Student Talk / How to improve English writing? Learning through reading. [130]


Writing, reading, and speaking English are all good ideas, but you aren't truly fluent in a language until you can think in it, because you can only write and speak it quickly and with confidence when you are thinking in it. A student of a second language who relies always on trying to perform instantaneous translation will always be limited in how good he or she can become with it.

Essays / Characteristics of a good friend (which friend would you choose) [6]

You might also look at how these qualities are interrelated. A friend who isn't smart enough to understand what you ask of him or her isn't going to be very reliable, for instance. At the same time, you might which to define what is meant by "friend" to begin with. It may be that the concept itself includes one or more of the above characteristics, which might lead you to challenge the question.

Undergraduate / "I can - the sky is the limit" - UF Essay [3]

Yeah, "can't," on its own, without context, is a fairly innocuous word. As with many essays I see here, this one could benefit from having the first paragraph entirely deleted. That way, you start in on the interesting material right away. You will need to remove the other "can't" references if you do this, though.

Research Papers / Comparing pre and post Gold Rushes of the 1850s in Australia. [14]


If in fact the Gold Rushes devastated the aboriginal communities, then that was clearly a turning point for both the aboriginal communities (which ever after had considerably less power in Australian society) and for non-aboriginal communities (some of which presumably had more power). How much you want to focus on this depends on how much of a change you think it was. If you believe that the aboriginals had already been fairly well devastated to begin with, and that their decline was being driven by other policies unrelated to the Gold rush as well, then you might conclude that the negative effects on the aboriginal communities were not particularly a turning point for them so much as yet one more negative influence. If, on the other hand, you find that the aboriginal communities were flourishing until the miners showed up, then obviously the impact on them is more worthy of note in your essay.

Undergraduate / This year's cross-county varsity - common app significant experience essay. [14]

The essay was always well-written, with plenty of specific details. You just needed to cut it down to the right length.

Undergraduate / Need Help with application essay about my personal characteristics [11]

Computer keyboard and mouse. I imagine they would come up for many of the people posting in these forums.

Writing Feedback / "A government's role" - academic writing test IELTS to be correct [8]


Of course, you should avoid using these constructions in any event, whether at the beginning or end of your essay. Don't tell us what you are going to talk about. Just start right in talking about it.

Also, try to ground your general discussion of the topic with specific examples. So, after stating one reason why government should or should not provide services in general, talk about a particular service, and look at why government should or should not be involved in providing it.

Essays / Similarities between myself and any vegetable [17]

I wonder if you are limited to actual vegetables, or if you can use imaginary ones, too. The prompt does say "any vegetable" after all, and choosing a sci-fi or fantasy one might yield some imaginative results.

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

Speaking of being more precise, I notice that you have written an entire essay on food and meals without mentioning a single specific dish . . .

Research Papers / research paper on drug legalization [5]

Google Books and Google Scholar are two subservices of Google that may yield more appropriate sources than would a whole web search, while preserving much of the convenience of that research technique.

Book Reports / Argumentative essay on 1984 - Outline [40]


Lol! So much of human history show just that. The statement is so manifestly contradicted by what we know from experience as to be absurd. Neurology doesn't really tell us much of anything when it comes to explaining human behavior, I'm afraid. Wrong level of detail. In any event, even if we did have certain emotional propensities to act in an altruistic way, it wouldn't make acting on them a good idea, any more than acting on an emotional impulse to punch someone in the face when they're being annoying would be. And that, I know we are hard-wired for.


Depends on who is in the group, and what the goals of the group are. Certainly there are cases in which helping the group might be good (when it is in one's own interests to do so). I certainly wouldn't say that helping the group is always good though.

Book Reports / Argumentative essay on 1984 - Outline [40]


Why does intent have to be either selfish or altruistic? For that matter, why does she have to have any intent at all? If she is acting on impulse, then she is acting at the level of a beast, and we do not normally talk about the intent of beasts. And the pleasure she gets is not in fact to her benefit, as you admit. She even knows that it is not in her self-interest to shoot up, so by doing so, she is acting against what she knows is her self-interest. You cannot say that selfishness is concern with one's own self-interest, and then argue that someone who acts in a way that they know is contrary to their own best interests is selfish. Sorry.


This is a non sequitur. We were talking about people living in a free market society. As slaves are not free, this has no bearing on anything. The fair market value of a slave's labor to the slave would be how much he would be willing to do it for if he were offering it on a free market. The value to the slave owner would be how much he would be prepared to pay for it in the same.


Yes, if we accept the premise of limited wealth, your arguments become much stronger. But, as I keep saying, I don't accept this premise. In our society, there is always somewhere else to go, if one has the intelligence and the determination. I am singularly unconcerned about those who lack either or both.



There is a contradiction here. My rational self-interest is determined by the objective nature of reality. If you are going to posit a scenario in which reality is utterly malleable, then this becomes very difficult, but I'll give it my best shot.

I suppose it depends on what I view as being in my rational self-interest to want.


If I want peace of mind, for instance, I can hardly get it by consigning a good man to a place of eternal torture.

I do not want unearned money, for I recognize that unearned money has no value.

I do not want a woman who would be a mindless automaton or slave given me by a demon.

I do not want better looks, which would make me appealing only to those who judged by outward appearances, and whose opinion consequently does not matter to me.

I suppose I would view it as being in my self interest to live in a world in which everyone respected the right of everyone else to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. This man is one whom you say I know respects these things. Obviously, I myself must also respect these things for the scenario to hold. If I condemned him unjustly to any sort of prison, then I could not therefore have what I want. Also, as the person you describe sounds like a very moral, capable person, I suppose I would also desire his friendship, which I also could not gain by condemning him to hell. In fact, none of the things I can think of that would tempt me are the sort of things I could get by giving into temptation, as the very act of giving into it would preclude my ever having them.

Poetry / "Winter Day", "Fall" - Review My Poems. [8]

You might also like some of the Romantic and Victorian poets. Your winter poem contains narrative elements, and the last good narrative poem was penned over a hundred years ago. Also, didactic elements weren't considered anathema then. The notion that these should be avoided has become so deeply ingrained in what passes for poetic circles these days that it is easy to forget that the dislike of them is a period preference, not a reflection of anything objectively wrong with them.

If you are writing with a view to eventually being published, then you should of course conform to the prevailing period preferences, but if you are writing for your own benefit, then there is no reason you shouldn't model yourself on the sort of poets who wrote well enough to sustain a widespread public interest in poetry, especially if you find you enjoy reading them yourself.

Grammar, Usage / writing an essay -- how to improve imagination? [6]


Do you have any imagination when not writing an essay? If so, then your problem probably isn't with imagination per se. More likely, you find it difficult to translate what you imagine into the written word.

That said, Simone's advice is still good. The more you read, the better your English skills will become, and the more raw material you will have available as fuel for your imagination.

Scholarship / SCHOLARSHIP ESSAY:MY ASPIRATION CAREER AS A LAWYER. [3]

You might start by asking yourself what sort of lawyer you want to become. Civil? Criminal? If the former, corporate? divorce? tax? If the latter, defense attorney or prosecutor? Then ask yourself why you chose as you did.

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


Specifically, you are arguing (or should be) that technology is good overall because it expands the range of our capabilities as a species, but that these benefits are sometimes overshadowed by the choices made by certain individuals who use technology for misguided or evil ends.

Grammar, Usage / Unintelligible Lyrics [3]

First, you are assuming that lyrics are meant to make sense. This is not always the case. Nik Kershaw's The Riddle, for instance, was compiled by throwing together random phrases that appealed to the artist.

Second, you have to realize that song lyrics, like poetry, often invert or simply butcher the grammatical syntax of a sentence, and that words may be omitted. This is often compounded by the fact that modern lyricists, in contrast to famous poets, don't have a great grasp of grammar to begin with. So, you have to translate the lyrics back into proper English before they'll make sense. For instance

"Living in my own world, didn't understand, that anything can happen, when you rake a chance.'"

becomes

"Because I was living in my own world, I didn't understand that anything could happen if I took more risks."

Undergraduate / Stanford Roommate essay help ("living on campus") [6]

I agree with Simone. Your essay is lively and engaging, and focuses on something a bit different from the vast majority of the topics picked by people writing on this topic. One thing, though:


Really? Using the resources available in a university dorm? Good luck with that. :-)

Writing Feedback / Good Boss, Bad Boss: Compare/Contrast Essay [27]

Ah. In many Canadian schools, the scale is

A+ 90
A = 85
A-= 80
B+= 75
B = 70
B- = 67
C+ = 65

And, if the school marks out of 4.0 system, in which there is no A+, in terms of GPA, anything over 85 translates into 4.0. In a 4.3 system, this is somewhat mitigated. Either way, though, because of this, 85 ends up being essentially a perfect or near perfect mark, so that many professors are reluctant to give out anything higher, which makes an 81% very respectable, as that is essentially 81/85 (or possibly 81/90). At best (worst?) it becomes the equivalent of a 90% on a scale in which the full range of percentage grades were meaningful.

Grammar, Usage / Good words flagged as bad by spell checkers [15]

Oh. I spent the first seven years of school in French Immersion, so the rule was pretty well ingrained into my memory. In any event, the extra "e" turns the word from the masculine form into the feminine form, so knowing that makes it easy to figure out the gender difference between a fiancé and fiancée

Grammar, Usage / Good words flagged as bad by spell checkers [15]


Well, what does adding an "e" to a french word normally do . . . noir, noire blanc, blanche, fort, forte?

Writing Feedback / Not eveything that is learned is contained in the books [20]


Because "Not everything that can be learned is contained in the books" implies that there is some specific set of books (an encyclopedia, perhaps?) that are being referenced. Whereas, "Not everything that can be learned is contained in books" is asking about the power of books in general to act as learning aids.

Undergraduate / Family influence - violence essay [14]

Yeah, at the moment, after reading your essay, if I were the admissions officer, I would really like to let Jared into the university. Can you still express your admiration for your brother while emphasizing what you learned from him more, and how your own academic prowess was less less.

Writing Feedback / Cbest Essay - Proble in Community [5]

And stick with the community focus in your conclusion too. This:


is mostly a jumble of dull generalizations. You have to generalize a bit in your conclusion, of course, but that should grow naturally out of the specifics you have mentioned beforehand.

Undergraduate / FSU Essay - "Going to FSU will only make me stronger" [5]

It would also be nice if you could connect all three through some sort of common theme, or else show how they overlap and interconnect in some way. It would make the essay gel a bit better.

Book Reports / Book recommendation for Novel Analysis Thesis [13]

Well, since you are looking at a primarily American genre and a primarily British ones, looking at how the two reflect different cultural values might be a way to go. Simone is right, though. Having more information would be useful.

Student Talk / How to improve English writing? Learning through reading. [130]


Practice thinking in English. This may sound odd, and you might look it too, if anyone sees you sitting on the subway flipping through a dual language dictionary seemingly at random, but practicing thinking in a second language is by far the best way to improve your mastery of it.

Grammar, Usage / Good words flagged as bad by spell checkers [15]

cinderblock
cinder block

Hmmmm . . . I suspect that since it can be spelled either way, the spellchecker prefers the non-compound form.

Writing Feedback / How my gay father, family and community have shaped who i am today - uc prompt [6]


"Individulity" isn't a word. Consequently, the sentence makes no sense. Nor would it with the obvious replacements for the word.


Different from whom? All the other people who grew up in New York or some other large urban center?


What does this have to do with anything?


So why don't you, instead of wasting the reader's time with this prelude?


Yes, because only gay guys like to cook (no famous straight male chefs, that's for sure) and only straight guys take an interest in sports and cars. I'm so glad having a gay father prevented your mind from falling into the trap of subscribing to offensive stereotypes.


Then why have you mentioned him?

What is the point of this essay? You jump from one topic to another, and don't seem to be trying to show any single characteristic or set of characteristics about yourself that would make you a good applicant. If you want to write about your gay father, explain how having a gay father influenced you by helping you to develop one or more desirable personal traits that will make you a strong university student.

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

Your essay is off to a good start, but you need to tighten up the logic a bit more. You list a series of benefits from random technologies, then list a few of the disadvantages. However, you provide no sense of how the benefits and the drawbacks should be measured or weighed, nor do you explain why the benefits should be greater than the drawbacks. Your notion that the drawbacks shouldn't count because they come from people misusing them is interesting, but needs elaboration.

Writing Feedback / Good Boss, Bad Boss: Compare/Contrast Essay [27]

Okay, maybe the marking system is different where you are, but an 81% here would be an A-, hardly a horrible mark. Indeed, depending upon what marking system your university uses, anything over 85 is literally superfluous, as there is no difference, GPA-wise, between an 85 or 100. I think that is different for American schools, though. In any event, your mark, for a college class, is quite respectable.

Book Reports / Argumentative essay on 1984 - Outline [40]


But intent and the expected outcome are not unrelated. In any event, you haven't proved selfish intent, even. I would say someone who has never bothered to ask what is really in his self-interest, or made an attempt to rationally ascertain that, cannot be truly said to be concerned with his self-interest. Indeed, I fail to see how anyone can be said to be concerned with their benefit and welfare if they do not know, and are not trying to find out, what would actually benefit them and advance their welfare. Acting on whim, doing whatever makes you feel good in the moment, has nothing whatsoever to do with what is in your own self-interest. Someone who acts on whim or to gratify emotional impulses is not therefore showing concern with their self-interest. You seem to assume that people who act on their emotional impulses believe that doing so is in their own self-interest, but you have no proof of this. On the contrary, they may know that what they are doing is against their own interest, as a heroin addict knows that shooting up is bad for him, but does so anyway. Or, and this is probably more common, they haven't stopped to think about whether it is in their self-interest or not. In neither case can they be said to be acting selfishly, in the sense that you chose to cite.


You misunderstand. The question is whether there are enough resources that they cannot all be successfully monopolized. You believe that there are not -- hence a limited view of wealth. I believe that there are, though I am prepared to admit that, at some point, the population may be large enough, and our technology not yet advanced enough, that for awhile this may not be true.


The value of any work to the person doing it is always what he is prepared to sell it for. The value of the work to anyone else is what they are prepared to pay for it. This is why capitalism is the only just economic system, as everyone is always paid fair market value for their work. If they believe they are not being paid what their work is worth, they are free to engage in some other form of employment, just as if others feel that the worker is charging too much, they are free to find someone else who values his labor less, or to do it themselves. Any other economic system involves forcing people to accept someone else's economic values, and so is inherently unjust.


But the actual value of their work to the employers is only what they are prepared to pay for it. If the workers disagree, they may find a different profession. Otherwise, if they are prepared to sell their work at the rate the employers ask, they agree that the price reflects the actual value, by freely choosing to sell their labor at that rate.


No. I believe he did work that was tens of thousands of time more valuable. The quantity of work, in terms of time, may have been the same as that of his workers, or theoretically even less. The quality, though, was clearly orders of magnitude more valuable.


Yes, you believe in the limited view of wealth. I don't. I believe that there were multiple other industries people could have made their fortune in, and still other industries they could have invented. For that matter, smaller business have risen to challenge industry giants even within existing industries in which one or two giants did dominate. We are likely going to have to agree to disagree on the issue of limited wealth, which will probably make debating many of these other points unnecessary.


I never said that employers had no moral obligations at all to their workers, only that they had no obligation to care for them. They have an obligation to pay whatever wage or salary the workers were contracted for within the agreed upon time frame, just as the worker is obliged to perform the task for which he was hired as competently as possible. Both agree not to kill, lie, cheat, or steal, in short, to respect the basic rights of the other.


If I believed that it was in my rational self-interest, then yes. I do not, however, believe that it would be in my rational self-interest, nor do I see any circumstances under which I would.


Yes. Yes. None.

I really think that our only key area of contention here is whether or not the limited view of wealth is true or not. At any rate, all of the things you have said that I disagree with (apart from the semantic issues) rely entirely and completely on accepting a limited view of wealth.

Book Reports / Argumentative essay on 1984 - Outline [40]


Your definition, not mine. So, if bank robbery can be shown not to actually be in one's own interest, benefit, or welfare, it is not, by own your definition, selfish. Presumably, one would have to perform rational analysis to determine this.


Of course they do. They can keep doing whatever they were doing before the factory opened. They take the jobs because, as bad as the conditions and pay are, they are still better than the original options available.


Because the question is one of population versus resources. Technically, in an infinite universe, resources are also infinite. Presumably you would not accept this, nor should you. However, a planet Earth with only, say, 1,000 people on it has more resources than all of those people together could reasonably claim for themselves. So, the question becomes one of whether or not our population has reached the point where the amount of resources available is such as to make the view of limited wealth reasonable. At the moment, I would say we are far enough from that point that you could argue it either way, without one side ever being able to convince the other.


My point, which you keep claiming to agree with, is that the end of communism as it has been practiced is inevitable because of the flaws within the theory. If, as you say, you agree with me on this point, why do you sound as if you are arguing with me?


This doesn't work at all. Marx didn't call for a communist revolution, he merely predicted it. So he wouldn't do anything at all. But obviously someone somewhere has to do something if things are to change, so this is manifestly unhelpful.


Not at all. Any ideology seems perfectly reasonable from the point of view of its founder, or the founder wouldn't have founded it. We can only judge it by how well it has worked in practice.


My response here would be that, in a free market society, the workers will tend to end up finding that every employer offers them around what is the actual value of their work, given the number of people who could do it, the difficulty of the skills involved, etc. A person is of course free to work such a job while mastering new skills, or to do such a job well enough to win promotion, and so on.


Again, I don't accept your premises. As far as I am concerned, the guys at the top had no moral obligation to help their workers. Only to pay them fair market value, which they more or less had to do, or else the workers would have gone elsewhere. So accruing wealth and power for themselves wasn't particular wrong, much less evil. Differing views of wealth and power, again. This is why I said we would end up talking in circles -- all of our views spring from our differing views on wealth. We must either resolve that debate, and then continue, or else agree to disagree, for our arguments will merely talk past each other otherwise.

Undergraduate / "Significant Experience" essay - need advice on the content of this essay [22]


Never said there wasn't. Said that there weren't that many of them, and that of those, most would never know they were. Also that, as a clear result of various genetic disorders, it had less interest as a social phenomenon.


Well, even if twice the number were, it would still only bring it up to 0.4%, still far less than the gay community as a whole. Also, I suspect that this involves changing the term to have a much broader meaning that its scientific sense alone would cover.


This is an interesting argument, and might profitably be included in an essay in favor of gay rights, which is likely to seem more meaningful to the reader than an essay on intersexual . . . "rights" isn't even the correct word here. Respect?

Book Reports / Argumentative essay on 1984 - Outline [40]


Only by playing with and misusing words, as you have been doing throughout with communism (see below before excerpting and posting angry reply). You are defining selfishness differently from me. To you, "selfishness" means "acting on whim or personal desire." To me it means "acting in furtherance of one's own self-interest." Again, words can and usually do have multiple meanings and elastic definitions when they refer to highly abstract concepts. Under your definition, every action has to be selfish, as I have to desire to undertake any action for some reason, and therefore every action I take must be the result of personal desire, i.e. selfish. For me, though, an action is selfish only if it can reasonably be viewed as advancing my actual self-interest. If it does not do this, either because I have chosen to be ruled by emotional impulse, or because I have been intimidated by someone else, or because I haven't bothered trying to figure out what constitutes my self-interest, then the action is not selfish. If you want to disagree with me, that's fine, but you will have to use my definition of the term in your refutation if you wish to do so. Otherwise, we aren't disagreeing about anything except the various ways in which we choose to use words.


And yet so many people strive to come to capitalist companies even knowing they will have to start at the bottom. Almost as if poor in America was wealthy by the standards of non-capitalist countries.


We've officially reached the point where we're talking in circles. All of your arguments continue to assume a predominantly limited view of wealth, whereas mine assume a predominantly productive view of it. Every analogy I use will involve expanding the size of the world to one in which resource limitations are not a problem in practice, either directly (by making the island larger) or indirectly (by showing ways in which the gorillas could find other ways of producing wealth with the available resources) and all of yours will involve filling it up again so that everything is monopolized.


I'm not. Communism has two official meanings:

"1. a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.

2. (often initial capital letter) a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party."

And look, both involve the notion of a state. You are using one possible definition of the term, but it is not the only recognized one, and is in fact a variation on the first meaning that is probably among the the least used of the definitions you could have used. It is one thing to say that our disagreement here is a matter of semantics. It is quite another to insist, as you do, that only your definition is right, when any dictionary will prove you wrong.


No, I used it in one of its official senses, and you deliberately chose to misinterpret me. Either that, or you yourself were under a misconception, which I have now corrected.


Then the entire debate really is over semantics, and your mistaken belief that the term communism only has one meaning, and that it was different from the one that I was using.


I didn't want to engage in an ad hominem attack by saying that all communists are fools. But I agree, only fools would do what I suggested. And yes, the principle is exactly the same.


Okay. The protagonist opens a factory. He allows anyone who is able to do the job well to work in it. He pays these workers fair market value for their labor. People who had no work and were living on the street are now employed, and can afford to live in a small apartment with sufficient food and the ordinary technological devices we have come to think of as necessities, a vast improvement.


Again, your last point is nonsensical from my point of view, given our divergent views of the nature of wealth and power. Those who own companies do not dominate their workers -- their workers are free to seek employment elsewhere. Please don't bother posting a long argument against this, btw, unless it involves a justification for the limited view of wealth. If you assume the limited view of wealth and use it as the basis of your argument, then obviously I will not find it convincing, as again, I don't accept it. You are free, of course, to try to convince me of your premise, but simply building up an argument from a premise you know I don't accept will be a waste of time.


How so? You haven't shown this. At most, even accepting your premises about wealth and power (which I don't) you can show that this may mean that those who lack the ability or the willingness to earn money might suffer hardship. However, in all cases this is side effect, rather than the goal, of the people with wealth, and so they can hardly be accused of either malice or cruelty.

Writing Feedback / Not eveything that is learned is contained in the books [20]

"Not everything that is learned is contained in the books"

Are you sure it didn't ask about how "Not everything that is learned is contained in the books?" If it asked about "the books," then you would indeed have to ascertain which specific set of books was being referenced.

In any event, your approach was not a foolish mistake. To answer the question literally, it makes sense that one would first have to determine what sort of knowledge is contained in books. Clearly, fiction books impart a different sort of knowledge than nonfiction, philosophy texts than history texts, and so on. But, as you say, the problem is that there are so many different types of books. This is like the Birthday Problem. It is easier to solve by looking at what is NOT contained in books. For instance, if everything that is learned is contained in books, how could anyone ever add to the sum of our existing knowledge? For that matter, how could people have learned anything before the first book came in to existence? Clearly then, it is possible to learn from something other than books, and at this point practical experience springs to mind.

Part of the problem here is that it is obvious to most people, and to the test-makers, that the real question is about "the relative value of 'book learning' (formal education) versus practical experience." However, given the prompt phrasing you gave, that is not in fact self-evident. It is obvious only to people who are familiar with these sorts of tests and the way they are constructed.

Undergraduate / 'Most people love Christmas' - University of Florida essay ("my life change"), suggestions? [21]

Actually, I think maybe you meant

"Everyone gets so caught up in the excitement and magic that comes with holiday seasons that it provides an escape from the harsh reality of everyday life"

And of course, you often can leave out the "that" in such constructions, although as it reads incorrectly if you do it here, you should include it in this case.

Essays / Basic advises...for Clep Essay [7]

I agree with Simone -- there is no reason you can't argue one side of the issue very strongly, if you are permitted to do so. Generally, it is a good idea to raise some of the main objections to your argument, so that you can demolish them, if you hope to be truly persuasive. Of course, for the test, you may only care about creating a solid essay in a short amount of time, in which case, raising the opposing point of view is unnecessary.

If you really want to remain neutral, though, either because you have to or because you have decided you want to, then the idea would be to present argument, counter-argument, counter-counter-argument, and so on, until you reach the point where people have to agree to disagree because the issue has been reduced to a matter of principle or of personal preference. Put another way, you would start by presenting both sides of the issue, then break each one down until you found the point where their premises diverged.

Undergraduate / "my inner characteristics to shine" - UCF prompt Contribute to UCF community [7]

In fact, if the essay prompt merely asks you to talk about what you will contribute to the UCF community, then you might skip the groundwork, or at least greatly condense it, and write an essay that is more on topic. Likely the material you have now can find a home in an essay on another prompt.

Undergraduate / "Significant Experience" essay - need advice on the content of this essay [22]

But then the discussion of hermaphrodites in the rest of the essay isn't (valid, that is). For what it's worth, I think the essay would be stronger if it did focus entirely on your decision to fight against homophobia, based on your witnessing of a gay bashing. There are several reasons for this.

First, homophobia is a well-known and important social problem, given that there is a sizable percentage of the population that is gay. (4% of the U.S. electorate self-identifies as gay, and the number reported is believed to be considerably lower than the actual number, for a variety of reasons). Interphobia? It doesn't even have a name! is much less of a problem, because there are far fewer intersexual individuals. At most 0.2% of people are born with sexual characteristics ambiguous enough to warrant surgical intervention, and many of these individuals will be "fixed" by surgery while they are young enough that they will grow up never knowing that they are in fact intersexual.

Second, homosexuality emerges as the result of a complex interaction between genes and environment. In fact, some research has indicated that, for women, sexuality may be a continuum they can easily move along depending upon social expectations. For men, sexuality seems to be more of an either/or thing, though no one is yet sure why. All of which makes sexual orientation very interesting as a social phenomenon. Intersexuality is just a matter of genetic malfunctions. That makes it much less interesting, from a social point of view, as it is essentially an unfortunate medical condition. One can try to pretend it is not, as some deaf people try to pretend that being deaf isn't, but that is a view that is demonstrably and self-evidently wrong.