Scholarship / Three MSc University courses towards an electrical power engineer - studying in the UK question. [2]

Mudiare, you are not supposed to repeat information from your previous presentations. So your opening sentence, which I recall, you used in a different essay before this one, should be removed. That will be taken against you as it is repeated information. Discuss your professional background instead by explaining how the problems you now face at work can only be solved by higher education. Before you present that discussion though, it would be best to present an expanded discussion of your academic studies and how it prepared you for your current occupation first. Your university choice weakness is in the fact that you do not present any future application for the studies in your workplace. The prompt indicates that you have to explain how these course choices can help you with your future career goals. So you have to make mention of that in at least one sentence at the end of the university choice discussion.

Scholarship / Chevening networking skills essay, give and sit back, the outcome will come [3]

Selma, you don't really show how you develop networks outside of the university and how these helped you to advance your career. Neither do you qualify the reasons why Chevening should believe that this sort of network is one that can be of importance to the organization and your mentoring career should you become a scholar. We need to read solid evidence of how you built a network, used the network for work (not personal) objectives, and how the network has grown from the first time you used it. Did using one network lead to the creation of a new network based on a common connection? Perhaps there was some way that, as you said, the professional and business interactions you participated in led to the opening of other opportunities for yourself or your work? The main problem with your essay is that you indicate part - time employment. That does not really indicate the need for you to develop a usable professional network because you do not have any command responsibilities that require you to make networking decisions nor require you to actually network for your job improvement. So you should first, fix the presentation of your job to reflect a full time position, then figure out how you can present a usable network based on whatever semblance of networking you currently have.

Scholarship / "Networking with an open mind" Business networking is important in my everyday job. [5]

Angela, since your academic networking skills are not required in this essay, it is best to remove that reference to it. Focus only on the presentation of your professional skills because Chevening needs to assess the applicability of your network to the needs of their alumna and current students in fields related to yours. That is why they ask you about the strength of your networking skills based on its ability to help you influence and lead others in a similar profession. Academic networks do not help you achieve such a status unless, you cultivated those academic networks to become usable within your profession. If you can prove that, then you go ahead and justify your academic network presentation.

Your social network doesn't indicate any connection to your profession, which is the whole point of the essay so you can safely remove that reference as well. Your closing statement is strong but could be made stronger if you include a clear explanation as to why Chevening should consider your network important and how you hope to help the future scholars by becoming a mentor and using your network to help them promote their own career improvements.

Scholarship / I will join Federal Board of Revenue Anti Money Laundering Unit - Clear Post Study Goals [6]

Naveed, remove the outline at the start of the essay. You do not need to explain how financial policing is done in Pakistan because those do not relate to your post study plans. Start immediately with the opening paragraph instead. Now, I will say that you impressed me with all of your career plans. You have a clear idea as to where you see your career going in the immediate future. However, you do not have any reference to a money laundering project that the UK government supports in your country. Please try to find that reference because that is crucial in terms of final considerations for your scholarship application. Surely there is some sort of project ongoing in your country. Perhaps you can look up anti-terrorist projects in Pakistan that are supported by the UK with some sort of focus on anti-money laundering as it relates to the terrorism threat. That would be the best way to indicate that there is a clear cooperation / connection between Pakistan and the UK in a manner that relates to your chosen masters degree course and future career.

Scholarship / I maintenance my networking by creating a good relationship. Networking skills essay [5]

Sofi, you should only provide information on the positive and successful aspects of your networking skills. You should remove the reference to the failure to influence regulations regarding breastfeeding because that indicates a failed network, even though it succeeded on other levels. Your essay has a severe problem when it comes to tense usage. You must refer to everything in past tense such as :

I WAS chosen TO BE a team leader...
When we became THE SUPERVISORS of a ...
He suggested THAT I had...

... along with numerous other corrections to the grammar structure. You could try running this essay through the free grammar editing software online like Grammarly to get you started on the necessary grammatical changes or, you can look up our services and have experts do the editing and revisions to the essay for you. Either ways, you can't go wrong.

Scholarship / I have used networking to promote and advance peer-to-peer learning. Scholarship writing [5]

Chaarvi, your last 2 paragraphs are perfect for the networking essay. It is really clear about how you came across, developed, and continue to value the networks you have created. I strongly urge you to use these last 2 paragraphs for your overall networking presentation without any edits. The first paragraph speaks more of a learning experience than a networking experience. Also, you make specific mention of a person in that paragraph. Normally, it is best to mention organizations but not people connected with it because the expectation will be that the person you mentioned will write you a recommendation letter to accompany your essay. If you will not be able to attach his recommendation letter, it would be best to not mention this part anymore. If you want to mention it though, then remove the name of the person (change it to the organization name) and make it sound more like a networking event rather than a learning experience.

Undergraduate / I fear looking in the mirror and not recognizing what I see. Yale supplement? [3]

Ishani, you really have shared a tremendous amount of information about yourself in this essay. However, the prompt and the reviewer in this instance, expects to read about only one thing that you feel you have not yet shared in the application essays. While the topics you have presented are interconnected and interesting, you need to pick the highlight of the presentation to discuss in this essay. You need to focus on that one topic and build on it. For example, if you want to discuss why you don't want to wear makeup then discuss that. If you want to discuss reasons why you don't want to look in the mirror, then make that the subject of the essay. One or the other, not both. The way I read it, your story about why you fear looking into the mirror is the most relevant topic you can discuss in this essay. You can tie that into the reason why you don't wear make up. So the topic statement should be along the lines of:

I don't wear make up because I fear not recognizing who I see in the mirror.

In this instance, the way that the two separate topics are framed to interconnect with the anchor subject (looking in the mirror) leads to a soling, single reference discussion in the essay. This will create a more informative presentation that focuses on only one subject based upon one reason (not putting on make up).

Undergraduate / Wellesley 100: Hilary Clinton (This is the first of 2 paragraph) [5]

Deng, considering that Hillary Clinton is currently under investigation in the United States due to so many levels of corruption and criminal accusations regaring political and economic espionage, based on her political dealings, it would be best for your essay to pick someone less controversial and more inspiring for your essay. You could pick from other women who do not have questionable backgrounds on both a personal, social, and political level. Women such as Princess Diana ( due to her work with mental health and HIV research during her lifetime) , Mother Teresa (for her charitable activities during her lifetime), Oprah Winfrey (for her philanthropic activities), Amal Clooney ( as an international human rights lawyer), and Ivanka Trump (due to her work promoting an end to human trafficking, funding women entrepreneurs, women empowerment , promotion of women's rights, and fair treatment of working families), are some of the notable, inspirational women who truly embody an enlightened sense of leadership and serve as inspiration to countless women across the world everyday. Don't use a woman whose previous and current actions have people questioning her motives as a politician and citizen of America. That will not do your essay much good. While I understand why you would be misled to admire her, if you read up on her current situation in the United States, you will definitely not want to use her as the basis of your inspirational women talk essay.

Scholarship / Every moment and stage of my life had been a meaningful journey that led me as a successful leader [3]

Kim, do not focus on grammar changes for now. There are too many content problems with your essay which will change the way that you have the essay written. Since the content will change, the need to edit the grammar in the essay is negated. That is done at the very end, when your essay content contains its final information for presentation. It is not done mid editing of the content.

Since the Chevening leadership and influencing essay is based on your ability to prove that you have the potential to lead and influence people towards becoming positive members of your country within a professional setting. The final paragraph of your essay focusing on religion should be removed. Chevening is a non-sectarian scholarship program and as such, does not give much weight to leadership experiences in a religious or church setting. While it will not weaken your application, it will not carry the same weight as you believe it does in your presentation. The effect of that presentation will be negligible at best. So it is best not to present that portion at all in your essay.

In the first paragraph, rephrase the reference to "cell group leader" as that has a tendency to be misconstrued / misunderstood to have terrorist leanings. Word usage and formation is also of extreme importance when you write these essays. One wrong reference and you could end up on a terror watch list. So remove that reference. While I know it means something innocent to you, the connotation of that term in public means something else so let's not test the waters regarding the popular meaning of that phrase within your application.

Do not mention that you are a president of church youth groups either for the reasons previously mentioned in relation to religion. Instead, just present your definition of leadership as you have come to understand it in the performance of your duties as a teacher and assistant expedition leader. The definition of your leadership should always be based on a professional setting. So unless your profession is actually being a pastor, priest, or something religious, those discussions should not factor into this essay.

Scholarship / Why and what I chose to study in UK [10]

Hiwi, you were right to assume that I will have you remove the city descriptions in the essay. Go ahead and do that. Paragraph 2 and 3 should also be removed to tighten the focus and presentation of the essay. It is important that after you present your academic and professional capabilities, that your next paragraphs focus on the universities and courses itself. That way you will have totally achieved an accurate presentation based on prompt requirements and also, assure yourself that you will be under the word count. As long as you write more than 100 words, the essay will be acceptable to the reviewer. It does not matter that you use the same opening sentence successively in this instance. You are not taking an English exam. You are just writing about why you have chosen the university. While there is a focus on your grammar skills, the decision to accept you into the program will not be based on whether or not you can write what you want to say in 12 different ways. It is more focused on your know-how and preparedness to take an MS course. There is no need to edit those 2 paragraphs based on your presentation of the opening sentence. Ideally, for this type of essay, 450 words will be more than sufficient to address the task. After you remove the references I made in this comment, you can assume that your essay is in its final form and ready for submission to the Chevening committee. I wish you the best with this submission.

Graduate / I am determined to contribute more to the future of our information society. SoP for Master study [3]

Yang, let me help you differentiate between the two so that you can revise this essay to turn it into an SOP which is what the prompt requires you deliver. What you have here is a mix of a SOP and a PS. There is actually a world of difference between the two.

Let's start with the PS or Personal Statement. A personal statement allows you to present the foundation of your interest in a particular field. So if you were interested in library and information science because you loved to read as a young adult and could get lost for hours in the library. Or you hung out at the library so often that you and the local librarian were on a first name basis and you no longer needed a library card to take out a book, this is the essay to present that in. This is the essay where you talk about the influences that led to your decision to study library and information science. You should also make a quick reference as to why you chose the university in this discussion. Keep it short. The long version should be in the SOP.

The SOP is, as it is called, the statement of purpose. For this essay you need to present the following information:
1. What your current occupation is and how long you have been working in this position
2. The reasons why you want to study this masters degree. Normally it is related to a problem in the field that you feel needs to be resolved but you lack the advanced training to develop the solution that you envision.

3. Discuss your academic preparation as in college studies and a short presentation of your related thesis, training you participated in, and seminars attended in relation to the job. When applicable, you can also discuss relevant internships or other jobs that you held in relation to your current occupation.

4. Explain what your mid range (5 year) career plan is and how this masters degree is relevant to the preparation for those plans.
5. The major reasons why you chose this university and how you hope to use your masters degree to push your career forward. Make a quick reference to a thesis statement in relation to your chosen masters course. Discuss what aspects of the university curriculum helped you to decide that this university would be the best choice for your studies in this field.

So, now that you know the difference between the two essays, and you have a guideline for the SOP in relation to the prompt requirements, you should be able to revise your essay or, write a totally new essay that will better reflect the SOP requirements.

Writing Feedback / Voluntary service is not a compulsory part of high school programmes... yet [3]

Liou, your discussion is not aligned with the prompt requirements. You are being asked to discuss one side of the topic. Either you agree or disagree. You did not present an opinion based on the selections in the essay that you wrote. Therefore this essay fails immediately based on the TA portion of the score. Your paraphrase is incorrect. Although you did not copy and paste the original, as erroneously commented by the previous poster, you did not give an accurate representation of the prompt either. Here is a sample of the correct representation:

Community service is not currently a part of the compulsory subjects in high school. Some people have the opinion that unpaid community service should be part of the subjects taught in secondary school because there are some lessons for them to learn in the process. I strongly agree with the latter statement for a number of reasons that will be discussed in this essay.

Your current discussion deviates from the prompt. That means, you are not discussing the essay in a manner appropriate to the original instructions and therefore, ended up failing the essay test.

Scholarship / Winning Noble Prize. It is what I'm going to achieve in my life. [4]

Hala, this is definitely not a leadership and influencing essay. Neither is it a personal statement. In fact, I do not know what it is that you wrote here. The only thing I am sure of is that you cannot use this as a leadership and influencing essay. There is nothing in the essay that shows a seriousness on your part regarding your application for the scholarship. It sounds like you are taking it easy and you don't care whether you get the scholarship or not because you did not take care to properly represent the prompt in your presentation. This is almost written like a joke. Which is what you wrote at the beginning and which is what the reviewer will remember when he discards your application. Delete this essay from your files. This is useless and will not apply to any Chevening prompt.

Write a new essay that opens with you clearly establishing your place of leadership in one of your many work places. It would be best if you choose to discuss a leadership and influencing skill that is related to the masters degree course you are applying for. Relate an event that shows command responsibility, delegation ability, and influencing skills in terms of you needing to create order from chaos in the workplace. That will be more of an appropriate response to the essay. I repeat, do not use this current essay because it does not accomplish anything that the prompt requires as relevant information towards your application. More importantly, do not try to convince the reviewer that your childhood leadership ability is the kind of ability that the Chevening program is looking for because it isn't. The prompt requires profession related leadership and influencing abilities alone. So that means, current work experience.

Scholarship / The UK has always been my first choice for higher education - CHEVENING SCHOLARSHIP [7]

Rahma, in response to your question, the response is no. You do not have to present your academic background twice in the essay. Once in the beginning is sufficient. Your choice of university courses and universities are presented in an acceptable format. It informs the reviewer about the academic reasons that you chose the university and the course. Please eliminate the references to the townships and beaches in the essay as those distract from the academic focus of the discussion and are not part of the required elements for discussion in the essay. It would be best to keep your academic tone at all times in this instance because the reviewer is only interested in the formal presentation of your choices. Once you remove the references I mentioned, the essay will be in its final format and ready for submission. Good work on the development of this essay. You actually got it on your first try. That makes 2 perfect essays that I have reviewed today. Excellent work!

Writing Feedback / Give reasons for your answer on statement that happiness is contemplated as substantial in our life [4]

Leo, there was an error on your part in representing the prompt paraphrase in your essay. You accidentally did it twice. You are only required to present one paraphrase per essay. Additionally, neither of your prompt representations were accurate. So the failure to properly represent the prompt assured this essay of a failing score. Here is the correct prompt paraphrase:

One of the considerable factors in the life of a person is happiness. For some reason though, happiness has become almost impossible to explain. Perhaps this is because of the differing elements that an individual feels he needs to fulfill in order to consider himself happy. In this essay, I will explain the reasons for my answer and also, present supporting discussions that come form my personal experience and understanding of what happiness is all about.

With that proper paraphrase, the next step would have been to present the discussion in the 2nd paragraph. Your reasoning is acceptable it is just the presentation that is wrong. All you have to do to fix that part is to remove the statement "First, the main reason..." and "Below I will explain..." because those are the mistaken presentations that accidentally created a second topic paraphrase.

As for your third paragraph, you actually did just repeat the discussion. Both were based on individual standards for happiness consideration. So your essay is short by 2 more justification discussion paragraphs. There is just no way around that error in this case. So, the wrong paraphrase, the repeated paraphrase, and the wrong discussion method all combined to make sure that you got the lowest possible, non passing score for this essay.

Scholarship / After my graduation upon returning back to Afghanistan, my plan is to work with the UK projects [3]

Fatemah, this is unbelievable! I am highly impressed by your presentation. You have done the complete essay, represented all of the required elements, given a strong presentation of your plans (most notably the UK supported one), and delivered a deliverable Post Study Plan essay. I reviewed your essay number of times before I came to this conclusion. I wanted to be sure that I wasn't letting anything slip through the cracks. That is when I realized what an excellent job you did with this essay. It can be used as an example for those who will be coming after you. It is a short, informative, and highly developed discussion of your post study plans. Each aspect interconnects with the paragraph discussion in a manner that shows exactly how this course will best prepare you for your future career, whichever one it may be. Excellent work. Good job! Use this essay with your application.

While others may fault you for your grammar errors, I do not want you to change those errors because those grammar errors add to the credibility of your statement. It shows that you considered all aspects of the discussion and did your best to present a high level of academic presentation within your own capabilities. The capabilities shown in your discussion development shows that, even with grammar errors, you can accurately get your message across to the reader. Which is all that these essays require in terms of clarity.

Scholarship / THREE CHOSEN COURSES TO DEVELOP MY CAREER IN ANALYTIC FIELD. Studying in UK Question [2]

@maknae33 your presentation of your professional background is good but tends to come across as rushed because you use some informal terms such as "et cetera", which is not commonly used in format academic essay presentations. I suggest you remove that term in order to preserve the formality of your presentation.

Next, present your academic background as a separate paragraph. That should not be included in the professional discussion. Remember the standard rule for paragraphs. Only one topic per presentation in order to offer the readers a clear chance to understand what you are trying to say. By presenting your academic background in a separate paragraph, you will be able to better illustrate how your college studies prepared you for your job and why that education is a relevant basis for your interest in these 3 courses. Your academic foundation is just as important as your professional foundation in this instance because, if you don't have the academic background for the courses you have chosen, you will find it hard to complete your masters studies.

As for the rest of the essay, I don't recommend changing anything because the presentation ties in with your introductory discussions.

Scholarship / One of the key to success is establish connection. Writing essay about networking [3]

Mochamad, your essay sounds like you used an online translator to write it in English. I cannot understand anything you are trying to say in the essay. What I can manage to pick out of your essay, tells me that this is not the networking essay that Chevening is looking for. This sounds more like your training manual than a discussion of your existing contacts outside of your office, how you developed that network, and what that network has done to help you with your job. This is more of a job description essay on your part.

A networking essay ties in with your leadership skills. In order to remain at the top of the office chain, you need to create contacts outside, but within the same profession, who can offer you assistance when performing office tasks that cannot easily be accomplished without outside help. That is the idea behind the networking essay.

You have to discuss how your network can help you improve your skills and why this network will be useful to Chevening scholars as well. Your essay is nowhere near providing the required information so you cannot use this essay. Try to look at the examples of networking skills essays here. Maybe you can get an idea as to how to write your own from their examples.

Scholarship / In five years after my scholarship, I would reach higher managerial level in my country. Chevening [7]

Mariam, the conversation with the British ambassador does not represent any UK supported project in your country that can tie in directly with your chosen major and potential future career. That is an extremely long but useless paragraph. The reviewer has no direct interest in the data that you are presenting. He is only concerned with how you can justify being sponsored for the scholarship based upon the interests of the UK government in your country. As such, you need actual UK supported projects to represent in the third paragraph. Remember, the post study plan needs to show how you can repay the kindness of the UK government when they sponsored you as a Chevening scholar. These projects that they have in your country that you can assist in further developing is one way of payback for their kindness. Try to find that project. Without it, you will definitely not get this scholarship so you might as well not even try to apply. Your application will fall under the non-priority projects / country and as such, will only qualify for a limited scholarship consideration, for which there are many applicants of the same kind as yours. It might be difficult for you to get a scholarship slot in that instance.

Scholarship / Career Plan for Brightly Civil Engineer - Chevening Scholarship [4]

Any reference to your future career plans and how you plan to achieve them should be included in the Post Study Plans essay. While these plans do have some relation to the reasons for your study, the developed discussion of that belongs in the Post Study essay. That can be the basis for your post study plan presentation. It might be easier for you to connect your company to a UK project in your country. It is important that you do not duplicate information in the essays you are presenting. That is a Chevening dictate that must be complied with at all times within all essays. So the study plan should present your career plans that omit the plan to start your own company in the future. Since you have 3 courses to consider for the study plan, you can create unique career plans for each one. Thus allowing you to fully skip the "build my company" part for future use.

Writing Feedback / The increase in university fees and tuition for a family goes far beyond the consumer price index [2]

Lanya, there are a number of problems existing in this essay that makes it impossible for me to consider it a properly developed IELTS essay. The rundown of the problems are: improperly presented prompt restatement, improperly formatted paragraphs, incorrect number of paragraphs. and information in the opening statement is presented which is not require nor allowed since it is a paragraph meant solely for prompt restatements. Now for the nitty gritty of your mistakes.

The prompt restatement is as follows: There is a belief that the the quality of education can only be improved if universities increase the salaries of their professors. While others may agree with this statement, I tend to disagree with it. In this essay, I will be presenting my line of reasoning, with accompanying evidence to support my stance on the topic for discussion.

A simple paraphrase just restates the information originally provided in the writers own words. Extra information is not required at this point because you are being scored on your ability to paraphrase and follow instructions. The 3 body paragraphs is where the actual discussion and presentation of information takes place.

Since there is a 5 sentence, 5 paragraph limit to the discussion, you should not try to over emphasize your discussions as you have done so now. Just pick one, easy to discuss and justify reason for development in the paragraph. Anything more than one becomes harder to justify and present within the allotted time frame. Remember, you still need to edit, revise, and proofread your essay before submission. So writing a short informative paragraph is always best.

Now, as per my understanding this prompt is for an IELTS essay, yet somehow, you have chosen to discuss it as a GRE essay. It is a GRE essay because you are insisting on discussing the statement of an author when no article has been provided for your review. You were only given a simple statement that must never be attributed to anyone in the discussion because there is no actual source for the statement. That "author" reference is one of the major reasons that this essay became weak and failed to follow the instructions for discussion as originally provided.

Scholarship / Chevening essay: Being a LEADER and INFLUENCER that spread the positive vibe [2]

Aidell, the second paragraph does not clearly show a leadership and influencing skill. You were simply implementing a job that already had present rules and conditions for you to follow and remind (not influence) people of in order to make the action successful. That is why I don't want you to use that story in this presentation. The one that has more leadership and influencing potential is the story about the Rhino conservation. Don't mention when the activity took place, just say that it happened. That way the year you did the task becomes irrelevant to the presentation of your skills. Taking the initiative is always representative of a leadership skill. Develop the story about the campaign not having any funds. What steps did you have to take to lead the people to believe that the project can be done with or without financial support? Then explain how you influenced the fund raising activities so that it became successful. Develop an additional paragraph at the start of the essay in order to create new, more applicable opening statement. Then go directly to the discussion of the fund raising situation. I have a sense that this will create a very effective leadership and influencing presentation for you.

Undergraduate / Guitar player - Essay about an interest you have pursued outside academic classes [3]

Uyen, you should revise the essay to first explain what drew you to guitar classes and why you decided to pursue it as a hobby. You discuss the action of playing the guitar as something so mechanical that it seems like you were trying to relate it to your academic interest in some way. That is not the purpose of this statement response. Rather, you are being asked to share an activity that helps you to relax after school. The reviewer wants to know if you have any talents that could be of benefit to the student community. As a guitar player, maybe you have plans of joining the university orchestra or volunteering to teach others how to play. You don't always have to justify your activities in terms of being a student. Sometimes, as in the case of this essay, the reviewer just wants to get to know you beyond your academic interests and personality. Who else can you be other than a student? Try to use a more casual tone in this essay. Terms like Furthermore, Amelioration, and Therefore are a bit too formal for this semi-formal response. Keep the respectful tone, but be less academic about it. Think of how you speak to your parents, that is the tone you can use here.

Undergraduate / Linear Humans - Columbia Engineering Why School [3]

Guan, the forum has a one essay per thread policy. Since you posted 2 essays here, I will only be able to respond to one. Please post the second essay as a separate thread so that I can advice you about that essay as well. In the meantime, here is my review of your first essay.

You do not really explain what you value most about Columbia in your essay. You speak more of the opportunities available for learning in your essay rather than why you think a Columbia education is valuable. The essay will improve if you focus on something that is unique about the quality of the university. Just pick one. It could be the quality of the professors (you can pick one professor whom you would like to learn from and build the essay around that) or the way that the students of the university go on to better and highly respectable jobs in the field of their choosing. Or something else altogether. Think of the "value" of a Columbia education on a personal basis. It isn't just about discussing the labs, the competition, or the courses. Think beyond the obvious, that would be the more impressive response for this essay.

Scholarship / Support till achieving an ambition is the leadership ... [7]

Asmaa, do not use an outline format for your presentation. All of these prompt require an essay format in its presentation. As Aidell said, this is not the proper essay to be presenting. I am confused as to why you have chosen to focus on your academic leadership and influencing abilities. Is this because you are not performing in a leadership capacity in your current workplace? Or because you are applying for the scholarship even though you are short on meeting the required elements of the program? Either way, the presentation you have chosen to use is not applicable to the prompt requirements. What is your current occupation? Discuss that and then think of an instance when you had to come forward as a leader. What was the situation like? Would you say that your leadership and influencing skills were discovered or first presented at that point? If you feel that is so then relate that story. That may be the best chance you have to write an essay that properly meets the prompt requirements. Don't go with this presentation. It is only good for a college entrance application paper.

Scholarship / Uniting people around shared ideas and delivering results - Chevening leadership and influence [2]

Imran, you have a very impressive leadership background. It is so impressive that you have a very strong chance of being considered for the scholarship. The only problem is, the scholarship essay is titled "leadership and influencing" so you cannot win the scholarship solely on your leadership resume alone. It would be in the best interest of your essay if you choose the more noteworthy accomplishment of the work presentations you have made and build a proper essay around it that balances your leadership abilities with your influencing skills. For more applicants, the most recent work experience is the most applicable one to the prompt. In this instance however, since you have so much relevant leadership experience, I will leave that choice up to you. The reviewer is not interested in reading about your work history. He just wants you to prove that you know how to handle pressure situations in the workplace in your capacity as a leader in the company. Handling pressure situations requires 2 movements from the employee, a leadership ability and an influencing style that will help to steer the team towards the proper completion of a project or resolution of a conflict situation.

Scholarship / To build a future we need a team and a leader. Chevening Question of LEADERSHIP & INFLUENCE [3]

Esam, the first thing you have to remember when writing formal essays to a review committee is that you should not treat it like a creative writing piece of a common essay narrative. That means, the whole tone of this paper, from beginning to end is disrespectful to the reviewer. Do not use exclamation points. Don't you dare shout at the reviewer. That is what you are doing you know. There is no need for over emphasis as this is just a written preliminary interview. Your over emotion could result in your getting cut from consideration simply because you did not know how to treat the reviewer.

Next, the essay itself is not powerful. I am not clear on what your real occupation is and how you led in it. If you are a pharmacist, what is the connection of the neonatal intensive care unit? You have just confused the reviewer and he will decide that you are not really taking this application seriously. A leadership and influencing essay has certain discussion focus points that need to be addressed. None of those were handled in your presentation. Look at the samples here and learn from their mistakes in order to improve your own essay which is also, riddled with mistakes that have made it unusable for the leadership and influencing essay.

Scholarship / I have been exposed to both office and field challenges - skills proving for Chevening [4]

Njoku, are you writing a project proposal or a summary of your previous design work? You are not trying to win over a client in this instance. You are trying to win a scholarship. Summarize your presentation of the project because it is too lengthy and does not really show any leadership potential on your part. It only shows that you have excellent imagination skills. Someone in your position should be able to justify a leadership skill simply by presenting your ability to delegate and oversee the project as the problems in construction arise. The problems are not limited to the physical project but also includes your people management skills. Show more evidence of your people management skills so that you will have a chance to present your ability to influence people in the same instance. The influencing side is severely lacking in your essay. Shorten the project description to one paragraph if you feel the necessity to include it. With only 500 words though, you should be careful of the information you present. In this instance, you used too much of the word count on a non-essential discussion and lost the allowance for the influencing discussion.

Scholarship / Why and what I chose to study in UK [10]

Hiwot, you do understand that you are applying for a masters degree course right? So that means that you are a college graduate. Which means, you are professional with at least 2 years of work experience. As such, you are expected to have the professional and educational background with which to complete your choice of masters degree course. The reviewer is not interested in your opening remarks. Those are irrelevant. Your educational discussion must focus on a summary presentation of your college course and your academic achievements that will prove you have the educational foundation to understand the course requirements of your chosen masters line of study.

Your opening statement is meant for a college level common prompt response.It is not masters degree level writing. It does not show the ability of this student to write masters degree level papers with a proficiency to understand simple English instructions. The minute your opening statement is read, your essay will be set in the "discard" pile. You will not get an opportunity for consideration if you do not try to level up your writing skills by proving that you understand what the prompts are requiring you to present in terms of information about certain things related to your application. I

am trying to help you do that but it really seems like an uphill climb and I am limited in my capacity to assist you in additional development of your paper because of forum regulations. Try to help me here because I am doing my best to help you.

Revise your first two statements and use the following outline for your paragraph discussions. Do not change anything. Just write it in the manner that I am presenting it to you. That is the only way you can improve your paper and hopefully, achieve a masters level writing skill in your presentation.

Par. 1 - Discuss your college education and your achievements during that time. Explain how it prepared you to become a professional in this field.
Par. 2 - Present your professional qualifications. Explain how long you have been doing this job, what your training and seminars have prepared you to do, what shortcomings you have in your current position that prevent you from resolving certain issues or improving certain aspects of the job.

Par. 3-5- Discuss each university course, present the academic studies that directly relate to the course requirements and your professional background that has prepared you for this educational path. That means, references to "Up to now I had little experience" will not be an asset or a positive statement in your paragraph. Remove all undermining information and focus on presenting yourself as a professional whose interests will be served by this course. Clarify your explanations about how these courses will result in career progress for you upon its completion. Don't say "The program will enable me". Rather, say "Completing this program will allo me to function in a higher capacity as.... within my workplace" Or something similar.

There is no need for a concluding statement or additional presentations. Just write your revised essay based on this outline. That will be its final form.

Scholarship / The question of why? STUDYING IN THE UK QUESTION [3]

Esam, this is a personal statement. This is not a Study in the UK plan. A study in the UK plan must comprise a specific set of information that will help the reviewer assess your preparedness for the course you are considering enrolling in. You must provide an opening statement that establishes your professional background in the field. Then you must discuss each university course based on your interest in the curriculum, what it offers you in terms of career advancement, how your current position at work has prepared you for this course, and how you hope to use that knowledge in the future. After that, you close the essay with a summary of your college education and pertinent training programs or seminars attended. That way you establish the validity of your educational claims in your essay. It is pretty much a template approach for all students. I just pointed you in the right direction. I hope that you can follow these simple instructions so you can make the perfect revision to your essay.

Writing Feedback / Expanding more empty places in universities for young students; education problems essay [3]

Ameila, you started out discussing one topic in this essay and ended with a different altogether. All of your paragraphs do not properly discuss a reason, it only points out multiple reasons in one paragraph. Thus creating an incoherent and non-cohesive essay presentation. It isn't enough for you to simply indicate that you know the reasons. You have to pick the strongest reason and build up your discussion of that in one paragraph. That is how you prove your English comprehension skills and properly address the requirements of the prompt. At this point, this essay contains a mash up of information that you failed ot keep track of which is why you ended up discussing two different topics in the end. One reason per paragraph, that is the best way to write the explanatory statements. Never more than that. More than that and you end up with this failure as an essay.

You were only being asked to discuss an extent of your agreement or disagreement with the given topic. It had nothing to do with the discussion of manpower in your country. That is where your prompt went totally wrong in its presentation. You need to remember to review the prompt requirement as you write so that you do not forget what the topic is and you can double check your work to make sure you are staying on track with your writing. You veered off course with this essay.

All of these reasons piled up to create a non prompt responsive essay. Don't feel too bad though. As we point out your mistakes, you should start to get your writing on track and develop a better focus towards your essay discussion development.

Scholarship / I am fully trusted in my skills, that exceed Chevening requirements for leadership and influencing [2]

I am afraid that you will have to revise the whole essay. Most likely, you will have to write a new one that is better focused on the requirements of the prompt. Your first 3 paragraphs are nothing but endless word fillers. Chevening reviewers have to study the application of at least a hundred applicants per day. They do not have the time to waste wading through your useless babble about what you think leadership is and why you think you qualify for the scholarship. Such wordy essays do not get far as far as the reading of the essay is concerned. Go direct to the point. Start with the year 2005. Clarify what your position was on the team that led you to become the leader after the resignation of the head of the lab. How did that previous position prepare you to take on the leadership role? Now, I read the presentation and I got that you did a good job as a leader. But where was the inlfuencing skill in this instance? Was there any opposition to your becoming the acting lab head? How did you overcome that? Responding to these 2 questions will create the influencing paragraph for that work situation. As per your private business. This does not really sound like a leadership role because of the constant reference to "we" in the paragraph. There is no "we" in leadership, however, there is a "we" in influencing, which again, is missing from this presentation. Leadership cannot exist without influencing skills. Please remember that. The two always go hand in hand in actual experience so these must be depicted as partners in your essay as well. Remove the 2014 Phd thesis discussion. That is not a real leadership experience to speak of. Nothing that you discussed in it required you to lead the group nor influence them. You only set up the presentation so it does not count as leadership and influencing experience.

Scholarship / I develop my leadership skill in professional context since I became an intern in Crisis Centre [4]

Binari, I do not read any leadership role in this essay. It is an interesting essay but it depicts more of an independent role in the project that, while important, does not include leadership skills. Majority of the role that you performed had to do with your learning the ropes of the job, being cognizant of expenses, and information sharing within various departments implementing the project. There is no reference to problem resolution in your essay although you expected your people to report problems to you for resolution. While you did include the team in the decision making process, you did not show any real influencing skills in the essay. The last line of your essay is very telling as to whether or not this is a true leadership and influencing essay. A true leadership and influencing essay would never say, "There were no significant problems caused by financial issues, and final financial report were finished well." Any person who says this in a leadership and influencing essay is either delusional, because no job goes smoothly from beginning to end. There is always a problem, no matter how small, that requires a leadership and influencing skill to resolve. Or, the reviewer will assume that you do not have any true leadership role and you made up this whole essay to just respond to the prompt. Which is why you do not have any definite leadership and influencing situation to depict as a sample of your skills. In which case, you will lose your chance at the scholarship.

Writing Feedback / IELTS W2- Some people believe that it is good to share information freely, others don't [4]

Arlen, the score for your essay will be a 2. That is the best way that I could think of to tell you that this essay does not properly respond to the prompt requirements. The answer you provided barely responds to the task. Read the prompt, you were supposed to write this as a comparative essay with a personal opinion. It was not supposed to be written as a solely personal point of view essay like you did here. The correct prompt paraphrase would have been:

Members of the intellectual world believe that data sharing is an important aspect of research in science, business, and education. Then again, there are some members of the academic society that are inclined to believe that information is a valuable commodity that should not be openly disseminated to others in their respective communities. This essay will compare the two points of view prior to my discussion of my point of view on the topic provided.

The the paragraph discussion format could have been:

Par. 2 - Supports sharing
Par. 3 - Does not support sharing
Par. 4 - Personal opinion (just one opinion either pro or con)

Based on the correct prompt representation and body paragraphs outline, the essay would have been discussed in a more appropriate manner.

Scholarship / I plan to apply for a position of an Associate to a renowned international law firm. Chevening [3]

Adil, your plans are good. Don't change those references. However, the British Chamber of Commerce is a non-government institution and as such, does not qualify as a government UK reference in your country. It does not have projects accredited by the British government since it is a civilian organization. I am afraid that you will have to research some sort of UK government related legal project in your country. That is the only way to make a qualifying representation of how the UK has specific legal interests in your country. It is important that you align your UK reference to the correct institution because the UK government project connection a highly important aspect of your post study plan. If you do not get a scholarship grant, it will most likely be due to the lack of UK government sponsored legal project in your country. I am not telling you to lose heart. I am telling you to ask around. Maybe there is a UK government sponsored legal project or undertaking that you just haven't heard about which can be used for the essay. Otherwise, you will have to use the British Chamber of Commerce reference and hope it works for your application even though it is not a government institution that is dealing with projects and training in your country.

Writing Feedback / Has online social networking helped us or harmed us? [4]

Trang, can you provide me with a copy of the prompt you are trying to respond to? I need to reference the prompt when reviewing your essay. I am unable to truly determine the problems with your content without it. What I can tell you though is that your essay is not the proper length for an IELTS or TOEFL essay. Your second paragraph should have been divided into 2 paragraphs based on the 5 sentence limitation per paragraph. So the formatting is off because you chose to discuss 2 drawbacks in one paragraph. You should have one drawback per paragraph instead. The normal paragraph count is a maximum of 5 depending upon the prompt requirements. I need to be sure of what the discussion process for this essay is so that I can tell you how many paragraphs you should have. On average though, you can get a good score for a well developed 4 paragraph essay. This essay, doesn't give me the confidence that you would score well using this in an actual test. I can better assess your work with your next practice essay. Just provide the full and complete prompt with that one please.

Scholarship / My plan is to continue being a teacher as it will enable me to learn continually, share with others [3]

What are you writing? a Post Study Plan or a Personal Statement? This is nothing but a college level application paper of what inspires you to follow your dreams. This is not a post study career plan. This essay will be thrown away by the reviewer the minute he reads the opening statement. The post study plan must immediately present the ideas that you have for your future career upon returning to your home country. This essay is not about waxing poetic about your past academic life. Delete everything you have written in the essay except for paragraph 5. Only paragraph 5 actually applies to your post study plan because it talks of what you want to do when you return to your country. It is just too bad that your plans are too short.

These do not really cover your short and mid-term career plans. Where do you see your career in 5 years? That is what you should be discussing, how you can get to that point using the education you will be receiving in the UK. Your DFID reference is supremely weak. Your DFID reference must speak of the current projects that are in existence and how you see yourself fitting into those projects as a volunteer, or if you will develop a project that can be sponsored by the DFID. You don't need to describe what the organization is about. Rather, discuss what they do and why you want to be included in the work that transpires in their projects.

I am sorry if I am blunt about my review of your essay. It is just that, with all of the examples available for your reference regarding the Chevening essays on this forum, I find it hard to believe that you could come up with such irrelevant and non-essential essay presentations. The essays you have shown me so far are not worth the time that it took for you to write them.

I strongly urge you to stop writing your essays at this point. Review the essays here first to get an idea as to what information is needed and how to present it. Only then should you draft your essays for your application. If you keep writing essays without really understanding what is expected of you, you will get frustrated and angry at me each time I tell you to write a totally new essay. Which I think I have done twice already, or is it 3 times? I can't keep track. I just know that if you keep writing like this, you will get stuck in revision hell and miss the application deadline. So study the samples before you write any more essays in order to at least have a chance of submitting your essays on time.

Scholarship / Being connected with people from same and different places will help us enhance our career [2]

Hiwot, this is not a discussion about the benefits of a network. This is an essay that is meant to highlight the fact that, after all these years of hard work on your part, you actually have an extended network of professional friends who can help you advance your career in the future either through the help they can offer you when you need it, or they can put you in touch with other people who can help you when you face work problems. There is no defining moment of your network having done so for you in this essay. In fact, there is no external network being presented in this essay. All that I read is how you use the pre-set internal network that your work as a lecturer offers you. Definitely not the best example of networking skills. There needs to be an example of a network you have created. So think about 2 useful organizations that you met through your seminars and describe how you have used that network in your career. Explain why you think these networks are important to you as a professional. The reason why you need a definitive example of your network is simple. You will be judged as to the relevance of your network, its applicability to the Chevening programs, and if it will be useful to Chevening scholars in the future. You do not present any evidence of a concrete, usable network in this essay. You just keep on discussing what you think a network should do for you and how you "used" that "network" at present. Review other networking essays here so that your revision will be on the right track. Delete this essay. It is useless.

Writing Feedback / IELTS-Task2- the reason of learning a different language [8]

Sandra, the difference between the two types of prompts are really easy to spot. For "do you agree or disagree?" that is as simple as presenting a yes or no and answer then explaining why you said yes or no. Yes OR no. One or the other. You do not discuss both in the essay. As for the "Discuss both views and give your opinion", the best way to explain it is through the following format:

1. State reason 1. Provide a justification. Give an example. Transition into the next paragraph.
2. State reason 2. Give the popular belief behind it. Use an example. Transition into your personal opinion.
3. State your personal opinion. Discuss as per the elements of the first 2 paragraphs. Your personal opinion should be singular in presentation and be convincing to a clear degree.

Like I said, the prompt state you wrote was wrong. It does not apply to either of the two prompt types you asked me about. Your presentation was that of a single opinion essay. That is not what either of the prompts you asked me explain was all about. So no, the score will not change for you even if we change the prompt because the prompts you supplied were not in line with the discussion you chose to present.

Scholarship / My positions as site engineer and as a member of the site management team [4]

Mirza, there are two elements in this essay that are irrelevant to the presentation. The first is you school leadership role. Academic leadership is only applicable to college application essays. As a masters degree scholarship applicant, the only concern of the reviewer is if you are leader in your profession. That is why Chevening's prompt clearly indicates "leaders and influencers of their country". The scholarship expects you to be able to change the direction of your country either on a national or economic level. Hence the focus on professional qualifications of leadership and influencing.

The second irrelevant detail is the paragraph about your family. The reviewer will not be impressed by this information because it is definitely not related to leadership and influencing based on its content and discussion. Therefore, this section should also be removed. It will not affect the rightful content of the essay which is the reference to your being an engineer.

Your positions as site engineer and as a member of the site management team readily convince the reviewer that you have the ability to lead based upon your occupational training. That is very strong in this essay. However, your influencing style as a member of the site management team is not represented in a more enlightening manner. You need to show evidence of proper influencing skills either in relation to construction managers, fellow engineers, planner, or subcontractors. These are the people that, based upon your narration, you may have needed to heavily influence at certain times during the project work. Think about some of those times and discuss the one that stands out to you the most in the essay.

After you accomplish that revision, your leadership and influencing essay should be good to go.