Essays / Women's Studies Essay on the 2015 movie Suffragette, but about things that weren't in Suffragette [2]

I think that you should look at intersectionality in this film as it applies to all women, regardless of skin color, race, gender, or other social beliefs or requirements. Intersectionality is not limited to women of color. It covers everything in a social landscape. While I have not see this movie, I believe that, from the title alone, this is a female empowerment film that shows how women overcame the male mindset that women do not deserve the right to vote. Now remember, ALL women did not have the right to vote at the time, that includes women of color. Look, just because the women of color were not represented in the film does not mean that historically they were ignored. So you can discuss the film from that angle. Explain that although not represented in the film, the historical accomplishment represented in the movie had a direct effect on the right of Black women to vote. Remember though, that the issue isn't just about the lack of black women in the movie, it is the overall lack of international representation. So all women, from Black to Indian should have been represented in the film. This also means that the LGBTQ community, though underground at the time, also gained representation in the vote simply because the heterosexual women gained that right. You can talk about how the straight women called the shots, so to speak.

Talk about how the movie promoted rights for women regardless of all things that we consider important today. Those were not important factors back then because very few knew about the existence of and the need for intersectionality. They did not need to have specific representation of each intersection of the female society because the right to vote was not limited to only White women nor was it specifically given to only heterosexual women. This was a time when women's rights were across the board, regardless of everything we consider important to have specifically represented today.

Undergraduate / "What are you going to be?" My identity essay for college [3]

Vu, I can see why you thought of using this common app prompt for this essay. It reflects your "interest" in languages at a certain point. While that does fit into the prompt, I believe that the better fit / prompt for your presentation is this one:

5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

Please allow me to explain why I believe that the change in prompt will benefit the essay that you developed. Throughout the essay, you have made the reviewer conscious of the fact that you had wasted time, squandered opportunities, and basically remained lost for an extended period which prevented you from figuring out what you want to be when you grow up. The essay, as yo wrote it was all about these "realizations". That, is the reason why I believe my suggested prompt will be a more suitable discussion topic for your essay.

Within your presentation, you clearly offer the reviewer the opportunity to learn about this period of time when you it slowly dawned on you that you need to take control of your life and figure the direction you want to take it in. Along with the other activities that you participated in, you clearly show a period of personal growth that led you to a deeper understanding of yourself, what you want for your future, and how you want to achieve it. Hence, this other prompt is better suited to your written essay. Consider changing the prompt to the one I am suggesting. It will help to create a more informative and relevant essay for the reviewer to consider.

In the concluding paragraph, remove the reference to your message to the future generation. That is superfluous to the content of the essay.

Scholarship / My Chevening Essay on why I want to study Biotechnology in UK and how to utilize it in future [2]

Taofiq, the Study in the UK essay requires an academic and professional background explanation in its presentation. Therefore, the last 2 paragraphs of your essay does not belong here. Set those 2 paragraphs aside and use those to kick-off your post study plans instead. That is where your future career plan discussion belongs. Now, let's take a deeper look at the current essay and analyze how to best improve it.

Your internship experience should be used not as a stand alone paragraph but rather as a part of your academic training in chosen courses. That way you enhance your information presentation with a solid basis for your interest in and academic / internship training in the field. This proves your ability to perform as a student and a serious interest in your chosen MS course as well. Incorporate the relevant internship information in the presentation of the 3 courses. It is your internship experience that will separate the reasons why you have chosen these 3 courses.

Speaking of the 3 courses, you must present these as individual paragraphs even if 2 of the courses are offered at the same university. That is because each course needs a separate explanation coming from you regarding your relevant academic training, professional relevance, and future career applications. It will be difficult for the reviewer to keep track of your discussions if you do not separate the presentations. So the presentation should be something like:

I have chosen a Masters in Biotechnology course at the University of Portsmouth as my first choice because of my background in... which will help me perform well during my studies of... The course is applicable to my future career goal of...

My second choice is a Masters in Medical Biotechnology course also at the University of Portsmouth due to.

Note that the format I used gives a clearer and more precise discussion presentation to the reviewer for his perusal. Try to close the presentation with a reference to your current profession and how it has helped you realize your potential to succeed as a student in these fields. That is the best way to close the essay. Like I mentioned above, the last 2 paragraphs need to be moved to the post study plans essay.

Scholarship / I discovered my leadership skills at school. (CHEVENING scholarship) [2]

Franklin, this is not the sort of leadership and influencing essay that be considered competitive in nature simply because it does not reflect the requirements of the essay. Your college experience did not really make any impact on the student community so that your leadership and influencing styles were notable. Being a supportive student representative is different from being a student leader who embarked on projects that made a difference in the student community and helped other people learn about their strengths.

Creating a Linguistics club does not mean anything when your duties and responsibilities in the club are so subordinate, you sound like an errand boy instead of a notable leader. There is no leadership since you required the help of the group director to complete your project. There is no influencing because your main objective was simply to give a lecture on the importance or reading. Where does the influencing aspect come in at this point? There is no leadership, there is no influencing reference either.

Sadly, this essay only reflects your experiences with Linguistics and some student governance. It does not really showcase your ability to lead, inspire, and make positive changes in your community that could lead to your becoming a notable influencer in the field of Linguistics upon your return from your studies. I am not sure about how to help you fix this problem aside from suggesting that you write a new essay that better suits the prompt requirements. Make sure your essay indicates the following:

1. Your leadership position
2. Situation that required your leadership
3. How the issue was resolved through your influence
4. What kind of influence did you use?
5. The outcome of the project after you led and influenced its outcome.

Covering those 5 topics in your presentation should help you deliver the required information in a more attuned manner to the prompt.

Undergraduate / My interest in Mathematics & Computer Science- UIUC Undergraduate [5]

Punya, your first 3 paragraphs are extremely focused on the foundation of your love for CS and Math. That is a very good thing to display in this essay. However, you seem to have lost steam by the time it came for you to discuss your future career goals. It became too generalized in reference, without a clear path cut out for you. You may want to consider developing that a little further since you have about 12 more words to use in this essay. By indicating a career goal for yourself, you will show the reviewer that you have definite ideas as to how you want to spend your life both during and after college. The reviewer is looking for the reason behind your determination to complete this course. Therefore, you need to present a solid career goal. Yes, even it is listed as optional in the prompt. Believe me, it will strengthen your essay. You can change your career goals later on anyway. Right now, it is the justification that is important.

Your career goal needs to be more than just "to create something useful". It has to be something like, "After graduation, I have set my mind to creating my own start up company that will specialize in developing home automation systems for the elderly" or something like that. Give yourself a career focus and goal. Not just a desire to complete the course hoping to do something with it.

Scholarship / Working in a team brings understanding to the "leadership" meaning [4]

@Atto_25 You certainly have strong leadership skills indicated in this essay. However, these all pertain to you working alone and making decisions without having to consult others. That is also the reason why this leadership essay is weak in presentation. Yes, strengths can also prove to be weaknesses as evidenced by your presentation. Consistently being voted Employee of the Month means nothing if you do not have the ability to prove that you are capable of managing people and influencing the outcome of certain office situations.

This essay is very one sided in presentation. You are the sole focus of the essay when the discussion should be centered in team work based leadership and influencing abilities. You as the leader need to know how to inspire your team. I don't get a sense of that in this presentation mainly because of the lack of people management in the discussion.

A totally new essay will be required in this instance, one that showcases your ability to lead and inspire, resulting in the award that you received. Otherwise, you are not proving to be a future leader and influencer in your country. You are only proving to be a good worker. Sample essays regarding the actual leadership and influencing requirements are available at this forum for your reference, I suggest that you do exactly that. Refer to the samples when you write your new essay.

Scholarship / User Experience Designer's Career Plan in Financial Industry - Chevening Career Plan Essay [2]

Ayu, balance the post study career plan in this essay. It is important that you highlight the Collaborative Grant of DICE program somewhere within the top paragraphs of the essay in order to catch the reviewer's attention and immediately establish the fact that Indonesia has a specific UK relationship. Build on this discussion by explaining how you hope to become a recipient of the program based on the foundation of your post study career. That way the essay is off to a strong start.

After you establish the UK relationship, you can then proceed to detail your non-UK relationship plans. Although, it would be better for your essay if you could insert a UK relationship every so often within your plans. That way you establish the fact that you are conscious of the British projects in your country and that you desire to collaborate with them on certain aspects of your career.

Please remove the reference to the nameless Chevening scholar. That is a useless reference because you neither mention the name of the alumna, nor do you indicate that this person will be a referee for you. It doesn't move the essay forward nor make it more notable. That is the only aspect of your essay that doesn't work in the overall presentation.

Scholarship / Future medical doctor - my application for master degree under Chevening [3]

@ahmedzakaria24 This is a good foundation for the networking essay. It does not contain any leadership and influencing reference so it cannot be used for that essay topic. You will need to develop a new one that better presents your personal leadership philosophy and examples of your leadership and influencing skills within you profession. The best way to approach this essay is by figuring out what leadership style you want to depict in your essay based on your work experience. For example, did you ever perform as the team leader of a medical convoy? Pick the most challenging place you went to, describe the situation, and how you resolved the issues through the use of leadership and influencing skills. Don't just do a general narration of the event. Be specific and detailed. The reviewer needs to see the "how" of your leadership and influencing style not just the "reference" to the topics.

Essays / Regarding the Referees in Chevening Networking Essay [9]

The main requirement is that the focus of your chosen course must be within one field alone, with different concentrations. So in this case, the main course is education, everything else is the concentration of the course. It is acceptable. Just make sure that your background will support your chosen courses and, as Chevening requires, you must already have unconditional acceptance to at least one university, acceptance to all universities preferred. That widens the committees choice of university and course for your application.

You want to make sure that, should you be awarded the scholarship, you will already be able to enroll at the university. You do not choose the universities without an assurance that you can attend when the time comes.

More importantly, you need to assure the reviewer that your academic background and current profession relates to your course choices. That is of the utmost importance because you need to convince the reviewer that you have the background with which to succeed or complete your chosen MS course.

Writing Feedback / ANIMAL EXPERIMENT - DISCUSSION AND OPINION ESSAY [2]

@trangmuel your opening paraphrase lacks a reference to the discussion instruction. What you did was give your opinion at the very end, which is not the right place for it because the prompt paraphrase part, the first paragraph, only allows for a restatement of the original discussion. Your opinion should be in the reasoning paragraphs because you need to develop your explanation upon presentation of your opinion. With the 5 sentence maximum sentence per paragraph, you cannot do that in the prompt paraphrase. Each body paragraph should have only one topic for discussion development. That is not done in the first paragraph. The last sentence of your paragraph should be:

As there are two points of view to this issue, I would like to examine these factors and build my opinion of the topic.

The example I made above shows you how to properly restate the discussion instruction without using memorized phrases. Speaking of memorized phrases, that is a clear problem in your body of paragraphs.

Your two reasoning paragraphs use the memorized phrases "One the one hand" and " On the other hand". Try to use clear topic sentences as the first line your new paragraph instead. That way you clearly indicate what the paragraph will discuss, giving the reader a better understanding of what you wish to say in the paragraph. I would have opened the paragraphs as follows:

Society admits that innocent creatures like mice and rabbits have what is called animal rights. That right is violated when experiments are performed on them... However, there are admitted medical advantages to experimenting on animals and rodents.

One of these advantages is that animals and rodents are known to have similar structures to human beings... That is why it is easy to understand the need to experiment in animals.

It is this need to medically test procedures for human use that leads me to believe that animal experimentation has benefits in terms of human health remedies...

Therefore, while... life saving method.

Again, using non-memorized phrases and transition sentences have more LR and GRA scoring advantages for the writer. It is better to show off your English comprehension and vocabulary skills in a manner that shows a clear understanding of the language as opposed to lines that you memorized in a class or from books and online sources.

I will not score you at the moment because this is your first post here. I always reserve the first post for correction advice which I hope to see applied in the second practice essay, which I will then score. This first essay is always used as an assessment of your skills and nothing more.

Undergraduate / "Each of us strengthens all of us"....Villanova supplementary [2]

Lauren, is there any chance that you can pick a different topic for the prompt? The subject you have chosen to discuss in this essay is so tired and common in presentation that the reviewer will be reading at least 50 different versions of this topic during the application cycle. We need an essay that relates to the prompt and pops off the page. It needs to have recall. It needs to be memorable. The topic you have discussed is pretty much a standard essay response at this point. You want to write a memorable essay that showcases the development of a close knit relationship based on your need for support.

It may be possible to salvage this essay though. Use the varsity softball team story to depict your response to the prompt. You can incorporate a short version of being the new girl at the school and how you felt. It would be more interesting to read a fish out of water story based on your desire to be accepted into the academic community through the use of sports. Discuss your apprehension to join the team because you were not used to the set up of the system or something. Talk about how you were along during tryouts but then slowly, the other students trying out began to speak to and befriend you. This would create a far more interesting "Each of us strengthens all of us" response that will not be too commonplace in terms of response use for the prompt.

Scholarship / TRUST - the key word of leadership [3]

@Halatai This essay is not clearly indicative of your leadership and influencing skills. As a project officer, you have too much reference to group collaboration as opposed to individual leadership. There is too much open discussion taking place instead of influencing procedures on your part. There is no clear definition of obstacles encountered during the project and the type of leadership and influencing skills that were required in order to resolve the situation. You are not being asked to detail your duties and responsibilities, nor are you being asked to explain how you accomplished your work assignments, you are being tasked to prove that you actually led a group towards success.

Both essays are limited in scope in relation to the two required topics. While you may use two examples if you wish, when neither of them are effective in portraying the development, implementation, and results of your leadership and influencing, it will always be better to just focus on one strong example. The problem, is that both examples presented in this essay are weak. I am not sure it is because of your ineffective presentation or because of the lack of skills on your part.

The best thing for you to do is write a new essay. Try to choose an event during your career or community service that you feel best explains your leadership style and influencing process. Don't just write the essay for the sake of writing it. Make your essay count, your application depends on it. Think about how you can make it stronger. Consider all the aspects of your career at the moment and then decide how to best present the essay. Try to do it in its strongest form. Don't try to introduce 2 examples at once. Work with one example first and see how effective you can make it. Sometimes one perfect example is better for your application than 2 examples that are little effective in presentation.

Essays / Regarding the Referees in Chevening Networking Essay [9]

@Ghaidaa it would be better if you can name the people in your networking essay as people who know you on an academic and professional basis. Since the scholarship requires the referees to answer questions in direct relation to your leadership and networking skills, personal, intellectual, and interpersonal assessment of you, and their opinion as to your preparedness to complete the UK academic program, it is imperative that the people who write your letter know you on a personal basis such as your office supervisor and a former college professor. It will matter that the people who are recommending you come from the same country otherwise, their review of your abilities could be suspect.

Consider that the referees will have to submit the recommendation letter online and you will not be able to coach them, it would be best to pick 2 people from each sector early on who know you very well. The people you could put in your possible short list of referees should come from any of the following sectors: professional, educational, supervisory, voluntary, religious. I would not advise using the voluntary aspect because these people are not in Gaza and have not had a direct relationship with you so their recommendation may not be as strong as someone from your country.

Your idea to ask the general director and your university professor will work just fine. Those are the perfect people to ask to recommend you based on the essay requirements of the scholarship. They can back up your claims easily. They believe in your skills and proficiency. That matters the most because they will also be asked how long they have known you and in what capacity along with when the last time they were in contact with you was. So the general director will be able to claim the most recent contact while the professor, can claim your last academic contact in relation to the reference letter.

The reference letters do not need to be people mentioned in your networking essay. That was just a suggestion I made because the applicants I assisted found that when the reference letter came from people they mentioned in their networking essay, the consideration for their skills and abilities became stronger. So, to recap, the referee best come from the same country, have some sort of physical contact with you, and need to be able to attest to your intellectual capacity and professional skills. They may not be mentioned in your networking essay if they do not have a networking relevance to your application. You can mention their names in the network if they will be the referees as well.

P.S. If you mention the general director in the leadership and influencing essay in some capacity in relation to your leadership role, his recommendation will certainly strengthen the claims you will be making about your skills in the leadership and influencing essay as well.

Scholarship / (Leadership is a skill gained through hard work, experience and dedication)- Chevening [2]

Alaa, this is not a very focused essay. It is highly confusing to read and does not strongly represent you as a future leader and influencer in your country. My first question is, do you not have any leadership and influencing skills in relation to your profession? That is the more preferred presentation for this essay. While community service will count as part of the leadership qualifications, the fact that work hours are required for Chevening applicant means that you should be able to defend your professional leadership skills in relation to its development and national or local influence. In this essay, there is too much "we" and almost no reference to "I" and how you led and influenced the community program.

It would be best if you did not include your college leadership qualification in this essay as it does not really provide a fully developed reference to your leadership and influencing skills. Your community service though, that seems to have a potential to prove leadership and influencing skills on both a national and local level. The exact qualification for leadership and influencing that the scholarship foundation is looking for.

Please use your most recent leadership and influencing essay in relation to your community service. While others will ask you to present several examples of leadership, my successful applicants have always gotten their scholarships based on my advice that they simply choose their most marked leadership and influencing event which led to a successful project and/or a recognition of their abilities by the organization in some way. It would appear to me that the Life Maker's Foundation should have given you some sort of leadership accolade after 7 years of volunteering with them.

The reason I ask them to focus on just one leadership and influencing event is simple. You need to catch the attention of the reviewer with your leadership and influencing style. So go with either community service or professional skills. Professional skills are more aligned with the requirements of the essay since that is what the MS course is supposed to train you for. The community service leadership and influencing example shows a local or national effort to lead and influence on your part but could be temporary for you, meaning you could change your mind about helping that organization upon your return to your country. So it is best to use the professional aspect as the foundation for the essay. That is after all, where you hope to make a difference as future professional. It has worked for a majority if the students I have guided through their Chevening application process so it is a tried and tested formula.

Try to develop the narrative of the memorable leadership and influencing event you had with the organization. It is not clear in this essay and, like I said, you are coming across more as a team member rather than a leader and influencer in this essay. Indicate your leadership position, your duties, how you led the team, what the obstacles were, and finally, how you used influencing skills to complete the task.

Don't summarize. Be specific. With a 500 word maximum count, you could easily use 250 words for community service and another 250 words for your professional leadership and influencing discussion. If you can only do community service, then use at least 300-450 words to do it. It doesn't really sound like you have a strong community service presentation in line with leadership and influencing at the moment so please try to strengthen the content by writing a new essay.

Scholarship / Seeking suggestions/opinions on essay for Endeavour Postgraduate Leadership Award (MS Data Science) [4]

Sukriti, based on your MS course choice, which is Data Science, you will be doing research based work using computer science and statistics. However, the course include capstone projects at the end of the term. The capstone research you will be doing will best be served by your exposure to practicums, clinical placements, Internships, or volunteer leadership activities at some point during your course of study. The leadership activity is not the course itself but rather, the result of your capstone project that will represent the consummation of your learning objectives during the time of study.

This is considered a part of the leadership activity as you should also be exposed to profession related internships that will allow you to better develop and practice the lessons you have learned. All of which should combine to create your "leadership activity" as you will be expected to be a leader in your office of profession upon your return to the work force. Which is why the leadership activity should include some form of leadership training in the form of practicum work or internships.

The leadership activity whether in an official capacity endorsed by the university or something that you do on your own time after classes will help you to create a more relevant capstone project and also help you to develop your leadership skills through work experience, which is why I would like you to include that reference in your essay if possible. It is part of the strengthening of your presented intentions to the reviewer which proves your ability to complete the course and also enhance your leadership skills while studying.

Note that the activity itself is stated as a requirement in the original instructions:

... details of your proposed leadership activity, why you chose your proposed host organisation and what your proposed leadership activity is intended to achieve. Also provide details, including proposed dates and locations of any proposed fieldwork and/or internships.

Therefore, the internship and practicum programs are an expected part of the presentation in this instance.

Writing Feedback / Single sex schools vs mixed schools. Writing task 2 - opinion/argument essay [3]

Fuad, why did you write a research paper for a Task 2 essay? This paper is supposed to be based on personal opinion and experience along with a public prospect whenever indicated. For this essay, the prompt clearly indicates a personal opinion presentation. This is a serious error that will get you a score of 1 because what you wrote is not in line with any of the prompt requirements.

For this essay, the instruction indicated that you were to write your response in the form of an "extent" essay. That is why you were asked the question; "To what extent do you agree or disagree?" There was a statement given that you need to simply show a measurement of agreeing or disagreeing with. Measured responses include "I partially agree, I completely agree, I disagree to a small extent, I agree with reservations, etc." These are some of the variations of measured responses that you could have given for this essay. The problem is that you totally did not understand the prompt and therefore, could not respond in the proper manner.

There was no need to do such complex research nor impressive citations. In the actual pen and paper test setting, you will not be able to do research online, which is why you are asked to use personal knowledge for the response regardless of task assignment.

It is obvious that you do not have any background in Task 2 writing nor do you have a good understanding of how to respond to the given Task 2 requirements. For your sake, you must review the various task 2 essay samples at this forum so that you can get a better understanding of what each task asks the writer to respond to and how. You will not only learn how to respond to the task, but you will also pick up additional advice and information regarding task response writing improvements based on the errors of the previous exam takers. Please do read the samples before you proceed with another practice test in order to avoid getting another failing score with your practice essay.

Scholarship / Seeking suggestions/opinions on essay for Endeavour Postgraduate Leadership Award (MS Data Science) [4]

Sukriti, you have not really presented any details regarding a leadership activity that you plan to undertake during your MS studies. This leadership activity should concentrate on helping you enhance your skills as a data analyst in the field of AI and big data. In other words, talk about your internship during your MS studies. Where will be? How long will it take to complete? Why is this internship relevant to your career goals (what the activity is intended to achieve)? Your response only explains the details of the MS course that you want to enroll in, not what benefits it will serve you or what purposes it relates to professionally. The reviewer will not be interested in what you are saying because you are missing the whole point of the prompt. Don't send me a personal statement, send me a study plan for when you start working on your masters thesis. That will involve internships, research, and other pertinent activities and details. As a response to the prompt, this total essay is ineffective due to the irrelevant response you created.

Writing Feedback / Writing IELTS task 2 - should we increase the age of retirement? [2]

Nguyen, let's start with the parts of this essay that you got right. The two reasoning paragraphs in the body of the essay actually develop good discussions in support of increasing the age of retirement. These are supported by strong examples that everyone can understand the logic behind your reasoning comes across clearly. However, that is not to say that you wrote the perfect or passing essay.

The first problem with your essay is that you failed to answer the question as indicated in the original prompt which is: To what extent do you agree or disagree with the statement? Based on your response, I take it that your answer in the prompt paraphrase section should have been "I totally agree with the belief that the age of retirement must be increased." Then then your reasoning paragraphs would have been more effective in its presentation of its discussion points.

Speaking of discussion points, your reasoning paragraphs need to be complete within only 5 sentences, not 6 or more as you presented here. Believe me, you will run out of time to write this essay when you complete more than 5 sentences. Your writing proves that you do not have a clear idea of what the sentences should represent which are:

1. Topic sentence introduction
2. Reasoning
3. Supporting factors
4. Example (optional)
5. Transition sentence.

The lack of these clear single sentence presentations is what made your essay extremely long and somewhat unfocused in certain points. You kept using word fillers in order to simply write more in the hopes of increasing your LR and GRA scores. When you do that, the C&C aspect is what suffers in the end. Which is why I always tell my students, a long essay does not mean you wrote a good essay nor a passing essay. Such type of writing merely turns the practice test into an English vocabulary building exercise which is not what you should be focused on in this essay. One example is enough, you do not need several to make your point. Just make one point and fully explain it.

You failed to present a proper concluding summary at the end. The concluding paragraph should have indicated a shortened version of your full essay by enumerating the topic, reasons, and your extent response. Yes, it is another discussion paraphrase only this time, it closes the essay presentation instead of opening it. Since you indicated that you believe that the government should impose a new age law, you actually opened a new discussion topic, which means this essay is not concluded at all in terms of discussion. That will have a direct affect on your TA score.

Scholarship / My recent leadership skills came during my working as a senior credit analyst in Banque Misr [2]

Mohamed, this is the essay that you write when you first do not know what to say. You do know that the essay requires evidence of leadership and influencing abilities right? That means, you cannot be a one person team in the essay presentation. Evidence must be presented to convince the reviewer that you know how to lead people and that you have the ability to influence them when the time is right. This essay is nothing more than a practice in brain fart clearing. It cannot be used for a Chevening application in the range of leadership and influencing abilities.

You must focus your next version on a work related task that required you to put together a financial management team with you as the leader. Discuss the situation, what the requirements to accomplish the goals and objectives were, the size of the staff under your leadership, the steps required to resolve the issue, problems that arose both within the team and / or outside of it that you had to resolve using your influencing skills, and finally, what the result of your leadership and influencing abilities on the project was.

The minute the reviewer reads your opening sentence, he is going to set this essay aside. For all intents and purposes, you should never tell the reviewer that "The ability to make an impact does not necessitate a leadership position". The whole point of the prompt is to prove you have leadership and influencing abilities. That sentence alone will be enough to get your application disqualified from consideration. The fact is that leadership and influencing abilities are requirements for any leadership position in any office. This essay informs the reviewer that you were a pencil pusher at your office and you never progressed from that. Which further weakens this presentation.

When a financial company targets a company or conglomerate for its portfolio, they normally put a team of their best people on the job. Not just one man in pursuit of one client. That tells the reviewer you were a new employee at the company who still needed to prove himself. That isn't going to help you prove leadership and influencing skills. However, leading a team of people in the pursuit of a portfolio increase just might do that.

The essay must involve a clear project, goals, conflict resolution, and a positive result. These are the points you have to present in order to imply that you have any sort of leadership and influencing skills. This essay doesn't do that. Even though you say that the added client increased the team portfolio, the fact that you worked alone throughout the project eliminated the core requirements of the essay from your presentation.

Scholarship / Engineering - choices and reasons for study in UK [11]

Anissa, feel free to incorporate my sample into your essay. It doesn't bother me at all. It will give you a proper starting point for the inclusion of Chevening in your post study plan. You seem to have a problem doing that properly. However, it is also the inclusion of Chevening that is making your essay too long and really bothersome for you to edit. Since it is the UK connection to existing programs of the government, both local and UK based that is the main concern of this essay, you can safely remove Chevening from the final copy because Chevening is more scholarship based rather than UK-Indonesia government project relationship based. If I were the one editing the essay, I would simply omit the Chevening mention since it does not have a negative effect on your presentation when it is removed.

Ghaidaa, you must discuss each university and course choice individually even if it is the same course for every university. Discuss the differences in program offerings and possible applicability of these differences to your future career. The Chevening instruction requires 3 course choices in 3 universities or 3 universities with one course choice. Do not take shortcuts in your presentation. The style you indicate is more for a college based scholarship application instead of an international masters degree scholarship application. Do as the instructions require otherwise your chances for consideration will be severely limited.

Scholarship / I will continue my civil engineering studying in UK - why? [3]

Nada, have you not read the requirements for the study in the UK essay? You have not outlined your university choices per course chosen. Yes, even if it is the same course for all 3 universities, you need to specifically discuss why you chose each university and similar programs. Start with the university that has already given you unconditional acceptance so that the committee will know that is your priority university. You cannot give the universities the same ranking in the presentation by listing them all in one line. Each university has a reason as to why their program stood out for you. Explain that in relation to your future career goals.

You must also detail your college background in relation to the course requirements of each university. Explain what aspects of your college studies helped to lay your foundation for future studies. Along with that, explain how your profession has helped you to prepare for these studies and what your career goals are in relation to the chosen MS course. How does your career path change with every university even if the course is the same? Base your response to that on what the priority classes of each MS course at ever university is.

Forget this essay. This is unacceptable and will immediately end your quest for the scholarship. The reviewer will not give this essay any reading time because it doesn't offer the required information as per your presentation. Don't use this essay. Look at the sample university course choices essays available at this forum. Write your essay in a similar format.

Undergraduate / Common App Essay for Rice "My Mother Taught Me" [2]

Your observations are correct. I learned more about your mother's history than I did about you in this essay. I neither see this essay as having a topic that truly inspires you to be better, nor does it ask you to truly accept your ethnicity. Here's what you can do; focus on your acceptance of your ethnicity instead. Relate that discussion to your mother and her way of life and how you want a different one for yourself, while still remaining loyal to your ethnic roots. It would be better for this essay to discuss how your ethnicity affected your life living in a non-Somali world. Make this a discussion regarding self-acceptance through an understanding of your mother's history or the reason why you see your mother as a special person in your life. Let's see if you come up with a more focused discussion if you target only one topic presentation that focuses on yourself with your mother acting only as a reference point regarding your ethnicity.

Writing Feedback / IELTS TASK 1 : the percentage of women in poverty and poverty rates by sexs and ages. [2]

Reni, first up, you must make sure to identify the type of charts that are provided in the summary overview otherwise you will be considered to have an incomplete summary. You should have indicates the illustrations on an individual basis ;

"A pie chart covering the family dynamic of poor women, along with a column chart of the genders considered poor were provided for analysis. The source of the information is the U.S Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2008 Annual Social and Economic Supplement. The trend for the pie chart indicates... while the column chart shows..."

In the above sample, I indicated the missing information from your summary overview in order to show you how it could have been presented in a stronger manner. Next time, try to break up your sentences in terms of information so that you will not be scored down for having run on sentences. Try to present at least 3-5 sentences per paragraph and do your best to use the 4 paragraph format in order to increase your scoring possibilities. When you write in individual sentences, you will find that it will become easier to create the 4 paragraph format. Also, use the actual digits from the graphs rather than measured possibilities. The information given is specific for a reason. These are actual analysis graphs. Any assumed measurements are acceptable only in illustrations that do not have clearly defined measurements in the presentation.

Overall, this isn't a bad attempt. It is informative, though it could inform the reader on a better scale if the mistakes I mentioned were not present. However, the essay does well in informing the reader to a certain degree so you should get a decent score for this type of presentation in an actual test.

Writing Feedback / IELTS TASK 1: The pictures show the conventional manufactured chocolate production. [2]

While you did write more than the minimum 150 word count, a task 1 essay always scores best when it is presented in a 3-5 sentence presentation covering 4 paragraphs. That is because the 4 paragraph format gives the impression of a well analyzed report rather than a hurried report as you have presented. In your rush to simply get the essay over with, you misanalysed certain points such as:

1. This is a 2 stage process composed of 5 steps each. It is not a 10 stage process.
2. You neglected to inform the reader that the color of the ripe Cocoa is actually brown and when cut open, the beans are white.
3. You did not realize that the white coating is not the bean itself, the beans are the interior part after the white paste is removed.

Since this is a 2 part analysis, you should have had a transition paragraph in between the two procedures or, you should have at least presented a transition sentence after you said the beans are loaded onto trucks. Your paragraphs are under the 3 sentence minimum requirement most of the time so it further becomes obvious that you are not really fully analyzing the illustration you were given. BTW, this is not a picture, it is an illustration. The term was even used in the instructions.

You are lacking a summary overview for this essay. The summary overview would have looked like this:

The provided illustration signifies the 2 stage process of creating chocolates. The first process is man-made while the second process requires the use of machines. The beans that are used for this analysis come from South Africa, America, and Indonesia. The details of the chocolate making process will be presented for the information of the reader in this essay.

After that, you can get into the nitty gritty of the analysis of the information presented. Since this is your first time writing the Task 1 essay, I will offer you a pass and let you know that though this essay could be better, you show true potential in writing procedural essays. I do not doubt that you will show improvement with your next procedural essay once you apply the information I have shared with you in your writing of the next essay.

Writing Feedback / writing task 2: Some people think modern technology is making people more sociable while ... [5]

Hicham, I am sad to tell you this but your score for this essay cannot be more than a 2. Let us get one thing straight here, writing a lot of words, but not really discussing the prompt in the correct manner in your response essay will never result in a passing score. In order to pass, you need to accomplish two things. First, you need to respond to the given prompt properly and second, you need to write between 250-300 words in order to maximize your scoring potential. However, if you get the first part wrong, there is absolutely no way you will pass the test.

You should not have used personal pronouns for the public discussion in this essay. You could have used the term "we" as you did in some instances, but then, you also used the term "I" which would have only been appropriate when discussing your personal opinion. Using second and third person pronouns work best when discussing the public point of view.

Before that though, the biggest mistake in your presentation is the prompt paraphrase. You did not even try to paraphrase the original discussion nor offer a personal version of the instructions. Instead, you simply launched into the wrong discussion format for this essay. A proper paraphrase for this essay would have been:

We now live in a society where modern technology has become the basis of the people's social lives. There is a belief that people are more sociable because of the available technology. Yet, there are some who still believe in the old school ways of real life interaction and consider it a better form of meeting people. In order for me to assess which of these two points of view I support, I will need to first, discuss the reasons behind the two differing points of view.

Your paragraphs are full of run-on sentences. You concluded the discussion in the second paragraph when that term should only be used in the final paragraph to signify the concluding summary, which by the way, does not exist in your essay. That makes 2 reasons for your failed TA score. Your paragraphs are not really cohesive nor coherent because you are just talking about so many differing points without really making a real point nor offering proper supporting explanations for it. These essays are limited to one topic per paragraph composed of 3-5 sentences. The paragraph should have the following:

1. Topic sentence
2. Reasoning sentence
3. Supporting information
4. Example
5. Transition sentence for the next paragraph topic

As you can see, this is a very error filled first attempt at writing the Task 2 essay. I haven't even began to dig into your C&C and GRA issues, plus some LR situations in your essay. These specific problems that I have mentioned will be the major reason that your essay fails in an actual setting though so you should take note it. Read the sample Task 2 essays here in order to get a better idea as to how you can approach the Task 2 essay writing situations. Those samples have mistakes also but I have given instructions to the writers as to how to improve their writing so you should be able to improve your essay writing based on the lessons stemming from their mistakes.

Undergraduate / College entrance essay for Pitt. How have you made an impact? [3]

Emily, the essay flies off in 2 different directions. The first, indicates how you participate in Valentine's Day activities at your school. The second, is all about the shooting on that fateful day. While I can understand your concern and desire to help, you did not really make an impact at your high school or within your community. Continuing to advocate for a cause and making an impact in relation to change are 2 different things. In this essay, you are merely stating that you are advocating for a cause. The cause you are involved in has yet to make an impact on school safety. It is still a hotly debated issue, therefore, there is no impact created on your end.

Think small. Making an impact can be something as simple as helping to care for an elderly neighbor (impact within the community) or tutoring a classmate in need who constantly failed in class but passed when you tutored her (impact in the high school). Don't go national. You won't be able to make an impact at this point. Keep it simple and relevant to the prompt. Your statement does not cover your own high school nor your own community so this is not the right topic for this essay prompt.

Undergraduate / The Match-Deciding Goal - Common App Essay Prompt 2 [2]

Tahmeed, you have written a relevant essay but, you are using too many technical jargons in the essay. You must be conscious of the fact that the reviewer may not be a soccer buff and as such, your technical terms will be lost on him. Either explain the terms you are using, such an own goal, or use layman terms for these things. You could lose the attention of the reviewer if he finds himself lost while reading your essay. Since this is a highly soccer specific essay, you must do that. Keep it simple and understandable for the reader. Answer this question, "Why did your missed goal end up giving the other side a score?"

The essay is also running a bit too long and tends to get boring because you are too focused on involving the reader in the game instead of revealing and explaining what this failure taught you. That should be the major point of the essay. You are treating the presentation too lightheartedly on your part. The whole focus of the essay was completed in 2 sentences when it should be the most developed paragraph or paragraphs in this essay. You will need to edit the essay for content and relevance because of these errors in your presentation. Focus on the lesson more than the event or how the failure happened.

Graduate / Motivation Letter for Phd at European Universities in Natural Language Processing [4]

Yes, you got it right. The motivation letter does not need to be more than 5 paragraphs long. Everything in the letter should only summarize the documentation that you will submitting to the reviewer plus a short version of your statement of purpose. The motivation needs to be based on both academic and professional goals. So the why you want to study in college part needs to represent both, in short form. The long form will be in the statement of purpose. You don't need to fully explain why your college courses are relevant, just that you have the college foundation to complete the course. Everything in short form. Summaries only. No in-depth discussion is required at this point. You are merely introducing your credentials and goals at this point, nothing more.

Undergraduate / You're So Immature - Common App Essay; something that sparked a period of personal growth [7]

It's really simple. you challenged the belief of your father in your maturity. You questioned his belief that you were immature. There were reasons that led to your thinking that his belief about you was wrong. That was very clear in your discussion. You presented strong evidence to support that. The outcome was pivotal at the end of your essay where you finally won an argument with your father. Therefore, the prompt about challenging a belief or idea is more appropriate for the essay that you wrote. The rearrangement of the paragraphs will better highlight the prompt I suggested to you. Listen, you don't have to take my advice about your topic if you don't want to. If you don't think it is suited to your taste or you really want to use your arrangement for the prompt you chose, then go ahead. Mine is unsolicited advice which you can opt to take, or not. No pressure, no harm, no foul.

Undergraduate / You're So Immature - Common App Essay; something that sparked a period of personal growth [7]

Natasha, the essay in itself is engaging. The hook that opens with the argument is something that grabs the attention of the reader. However, I believe that the prompt you chose for your presentation is incorrect. I believe that the more appropriate common app prompt to use in this instance is:

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

This prompt will help you to better arrange the essay in a manner more suitable to the prompt. Using the new prompt, you only need to reformat the paragraphs as follows: paragraph 3,4,1,2,5,6. You may adjust the content per paragraph if you wish since you have large word allowance for this essay. However, I believe that the number of words that you have written is sufficient. The essay is not too long to the point of over dramatization and boring the reader, nor is it too short to make an impact. These are just my thoughts. I hope it will be helpful to you.

Writing Feedback / The place that I recommend in Taiwan [4]

@yiyunm6 this is not a very good descriptive essay. All you did was instruct the reader regarding how to get to Mount Jade. You did not actually entice the reader to visit the place because there was nothing in your description that captured the imagination of the reader. Your descriptions were mostly flat and one dimensional. You need to learn to create more vivid descriptions of the place. Don't make the experience sound like yo just copied it out of a tourist guide book. Convince the reader that you were actually at that place. Talk about what you enjoyed doing there and why. What made this a personal experience for you? What does the visit create a memorable vacation spot that you would recommend to others? Don't just tell the reader how to get there. Don't just give a brief description of the place that sounds like it came out of Wikipedia. Engage the imagination of the reader. Beg him to transport his thoughts to the place as you describe it. Make him want to experience the place. Only then will your recommendation be useful and properly descriptive in presentation.

Graduate / Motivation Letter for Phd at European Universities in Natural Language Processing [4]

Rupsa, the only part of this motivational letter version that you wrote which is usable for a 2nd version is the final paragraph that states:

My primary goal in pursuing a PhD at CollegeName is to find myself in an innovative research environment. ... I am confident I can be a productive member.

The motivational letter should indicate the primary goal of your PHD studies. It should explain your current abilities and lack abilities or other research interests that have led you to require yourself to acquire a PhD. More importantly, it should appear to the reviewer that the PhD has an actual career application for yourself. At the moment, you have only explained about what makes you a good candidate for the program, but not what motivated you to increase your academic skills.

The vast majority of the information shared in this essay should be located in your statement of purpose where you should discuss your background and experiences in relation to your purpose for studies. The purpose for your studies are always different from the motivation for your studies. The motivation is what drives you to study while the purpose is the professional goal you hope to achieve with the studies.

Write a new essay based on the closing paragraph. Expand on your discussion about your motivation for an innovative research environment. Don't mention the professors names in the essay unless you know that the professor allows student aides to assist in their research work. Not all professors allow that. By mentioning the professor in this essay, you are indicating a desire to become his assistant, which may not be acceptable depending upon the university or professor requirements. Instead discuss the reasons that led to your choice of university from the curriculum to the type of researcher that you wish to become and how the university can help you develop that aspect of your research skills.

Writing Feedback / Investing in schools and teachers or supplying computers and Internet access? IELTS2 [4]

Minh, your opening paragraph is short by one sentence because you failed to indicate the instruction for the discussion in your paraphrase. That is an integral part of the prompt paraphrase. You cannot just indicate the two points of view and topic for discussion, you also need to tell the reader how the reasoning paragraphs will be presented. So, you lack the following reference:

I will be studying these two points of view in this essay so that I can offer my personal opinion of the discussion topic.

Your actual discussion was off to a good start with your representation of the public point of view. The problem is that you only discussed one instead of 2 points of view before presenting your own opinion. This is a 3 reasoning paragraph essay that should state your personal point of view in the third paragraph, as an analysis of the two discussion points.

The concluding paraphrase should have only been a summary of the reasoning discussions. It should not have continued the discussion as you did in this essay. You were not able to properly close the essay so your essay will be considered open ended and be scored accordingly. You made a mistake in that aspect and you should not repeat that again if you want to have a higher score in your next practice test.

Scholarship / It is not by luck or fate, credentials or experience that made me excel in everything I do [3]

George, this is a very interesting personal statement in relation to your leadership. It is not relevant as a leadership and influencing essay for a Chevening scholarship applicant though. You need to develop a new essay that focuses on your ability to reflect your potential as a future leader and influencer in your country. You can do this by showcasing your professional leadership in a workplace setting. One that clearly requires you to influence certain parties to perform or accept a decision. Your leadership should be able to show your ability to interact with people within your profession that shows how your leadership potential has helped you climb the ranks within your office / profession.

That said, you mention that you have a professional job but you never discussed what it was, how it relates to your leadership and influencing abilities. Why can't you discuss it? Your essay will be more competitive if you can relate your professional abilities in relation to the prompt requirements. Your essay is really too vague and academic based for the reviewer to take seriously. This essay requires verifiable professional facts and experiences. That is why there is a work hour qualification for all essay applicants. Academic leadership does not qualify as work leadership nor work hours compliant as per the requirements. Without it, you will not be able to develop a competitive essay nor will you be considered a serious contender for the scholarship.

Read the sample leadership and influencing essays here so that you will get a clear idea of the kind of professionals you will be competing against during this scholarship cycle. That reading should open your eyes as to why your current essay won't make it. It will also give you a better idea of how to write a more relevant second version of this essay. At this point, I do not suggest that you use any part of this essay at all. The essay needs to be profession based as much as possible.

Scholarship / Career Plan for Development Issues - Chevening Essay [2]

The grammar of your essay is often imperfect but does not impede the understanding of the presentation. However, there are times when the discussion does not sound very professional because of it. However, since you are a non-native English speaker, the reviewer will make allowances for such errors in presentation. Your ambitions for your future career are clear but you are not really depicting what steps you will have to take in order to achieve these plans. Show the career progession. Relate the improvements in your career with transition sentences. You simply state it as a matter of fact, you don't apply much planning to the presentation.

There is a sentence that does not have any supporting information in it. The one about joining the Chevening community upon your return. You may retain the Chevening sentence, but you will need to further expand on that discussion thought. Since you are already close to the word limit, I think you will need to reformat all the paragraphs to make room for the Chevening presentation. If you just remove the sentence, you won't need to worry about making that reference fit with the rest of the essay.

Writing Feedback / Today younger generations are getting married and have kids after the age of 30 [2]

Kapil, you must learn to understand the different prompt discussion requirements of the Task 2 essays. All of these are normally single opinion / point of view essays unless otherwise specified by the need to discuss 2 opinions. In this essay prompt, you are being asked to choose only one side of the discussion to represent in the essay. You need to choose one of the two sides to defend in the essay. You cannot discuss both sides of the issue unless you read the following instruction: Discuss both points of view. Without that instruction, you always pick a side to defend in the essay.

That is why the essay that you wrote is not really appropriate for the task that you have been given for the essay. You cannot score more than 4 in my opinion because you failed to use the appropriate format for your response. Add to that your other grammar and sentence structure issues and your score cannot be more than a 4.5. You need to take the time to familiarize yourself with the various writing tasks for this essay, learn the format for responding to it, and then start doing your practice tests. You won't run short of those samples at this forum. There is also advice given per essay that can help you learn how to write better as well. In this case, you made an excellent effort but it just wasn't enough to get you a passing score this time.

Undergraduate / My American teacher. UVA supplement essay, is this good? [5]

Daniel, this is definitely a quirk because most people would have more sense to get out of the rain instead of running directly into it. Consider further developing this quirk of yours by eliminating the reference to the end of the rain cycle. That isn't relevant to the quirk. Proceed with an expanded explanation of how and why you developed this love for running in the rain instead. That way you can explain the quirk in relation to a personal reason or event. Tell us what else running in the rain does for you aside from giving you a way to stay healthy. Maybe it gives you a unique way of introducing yourself to people, maybe people remember you because of it, anything that will make the reviewer understand that this quirk is special not only to you, but to the others you interact with. That way, the quirk becomes an asset instead of a strange thing that you do in your life.

Writing Feedback / Composition 101 Informative Essay (no outside sources allowed - writing about stress management) [2]

Keyla, this is a very good topic for discussion and your approach is highly interesting. The problem that I see with your "strike anywhere" approach to the discussion is that your essay suffers in terms of focus and related discussions. Each aspect of life has different stress factors and varying degrees of stress. Therefore, you cannot write a generalized stress essay. That would result in merely talking points and little explained reasons or examples in your essay.

It would be better if you can decide to focus on one type of stress discussion and then develop the essay around that. For example, as a student, you would be well versed with the stress factors involved in the life of a student. You can clearly develop that paper, without the need for references because you will be basing it on your own experience. From the stress factors and how you handle it, these can easily create an interesting essay for your target discussion group (health class). By narrowing the discussion, the essay will tend to be stronger in content and presentation. It will also offer more relatable and doable solutions towards the end, based on the target audience.

Graduate / Academic goals essay, below 250 words briefly explain why you have chosen XYZ University and goals [2]

Rayan, your response is too generalized and pointless. You need to create a stronger essay that has only 2 focus points: academic and professional goals. These can easily be presented within 2 paragraphs, without the need to be pointlessly wordy as you are now. Let me see if I can guide you through this:

Academic Goals:
1. Discuss the final year project you are working on. Describe it.
2. What is the real world application of your project?
3. Connect the project with some specific learning elements that can help you to continue to develop this project as your masters thesis.

Professional Goals:
1. Expand on the real world application of your thesis project.
2. Does this have a relevance in AI, Big Data Analysis, or further development of an already existing field of CS? Explain.
3. How do you see this project helping you achieve your goal of becoming notable CS developer in the future? Any specific company and department in mind?

By discussing these guide questions, you should be able to focus your essay in a more appropriate manner for the required discussion parts. Limit yourself to 125 words per paragraph to better present your essay in a balanced manner.

Scholarship / Engineering - choices and reasons for study in UK [11]

Anissa, the only weak course choice in this presentation is the second one. With regards to tunneling, you may want to indicate that this course will be of a great help to you as your country is currently developing its transportation and roadwork system with plans to develop an underground subway system or a tunnel that will cross through the sea to connect one province to another. You will be tasked to help develop these plans so the tunneling engineering masters course can best prepare you for that part of your job.

Aside from that part, everything else in this essay is strong and well presented. So you don't need to correct any other parts other than the one I mentioned above. Since you are only 1 word below the maximum word count, it would be best for you to revise that whole paragraph presentation so that you can come in either under or exactly at the word count for the total essay.