Undergraduate / Reasons to choose UWaterloo and Software engineering [3]

Hetav, the first sentence is a throw away. You have repeated that information several times in different statements. Stop repeating information. That can disqualify your essay because you do not have any new information to offer. Start instead with "The process of choosing software..." and add an explanation as to why you have an interest in cybersecurity and AI. When you mention Prof. Goldberg, add what it was that he wrote that encouraged you to learn more. Answer the question: Learn about what? How does that relate to your interest in Cybersecurity and AI? About Velocity, add a short description of what you imagine your start up company to be and why you believe UW will be the best place to launch it. Remove the mention of your thirst for books and the Dana Porter library in order to make room for your comparative sentence in relation to Velocity and your start up. These changes will remove the repeated information and also give better reasons for your course and university choice.

Scholarship / Coworkers and supervisors - Networking Skills Essay - Chevening Scholarship [3]

Omar, this is not a competitive essay. Your essay is lukewarm and simply, average. It does not stand out in presentation of facts, it is boring in terms of work related leadership and influencing issues, it lacks proper leadership traits and influencing abilities. The reason that the essay will not be able to work as a scholarship essay is because you have limited everything in the narration to your workplace. It is further weakened by your last paragraph that indicates how you refer to your superiors for advice and decision making procedures. The scholarship requires you to show a strong leadership character and a sense of right from wrong as an influencer. You do not come across as that even in your workplace.

You need to think of a clear leadership incident that highlights a strength of character when handling people. The instance of employee disagreements that you chose did not require leadership skills but it require some simple influencing skills to get the two to work together on the project successfully. I am of the opinion that you should take that particular instance and make it the fill discussion for the 500 word essay.

Explain what the project was about, and how you put your team together. That will help to explain how you build and maintain those relationships in practice aside from your written explanation. Add how the project fell apart, who caused it and why, then explain how you influenced the two to work together for the success of the project. Be specific about how you influenced them either in a group or individual discussion format. Make that sound interesting but do not exaggerate not lie about how it happened. Just be creative in telling the story. Then, write a paragraph at the end that explains how this situation helped you to develop a particular type of leadership style or skills that you hope to use these skills in the future.

By revising the essay to focus on an actual event that exemplifies your leadership and influencing skills, you will (hopefully) be able to create a more interesting and somewhat competitive essay presentation for consideration. Do not be misinformed. You are writing a leadership and influencing essay, not a networking essay.

Undergraduate / My friends and family would describe me as someone who is very supportive and hardworking. UBC essay [2]

Hi Victoria, have you given any thought to providing the response to this question by interviewing one specific person about how they view you as a friend / family member / community member? The prompt offers you the option to use one of the 3 or all 3. Personally, I would just pick one of the three so that I can present a fully focused and developed descriptive response to the prompt. Since you are a person who will be attending college, I believe you should pick either your best friend or a ranking community member (such as a pastor, your team coach, a teacher, or someone similar) to describe who you are because these people can provide information about the type of student community member that you will be once you attend UBC. The reviewer can get a better idea of the type of person you are from these sources rather than your family who tend to see you in a one dimensional manner.

I would ask the person, "What is it about me that you are most proud of knowing and why?". That question tells the reviewer how this person sees you and also, by asking that question, you can strongly support their statement in reference to what you are most proud of about yourself as well. At least you will have a form of continuity in the discussion which will help to cement the type of image that you want to reviewer to create about you as a potential UBC student.

Scholarship / Applying my knowledge to provoke a socio-economic development for my country - career plan essay [5]

Elaine, this essay is over the 500 word limit by 5 words. It is extremely wordy but not very informative. Try to focus your post graduate studies career plan on the relationship between the UK and your line of work or business. Your first paragraph is a throw away. Get rid of it. Start directly to the point with the second paragraph. That will also help to shorten the essay so that the reviewer can get through reading it sooner rather than later.

Revise the second paragraph to become shorter. Stick to only presenting immediate plans at all times. Start with sentence 2 instead and end with sentence 3. Merge the information in paragraph 2 and 3 to become one short but informative paragraph instead. After sentence 3 in paragraph 2, present your 3 year business plan at once. You can merge that sentence in by saying "After these events, I see myself starting my own biocosmetics lab within 3 years..." The shorter and quicker the presentation, the better. Focus on content and information, not wordiness. You are not writing a research paper.

The British connection you have made is strong and unique. It will serve your application well if you can provide a more concrete example of how you plan to collaborate with the fund for the development of the biocosmetics industry in your country. That is not clearly represented at this point.

Writing Feedback / How energy is used in Australia and the greenhouse gas emissions in total [3]

Tom, you need to learn to better separate you paragraphs in order to create a clear presentation of the facts. You are expected to present 4 paragraphs of descriptive and analytical information coming from the 2 pie charts. You lumped all the discussions into one paragraph which, although meeting more than the minimum word count, left the reader confused, unable to match the data you presented, and without a clear understanding of what you are trying to say. This is not a good essay at all.

You failed to present a clear summary overview, your trending statement was not clear nor understandable, and your grammar problems all lead up to this essay getting a failing score. You need to improve your presentation in order to get a chance at a better score.

For the summary overview, you failed to indicate the type of chart presented, the measurement used, and the sections that are represented in each pie chart. Your trending statement should have been a one liner stand alone sentence at the most for this presentation. Although the trending statement will get you a better score if you combine it as part of the summary overview.

Each pie chart needs its own discussion. That way the reader, who you are to assume does not have access to the chart, will be clear on what is being discussed and how the information is presented. Comparison points are also missing in your presentation. The fourth paragraph could have represented the areas where there are similar or close to similar sets of information such as water heating having similar numbers for greenhouse gas emissions and energy use at 32 and 30 percent respectively.

This is an analytical essay so you do not need a concluding paragraph. Do not make that mistake. A concluding paragraph is only required in opinion discussions within Task 2 essays. It is not required for the information presentation based Task 1 essay. The above advice that was offered by Idrees covers Task 2 essays and is not applicable at all to Task 1 essay writing. The requirements for the two essays are as different as night and day so you should not confuse the Task 1 writing style for the Task 2 writing style which is far more intricate in terms of writing requirements.

Please refer to the other Task 1 essays written and posted at this forum to learn how to better approach this type of writing. There are several types of measurement presentations for discussion. Each type has a specific discussion style, I suggest that you learn these discussion styles and apply what you have learned to your future essays.

Scholarship / Why I've chosen these universities as my preferred universities? Study plan for scholarship [2]

Paul, this is a well written essay. However, you have included a social aspect to the presentation which is not required by the prompt. You should remove those references since the focus of the paper is totally on your academic plans and goals while studying in Korea. If the social aspect were required, then it would have been included in the prompt instructions. That presentation deviates from your strong academic presentation, which is another reason to remove it. Since it is located in the middle of the essay, it diverts the attention of the reviewer, who will then have to go over your presentation again to recall what the academically relevant information is. Without that deviation the essay is much more informative, relevant, and interesting to read. As long as you have provided the response to all of the questions, there isn't anything else that you need to present in the document. Good job. Remove the irrelevant part as I indicated then use the essay with confidence.

Scholarship / I realize that building and maintaining a network of contacts is fundamental to fulfill our dream [2]

Elaine, right now, your essay sounds more like you are just showing off your networking credentials. There is a lack of proof that these networks exist and that they are actually useful to you at the moment. Rather than simply just rattling off the network members and their professional titles, you should be indicating how you have used these networks to improve your career or business opportunities.

That will be more impressive because the scope of your network in relation to your access to them is far more important than the supposed coverage of the network contacts and their capacities to perform. Explain why this network will be relevant to Chevening members and how you hope to integrate your contacts with the Chevening network. It is not enough to claim the existence of these networks and their possible usefulness to you. You need to claim their usefulness at this very moment, in present time, both to you and the Chevening members. At the moment, your essay sounds impressive, but empty in terms of proof and justification.

Offer just one significant instance when the network you created helped you out of a difficult situation. That way you explain how you develop your network (a requirement), how you have used the network, why it is important in this field of work, and how you plan to promote Chevening through the network you have created and how you can share this network with the members of the Chevening community. This single presentation will be far more informative than this long essay that refers to networks that need more justification than is currently presented.

Scholarship / We can grow positively from the interaction or communication we engage with others - Chevening [3]

Duzaho, your networking experience is too localized. It is internal to your place of internship or work and your academic community. These are not the types of national networking contacts that Chevening is looking for. Therefore, this essay will not help to make you a competitive applicant for the scholarship. It is too weak and unimportant in scale. What you need to do is prove that you have a network that covers your current professional tasks, not your internship, not your academic community. We need a current working network that has proven to be beneficial to your job performance, enhancement, and opportunities. That is what Chevening is looking for among its participants.

There is nothing in your presentation that depicts your network(s) are something that could be beneficial to the Chevening community of graduates and current scholars. You need to think about how Chevening gives due importance to a true working network based on a national scale. Revise the essay to reflect such an importance. Otherwise, your networking essay will not be competitive enough.

Look at the other sample Networking essays at this forum. Read them and learn from their networking discussion essays. Then pattern your networking essay after those samples using information from your specific professional background instead.

Scholarship / Chevening - Three British Universities Course choice [6]

Bithy, you are not answering the "why" in the "Why did you choose this course?" You are offering hypothetical explanations instead of real world implementations for your course choices. You are explaining what the courses are about and what the subjects are, but you are not explaining how you plan to actually use these knowledge in your future career. Additionally, you do not have any academic qualifications indicated to support any belief that you would be an excellent student in this course who will be able to accomplish something in the future based on your academic and professional experiences in relation to the chosen course. Think of your responses in this manner:

1. Why is this course relevant to my current career?
2. What skills do I hope to develop?
3. What is the future application of this course in my career?

Be more definite by describing an example of how you will implement your knowledge on the job. Go beyond references to assessments, challenges, and policy coherence. To accomplish this, present a simple study plan and refer it to an actual practice in your line of work that you hope to implement or improve upon.

Don't just tell the reviewer about the courses involved and what it can teach you. That will not be useful in as much as it doesn't indicate how the course can help you develop the future aspects of your career. You must clearly define the responses to the 3 questions in reference to each university course you have chosen.

Scholarship / Pursuing Master's degree to change from an epidemiologist into a Health Policy Analyst and Advocate [5]

It doesn't have to be a year by year plan unless you want to do it that way. It won't make a difference to the reviewer and selection committee as long as you present doable career strategies and have a clear idea as to how to implement them. A mid range career plan covers about 5 years. This can include plans for continued education, possible seminars and training to further improve your job skills, and finally, an indication of an interest to pursue a PhD depending upon the growing requirements of your profession. Don't overcomplicate the essay though because you might end up exaggerating your plans to an unbelievable point. Just keep it simple, logical, and understandable to the reviewer. I haven't read your new post study and career plan essay yet so I can't really tell you how to improve it and if the 5 year career plan should be detailed in your case. The above advise applies to general Post Study and Career Plan essays so you should be able to use it for your own essay revision as well.

Scholarship / A leader is one who can encourage his team to move forward, solve the existing challenge. Chevening [3]

Idrees, you definitely have a strong leadership role here. In fact, you slipped into your leadership role when the actual leader of the project resigned. I strongly urge you to take the DACAAR project and make it the only discussion point for your leadership and influencing essay. This is the best part of your presentation that gives you the room to deliver the requirements of the prompt. You will need to expand on the following instances as separate paragraphs in order to create the best possible L&I essay for yourself. These instances are:

Leadership:
- I was the only assistant agronomist to handle the project while the agronomist was resigned from his position.
1. Why did he resign?
2. How did you end up becoming the group leader? Explain any relevant credentials you have in relation to the task on hand.

Influencing:
- some of my colleagues has different backgrounds but their contribution was crucial
1. Name some of their backgrounds
2. Explain why these differing backgrounds were crucial to the project.

- I encouraged them to do so.
1. Why did you need to encourage them?
2. How did you encourage them?
3. The results of your influence?

Start with that revision to your essay then look for additional areas for improvement or information presentation. That will help you create a better suited L&I essay.

Writing Feedback / Writing Task 2 IELTS: Schools are spending more time teaching traditional subjects such as history. [3]

Nguyen, you lost track of what the prompt is asking you to discuss which is the measurement of your agreement or disagreement with the given discussion. Your essay deviated from the prompt discussion in your response and as such, created non-responsive discussion paragraphs as well. Therefore, this essay, though showing insight, will not be able to get a passing score in the actual test. If you do not discuss the essay according to the required parameters and touch on the required discussion topics within the body of paragraphs, then your essay prove 2 things. First, that you do not understand English instructions to the extent that it is required in an academic setting and second, you are careless in your writing techniques because you did not double check your response in accordance with the prompt requirements.

Writing a coherent and cohesive essay requires you to stick to the talking points provided in the instructions. Your first paragraph is a total deviation from that reference, further adding to the failure of your essay. Make sure that you represent a discussion of each topic provided in the original discussion in your body of paragraphs because that is the best way to present your ability to clearly understand instructions, recognize important discussion points, and appropriately respond to the discussion.

Scholarship / A genuine leader can be able to initiate a change and open the doors to better worlds. Scholarship [4]

Thi Thi, this is not a competitive leadership and influencing essay. In fact, the information contained in this essay cannot be considered Chevening material. You are presenting an essay based on logistics and logistic expertise rather than leadership and influencing qualifications in the first part of your essay. The second part, is not about leadership but about mentoring, which is often confused by the applicants. You need to delete this essay and think of a true instance of leadership and influencing that can be competitive.

It has to be strong in terms of leadership and impressive in terms of influencing. While the situation you presented in the first part of the essay, the part about the relief distribution after the storm has potential, your narration is very weak an unimpressive. Try to develop an essay that clearly defines your leadership style and your intentions when influencing your subordinates. This essay isn't accomplishing that task at all.

Undergraduate / Common APP : Self Reflection Essay - God's plan for me [3]

Jesutofonmi, when I read a highly religious response to a given prompt, even for an open topic one, I ask the student to evaluate his response based on one question alone. Are you applying for acceptance to a Christian university? If the university you are applying to is non-sectarian, then giving such a religious backed response may not do your application well. A non-sectarian university will not look kindly upon a student who may end up triggering his classmates because he may directly or indirectly proselytize within the student community. I am not saying that talking about a religious awakening is bad for your application, I am saying that you should choose the university that you will use this essay in. Not everyone is religious and some could be offended by your essay through one form or another.

Basically, what you need to do with this essay is come up with 2 versions. The first version, will be this essay, the highly religious version and the other, will be a toned down version. For the toned down version, after you make the Jesus connection with your name, you should end the religious reference there. Use a self reflection based on self awareness instead and remove any and all references to bible quotes or epiphanies. Just do a straightforward presentation based on a logical discussion of your life and where it is at this point. That way, you do not offend anyone who may not be highly religious. Use the appropriate essay version for each type of school. That way your essay can be considered on its merits rather than focusing on a religious aspect when it is not necessary to do so.

Scholarship / Chevening major role in facilitating me to get adequate skills to use ICT innovation for development [3]

Ktabarwa, this is a good career plan but it doesn't really reflect how the DFID in your country can help you or how you can cooperate with them regarding improving the ICT industry in your country. As a Chevening scholar you are not expected to join DFID sponsored competitions, You are expected to work directly with the DFIF in order to promote British and Rwandan relationships. Joining a DFID sponsored competition where you might win or lose is not the way to approach that relationship. Instead, you must find ICT projects that the DFID works on directly where you can offer to collaborate with them in an effort to speed up the progress of the program.

You need to present information about your immediate and mid-term career plans, all of which involve the DFID in your country along with your own private career plans. Combining the two would always be best in such a presentation though. You have the right idea in this essay. It is just that the DFID part is weak and should be strengthened in order to better indicate how you can help promote Chevening through collaborations with their British representatives in your country.

Scholarship / A good leader inspires people to have confidence in him/her, while a great leader... Chevening essay [4]

Duzaho, of the three presentations that you gave in this essay, the only one that clearly indicates your roles as a potential leader and influence in your country is the last one. The one about the teenage mentorship program in your church. That can serve as a community based example of your leadership and influencing style since you interact with troubled teens and drop outs who truly need a leader and influential image in their lives.

By expanding upon this discussion to better highlight the instances of leadership and influencing in this group setting, you will better respond to the "national" requirement of the prompt. Depict instances when you had to lead the teenager and how you did it. Indicate a clear influencing instance in order to make sure that you drive home the point that through mentoring, you are making a change in these young adults lives, which is what national leadership and influencing can be about on a community wide scale.

Undergraduate / Texas A&M Topic A College Application Essay - How my family and responsibilities have impacted me [2]

This is a solid essay that responds to the prompt in a highly informative and imaginative way. I can almost see the events in my mind as you described them. The essay has a clear hook, a strong reference to family support and sibling rivalry that resulted in a defining moment for you as a person entering young adulthood. This is a narrative that introduces you in a clear way to the reviewer.

Your family background acting as the cornerstone of your essay and depicts how you have managed to develop a personality that is different and still the same as your family members. You did a very good job on this essay. While there are a few sentence problems that exist, mostly in reference to the timeline of events and your reference to your relationship with your brother, those are negligible and do not affect the message of your story.

All you have to do at this point is do some simple editing to perfect the grammar and it will be perfect for the intention you wrote it for. I wish you the best of luck with your application.

Writing Feedback / Motor use. Problems and solutions. IELTS task 2 [3]

Hoang, your prompt paraphrase should have included a direct response to the questions provided. This is not an opinion essay, this is a direct response essay. As such, your response should have included the outline of the discussion based on topic presentation within the body of paragraphs.

Your second paragraph is confusing to read. It lacks transition phrases or sentences that should have shown a continued to discussion of the problems that motorbike use causes. It should be similar to the following:

Motorbikes have been known to cause road congestions. In Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh city in particular, the hours of 5:00 to 6:00 PM are a traffic nightmare as the motorbikes often pile up and get stuck on the road. This conglomeration of motorbikes offers more than just movement congestion in the streets. Motorbikes are one of the major reasons for street accidents. These accidents further hold up road traffic as the motorbikes and the injured are cleared from the streets which then aggravates the pollution problem of the country. As such, Vietnam faces a tremendous traffic and pollution problem due to motorbike use.

The clarity of the discussion relies on the connecting / transition sentences that you use to create a cohesive and coherent discussion. If your sentences do not connect in meaning, then the paragraph is confusing and difficult to understand. This could cause a lower GRA and C&C score for you.

Now, about your questions. If the term is a keyword in the presentation, such as the word "motorbike", you should use it as often as possible when referring to the vehicle. While you could use other terms such as motorcycle, scooter, dirt bike, and other variations of the word, you could confuse the reader when you do that. So it is best to use the keyword in its original form, regardless of the times used, in the essay.

For other words in relation to the original prompt paraphrase, you should try to use synonyms as often as possible in order to show a wide vocabulary range. This should also be applied to the rest of the essay discussion. Try not to use the same term more than twice in the presentation. This can help to increase your LR score, most specially when used in the proper manner as it can also help to heighten your C&C and GRA score.

Your essay writing has improved to a small degree. Your clarity within the discussion is still a problem but you manage to properly explain yourself in writing. Just remember, you can't write less than 3 sentences, no more than 5. You accidentally wrote 6 sentences in the second paragraph.

Undergraduate / Parents' advice about thinking - TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY ESSAY QUESTION [9]

Lara, at this point, any changes or additions to the statement that you wrote is actually up to you. My observation is that the response that you wrote is complete and self explanatory for most people, specially the reviewer who will clearly know what you mean by being raised as a red in a blue state. That is something unique to American social politics and your additional information in that paragraph makes everything that you wish to impart quite clear to the reader.

The reference to your parents saying one thing but then doing another in terms of "forcing their beliefs" on to you is not contradicting. That is called parenting. They were trying to guide you in their own way which led to your own discovery as to what your personal ideology is. It shows personal development and how you manage to blend the two. What may seem contradicting to others makes perfect sense to you and that, is what the reviewer will understand when he reads your essay.

Ultimately, the decision about the changes to be made in your essay at this point are up to you. If you are confident that your response best reflects what you wish to say, then leave the essay as is. If you believe it can be further improved, then remember the word count as you create your revised response. My opinion doesn't matter much at this point although, I believe that essay is fine as it is.

Writing Feedback / Opinions are divided on question whether noise should be restricted or not. Ielts - task2 [4]

Vince, when writing the 2 POV + Personal POV essay, it is always important to highlight the ownership of the statements being provided. When you do not use terms such as:

A group of people believe...

A sector of the population support the idea that...

Parts of the population admit that...

A sizeable number of the public...

you fail to properly represent your response to the prompt requirement. Ownership of the statements clarifies that you understood that the first 2 parts of the discussion come from the public domain and the last part comes from your personal experience, knowledge, or opinion based on an assessment of the first 2 public opinions. Without the reference as to whose opinion is being discussed, the essay comes across as being totally from your personal point of view, which could affect your TA score. It is best to clarify whose opinion is discussed in order to prevent that. Remember, you are also being scored on the clarity of your discussion presentation. So the reader needs to know who is speaking and about what at all times.

Scholarship / What means leadership & influence skills for me; my role as research and product development head [3]

Susan, your leadership role as a whole sounds more dictatorial rather than collaborative. You sound very harsh as a leader who just gives orders to your team members with little regard for your team mates. Your sole focus seems to be only on the completion of the project at all cost. This does not bode well for you as a leader. Remember that the scholarship committee is looking for future leaders and influencers in your country. You cannot be a leader nor an influencer if you merely bark out orders and expect your people to follow your instructions. You need to soften your projection with regards to your leadership skills and personality. Be more of a people leader rather than a cut and dried leader.

Portray yourself as a leader who understands the demands of the project and the toll it takes on your employees. Then present ways by which you influenced them to perform better by being compassionate and empathic. Be a leader who identifies with the needs of team that is working in such an important project. Your essay should be less technical and more focused on people management in a manner that shows how you are a compassionate leader who gets the team to work together because you are not just a leader, but because you identify as part of the team.

Scholarship / Essay about Leadership and influence for Chevening - Brasilian student [4]

Elaine, there is a problem with your presentation. What you depicted as your strengths in this essay are your leadership and NETWORKING abilities. What we need are your leadership and influencing abilities. That means, only part of the essay is usable. The part where you showed leadership in the face of a lack of it because of an ineffective branch manager plays well with the theme of the essay. The influencing part, should come only from how you inspired your co-workers to view you as a leader and how you influenced them to follow your ideas and trust in your orders even though you were not the manager of the branch. That is where the influence of your leadership and influencing abilities come into play.

You must omit all mentions of the networking that you did in order to gain supplies and other collaborations with partner companies. Save that for your networking essay. Use that narrative to further support your leadership skills in terms of networking abilities. That narrative works well as a supporting narrative, not as a leadership and influencing depiction.

Revise the essay to remove the networking elements and replace it with suitable influencing mentions. You may use your promotion to help better portray your leadership abilities. Just remember, omit all of the networking mentions and portray your influencing skills instead. Drop the definition / concept of leadership explanation. The reviewer doesn't need to read about that. He only needs to see your leadership and influencing skills in action.

Writing Feedback / In my opinion there is no need for immigrants to give up their living habits abroad [2]

Tseng, this is an unrealistic essay writing presentation for an English language writing test. Believe me, you do not have the time to write 434 words during the actual test. You also do not follow the standard 4-5 paragraph presentation requirement for the paragraphs. There are clear sections in your presentation that obviously could have been presented as a separate paragraph. Your presentation should have a one topic per paragraph discussion format. What you did was you over discussed each paragraph because you used more than 5 sentences per paragraph and you combine various topics in one paragraph.

Your essay also deviates from the original discussion topic. There is no need for you to explain the types of immigration and its reasons. That is a prompt deviation that will cost you during the scoring process. Just stick to the topic you were provided for the discussion. Do not add not change the discussion targets. You are not writing a research paper that allows you to do that. Rather, you need to write between 4-5 simple discussion paragraphs based on the original topic.

I am pleased that you display a strong ability to discuss in the English language. This also proves to be your liability in this instance because you tended to run on and on and lose sight of the discussion topic towards the end. All you have to do is concentrate on not writing wandering essays. Write in a targeted manner based on the prompt requirements. Use that English writing ability in the proper manner in order to gain maximum scoring potential for each scoring criteria.

Look at the sample essays here and learn from them. The sample essays will be the best way for you to learn how to better present your ideas within the requirements of the prompt. You truly have the potential to score very well in this test. All you have to do is better direct your writing skills so that your writing potential will shine in the exercises and during the test itself.

Scholarship / My leadership was shaped since I was in school. Chevening [3]

Dindin, don't confuse the presentation by presenting academic performances in terms of leadership and influencing skills. These are not proof of your ability to lead and influence people on a national level. These are merely training incidents for your professional leadership and influencing abilities that are the true focus of this essay. Expand on your professional discussion instead. Explain what sort of leadership and influencing roles you have to undertake when your immediate supervisor is not available. Since you are not the actual supervisor, you need to exercise a degree of influencing skills because you need to assert your incidental leadership requirements. Write at least 300 words for this essay. 400 would be ideal. Base the new essay solely on your professional experience. Offer one instance of leadership that connects to an influencing role during a certain project at the company. That would better respond to the prompt requirements.

Scholarship / The Chevening programme - Leadership and influence essay [2]

Aram, this 250 word essay is not useful. It cannot help your application because your method if discussion is too informal and lacks a clear focus in its presentation that could help to convince the reviewer that you are potential Chevening material. You have to present a clear idea of your possible national leadership and influencing skills. You could have done this through this essay by focusing on potential discussions that might have given a true idea of your leadership and influencing skills.

All of the experiences that you present are mere job descriptions. The earthquake incident could have been depicted as a potential leadership and influencing essay if you had expanded on that experience a throughout the essay. However, I also believe that your job performance at Dana Gas could also accomplish that, if you can better develop the discussion regarding your role as a safety leader in the company.

You need a new essay. One that targets a leadership and influencing presentation either through the national calamity or on site safety concerns. Do not use this first version. There is nothing in this version that will help your application. Rather, it will weaken your potential during the screening round.

Undergraduate / UChicago Required Short Essay - a chess match is my most prevalent memory of Chicago [2]

This is the essay that the reviewer will use to determine if you are a determined applicant whose academic leanings are really related to the academic offerings and student community familiarity with the University of Chicago. The reviewer is looking for specifics in this instance. That means, specific reasons as to why you chose the university. There is an academic standard that the reviewer hopes you will discuss with him that led to your choice of their university. Describe your ideal student life based upon that unknowing visit that you had at the university. What impression did you have of the student community? How does it relate to your idealized student community experience? You are just going by the popular information about the university at the moment. This essay does not feel like you actually gave the question much thought and your responses are not really very specific because you are giving a general discussion reference in the essay that could apply to any university that you are applying to. Look for what makes you happy to become a part of UChicago. Is it the academic side? The community side? Or both? The response you wrote doesn't really target any specific area of student life at the university so it falls severely short of delivering an impressive response.

Scholarship / ONE OF THE REASON TO STUDY IN UK IS BECAUSE OF HARRY POTTER - CHEVENING [9]

Widya, it is very apparent that you did not understand the prompt requirement for the Selection of university courses prompt and that you disregarded even trying to understand the basics of its requirements. Please do yourself a favor and delete this essay in its totality. Harry Potter has nothing to do with your university background, your current job, nor your future academic interests. This is the kind of essay that gets scholarship applications rejected so do not, under any circumstance, use this essay. You must write a new essay that better services the prompt requirements for the Study in the UK prompt.

The Study in the UK essay must be written in the following format:

Par. 1 Introduce your college background. Include any areas of excellence and recognition that signify your ability to complete the masters course.
Par. 2 Describe your current profession and how it relates to your area of masters study interest. Present a career goal or objective for your studies

Par. 3-5 Discuss your university choice in relation to the masters course you wish to study. Make sure that you indicate your plans for your future career in relation to your field of study.

Par. 6 - conclude the essay by reiterating your desire to be educated in the UK as a part of your professional improvement. Add some significant information that will convince the reviewer that you will be serious about completing this course and that Chevening will play an integral role in your academic plans.

Writing Feedback / [TOEFL iBT Task 2]: Independency for young adults [4]

My apologies, the system did not show me that this was for a TOEFL test until it rebooted. I only saw the updated description when your response came in to my review. All along I thought this was an IELTS test because your prompt was originally used in those tests. Please, do write at least 300 words but no more than 350. It is always important to leave editing time, that is a must. It is not optional. My review of your work stands except that the scoring has now changed from a 7.5 to a 3 for this writing with a potential to score at least a 4 once you get a better hold of your English sentence presentation skills.

All you have to do to meet the time requirement is to continue writing the essays. When I ask my students to start practicing beating the clock so that they can edit the paper, I ask them to complete the essay in 30 minutes. Leaving them with 10 minutes to review the essay and correct their work. Perhaps you could also benefit from doing the same thing?

Use your cellphone timer. Set it for 30 minutes then write the essay. Try to finish your draft before the timer goes off. If you finish early, you have 15-20 minutes to finalize the essay. If the timer goes off before you can finish writing, you have 10 minutes to finalize and edit the essay. Aim for the 15-20 minutes writing completion as best as you can. You will find that as you train to write faster, your presentation will also become smoother and clearer.

Why will this happen? You will begin to develop an internal body clock that will somehow manage to notify you of the time constraints even if you don't glance at the clock. Eventually, they learn that they are automatically writing 325-350 words before the timer goes off. They begin to instinctively know when they have written enough words to satisfy the essay requirements. The timer setting is part of that unconscious test timing preparation. See if it works for you. My students manage to develop their instinctive writing and timer using this method. It really helps them with the word count and editing time frame.

Undergraduate / Part of me knows the vital and constitutive ideals of the environment I am accustomed to live with [2]

The essay does not need help when it comes to bettering the content. The information is too complete, engaging, and truly informative as to how your environment, family, and life experiences have helped you become the model citizen that you are today. I do not see the need to edit the content of this essay unless you are running over the word limit. Somehow, the essay feels too long and too informative. You may want to consider shortening your paragraphs and lessening the descriptive aspects of your presentation so that the reviewer will have an easier time reading the essay, with a focus on helping him remember the highlights, of which there are many in your presentation, so that he can truly note the importance of your environment in terms of the prompt. Maybe you can shorten the second paragraph in reference to the Charro Days Parade and Fiesta. It doesn't really help the essay move forward as it only speaks of your community history, but it doesn't have a direct relation to your development as a person because, as you said, the event deals more with Depression era America, which doesn't really involve you at this point.

Another thing you should look out for is the sentence structure and grammar development of your presentation. You have a few misused words and unclear sentences that you should catch once you review the essay for editing purposes. In addition to that, please try to give English equivalents of any Spanish words that you use in the essay. Just in case the reviewer doesn't speak Spanish or isn't from your home state. Fix those content related presentations and the essay will be ready for submission.

Writing Feedback / By virtue of upgraded medical health care, individuals have longer longevity as a result... [2]

Mai, the approach to this essay is for the writer to develop a singular point of view response to the question. The instruction asks the writer to discuss whether the advantages of improved healthcare is more considerable when compared to its disadvantages. In order to write this topic, you first need to consider the question, what you know about the topic, and which side you can better discuss. The side you pick for this discussion has to be based on your personal opinion and knowledge.

While you did use your personal opinion when you wrote the essay, you failed to pick a side to totally represent in the essay. Therefore, your answer is only partially correct or tangential in response. You must remember that when you opinion is being asked for or, when you are being asked to agree or disagree with a given statement, you must only provide a 4 paragraph essay focused on your defense of the side you opt to discuss. The 4 paragraphs will cover:

1. Prompt paraphrase with your choice indicated in the thesis statement.
2. An explanation of why you support the side.
3. A fully developed example in relation to your beliefs
4. Concluding paragraph

A simple presentation as outlined above will make it easier for you to discuss the essay. By using only one point of view, you will allow yourself a little extra time to revise and edit the essay for content and presentation so that you can get a better overall score.

Scholarship / KGSP 2019 UG Application- "Why Korea?" (Embassy Track) [2]

Yong, please remove all instances or sentences where you plead for admission to the KGSP program. Groveling won't get you anywhere. It is your credentials and strength of your other paperwork that will help you get through the consideration rounds. Remove The first sentence of your first paragraph. Revise it as well to reflect an academic motivation based on any strengths of the Korean Psychological advancements that you may have come across during your preliminary studies or at the time you were developing your interests. You need to have a motivational factor that relates not only to the historical significance of Korea, its culture, its social norms, and any connection with Chinese culture, but also to your chosen major. As an embassy track applicant, you still have to give an academic goal for yourself in relation to the KGSP program.

The first paragraph is extremely long and will tend to bore the reviewer because you are being too wordy in it. Focus on presenting your academic motivation for applying to the program above everything else. That is the most important reason and the major consideration you have for applying for this program. Remember that. Everything else is secondary information that may be presented in a shorter or collective method.

The rest of the essay is alright in terms of content presentation except when you get to the last paragraph, remove the last 2 sentences where you appeal for admission to the program. That isn't how this essay works. Strengthen the relevant content based on the prompt. You will be assessed for admission based on skills and other considerations, not because you begged to be admitted into the program.

Writing Feedback / Essay about the reason for learning foreign language - for travel, work, what else? [4]

Tsling, you are not discussing the essay in the manner indicated by the prompt. You are presenting a single point of view opinion discussion when the prompt requires a pro, con, and personal opinion discussion. The discussion should cover the following paragraphs:

1. People learn languages for travel
2. People learn languages for work
3. Your belief as to why people learn languages (either for work or travel, just one or the other, not both.)

So the correct discussion paraphrase and outline for the prompt is as follows:

People learn various reasons for various reasons. The first is that people learn languages so that they can communicate when they travel abroad. Others learn languages because they get assigned to work out of the country. I believe that the reason to study languages lies between these two reasons. A deeper discussion is to follow below.

In this essay you are saying that you are discussing it from only one side of the discussion, the side that you support. That is the incorrect manner of discussing this essay. This is not an agree or disagree essay nor is it an extent essay. Therefore, your total discussion is wrong and will result in a failing score for this type of work.

You need to be familiar with the varying types of discussion or these Task 2 essays. Only if you know the difference between the instruction types will you be able to properly respond to the essay prompt. Read the sample essays that have been written and posted at this forum. Pay particular attention to the 2 POV + Personal POV discussion samples so that you will learn how to properly format the essay for that type of response. This is a 5 paragraph, not 4 paragraph essay presentation.

Scholarship / My goal is to be a serial entrepreneur, my interests lie in information technology and agriculture [2]

Babatunde, while you did justify the existing programs of the UK in Nigeria, you did not explain how your masters course and line of work will align itself with an existing program of the UK in your country. More importantly, you failed to present a specific UK agency existing in Nigeria that your company can collaborate with in order to help promote both the Nigerian and UK interest in the country.

Your essay is nothing but word fillers at this point that does not serve the purpose of the post study career plan as required by the scholarship. The focus on PM Theresa May's visit does not really define anything for you career wise. Had you indicated that one of the projects that she visited had a direct relation to your occupation, and that this is a UK sponsored project that your company can come aboard on to support, then the mention of her visit and places she went to would be more relevant to your response.

The reviewer is not looking for the evidence of UK commitment to helping Nigeria. He is looking at the cooperative or collaborative effort between the two countries that will allow you to become a conduit between the two, a Nigerian professional who understands what the UK needs to do in order to help improve the status of Nigeria and its relationship with the UK. The important part of your essay is the UK-Nigeria relationship with regards to government or privately sponsored projects where your masters degree knowledge will be used.

Writing Feedback / [TOEFL iBT Task 2]: Independency for young adults [4]

Nuradia, you have shown a great deal of improvement in your vocabulary and word usage. You are more on point when using certain terms such as "young adult" , "independent", and "former idea". Good job on improving your English vocabulary and your ability to remember the meaning of the word and how to use it in a sentence. Keep on growing your vocabulary so you can become even better at word usage.

You also did a good job in defending your stance / opinion in the body of paragraphs. These were clearly explained, fully developed, and used appropriate examples in the presentation. However, your concluding paragraph did not properly summarize the discussion. You continued the discussion instead. Now, had you added another paragraph at the end where you could have summarized the discussion, you would have written a far stronger and better scored essay. However, with a little over 300 words, that might be difficult for you.

Why is it going to be more difficult? While you did show vocabulary improvement, you did not show an equivalent amount of improvement in your GRA / sentence development or structure in the essay. Had you written around 275 words, you could have done that because of the existence of editing time at the end of your drafting process. At 275 words with properly structured sentences, you could aim for at least a 7.5 with your writing.

Scholarship / Personal Statement for KGSP- Undergraduate - Media Communication major [2]

Hoang, you need to build up the first few paragraphs of this essay. The first paragraph deals with how your interest in communications media was developed. However, you need to first, present an introduction to how you developed the interest first. From the way you wrote it, it appears that you simply decided to join the student paper and that was that. You were successful without preparation or thought. No significant experience in developing your writing skills, no risks taken in order to achieve success as a high school journalist, no significant influences from your high school days that would have contributed as an influencing factor in your career decision.

Your essay is a bit confusing. Are you thinking of starting a career in journalism or electronic media ? Or are you batting to become a participant in communications media? Please clarify the type of course you want to enroll in based on your presented academic and internship experiences. I do not see a reference to any academic or community achievements in your essay. Please refer to these in some form as these are not optional parts of the prompt. Those are part of the information for consideration per applicant.

This is a good draft that probably needs up to 2 more revisions before you can reach the editing process. I hope you can add the missing elements and build up the weak areas as observed above.

Writing Feedback / The arguments for or against the freedom of information in science and academic world [3]

Jia, your response to the prompt is incorrect and will result in a failing score during the actual test. This is a 2 public point of view essay with a personal opinion attachment. the way that you wrote the essay, you turned it into a personal point of view observation of the two reasons stated in the original prompt. That shows that you did not understand the discussion instructions in any way. Such a mistake will definitely cost you during the test. In addition to that, you are never supposed to post a question at the end of a thesis statement. You are supposed to offer an understanding of the discussion instructions instead. Also, you must avoid using the exact phrases from the original discussion in the paraphrase since the point of the first paragraph is to test your English understanding and restatement skills. Therefore, this essay cannot expect to get a passing score in an actual setting.

The minute you hear the term "Some people" and 'Others believe", that is automatically a 2 public point of view discussion with the third paragraph being your personal opinion. For your personal opinion, you must choose a side to support between the two public pov. Your reasoning should be based upon your belief in one of the two public discussions and your ability to offer additional supporting discussions to strengthen that point of view.

Scholarship / I am sincere and an ardent to excel my networking - Chevening Scholarship essay [3]

Janaki, this is a useless networking essay. It does not contain any reference to an actual working network and any applications you have used it for in your profession, nor does it properly indicate the growth of a network based on training, seminars, and collaborations. All of which must have a real time setting and physical interaction as online networks are not really taken seriously at this point in time.

You have only explained what comprises your network, without any believable reference to actual use, positions of power that do not include any description of the networking official's capacity to help you with any project, and a description of what your job is that sometimes requires networking. This is one of the most forgettable networking essays I have ever read coming from a Chevening applicant. If a Chevening reviewer reads this, he will not allow your application to go any further than the screening round.

Write a new networking essay that indicates more specific information regarding the development of your network and its use in your profession. Think about how Chevening members can benefit from your network and bring attention to that importance. Don't serve up a generic essay that any student could have written for any scholarship application. You need to prove that you are the best of the best in all aspects required by the essays. Otherwise, you just can't compete in the application process.

Undergraduate / Parents' advice about thinking - TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY ESSAY QUESTION [9]

Hi Lara, in response to your question, I have worn many hats in the academic industry over the past two decades. One of those being an academic consultant to students applying to college and students trying to secure overseas and localized scholarships. My job is to help students get into their first choice university and our forum has a 90% success rate in helping students.

English is my lingua franca, my mother tongue, which helped me become a TOEFL and IELTS topnotcher. Needless to say, my college studies were completed overseas in an English speaking country. All of my experiences helped me to understand what universities look for in their applicants. Thank you for appreciating my advice. I look forward to helping and guiding you towards attending college.

Scholarship / I would like to be a connection between Korean and western world market [7]

The KGSP scholarship reviewer has a specific set of information that he requires to learn from you and about you. That is why the application was designed with a set of prompt statements for you to discuss in the essay. The prompt covers various facets of academic and personal consideration that the reviewer uses to assess your ability to either perform as a scholar or complete the scholarship program within the specified period. It is a multifaceted approach to a general interview of the applicant.

That said, it would be best for you to apply an equal discussion focus of each prompt statement. Don't focus on just your professional background because that is your strongest suit. When considered by the reviewer, the lack of information stemming from other expected discussion aspects will often end up disqualifying your application. If the reviewer doesn't know everything that he needs to know about you, then he can't really assess your qualifications based upon their more serious considerations when it comes to applicant data.

Writing Feedback / Ielts aging population topic - the average life expectancy is increasing [3]

To, this is a direct question essay. As such, you must offer an immediate discussion based on the instructions given to you by the original prompt. You are basically being asked to immediately outline your discussion for the reference of the reader. So the paraphrase should have been:

The modern world has seen a rise in the lifespan of the elderly. This causes problems with regards to the workforce and healthcare system. Some solutions that can be considered for the problem are related to raising the retirement age and increasing the pension for the retired elderly so that they can afford better healthcare. In this essay, a more detailed look at the aforementioned problems and solutions will be presented.

Avoid redundancies in your writing. longer and longevity both refer to the same thing which is an "extended period of time". Familiarize yourself with English words and their accompanying meaning so you can avoid repeating yourself in your presentations.

Your paragraph discussions are little developed and not well supported by facts or other data. It would be better for you to practice separating your discussion topics so that you can better explain what it is you want to impart to the reader. This essay feels truly rushed in development and doesn't really offer a clear discussion of the prompt requirements and your offered information. Try to be clearer next time.