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


Interesting. Couldn't it be the case that sometimes people just want to be with members of their own group, regardless of whether that group is "dominant?" Or is there some valid psychological reason why the instinct to stay with one's own should arise only within members of non-dominant groups? Or do you mean that all people occasionally want to hang out only with people they identify as members of their own group, but that only non-dominant groups should be permitted to do this? But, then, if they have rights that other groups don't, doesn't that give them a form of dominance? Has Michigan moved beyond this issue, or merely mastered enough doublethink not to worry about it?


This is still ambiguously phrased.

Your essay runs into trouble because what you need to write is an essay praising mulitculturalism (or at least implicitly accepting the notion that multiculturalism is good). That is, diversity is good, everyone should mix, best way to learn and be open-minded, etc, etc. But, you start off admitting that you don't really believe that. Your opening sentence can be read as saying that real world experience shows that it isn't true, and you then go on to state directly that you at least partially believe that people should probably stick to their own kind because of what you witnessed in your parents divorce. Possibly you mean this, and possibly you really don't think all that much of multiculturalism. At the same time, you clearly know that that has nothing to do with what you are expected to write, because you try to turn it into a "I learned to appreciate diversity" essay half-way through. But, your anecdote doesn't work. Learning that your parents were considered part of two different ethnicities must have been the beginning, not the end, of your suspicion that this difference was responsible for the tension between them.

So, I'd suggest starting over. You don't need to discuss your views on multiculturalism and diversity at all. You're biracial. You're a living, breathing monument to diversity. As such, you would contribute to the diversity of the university by bringing experience and knowledge of two minority cultures to it. That's all you have to talk about.

Writing Feedback / The benefits of technology versus the costs [11]

You might even ask yourself what drives technological innovation. In other words, why do we develop technology? The answer you come up with might in turn point to a way of answering the prompt . . .

Writing Feedback / Social Work Theory, Skills and Methods Assignment [6]

Post the essay you submitted originally, and the comments you got back on it. That way we can give you specific feedback about how to rewrite it, since you seem to have been given an opportunity to do so.

Undergraduate / "Living in America converted me into new person" - essay for common app :) [20]

Yeah, you rely too heavily on weak verbs:

"The school was nothing like my expectancy. It was comprised of not just Americans but more diverse people. This sight was unfamiliar to me as I grew up in the ethnically and linguistically homogeneous Korea. Although all the students were nice,"

and so on.

Undergraduate / Need help on Bump in road Essay (my best friend's death) [23]


We would be more moved by this if you had shared some of those adventures in the essay, in the form of narrative anecdotes.


This, which should be the most important part of your essay, is also the weakest. Your description of your pain at the loss of your friend is vivid and real. This, though, is just a series of hallmark platitudes. If this is how you feel, can you show rather than tell it? That might strengthen it considerably. Alternatively, this:


seems like something you could expand on in more detail. I suspect you mentioned it first for a reason.

Undergraduate / "We the People" - Undergrad Admissions Essay for Ivies? Critique =) [29]

It's a great sentence, one that shows your mastery of vocabulary, grammar, and style. Keep it.

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


I think maybe the distinction between information and knowledge lies in those connections.

Undergraduate / The story of two eagles-- common app [8]

This is sort of touching and a bit different. It seems a bit long for an application essay, though. Can you cut it down a bit, possibly by cutting some of the more general sentences in your intro and conclusion, and combining sentences in your body paragraphs?

Book Reports / Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway [4]

If the question involves the story "Hills Like White Elephants" and symbolism, start by making sure you know all the meanings and etymologies of the phrase "white elephant."

Writing Feedback / "Actions speak louder than words" (do you agree or disagree with the statement) [8]

You have too many words. Each of your paragraphs can be distilled into a single sentence. So, do that, then add more examples and details to prove your point more solidly.

Before: "Words and actions are two kinds of emotional behaviors. It is ironic that some people are always talking. But they are doing nothing. As a consequence, I completely agree with the statement:" Actions speak louder than words" because of the reasons presented below."

After: "Actions do indeed speak louder than words."

Before: "Diligence is better than laziness, intelligence than foolishness, honesty than dishonesty, anybody acknowledges that fact. But in this life, many people know the good without following it, the evil without avoiding it. For instance, they still smoke, even though they know it is bad. Nobody can rival them in speaking, yet their behaviors are undeserving. Therefore, it is easy to speak but difficult to act."

After: "It is often easier to say than to do. For instance, it may be easier for a smoker to warn others of the dangers of smoking than to quit himself."

Before: "Moreover, if you,just talk without your specific actions, you will become a boastful person to people. People could possibly look down on you. Then, what should you do? You must act. If you act without words, you can become an astute and intelligent person. People will not compare you to those talkative, and useless. That is the best way to behave in community"

After: "People who only ever talk may be perceived as boastful or hypocritical, whereas those who let their actions speak for them will win the respect of their community."

Writing Feedback / Correct and rate my essay essay. Its on laws being rigid or flexible [5]

When talking about a plural noun, such as "laws," you must use the plural pronoun "they" to refer to it, rather than "it."

Also, your essay will be stronger if you define your key terms in your introduction. What does it mean to describe a law as "flexible?" If your thesis is that "Laws must be structured in such a way that they should not have any loopholes, yet be flexible." what principles should be used to determine when flexibility reaches the point of becoming a loophole. Or, put another way, how flexible can you make a law before it cease to be a law and becomes more of a guideline?

Dissertations / I need suggestions for phd topics in software engineering [18]


Always puzzled by requests for Ph.D. topics. Surely anyone who has made it to that level should be able to come up with a subject on their own, even if they need help writing it up in English.

Graduate / "Pursuit of knowledge" - My SOP for Software Engineering [8]

Start by saying what aspect of software engineering you want to research, and then narrow it down from there.

Writing Feedback / GRE essay: Sadness and happiness [8]

This sort of essay perhaps calls out for a discussion of the principle underlying the prompt. The prompt is essentially suggesting that to know a thing, we must also know its opposite. We cannot have a conception of "self", for instance, without a conception of "other," or a conception of "hot" without a conception of "cold," or a conception of "good" without a conception of "evil." Is the same true also of happiness and sadness? And if it is, do we need to know "real" sadness to appreciate happiness, or only minor sadness? Perhaps we could appreciate happiness by knowing degrees of it, rather than knowing the complete absence of it, understanding sadness as a theoretical concept without ever actually experiencing it directly. For that matter, could we learn about sadness by observing it in others, and so come to appreciate happiness without ever "knowing" sadness personally? And so on.

Undergraduate / Women's Safe House, volunteering - Common Application Essay [34]


You need something like this, only instead of loving the squalor, perhaps you could talk about how seeing the great potential of India inflamed your sense of social justice, inspiring you to fight against poverty, inequality, etc.

Undergraduate / "My older brother David" - Help with UCF entrance essay [11]

It would fit much better for that topic, yes.

Undergraduate / "My life full of wonderful events" - UF Admissions Essay [9]

So many essays are improved by losing that first "I'm writing myself into a topic" paragraph.

Undergraduate / UC Admissions Essays (my personal virtues; why Cornell) - LF some critiques/insight/help [8]

Protestations of honesty are the surest sign of deceit. Or else of a form of tact. For instance. To be frank, your intro wanders a bit. The opening makes you sound vaguely sociopathic, while your concern with equality makes me think you are maybe planning to be a social worker or something, but then you start talking about biology.

Notice how the phrase "to be frank" gives you a moment to prepare to hear something that you aren't going to like, a second to brace yourself mentally?

Writing Feedback / The intellectual benefits of attending a university - advice my second GRE issue [17]

Actually, the notion that U.S. schools suck is something of myth, I was reading recently. Middle-class and upper-class American students apparently tend to do roughly as well as students from countries with much better reputations when it comes to the quality of their educational systems, such as, say, Japan. The averages only sound so bad in the news reports because the numbers used always include lower-class students from inner city ghettos and other areas that America has given up on. I have no way of verifying the source, unfortunately, so maybe someone here knows if this is actually true.

Undergraduate / University studies and my career [5]

IF YOU NEED AN ESSAY ON HOW YOU THINK YOUR UNIVERSITY STUDIES WILL AFFECT YOUR CAREER, THEN I SUGGEST YOU WRITE ONE, PREFERABLY AFTER YOU HAVE CALMED DOWN ENOUGH TO STOP SHOUTING.

Undergraduate / Women's Safe House, volunteering - Common Application Essay [34]

You could use it for either of the last two. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of the essay, though. It's well-written enough, stylistically, but the message is weak. So, you realized that, though India is materially poor, it is also vibrant and energetic, so the dire poverty doesn't matter. That doesn't really make me see you as a particularly desirably university applicant. Others here may disagree with me, though . . .

Writing Feedback / Illegal Aliens and Their Quest to Stay in the United States [3]

You also need to set up some background in your intro. So, for instance, why not just grant everyone who makes it into the country legal status? What interest does the government have in regulating who comes in? How would legalizing people who had come here illegally undermine those interests? What alternatives to legalization exist?

Some issues you will have to deal with, either way:

1. By illegal immigrants, you really mean Hispanic immigrants from Mexico. Not, say, Islamic Arabs from Saudi Arabia. The problem is in a sense unique to the U.S., because it borders a country that is much poorer than it is, and because that border is very badly policed, and because the sheer number of people who have already crossed it makes the notion of deporting them all unfeasible.

2. Given that the problem is geographic in nature and ongoing, how is guaranteeing legal status to anyone who slips across the border not going to exacerbate the social problems caused by having masses of newcomers arriving without any real skills, education, or grasp of English?

3. Given that mass deportation is probably unfeasible, and that mass executions would never fly with the American public, how is refusing to legalize the immigrants who are already here going to solve any of the social problems arising from having a class of people who are forced to be a drain on a system they cannot legally pay into?

This is the catch-22 America finds itself in. A nation is only a nation for so long as it preserves the integrity of its borders. Legalizing illegals would be an admission that it can't do that. On the other hand, it hasn't preserved the integrity of its borders, and so it now has to deal with a population of people who can only ever be a drain on society unless they are legalized.

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


Your sentence is ambiguous. It could be read as saying that the myth that people should stick with their own kind exists because experiential evidence has shown that different cultures don't mix. You don't mean this, so, revise it to avoid this ambiguity.


This is too shallow. You need to come up with something more detailed, specific, and personal.


Same here. That you would have an open mind is good, but you have to explain how you would use your open-mindedness to benefit the university.

Writing Feedback / The benefits of technology versus the costs [11]

Your problem isn't that you have too many, its that they aren't really connected by anything except being benefits. We all know about the benefits and drawbacks to specific technologies. What you need to do is to come up with some way of judging whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Otherwise, you aren't answering the question.

Undergraduate / Women's Safe House, volunteering - Common Application Essay [34]

What's the significant event here? Visiting India for the first time? Seeing the traffic? Visiting your uncle? It's a good essay if you were writing about how your culture / upbringing shaped you, but I'm not sure if works with the topic you have chosen.

Undergraduate / Is the content too cynical for the common application? [3]

Too much about migrant workers and the family you stayed with. Nowhere near enough about you, the person the application officers want to learn about. So, cut material about the former to make room for more about the latter, then add more about you.

Book Reports / O'connor, "Good Country People" - fixing my Thesis statement [6]

I think the pedagogical approach is ironic, given that it is being applied to a story that apparently criticizes taking too mechanical approach to the world. In any event, I'd throw some reference to imagery in there, given the wording of the assignment and the apparent nature of your teacher.

Poetry / "the bureaucratic mechanism" poem Review [5]


Indeed. Never have successful poems been written that deal with abstract philosophical concepts directly. Take that, Wordsworth!

Sorry -- I actually share the modern prejudice here. I just wanted to point out that it is a modern prejudice, rather than an objective truth about poetry.

Writing Feedback / Vimy Ridge,Day of Deliverance,Constitution Act;3 Defining Moments- Canadian History [4]


Why? Preview your reasons in the space freed up by losing all of the rambling I cut from the beginning of your intro.

Writing Feedback / The intellectual benefits of attending a university - advice my second GRE issue [17]


Very true. But why should this be harder to gain on one's own than at a university? Your next sentence doesn't answer this question, btw. It merely asserts the truth of your position.


Students can do this at university, too. In fact, the whole idea of taking a major is that one can exclude a whole range of subjects one dislikes to focus intensely on one that is interesting.


Again, you might want to explain how schools are specialized in this, and what about them would make them better at it than one would be on one's own.

Your essay is actually quite well-written and thoughtful. You just need to state explicitly many of the things you seem to be assuming.

Faq, Help / Is it safe to post my essay here? Or should I be worried about Plagiarism? [175]

This is less of an issue with regular essays than it is with application essays. With regular essays, you can also protect yourself by asking your professor / teacher if it is acceptable to use the website. That way, even if your essay gets flagged by anti-plagiarism software, you know you won't get in trouble (as long as the essay being on this site was the only reason for the flag, of course). For application essays, I suppose you are a bit more reliant on people not being totally stupid.

Undergraduate / The day I met her will shine like a beacon in my memory forever [31]

Yeah, I seem to recall that my initial comment on your first essay was that I really liked it, but that you had one piece that needed a bit of revision. I'm not sure why you responded by writing a completely different essay, so if you want to go with the first one, you could just edit that.

Undergraduate / "Living in America converted me into new person" - essay for common app :) [20]

Wow! Your revised version is much better. You include far more specific details and elaborate on things at length that seemed odd in the original. For instance


This makes much more sense than your previous claim that you simply weren't allowed to shower at all.

One thing, though:


Did loneliness become a trivial matter? Or did you stop being lonely on account of having made so many friends?

Undergraduate / Women's Safe House, volunteering - Common Application Essay [34]

Your new topic sounds promising. Be careful, though -- you will have to strike a fine balance between emotion and logic. You need to express how personal the issue is to you while still showing that you can analyze the situation critically. Good luck, and I look forward to reading your first draft.

Undergraduate / "valuable traits", "photographer" - Need help on revising two application essays [19]


Yeah, "the fact that" is a lazy phrase. I use it myself sometimes because I can be lazy, but really, you can find away to avoid using it with a bit of effort.

Undergraduate / "Panic. Chaos. Insanity." - Stanford Roommate Essay [17]

Did you ever come up with a revised draft for this one?

Poetry / "the bureaucratic mechanism" poem Review [5]

I'm a big fan of meter. I know its not very popular these days to write metrical poems, but really, the art of being able to put something into meter is at the heart of true poetry. I would suggest you master this art. Once you have done so, you will of course be free to play with meter, or even to write completely a-metrical free verse. But it will then be a conscious choice, not something you are doing from a lack of ability. And you will ever after be confident in your use of rhythm.

As for this particular poem, to get the effect you say you are after, cut out all the words that don't have images attached to them:

the slowly grindinggears of the bureaucratic gearsmechanism turn and turn
my mind reels at the overwhelming beauty of an entire world

i might not see it
quagmire of invisible cogsis built around me
so complex that im blinded

or some such. And don't mix your metaphors. Again, once you have mastered the art of extending a single metaphor, you can choose to violate this rule. In the meantime, don't.

Writing Feedback / Food Stands Vs Eating at Home = Convenience Vs Quality [8]

No. You should use specific examples. It may take a bit of practice before you can work them smoothly into your essay (like many things, trying something new might make you get a bit worse before you get better) but to write solid essay, it is something you need to master.

Writing Feedback / [TOEFL] Being creative rather than planning. [16]

Here's how I would approach this, if I were writing purely for speed.

Step 1: Pick a side. It doesn't matter which one. Since Simone covered creativity, I'll go with planning.

Step 2: Quickly brainstorm ideas for planning. Why do people plan? To avoid mistakes. What else do I know about plans. Well, I feel better when I have one, more in control (Here I hear the Joker from Dark Knight 'Nobody panics when things go 'according to plan.' Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all 'part of the plan.' But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!" Okay.I have two arguments already.

Planning is good because it allows you to avoid foolish mistakes

Planning gives you confidence that you know what you are doing.

I need one more. So, what can I use for a third argument. Well, what else can I think of? The phrase "I'm the man with a plan" comes to mind. I can't remember where it comes from, but I have the impression of someone trying to convince someone else to join him . . . and there I have my third argument.

It is easier to win support for projects if you can show people you have a plan.

Come to think of it, most banks require you to show a business plan if you are applying for a loan. Hmmmm . . . that could even be an example for that point.

So, in my brainstorming, I essentially started by seeing if any arguments came instantly to mind (planning to avoid mistakes) then just started trying to remember things I had heard about plans (Dark Knight, "man with a plan") and asked myself if there was anything I could use from that material that would give me more arguments.

I don't know if this helps you at all, but maybe it gives you an idea of how brainstorming should work . . .

Letters / motivation letter (engineer in mechanical engineering) [4]


I have no idea what you mean here. I suspect that you could combine this with your next sentence, and say that "I am writing to apply for the position of mechanical engineer advertised in the July 25th edition of the Quotidien."


Um. You want to be an engineer so you can speak more?


And now you are interested in advertising?

You need to focus more on what you have to offer the company as an engineer, and what you hope to accomplish in the position beyond generally gaining experience. Add specific details that will make you stand out from the crowd.