? What parts seem dull or difficult to understand? Why? You will learn more if you try to come to an understanding of the work on your own . . .

Undergraduate / My Struggle - My pursuit for happiness (University of Florida) [9]

I'd go with mostly past tense, as most of what you describe happens in the past. This obviously doesn't apply to your intro, though.

Essays / common app short (activities) essay: strict word limit?? [10]

If no maximum is given, then in theory you can make it as long as you want. However, it seems unlikely that your reasons for transferring require much more than a page or so of explanation, and you should try to be as concise and to the point as possible. Applications officers have to read an awful lot of essays, and the last thing they want to see is one that goes on for three or four pages.

Undergraduate / "how the brain and mind function" - Evaluate a significant experience, & impact. [8]

This is an excellent essay -- you have a detailed narrative that directly explains how you became interested in the subject you hope to study. I especially like your use of simile:


.

The writing style is also very strong. You could make it even stronger, though, if you relied a bit less on weak verbs, especially forms of "to be." Here, for instance, you use "was" five times in two sentences:

Undergraduate / Stanford "Intellectually engaging idea" Essay [6]

Also, "what is my ultimate purpose in life?" isn't an idea so much as a question. Pick a philosophical, political, or scientific idea that really interests you, and explain why you found it compelling enough to write about.

Writing Feedback / Summary-Response Essay - Celebrating Nerdiness by Tom rogers [5]


Your summary is okay. Your thesis should probably include a summary of the reasons why you agree with him though.

Writing Feedback / Gay Marriage: Is It Right? [13]


Why do you judge people who want to live their lives as intolerant people so negatively, then? You see the contradiction there? Everyone judges people based on their own personal moral code -- that's part of what moral codes are for. Also, it is worth pointing out that one tolerates, by definition, that which one does not like, and has judged in some way to be undesirable. The original notion of tolerance was that one should respect the rights of others, even if one disapproved of their background, lifestyle, religion, etc. Not that one should in fact stop disapproving of them. This is at the heart of the debate over gay marriage. Those who view marriage as essentially a secular arrangement view denying gays the right to marry as literally being intolerant, in the truest sense of the word. Those who view marriage as a religious sacrament believe that allowing gays to marry is the first step towards mandating acceptance, rather than simply tolerance, of homosexuality.

Book Reports / Paired Text essay on Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World... where to start? [3]

Well, you seem to know that the "big difference" lies in the fact that BNW portrays a world that is arguably only dysfunctional from our perspective, whereas 1984 describes a world that is objectively dysfunctional. That is, from the point of view of most of the people living in BNW, the world is not dysfunctional. They are mostly all happy, have a decent standard of living, in as much as even the lower classes get everything they need to survive comfortably and are content with their lot. Technology is advanced and continues to advance. The world of 1984, though, is clearly dysfunctional even to the people living it. Those running the dictatorship suffer from ever lowering standards of living just as much as those they oppress, and everyone is pretty much fairly miserable all of the time.

So, since you have identified that as the major difference, why not start there and see if you can come up with something worth saying about that difference? Hint: start by asking yourself questions about it, and then trying to answer them.

Grammar, Usage / Quote "we get older.." - how to cite it? Correct usage of "we." [5]

If you really want to avoid it, you could go with "the company." Also, simply adopting a more concise writing style would often avoid the issue altogether.

"During the hiring process here at LST Pharmaceuticals, the company hires inexperienced workers who have little to no experience but weand provides them with job training."

Undergraduate / I want to write an essay for the art institute in Chicago and I really need help [4]

Yep. You should always supply the exact prompt when asking for help on these sorts of essays. As to where to start, start at the beginning. Write out a thesis statement that summarizes your answer to whatever the question was, then expand on it as logically and as clearly as you can. Probably you will want to back up your points with relevant anecdotes from your past experiences.

Writing Feedback / "hard work leads you to success in your life" - need help in correcting my essay [5]


Your logic here isn't very tight. Overwhelming evidence suggests that hard work is in fact the key to success. For instance, the willingness to put in a higher level of effort is one of the main reasons that underdogs can win against established opponents (the other is the willingness of successful underdogs to do that which is socially unacceptable, but that's another topic altogether). To argue that, all other things being equal, hard work has nothing to do with success, is probably a mistake. You could argue that other factors may sometimes be more important, though. In any event, your example is a poor one. The janitor who works hard is in fact very successful at what he is working hard to be -- a good janitor, which may explain why he continues to be employed as a janitor in spite of economic hard times. He is not successful in socioeconomic terms, of course, but that isn't what he has been working hard at. Obviously, hard work increases the odds of succeeding at whatever one is working towards. Someone who trains hard to be a good tennis player for instance, cannot then complain that hard work has nothing to do with success if he fails a literacy test he has made no effort to study for.

Undergraduate / "My dream America" - common app essay draft.. [5]

The rest of your essay, while less confusing, isn't much better written. Lots of weak verbs in wordy phrases, with no clear focus on good qualities that would make you an ideal university applicant. Decide what you want the essay to say about you, think of a narrative anecdote that describes it, and make sure that it relates in some way to whatever prompt you have been given, then write a new essay with that as your focus.

Scholarship / Scholarship essay question help, your sense of humor, your personality [5]

Um, how do you expect us to give you ideas about which of your experiences you should talk about? Give us a draft, or at least a sense of what you plan to talk about, if you want useful feedback.

Undergraduate / AUT Physiotherapy essay - need review [11]


The danger with posing questions like these is that they invite a response you probably don't intend or want. Why don't you give your thoughts on how you could meet or work around the physiotherapy competencies in order to show that it is more than just a physical profession? Your intended audience will be much more inclined to accommodate your needs if you make an effort to show them how they can do so.

Graduate / Grad School Statement of Purpose Critique (passion for academics and researc) [11]

And you're verbose, which never endears admissions officers to students:

The last three years have been very informative and meaningful since they have taught me a great deal about the corporate world and more importantly given me a very clear picture of whatshown me I want to do with the rest of my life. I consider my self to beam a very creative, insightful, resourceful and a hard working individual whose true potential can be realized in a relatively independent, challenging and a flexible environment, Such an environment based on my experience is best offered in a research based academic setting.

The editing is just to show you how many unnecessary words and phrases you use in your writing. In fact, all of this paragraph is trite boilerplate, and should be cut. Revise you essay to make it more concise, and to use strong verbs, then repost.

Grammar, Usage / The difference between: can/could, may/might, will/would, that/which [5]

Sounds like something you could probably just ask the overmind. Wikipedia has a pretty good discussion of auxiliary verbs here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_verb, though you will have to search a bit more for a full explanation of all of the items on your list.

Undergraduate / 'Corruption in schools curriculum' - Issue of importance - my history teacher [35]

I also, will add to the chorus calling for full disclosure of the prompt. However, it doesn't much matter. Any uni admission essay has to be about you, and this one isn't. All we can tell from it is that you are a partisan Democrat (which actually might help you with most universities) and that you are resentful and bit whiny (which certainly won't). If you are writing on the "Discuss an issue of importance to you" prompt, then you need to explain how your teacher's bias harmed you academically (if it did so) and how you overcame the obstacle, or learned something, or developed some positive character trait, or were inspired to do something wonderful.

Writing Feedback / We are blessed with modern tools; Modern technology [8]

Many grammatical errors, though your meaning comes through fairly clearly in spite of them. I'll revise the first paragraph for you, and leave the rest for our other contributors:

N owadays our society has enjoyedenjoys the benefits of having modern technology. We are blessed with modern tools, which couldcan perform towhat seemed to be an impossible tasks that once seemed impossible, such asin the past like retrieving information in a matter of seconds. However, these advances often comes with unforseen and undesirable consequences defeating the very objective in the first place . To my mind, modern technology is more a bane than a boon.

Your points about pornography and crime are weak, as others have already pointed out. I don't know of a single school shooting incident where the person who did it did so only because of seeing a video clip. Media do tend to spread the idea, a dark meme as it were, but the people who pick up on it need to have a ton of other problems first to do so. Likewise, you might be able to make a case for the negative effects on online pornography, but again, you need to be more nuanced. Pornography existed long before the internet (no one really believes all the stone artifacts from bygone eras representing 'fertility goddesses' were really meant for religious veneration), and the link between pornography and sex crimes is difficult to prove, in terms of causation.

Grammar, Usage / critique - facing problems sometimes in writing [6]

Why don't you post a sample of your work here? Your posts have not exactly been the epitome of great writing, but many people write appallingly in online communication, even when they know better. Let us see the work you have actually charged people for, and we can tell you if it is in fact up to par grammatically.

Writing Feedback / The Saluda hospital - Advice for my GRE argument [6]


Yeah, the "no wonder" thing should go. I'd avoid revising too much to sound more tentative, though. This generally leads to weaker writing if overdone, and the tendency in most students is to err in that direction.

You might also point out that a for-profit business, like any other business, needs to provide high levels of customer satisfaction, which a non-profit hospital, especially if its government funded, does not. In fact, this raises the question of what the article meant by "non-profit" in the first place.

Also, you might ask why the study picked hospitals located in areas with very different population densities. You sort of touch on this in some of your other arguments, but it is worth being explicit, as city hospitals presumably face a very different set of problems than a small town one. Disease rates will be higher, for instance, as the number of tourists, both domestic and foreign, who visit the city will be higher, as will the number of crime victims, etc. The population density also likely explains the lower doctor to patient ratio.

Finally, you could point out that the study contradicts other findings, which show much longer wait times, and much lower survival rates in public (non-profit)hospitals compared to private (for-profit) hospitals.

Essays / Common application - Question regarding essay content [8]

I know I'm good and sick of reading the "my mommy/daddy is the specialest person in the whole world" essays, and there haven't been that many on here, far fewer I would imagine than your average admissions officer has to read, every year, year after year. In part, its a matter of originality. Everyone is heavily influenced by their caregivers, for good or for ill. For most of the people who do well enough in school to have a chance to get into university, the influence has generally been good. Worse, those who choose to write about them almost certain do so because the influence has been good. So, the essays are all going to come out about the same, only a bit better or worse depending on the writer's skill. However, you want to write an essay that stands out from the crowd. This makes writing about your parents a bad idea.

Grammar, Usage / How to write a book on "The causes of the way you behave"? [5]

And you might mention whether publication is your ultimate objective, or whether you are writing primarily for your own edification, with publication as a secondary goal.

Poetry / poem review [the wounded soul] [8]

You have to be aware when using symbols of the preexisting connotations the images you use may have. For instance, you don't have to be a Freudian psychologist, or even think much of the psychoanalytic literary perspective, to see the potential for a Freudian reading of a poem in which a man uses his unsheathed sword to hurt and scar a woman. This isn't necessarily a weakness in your poem -- indeed, most symbols have multiple interpretations, and weaving them together cleverly can make for some complex and challenging poetry. But, you do need to be aware of your chosen symbols' more obvious meanings, and make sure that you mean, or at least don't mind, the readings they give rise to.

Undergraduate / [commentary on your academic goals] Transfer Admission Essay [26]


No. You could get a degree from a wide variety of universities, and you could potentially love several different topics that you could major in. You need to explain why you love the major you have chosen, and what about the University of Connecticut specifically makes you want to study there. The real answer may simply be proximity to where you already are, but you should come up with other reasons that show that you have researched the university.

Undergraduate / At this summit of world leaders, tensions were high; avoid falling into cliches. [6]

Either way, you should still return to the simulation at the end of the essay. You need to close the frame, whether you mention the result of the campaign or not.

Undergraduate / 'blind to many of the things' - someone who has made an impact on my life [18]

Well, I rarely find myself at a complete loss for words, but it is difficult to know what to say here. The prompt asks you to talk about someone who influenced you, and you correctly realize that the influence you mention should be a positive one, as you need to use the essay to highlight your own positive traits. However it is possible to learn from adversity, so I see no reason why the person you talk about had to be good to you.

That said, your chosen topic just doesn't work very well, as pretty much everyone else has already pointed out. In part, this is because the most compelling, detailed narrative is the one you start out with. That sort of punishment would widely be considered abuse today even if you had done something to deserve being punished by your parents. But you don't even give the reader that context, and so it seems as if it was a abusive ritual carried out regardless of your own behavior. The descriptions you give of the good things your father did don't have this level of detail, and so can't really balance out your opening narrative.

Beyond that, it is admirable, I suppose, if you have managed to forgive your father for what he did, but you go beyond this, and actually condone his actions. And this is really why the essay doesn't work. You shouldn't present yourself as someone who condones child abuse in a university application essay. That your experiences have given you strong psychological reasons to do so makes you sympathetic, in this context, rather than horrifying, but the horror is there too. The emotional reactions provoked in the reader overwhelm any rational consideration of the traits you are trying to present, and that you want the admissions officers to reflect on.

Undergraduate / I feel like an idiot writing this - Fashion Institue Essay [9]

In that case, why not talk a bit more about what you hope to accomplish in the fashion industry?

Writing Feedback / Classification and Divison Essay on different "sources of energy." [6]

Natural fossil fuels, yes. Biofuels are universally considered renewable, as you point out. So, if petroleum becomes a biofuel (which has already happened on small scales) the boundary becomes less clear. You don't have to mention this in your essay, but it's really interesting.

Undergraduate / "A likable person" - Boston University Supplement Essay [11]

Possibly the author senses sections are ineffective, but cannot articulate why, and so cannot fix them?

Grammar, Usage / critique - facing problems sometimes in writing [6]


If one writes technical material and gets paid for it, then one is in fact being perfectly honest in describing oneself as a professional technical writer. Now, if one were to say one were a competent professional technical writer, that would be another matter . . .

Simone makes a valid point, though. From your post, it seems as if you need to fix your grammar generally. Also, do you have many British clients who do not comment on your grammar? Or are most of your clients American? If the latter is the case, then that would tend to indicate the problem is with the writing and not the clients.

Undergraduate / Miss Judy Common App [21]

The analogy in original doesn't work because there is too much of a gap between the introduction and the final line. The analogy isn't sustained throughout; it's just mentioned at the beginning and the end of the essay. As a result, the final line reads like a non sequitur, rather than a clever link back to the introduction. The opening part is fine, but the last line falls flat coming so abruptly after such a long time without any reference to the opening analogy.

Also, the analogy fails at the end because it translates roughly as "Mrs. Judy made me love doing something inherently dull." But, the whole point of the essay is that you learned that ballet is not inherently dull. Again, if you had sustained the analogy throughout the essay, so that we knew which parts of studying ballet could be compared to punching in numbers, and in what way, and what parts were like collecting data, and in what way, the analogy could be quite good.

Undergraduate / How you gained respect for social differences (University of Michigan) [15]


The plural of broccoli is broccoli.


The Star Trek incident is okay as a trigger for your recognition of the essential humanity of the homeless, but you should revise this to acknowledge that it was probably the beginning of a process, rather than an instant epiphany.


Yep, this sentence implies that you are homeless, as Liebe pointed out.

Undergraduate / Describe a setback. How you resolved it. How it effected you. [11]

It would be nice if you could end on a high note, pardon the pun, and talk about how you finally mastered the piece (assuming you did). Otherwise, the point of the essay seems to be that after nine years of practice, you still can't hit one particular note in one particular song, a point that sort of detracts from the impression you want to give of yourself. Otherwise, though, this is a strong and original essay.

Undergraduate / I feel like an idiot writing this - Fashion Institue Essay [9]

What exactly is the prompt for this essay? It is difficult to tell how on-topic it is when the topic remains partially obscure. In any event, you seem to dwell a lot on your decision to drop out of high school, presumably because you are worried that it will be held as a black mark against you on your application. I wouldn't spend so much time talking about it, though. In fact, if you have multiple essay topics, then you should talk about this is whichever one is dedicated to explaining that sort of thing, and focus this one more on wholly positive traits about you.

Undergraduate / Paging Simone! What do addmission panels look for in essays? [7]


What was the system at the school you worked at while you were on the committee?

Undergraduate / "people should "stick with their own kind" - University of Michigan essay [26]

Much better. It would be nice if you could give specific examples of the questions you asked your friends and what you learned from their responses, but I don't see how you could fit them in, given the word count.