Scholarship / The UK as one of world-leading higher education system has a lot to offer in Indonesia. Career Plan [4]

Binari, your discussion of the UK collaboration in reference to your professional development is not as solid as it should be. You make mere references to unnamed collaborators in an effort to make the most out of you UK connections. You are not clearly defining how you plan to do this. A membership that you plan to pursue in a UK based educational organization in your university would be a good start. Since you claim that the UK is actively participating in the educational system of your country, then your university should have solid exchange programs or partnerships in organizations that could help you fulfill a solid UK Post study cooperation activity. Before you finalize this essay, ask your current university about the potential for you to join any of the UK organizations that the university is partnered with post studies. Ask them to suggest a particular organization in line with your educational interests for your country that may be able to help you deliver a solid collaboration idea regarding the further heightening of the educational standard in your university. All of your plans are good and solid. As with all other post study plan for a Chevening scholarship, the weakness of the post study plan comes from the oversight on the part of the applicant regarding UK based activities in your home country.

Undergraduate / A few extra revelations about myself - USC additional essay [3]

Wesley, this is most certainly not an extenuating circumstance that related to your academic development and final high school GPA. I believe that is what this essay is all about right? This essay is more like a cleansing of your soul, not a description of a circumstance that might affect the decision of the adcom regarding your application in relation to any academic setbacks you might have had. Perhaps you still have time to revise the essay in order to create a more academic circumstance? I mean an academic event or situation that affected your grades unfairly. You have to discuss how you improved your scores eventually and that these circumstances do not accurately reflect your academic intellect and abilities. Think of how you can revise the essay to better address this requirement. The reviewer will be looking for an opportunity to get to know you better and how you handle certain stresses in life. That is what you should be reflecting in your essay. Your ability to bounce back from potentially debilitating circumstances.

Undergraduate / Cornell School of Hotel Administration Essay, How Does It Look So Far? Does It Answer The Question? [3]

Marcus, rather than focusing on explaining why you chose Cornell SHA, you should be explaining what kind of personality you have that makes you a sure bet to become a SHA graduate. I've read about what inspired you to study the hotel and restaurant business. Using the old person's home and their meal time experience was a great touch. I think it is unique in more ways than one. However, your personality as a potential hotel owner isn't coming forth on the page. The reference to your parents always wanting to work for themselves is also not helping to advance your responses in the essay. Basically, you just described the influence upon your decision to study this course and then the rest of your response went off tangent already. Get it back on track. Discuss what your personal qualities are that would make you an excellent SHA student candidate. Talk about more than just your volunteer experience to respond to that prompt. The volunteer experience response only got you so far in the development of your response. You need to delete the review that you made of the university and replace that with the reasons why you think you will succeed at SHA instead. What is the driving force, in terms of your personal character that drove your decision to pick this major? Discuss that in this essay.

Scholarship / As a young leader, I have impressive accomplishments and scholarship will move me forward [7]

Mustafa, your essay needs to focus its leadership and influencing abilities only on the school building project. That is the one that seems most relevant to the prompt that asks you to prove that you have leadership and influencing skills that can be of use to you and the scholarship program in the future. However, you have to focus on your role alone. You claim to have been the Academic Secretary for the organization. Is that something like the president of the organization? You need to clarify that point because the term "secretary" normally connotes a supporting role in an organization. Explain that this is the top ranking role instead. That is, if the role is indeed at the top of the position chain in the organization. The What'sApp software reference doesn't really portray a leadership or influencing role on your part so you can safely remove that reference. Build instead on the partnership that you had to establish with the German International Cooperation. Don't discuss "we", discuss "I" and how you accomplished leadership and influencing tasks that led to their participation in the funding of the school. Skip the part about competitions. That removes the impact of the previous paragraph. Develop the whole essay around the GIZ collaboration instead. That will show leadership and influencing skills on a national level for you at the very least.

Scholarship / Developing Country's Airports is my long tearm goal [10]

@sgassani First up, your first 2 paragraphs are not required information in this essay. You could have used the introduction in your Study in UK presentation, but not in the post study plan because the assumption here is that you have already completed the course. It would be best for you to remove those 2 erring paragraphs and instead, open the essay with a direct response to the prompt. You should start with; "Since horizontal department..." instead. The rest of your essay from that point is very impressive. I have just one question though, where does the UK government collaboration in this area come into play? I do not see any reference to a UK project relating to airport development in your essay. You need to find that connecting factor as soon as you can. Without that connecting factor, without being able to prove that the UK has an interest in the development of your country's airports, then you will automatically lose out on the chance to win a scholarship. The Chevening committee will always prioritize scholars from countries where the UK has a vested interest in the development of the nation. If you cannot prove that your area of study is a priority project through the UK connection with the projects then your chances of winning this scholarship become very slim.

Scholarship / [Chevening] My leadership experience came from being an .... Influencers in home countries essay [6]

Ayu, the college laboratory assistant is a nice leadership and influencing story. Unfortunately, it is also non-professional because it does not directly relate to your current profession. Since you are being asked to indicate examples of your leadership and influencing abilities, it is best to not use any non-professional references. The reason why using academic references to your leadership and influencing skills is not as effective as the professional one is because as a student, you are only a leader in training. You are learning how to become an effective leader. While as a professional, you already have the leadership experience required to influence positive changes in your company. These changes that you effect through leadership and influencing should show your ability to possibly help to improve your country upon your completion of your course as a Chevening scholar. You need to think of a true leadership and influencing experience that you had in your workplace. What I am reading about in that section is that you are part of the Supply Chain Management department of your company. No matter how many times I review this, the statement in this paragraph seems more useful in the Networking essay due to your job requirement of having to play a bridge role between your workshop team and logistics team in connection with the supplier. You are the missing network link there. So it doesn't seem appropriate to use that reference in this essay. Perhaps you can think of a time when you were given a leadership role that actually required you to influence your team. Right now, you are merely cross referencing common points between leadership and networking abilities. Which the reviewer will realize and then question why that is in a leadership essay. There are at least 100 different Chevening leadership essays available on this forum for you to review and base your new leadership and influencing essay upon. I strongly suggest you look at those samples to help guide you in the development of the new essay.

Scholarship / Chevening Scholarship as a great accelerator for my career and preparation to achieve my goals [5]

In the second to the last paragraph, you make a reference to grants being given by the British government for the improvement of science and technology information in your country. Then nothing. You dropped the ball. You should have related your research with that organization and indicated that you will try to gain a grant to help propel your research forward. Cite the need for the collaboration in your project / research and then indicate that you know that your Chevening exposure will assist you greatly in the pursuit of this grant. Explain that the grant will be used to expand the data base and so on and so forth. What you can do to improve this essay is remove the opening statement. Start instead with the second paragraph so that you discuss the direct points that you wish to establish. From there, the rest of the essay should fall into place. Don't forget the expanded discussion about the UK organization and how you plan to create a working relationship with them.

Book Reports / Theme- Belonging and Isolation (Book the catcher in the rye) [3]

Sarah, you can safely start this book with a summary of the story and the main characters descriptions. Relate the characters to the questions provided for you to respond to. When done in that manner, you will manage to find yourself directly responding to the questions, without worrying about having to relate it back to the story. If you start by first looking for the quotes from the story that you will use in your response, then it becomes simpler to produce an accurate narrative in relation to your own life. For example, you can take a definition quote from the story regarding "fitting into the group" and then offer your own definition of it. That will allow you to develop a discussion paragraph that aligns with the prompt requirements and provides a more detailed study of the story that you just read. This in turn, will help you develop a conclusion that supports your earlier discussion. I am not sure what you mean about "can be more" though. Do you mean you can discuss more topics? Or perhaps, you can develop more pages for the discussion? I'm not sure about that part.

Graduate / Duke wants to know someone's personality, background, special talents, and more. [3]

Sun, Let me do this by number so you will know where the corrections need to be placed.

2. When you tell the reader that the last thing you would do is eat Coriander, you should explain why. That fact would be more interesting with a reason attached to it.

3. Name the book that you read. It will help to create a sense of familiarity with the reader.
6. If you already mentioned being a volunteer in passing or in detail in your other essays, there is no need to present that information here.

7. This is an academic reference. Remove it. Use only casual and fun information from your end. The requirement is clear, they want to get to know you beyond academics. So don't suddenly insert it here.

8. You need to explain what the Chinese Quora is to the reader before you mention it. Remember, your readers will be composed of people unfamiliar with your Chinese background.

15. Briefly explain why you prefer the timer over the alarm clock.
16. Capitalize the movie title. Remember your noun usage rules. Review the whole essay for similar mistakes.
17. Only the event that you participated in is important. The next appearance of the Transit of Venus is not. Remove that sentence.
21. What are T/F questions? If that is academic in nature, remove it and replace it with a fun fact from your end.
23. Rephrase: Unless I become a professor in the future, I won't be the one...

These should be enough to get you started on a revision. These changes can actually result in a final form of your essay.

Writing Feedback / GRE issue essay of claim and reason type [4]

likhitha, due to the existing problems with your essay, I do not believe that it can score higher than a 2. If you noticed, you did not clearly respond to the prompt requirement. There was no statement of agreement or disagreement with the statement provided. You instead tried to rely on quotes from people notable only in your society to try and explain your analysis of the essay. There is no proper referencing towards a logical flow of thought that would have helped you to properly analyze, represent, and explain your stance on the given statement. The format that you used for writing this essay is not in the GRE analytical format but rather and IELTS format discussion that relies mostly on public knowledge rather than a strong analysis based on critical thinking of the given statement. When you write this essay, you must dissect the original statement, looking for potential loopholes in the presentation that you can exploit in the discussion that you will be creating. That is how this essay is developed and written.

Scholarship / Different experiences that had sharpened my leadership skills - Chevening application [5]

Adenike, this is not the kind of essay that you can submit to the Chevening scholarship because it does not reflect any of the required elements of the prompt. Your focus on your college leadership position does not qualify as the professional qualification that this essay prompt indicates. While I understand the importance of your leadership skills at that age, it does not tell the scholarship committee that you are well on your way to being an influential type of leader in your country. It just tells them that you finished college. I am even sadder to inform you that the professional leadership and experience narration you created does not fall under the correct considerations either. It is not related to the function which you were hired to do at the office. If you can use an actual work related, instead of social related incident in the office scenario, then that would be best. You need to show how you can effect an actual change for the better within a broken system in your office. That is what leadership and influencing in a professional setting is all about.

Scholarship / Hard Work - being the "positive" role model for peers. Chevening essay on Leadership [9]

Adil, an academic description of the development of your leadership and influencing skills does not qualify this essay for Chevening submission. Having read your work, I can tell you that this is more of a collegiate personal essay presentation than a Chevening application essay. Putting such a low discussion development on your professional leadership and influencing skills does a disservice to this essay. You have not exactly discussed an effective leadership and influencing skill in this aspect either. It is highly minor when compared to the abilities of the other applicants responding to the same essay. You must revise this essay to totally remove your academic background then find a work related leadership and influencing opportunity that carries more weight. There is no need to discuss your idea to establish a foundation. That is a topic that you should be introducing in your post study plans, not in the leadership and influencing essay. Refocus the essay to discuss your professional foundation of your leadership and influencing skills instead. I hope that I can review your second presentation as well. Please consider making this an URGENT thread before posting your revised essay. It will allow me the opportunity to give you a second review.

Scholarship / I look forward to demonstrating my qualities as a Chevening Scholar in the UK universities [7]

Kudrat, a leadership essay must be written in a method that indicates a sense of maturity and responsibility in the workplace. The workplace element is the most important part of the essay because you are expected to display leadership and influencing skills that could help to develop your country in the future. Being an employee of Coca-Cola, a well known philanthropist company, should help you to establish these ideas in a highly effective manner. Focus your revised essay on your leadership skill as an HR supervisor. How do you lead the department towards hiring the right people? How do you influence the overall employee roster to feel good on the job and accomplish tasks when things seem to be difficult at the office? You can probably present a better developed version of that in about 3 paragraphs. That should work for your purpose. You cannot use the experience you had at the age of 13 because that is not considered a leadership age and does not offer any professional exposure as required by the prompt. Delete that part and offer a more insightful discussion of your time at Coca-Cola instead.

I am looking forward to reading your revised essay. However, only URGENT essays really qualify for a second review here. So I hope you make this post URGENT when you can.

Writing Feedback / The chart below shows how frequently people in the USA ate in fast food restaurant between 2003,2013 [3]

You should actually aim to write at least 200 words of the 150 minimum for this type of essay. Be cautious though. You must not just keep writing for the sake of writing more words. You must write words that create relevant discussions of the given information. That means writing 250 words of useless gibberish that creates sentences that lack logic and cohesion will not score the same as a 150 word essay that shows a clear discussion flow, control over sentence structure, and grammatical development in a proper manner.

In this essay, you should have also aimed to present 4 paragraphs instead of 2 short and one long paragraph. You can still use the 5 paragraph format here if you want to. Since there are 3 years to be compared, it is understood that you will be writing 3 comparative paragraphs. Now, I would suggest doing the comparison on a year to year basis in order to create a more logical presentation of ideas. However, if you opt to present the information on a grouped, per year basis, that will work too. It may however, come out as confusing for the reader because the trend in development and the comparative discussion will become more difficult to follow.

Scholarship / Self-esteem; an important trait of a leader. Chevening essay on leadership and influence. [8]

Hi Mudiare. I hope that you will remember to give some helpful advice to the other posters here when you have the time. I know that they are looking forward to what you have to say with regards to some improvements that they can make to their essays based upon your ideas and observations. Let's keep the community alive and kicking with constant participation with one another.

As I read the first leadership experience that you presented, I came across a word that has a negative connotation. You indicated that you were "saddled" with extra work after the success of the electrical project. The term "saddled" in this instance means "to burden (someone) with an onerous responsibility or task." That means, you did not want the leadership position and you did it without really being enthusiastic about it. That is not the image you want to portray in this essay. You could instead say that you were "given a test of your leadership skills based on a challenging workload." That sounds more positive and admirable in relation to what you were stating.

Remove the term "etc" in the paragraph about your being an influential teacher. That is a term that means "and so on and so forth", which is a lazy way of saying it. It wasn't really a required reference in the paragraph so its removal will not affect the message in the presentation. The saying that you present is not properly quoted. The saying indicates: "Action speaks louder than words", not voice By the way, proof read the essay for mistakes in punctuation. You missed a period here and there.

Scholarship / Chevening study in UK essay, my journey to become urban planner in the future. [6]

Naseer, you need to revise the content of your essay. Start a new version because this version is inadequate when compared to the prompt requirements. Before you discuss the universities you have chosen and the corresponding courses, you first need to make sure that you have the adequate educational and professional background to complete the task. That is why you are required to give an independent discussion of your academic and professional foundation in relation to your desire to study one of the three masters degree courses. You have managed to represent the career advancement and opportunities that the masters courses will allow you to achieve. Therefore, the only remaining portion for development is the overall discussion of your academic and professional foundation. You will need to cut down on some of the presentation in each university paragraph so that you don't go over the maximum word count. It might be better for you in the end if you just write a new essay so that you can have better control over the word count. Additionally, writing a new essay will allow you to better format the presentation into a more interesting read.

Scholarship / Career plan after completion of master course in UK - Chevening Essay [3]

Santoas, the essay is solid but lacks a clear discussion development as to how you will manage to become an independent advisor and consultant to UK Aid. This part of the essay, which is an integral part of the prompt requirement, needs to be better developed than this current presentation. What kind of benefit do you hope to provide to UK Aid and why would that be of particular benefit to your company and in essence, your country. How does everything add up towards the potential for a strong collaboration between your company and UK Aid? There needs to be a relevant connection between the course you completed, the projects of the UK in your country, and the development of your post study career goals. It is important that you connect the dots because you will be an influential Chevening scholar at that point and you will be expected to be able to assist in the development of your country with the help of the UK organization and your newly minted Chevening network. This is the time to present your final plans in a manner that will prove that Chevening should take a chance on your application and give you a scholarship grant.

Scholarship / Appliance in the Scholarship from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the UK - Reference Letter [4]

@sgassani the work required for the improvement of your letter is not content based but rather, language directed. The grammar needs to be cleaned up by correcting the wrong use of English words and adding connecting words where necessary. This editing job can be easily done in Word 10 or through the use of free online proofreading sites like Grammarly. Your reference letter is really strong and valid since it comes from a person who is a true mentor in your professional career. If I were to make any changes to this essay, it would be the reference the person is making to classes other than the ones that had this person teaching you directly. It is questionable as to how he learned of your status in classes that he had no connection with. The references to classes should be only based on the classes that you had direct contact with this person, in a professor capacity, with. The other classes he simply cannot vouch for because of the lack of actual observation, interaction, and teaching contact between the two of you.

Scholarship / Being able to achieve my inspiring vision as an architect - selected courses will help me with that [3]

Ezeh, this is not a Study in UK response. This is a definition essay that does not adequately respond to the prompt requirement. The prompt requires you to discuss why you chose 3 universities based on individualized courses offered by each university. How does the masters course you chose to attend affect your future as an architect? Explain how your background, both educational and professional, has prepared you to attend this course and has given you the confidence that you will be able to complete this course. Finally, explain how you plan to use what you learn from the course to help move your career forward after you graduate. This essay is all about your future plans and how your studies will be affecting it. That is why you are asked to discuss your previous educational background and your professional training up to the present point. The discussion of the universities requires you to be forward thinking regarding your career. The essay that you wrote doesn't do any of that. Your essay looks more like a college definition essay than a Chevening scholarship essay in relation to your potential to study in the UK.

Writing Feedback / [task 1] bar chart writing - where people live in the Northwest region [7]

Gang, at this point, since there are two contributors working with you, I strongly suggest that you decide whom you will want to listen to. At the moment, you will be receiving 2 conflicting advice from 2 authorities in this area which can adversely affect all of the progress you have made I am not lessening the impact of the advice that ah is giving you. However, since we have come so far already with your progress, having worked together for a number of months and essays, and you have actually shown a level 9 writing skill already, I would hate for you to regress because you will be confused as to whom to follow with regards to the proper approach to this essay and how to write it. Please let me know whom you wish to work with so that I will know if you still require my participation in your presentations. I do not want to add to any confusion you might experience due to the conflict of instructions you are receiving at the moment. So let me know if you wish to proceed with my guidance or not. I will not be hurt or angered if you decide to go with someone else. If you wish to work with ah because he is more attuned to your needs, then so be it. I will give you tentative advice regarding your essay for now.

In the opening paragraph, you misread the illustration you were provided. The year 2050 is a projection and should have been identified as such in your summary presentation. The instruction sentence that comprises your third sentence is the basis of the discussion that you will be presenting and gives the reader an idea as to what the oncoming discussion will be presenting in terms of information. The trending sentence can actually be located at the beginning or the end of the discussion presentation. There is no single way or one manner of writing these essays. Write it in the method that you feel comfortable doing. You will be scored not on the basis of a template response, but the accuracy of your response to the prompt. There is no right or wrong format. There is only your ability to properly assess and report on the information provided. I feel that you did present your version of the trending statement at the end when you provided the comparable shares discussion.

Again, this is just my opinion on the essay that you wrote.

Undergraduate / Applying to nursing school, BSN [3]

Thien, you can create a shorter essay if you revise paragraph 2. Start by removing the reference to the various volunteer activities you participated in. If you can't expand on the discussion, don't present it at all. Not all volunteer activities are important to present though. Unless you did something remarkable during that time, mentioning it won't really be of any help to your application. I think you meant that paragraph to respond to the second part of the prompt requirements right? You may want to try presenting it in a more concise manner since it is the preparation aspect that is important to the response. Summarize the points that you can while expand on the explanation as to how you will manage caring for your aging household while attending nursing school. That is more direct to the point in terms of the "change to your current situation" question. You can also shorten the final paragraph by removing the redundancy of your being raised in a bilingual household. You already established that and then some in the opening statement. Focusing directly on the Vietnamese patient should make the essay tighter and more useful towards your application. You should be able to cut down the essay to the maximum number of words or less if you try to apply the changes I am suggesting.

Writing Feedback / [task 1] line graph - the revenue of a New York City Bookstore [6]

Ngo, a more accurate review of your work can only be done if you include the image with the essay. You forgot to upload it this time around. You need to upload that image if you want me to write up a review of your presentation problems and grammar issues. For now, I an tell you a number of things regarding your general presentation.

First up, you need to aim to write at least 200 words in order to get a better score. Normally a presentation of 4 paragraphs will be more than sufficient to get you a passing score provided the information is accurate and contains the required number of sentences per paragraph. That means, a maximum of 5 sentences per paragraph will result in a passing score. That normally indicates a well developed presentation of information, upon which you are scored.

Next, look out for those tricky capitalization problems and pesky punctuation mistakes. Words like newspaper and novels are not capitalized. Those are not proper nouns. You remember the rules by which you should capitalize words in relation to nouns right? Only proper names and titles are upgraded to a capitalized format. As for your punctuation problems, the one that stands out the most is the last sentence, which is your trending statement. You are missing a period at the end of it.

Scholarship / Posessing great networking skills is like a treasure, and it's the key to knowing people [8]

Hi Asmaa, I hope that you can increase your participation in the forum since you already got started. I hope that you can find the time to help out the others here just as they have taken the time to help you out. I'll be reviewing your essay again since you show a record of participation in the forum, albeit on a low scale at the moment.

Unfortunately, your second version is no better than the first. It still lacks a proper reference to a networking ability on your part. All you discuss in this essay is how you were trained by other people or how they inspired you to try to be a better worker. That is not how networking functions in a Chevening set up. I need to see evidence of how you handle problematic situations that ask you to connect with other people within and beyond your professional field in order to achieve a resolution. What was the situation? Who was the possible contact? How did you meet that person? What was the result of your contact with that person in relation to the problem? Did he refer you to someone else? If yes, then you have an existing contact or network at the moment. Now you will need to justify the importance of that network in relation to your career and how it can help the Chevening scholars both past and present. There is nothing in the current version that dictates a network was created in relation to your work related activities.

Undergraduate / "Struggle in my hopeful soccer"-briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities [2]

Marcus, this is not really an effective extra curricular activity to share. An effective extra curricular activity shows how you develop as a person and take joy in participating in the actions that help you to get away from the rigors of your academic life. From the sounds of this essay, that is not what happened in your case. You may want to reconsider the activity you are presenting because normally, the extra curricular activity presented is one that depicts a sense of personal growth through enjoyment or a learning phase for you that is not included in the academic side because it is something that is of interest to you that you do during your spare time. As the prompt indicates you need to explain about one of your extra curricular activities. However, you have to slant that activity into such a piece that shows how you have achieved a semblance of success or self importance because of it. It is not supposed to depict how you are not worthy of something but still aspire to become part of it. Most of the activities presented in this prompt statement indicate happier thoughts and accomplishments. Your current presentation is not like that.

Scholarship / I have rassion, determination and discipline - CHEVENING essay [2]

Paz, Chevening is only interested in future leaders and influencers who can prove their ability to perform such tasks in a professional setting. They do not care for, nor is your college leadership skill and ability going to be able to help your application. The prompt is very clear about this. You need to prove that you have the ability to lead and influence the people that work under you. You need actual work experience representation in this case. The narration of which is required throughout the essay. Therefore, paragraphs 2 -3 are not useful to your application. However, the Supply Assistant position might be made relevant to your application if you work on showing how you were able to become a leader, and perhaps gain a promotion because of it, and how you influenced the people higher in command than you to retain you when the staff rotation order was in place. Those are 2 clear leadership and influencing instances that can be useful to your application. Work on expanding the depiction of how those things happened in this essay in order to create a prompt responsive presentation.

Scholarship / I believe that my passion to make a difference in the other's lives what makes me a leader [3]

Memo, have you applied for the Chevening scholarship before? I am asking because this essay seems eerily familiar to another Chevening scholarship essay that I reviewed and assisted in developing a year or so ago. In fact, the content of the 2nd-4th paragraphs are a direct plagiarism of that essay. Please be honest with me and tell me if you had a previous profile here at EF and if you failed to get into the Chevening program the first time you applied. You have to understand that Chevening requires original essay submissions. Considering that I noticed the said plagiarism in the aforementioned paragraphs of your essay, the reviewers will also discover that plagiarism and your application could be rejected as a result of it. While the opening statement and the last statement seem original, the strong leadership skill and influencing ability in the second to fourth paragraphs as what will be called into question since it will be exactly the same as a previously submitted essay application. For your sake, I hope my suspicions are not true. For your sake as well, I strongly suggest that you change the leadership experience to a different scenario. A newer one that does not borrow any elements from an old application essay.

Scholarship / My ambitious personal goals helped create my revenant network [2]

Youssf , there are number of important names that you make specific mention of in your networking essay. While their names are nice to read on paper, I am wondering if you are attaching recommendation letters from these people. You see, the reviewer might wish to verify the names and connections that you have made with these people. So if you do not have direct or written permission to use the names of these people in your essay, you should refer to them within the network on a no-name basis. In your essay, you always mention the "Who" in terms of contacts but miss out on the vital explanations of "Where, when, and how". You need to always indicate where you met, when, this meeting took place, and how the network has helped you in the connected aspects of your career or social life so far. The network usefulness has to be solid on a professional basis as you will be called upon in the future to be a mentor to other scholars and as such. may need to call upon these networks for assistance. That is how the Chevening scholarship works and that is why they ask you to explain how you plan to use this network to help the scholarship program and its future scholars. That explanation is missing in this essay.

Scholarship / Some examples of my networking abilities for Chevening application [4]

Ezeh, this essay would have been better developed if you had not used your academic network as a major source of your networking presentation. That is because the networking skill that you depict has no connection with your professional life. Since you are applying for a masters degree scholarship and you have been working professionally as a project manager since 2015, it is expected that, over the course of 2 years, you have somehow managed to developed a useful professional network. The professional network is a requirement of the scholarship as this will be used to assess whether you have a network that can further improve the already existing network of Chevening and, if the current network of the program will be of use to you. You must delete all of the prior academic and socio-civic references because of the obvious lack of connection with your profession. Discuss a project that you managed instead. Explaining the importance of networking in this instance and how you managed to create the necessary network and how you have cultivated the same for your future use. After you have done that, don't forget to explain how this network will be of a major benefit to the Chevening community upon your inclusion into the scholarship program.

Scholarship / One instance (out of many) where I've displayed what it takes to be a good leader and influencer [3]

Hi Ellora, I hope that I can see more active participation from you over the coming days. We've missed you and your comments here. You're a member of the community so don't be a stranger. Stay in touch. Now, with regards to your 2nd version. I read it as more of a highlight in relation to your planning and development skills. Not your leadership and influencing abilities. What we are looking for here is not an example of your ability to mount a successful store launch. Rather, we are looking for examples of how you handle stressful situations in a professional setting. How do you lead the team when the schedule is not followed or plans fall apart? Where is the solid evidence of your subordinates acknowledging your leadership through the influence you exerted upon them? What you did here was just tell us that you led the team and they saw you are such. We need factual evidence to back it up. So tell us of a situation that proves that claim. Your essay doesn't need to include the planning and development strategy that you were asked to implement for the store branch development. That covers more than half the essay and doesn't really direct indicate any leadership and influencing ability. It does however, show that you are a keen planner and a responsible project developer, on paper and in theory. That is not what the essay is about.

There is no need for you to give the estimated cost of each store that was setup. The reviewer is not interested in that. He only wants to hear about your leadership and influencing skills in relation to that task. This, so far, is your most appropriate essay response. However, the second paragraph is running too long as it combines both the leadership and influencing discussion in one paragraph. Separate the discussions to make it easier for the reviewer to keep track of the information and also, to make it easier for him to refer back to the essay when he needs or wants to double check some information. Try to provide a solid example of a leadership skills when it came to resolving conflict or responding to a request. That is a necessary part of the essay since you mentioned 2 separate instances. If you find yourself going over the word count, then edit your last 2 paragraphs instead. Your stand alone 2 sentence paragraph prior to the last paragraph is the most disposable part of the essay. That is, if you want to know where I would cut the essay to give you more word count so you can adjust the content based on my suggested revisions.

Scholarship / Chevening career plan essay, my journey to become future urban researcher [4]

Naseer, thank you for your active participation at the forum. I hope to see more useful comments coming from you in the future. In response to your activities, I am giving you another review for this essay. It is already in a good and usable form. I just want you to remove a portion that I feel doesn't really work well with the aim of the prompt. Since the speech that you will be giving about parking problems will be done this year, long before you (potentially) become a Chevening scholar, that cannot be considered an active part of your post study plans. You need to find a way to present the information about you doing professional research without mentioning the useless information about the speech. It is irrelevant to the topic since this is for post, meaning "after" study plans. The speech is more applicable to a "pre" study plan. Once you remove the information and then revise that paragraph to become more applicable to your post study plans, the essay will then be in its final form. It shall be ready for submission along with the other essay documents for your application.

Letters / 'She was flexible and willing to work on any project' - recommendation letter from employer [4]

Polina, I am encouraging you to help the others at this forum just as I am helping you. You don't have to give perfect advice, you just need to give the others your comments and suggestions as to how they can improve their work. The forum is based on a two way street. Since you are receiving help, you are expected to give help as well. The problem with your essay is that it is not professionally written. No self respecting supervisor, team leader, or upper level management executive would write in this amateur manner. That is why it is obvious that the information contained was placed there by the applicant and not the boss. You must make the letter sound more professional in order to convince the HR reviewer that this was a letter written for you, not by you. I Suggest that you refer to our Services section in order to gain assistance in professionalizing the content and presentation of your letter.

Scholarship / I have been equiped on leadership skills - Chevening [3]

Ezeh, in appreciation of your efforts to help others with their work, I am gladly reviewing your essay once again. I am not please with either version of your essay though. It still lacks clarity in the depiction of your leadership and influencing skills. You are always "implying" that you carry these traits and more within the discharge of your duties, but you do not provide solid examples of how you apply these in your workplace. We need specific and detailed instances of your leadership and influencing abilities. For example, describe the project that your team failed to accomplish. Explain why you had to focus the team on the bigger goal (influencing skill), then narrate how you were able to successfully mount the next project (leadership and influencing) if that is what happened or how you adjusted and learned, as a team from the failure so that you could correct it and then make a success of it. That is how you should present your leadership and influencing skill. Do not just imply the skills and provide summaries that don't really explain what the situation was, why it became that way, what needed to be resolved, and how the resolution was achieved through proper leadership and influencing.

Research Papers / Climate Change - An existential treat? Blackwater in Iraq. Pol Sci - Research Question [2]

Kerem, perhaps you can frame the securitization discussion through the context of the current political climate in America where the president does not believe in climate change but the opposition does. It becomes a political discussion with security implications because of the fact that Americans tend to get involved in wars overseas and in the process, find themselves embattled as they try to protect nature or natural resources while trying to eliminate the enemy. One example of the securitization issue could be the first Gulf War, where the Iraqi soldiers burned oil refineries and destroyed gas pipelines. At the time, we may not have been aware of the repercussions of such actions but now, we understand that what those people did had a direct impact on our climate and could very well be part of the reason why the changes were sped up. This way, you can better address the issue of who is securitizing the issue of climate change. I agree that you will have a hard time proving that private security firms are involved here. So look to the politicians, their foundations, and those foundations connections instead in the promotion of privatized warfare. That may be easier to research and easier to apply in the context of your work.

Scholarship / Self-esteem; an important trait of a leader. Chevening essay on leadership and influence. [8]

Mudiare, the first 2 paragraphs of your essay are not applicable to the requirements of the scholarship program. These are not applicable because both are academic and amateur in nature. The most applicable part that you can use is the interaction that you have with your students. As a teacher, you have a unique ability to lead and influence the future leaders of your country. This is exactly the type of professional exposure that Chevening is looking for. This is direct evidence that you are a capable leader and an influential person in your country. Build on that representation. Remove the first two and focus on presenting a more developed example of your leadership and influencing skill upon your students. You can use this current paragraph, with proper editing to open the revised essay with. By revising the content and focusing on what is truly usable in the essay, you will surely find yourself developing a version that is below the maximum or exactly at the maximum word count.

Undergraduate / What you might add to the Mac community, academically and personally? [3]

Hi Maddy, thank you for being an active participant in this forum. If you don't mind, I would like to give you further assistance with your essay. I would like to call your attention to the first paragraph that you wrote. This part requires further editing and content adjustment.

Remember, the focus of the essay must always be on your experience and your contribution to Mac in the future. By introducing the story of Ahmad, you remove that focus and turn the first half of the essay into his story and his introduction. He is not the applicant here. It would be best to remove that direct reference and instead, turn what you learned from him into a general statement. A more appropriate response would be:

While attending MUWCI, I came across a diversity of students that I had never thought existed before. It was during my time studying there that I learned about the political and social differences of our world and how that applies to global and regional peace and stability. I discovered that our countries are not too different from one another. We all share the same dream of peace and we all try to create our out stability in our corner of the world. My political and social enlightenment is what I can bring with me to Mac. From my ideas about how to promote Women's Rights, to my quest for peace in my home country of Pakistan, these will all help me to make a positive contribution to the Political Activities and Newspaper group of Mac.

Keep the first paragraph short but informative. You don't have to narrate every single detail of the experience. A critical summary presentation is sufficient and will also balance it with the content of the second paragraph. Thus creating a balanced and easier to read essay on your part which the reviewer will truly appreciate.

Writing Feedback / Punishment for each type of crime was often a prominent rule in societies [2]

Jalaleh, I would have been very happy to review this introduction for you had you just not forgotten one thing, the original prompt. I can't assess the applicability of your restatement without the original as the basis for the analysis. What you gave me is just the topic for discussion. While I do need that information, I also need the topic discussion instruction in order to work on your review. What I can tell you is this though, your opening paraphrase is difficult to read. The GRA section of your opening statement is confusing and stressful on the reader. This will definitely give you a failing score in the C&C section. Your overall paragraph development is very weak and does not really deliver a clear thought process.

I am not sure what you mean by discrete crime. You should not have used that term because it doesn't tie in with the statement you are trying to make in the sentence. You should have instead stuck with the presentation based on the "inducement" because that is easier to decipher in a confusingly developed sentence.

Had you provided me with the original prompt requirement, I would have been able to give you a better example of the opening statement. Right now, I can only make a general comment on your opening paragraph. Please provide the complete original prompt next time.

Scholarship / Drugstore contracts, internship programs for pharmacy students - leadership skills examples [3]

Martson, you are over the limit by 20 words. I feel that the essay is very strong at the moment and truly displays leadership and influencing skills within a professional setting in three instances that you indicated here. The last part though, about you performing as a mentor to the interns seems out of place in this essay. It doesn't really talk about your leadership in a professional setting because when you deal with the interns, you become a teacher instead of a company or team leader. That requires a different job description that you can probably use in some other essay. I am thinking that you can probably find a way to use that experience in the networking essay because there is a reason that a pharmacy school chose to connect with your drugstore for their student's training. That proves a networking skill / ability. By removing that reference in this essay, you will be able to pull down your word count by more than 20 words and keep the essay focused on the required elements alone.

Scholarship / Loughborough University, University of Leicester and University of Leicester - courses choice [2]

Onyinyechi, create a balance in your formatting presentation. Either place your academic background as your opening statement and the reason why you had to undergo a career change via a masters degree then place your professional requirements as your closing paragraph, or you can reverse the presentation of the said positions in the essay in order to balance the look on the page.

Avoid using useless information such as the ranking of the university in the UK or world heritage sites or the population of the city. Instead, focus on the core curriculum of your masters program, which you must specifically mention in the essay. Always make mention of how your current professional experience has prepared you for the course. You need to specifically mention your professional training because your academic background is far removed from your current profession.

When you mention specific organizations like the CMI, make sure that you connect it with your current profession either by explaining that the organization has an existing network in the community bank you are working in or, that you plan to create a chapter of that in Nigeria in order to promote training and fostering a partnership badly required to improve the existing system. You have to think about how your professional career will be improved by your completion of each course and represent it. You are not sure which university will be approved for your acceptance so this is a major discussion point you have to highlight. It is part of the consideration process even if you have already received a notification of acceptance from one of the 3 universities.

Scholarship / I have been equiped on leadership skills - Chevening [3]

Ezeh, what you have explained here sounds more like the experiences you have are better presented in the networking skills portion of the application. While the reviewer will appreciate your personal definition of leadership, the context of your essay makes it appear that you do not have any leadership and influencing abilities within a professional context. Why is that? Are you not yet a professional in your field? Do you not handle a position of importance in your office that would allow you to lead a team and influence their abilities so that your professional or team objectives are met? We need solid examples of your leadership and influencing skills in action. Show us how you are an effective leader and influential person. Don't narrate things in a manner that doesn't really give us an idea of your leadership and influencing style and the reasons why you are an effective leader in this area who just may one day, be a leader of your country. These "achievements" are all about your training to be a leader. We need to read about a leader in action. So the essay that you wrote doesn't really support your application in terms of leadership and influencing abilities that the reviewer can actually take note of for consideration with your other documents and essays. This is one prompt that you cannot just "explain" away as the prompt requires concrete examples of how you conduct yourself as a leader and influencer on a small scale basis. The reviewer needs to assess if you have what it takes to become a major leader in your country after you complete the masters program. That way, you can be viewed as an asset to the alumni list of the Chevening scholar graduates.

Writing Feedback / [task1] map writing: the evolution of a villege [4]

9! Definitely a 9! You did it! You managed to accurately present the comparison chart without presenting information that isn't in the chart. There is a clear analysis of the given images and your explanations are right on the mark. I could not score you any less for this. The grammar is perfect with very minor corrections to be made. Speaking of corrections, because the the illustration marked the other drawing as "present" then, in order to keep with the theme and show that you know how to properly use keywords, instead of saying "this year", you should have said "and the present year". If you will recall, I once informed you about the way that keywords, placed and used in the right context within the essay can increase your overall score, this is one of those essay writing situations. Also, rather than saying "some of them", it would have been more appropriate to say "while some areas remained intact..." use synonyms whenever you can for the LR scoring considerations. About the farmland, it is bordered "by" not bordered "with". You could have also said, "The forest park merged with the farmland." Or a similar take on that presentation. Excellent work.

If I may, I would like to go back for a moment to the discussion about the "hypermart" essay. I have just one thing to tell you about that. Since the diagrams never indicated where the hypermart was going to be located, your assumptions become flawed. It is not based on a proposal to be found in the diagrams and hence, becomes heresay or an exaggeration without evidence to support it. You should have merely indicated that the hypermart was proposed to be located within one of those areas and at the moment, no definite location had been set for its building. That is what is evident in the essay and should have been presented. That was the missing information from that illustration that you did not catch on to while you were analyzing the proposal maps. There was no call for you to make observational comments because no additional information was provided to require such an assumption on your part. Remember, if it's not on the map, it doesn't go in the report. You will need to learn how to word your essays to suit instances such as these when proposals are made, but no definite areas are marked on the map for its use.