Scholarship / Is it more solid to mention the names of people and places of workplace in the content? Chevening [3]

Memduh, which of these experiences are the most recent for you? You should not use an experience more than 5 years old for this essay. If possible, use only one leadership and influencing experience. The most recent one that shows you in a leadership position that deals with problematic situations in the workplace. You have to display a strong analytical ability to recognize the actual problem points in a situation and develop a plan of action that shows a strong influencing style involving either your subordinates or upper management, or both. Just in case you are thinking it, the call center experience is not strong enough to represent that situation. That did not directly involve you in a management problem nor require a personal management style. It only involved a single employee that you helped, which does not really represent a strong leadership style. Needless to say, I would be more comfortable if you wrote a new essay instead of trying to revise this version. You may find it difficult to fix the problem points or fit in certain elements if you are merely trying to adjust the content of an essay that is not as helpful as it should be to your application.

In response to your question in the title, you can and must mention the company that you worked for and the consecutive dates of your employment with them. That means, if you are still working with them, then you need to mention that you are currently employed with them. It is not necessary to mention any names if those names that you will be providing will not provide a recommendation letter for you nor make themselves available for information clarification interviews by the scholarship committee. If you mention just the company, then a simple call to HR will suffice to confirm your essay claims.

Scholarship / Three British programs selection - reasons (Chevening Scholarship) [2]

Santoas, the essay that you wrote is good. The introduction gives a good background of your professional experience in relation to the courses you have chosen. However, it could have been strengthened if you had given a summary of your college education in relation to your profession first. That way you make it clear that you are undergoing continuing education program and not switching careers or proceeding to study a course in which you do not have any background.

Your explanation as to why you chose the courses are also acceptable and will be excellent for consideration purposes. However, the lack of future application discussion in terms of your career makes the course choices discussion lack in forward thinking applicability. Remember, your masters degree course should have a connection with your present and immediate future career plans. This is not to be confused with the long term post study plans that you should have for a different essay. Each potential short term career plan that you have for yourself needs to coincide with a course that you have chosen. That way, the course has an actual requirement or purpose in your profession.

Undergraduate / 'If you feel it so you can do it' - background/story essay [6]

Johana, you misunderstood the purpose of the background story essay. This is not about a shallow dream to join a student program. This is all about a character defining story from your background that will help the reviewer understand who you are as a person. This story that you shared does not really sound like it has the qualifying factor of "your application would be meaningless without it." In fact, the story doesn't even have an ending because you stopped mid narration. This essay is weak and does not deliver any character building traits that normally accompany this prompt. The reviewer needs to have a sense of a conflict or a talent that helped to showcase something special about you. It could be that you had to overcome Dyscalculia, which is a Math learning disability, because of your dream of becoming an engineer. Then your story would be all about how that illness was diagnosed, how you overcame it, and where you are now at your point in life regarding your math learning because of the illness. Your essay needs a foundation, a catalyst, a conflict, and a character building resolution. None of that exists in this essay. Describe something about yourself that will not be known based on the other common app prompts but don't make it such a boring and irrelevant presentation like the one you have now.

Undergraduate / How would you engage the mission of Trinity College during your years on campus? Essay Prompt. [4]

Muskan, I do not think that you are properly responding to the prompt requirement at all. You are thinking of the academic setting of the university and connecting it with your rigid boarding school life. What you should be doing though, is thinking about how you can use the social and civic opportunities at the university to help you engage in building your sense of civic duty and responsibility. By being socially useful, you will be able to refer to a personal growth that allows the freedom to achieve something other than the academic expectations of the university. In order to better discuss this prompt, you will need to familiarize yourself with the extra curricular activities at the campus that reflect the liberal arts education of the university. You have to focus on explaining how you will develop your sense of critical thinking in relation to the current changes ongoing in society. These should tie in either with the classes you are going to take or the activities that you will have outside of the academic field. For example, will you be doing volunteer work at shelters? Helping at soup kitchens sponsored by the college? Or perhaps, you have plans to join their outreach programs to help needy communities? Whatever the method, these need to be activities that will cover 4 years of your college life. Give an idea as to what kind of personal and social growth you hope to attain by participating in these activities and why you believe that it is important for you to do your part with regards to these situations. That should tie in with the "critical thinking, free the mind of parochialism and prejudice" which in the end should allow you live a "personally satisfying life on the social and civic fronts". The essay that you wrote doesn't really represent that specifically in the essay. You need to show that you are familiar with the university programs otherwise, your response is nothing more than a generic reference to possibly applicable reasons. That does not always work because your discussion will not completely represent the prompt requirements. That is what happened in this case.

Writing Feedback / Effect of Single-gender schools - wrtiting task 2 for IELTS [3]

Riya, the complete prompt for this essay requires you to discuss both points of view and then deliver a discussion of your opinion. What you discussed in the essay focuses solely on your point of view. As such, your response will be considered only partially correct and receive the appropriate low score for the essay. The moment that you chose not to properly represent the instruction sentence in the opening statement, you already got the lowest possible TA score for this essay. Then the tangential discussion further lowered the TA score. This has created an extremely high possibility that, when combined with your low scores for the remaining criteria, that the work you did will not get a passing score. Always remember, the original prompt provides you with the outline for the discussion all you have to do is follow the format it is presented in. In this instance you had to make sure that your body of paragraphs contained:

1. A supporting point of view
2. A contradicting point of view
3. Your personal statement

Since this essay focused only on your personal statement, you cannot get a high, passing score for this essay. The prompt requirement must be followed at all times if you are to gain a passing score. The problem, is that you do not seem to properly assess the prompt and its requirements. If you do not take the time to review the essay requirements, you may end up always just submitting partially correct essays such as this one.

Writing Feedback / Taking a gap of one year after completing high school and before taking admission [2]

Nguyen, since this is your first time posting in this forum, I will give you some leeway and explain to you the various means by which you can improve your essay presentation in order to gain a decent overall score. We will have to go point by point on this so you have to read what I am saying and make sure you understand how to execute these instructions.

First of all, when you write the prompt paraphrase, you must ensure that you are only delivering the correct information, as indicated in the original prompt. Your discussion of the original prompt is both lacking in sentence requirement (at least 3 sentences) and a proper representation of the prompt. The correct paraphrase for your prompt is:

There is an increase in the number of students taking a gap year between their secondary and tertiary education. This year long respite from education is said to have advantages and disadvantages. In this essay, I will be presenting one advantage and one disadvantage discussion stemming from the so-called year long "academic leave".

Since the prompt is not asking you to discuss each of the advantages and disadvantages, then it is enough that you offer an explanatory reason for each rather than changing the prompt as you did do indicate that one side of the discussion is more important than the other. The prompt is not requiring such a discussion and doing so shows that you did not fully understand the instructions for the discussion. This will force a lower TA score for you.

You are also delivering less that stellar discussions per paragraph because you are forcing yourself to present 2 reasons, which you cannot fully explain because of the 5 sentence maximum requirement per paragraph. You actually end up going beyond the allowable maximum in your paragraphs because you present up to 9 sentences per paragraph. There is a one topic maximum requirement per paragraph. The single topic allows you to fully develop your discussion, rather than just presenting half baked and haphazard representations of reasons, which will end up garnering you a failing C&C score.

The conclusion is also problematic since it doesn't follow the summary format for the closing paragraph presentation. The concluding paragraph is the same as the opening paragraph requirement with the only difference being that now, the concluding statement needs to summarize the discussion points instead of offering a thesis statement at the end of the paragraph.

Grammar, Usage / Rules for good comma placement throughout long sentences. [3]

NCS, using and placing commas in sentences isn't all that difficult. If you have 2 connected ideas to present in a sentence, use a comma instead of a connection word. Read the paragraphs and and place a comma wherever you stop to take a breather. That is the natural reading pause point. Your essay does have periods in places where commas should be. That's why the sentences came across as too long. The comma is meant to divide the sentences that come across as overly long. Beware though as improper come placements can also cause run on sentences and you don't want that. Basically, knowing where to place the pause (comma) in your writing is a skill gained over time. You may be taught the theory of the punctuation usage but unless you constantly practice, the natural or second nature use of the comma will not be developed. I suggest that you practice the skill using more exercises or online free practice sites. It's available in Google. Your teacher is right. You just need more practice in order to properly develop the use of the punctuation Mark in given sentences.

Undergraduate / Obstacles turned around - should I write about this topic or is it TMI [3]

Cathy, kiddos for coming this far into your recovery. This is one of the most admirable essays I have read so far. You really put yourself out there and let the reviewer into the darkest point of your life leading into the light. That's why I'm worried that you might not be receptive to the advice I am about to give you. I'm asking you to put yourself out there a little bit more. You see, the essay seems to start in the middle of the addiction. Before you present that point, you need to create the foundation of the downward spiral first. Describe how the addiction started and what attracted you to stick to it. The reviewer first needs to understand how and why it happened so that the full impact of the recovery and changes on your life can be better recieved and acknowledged. It's a slight addition that can even be just a summary in the second paragraph. No need to delve into the details but the basics are important to your story. I'll understand if you would not want to do that. The essay is acceptable as it is. I just wanted to make it as clear as possible to the reviewer in order to drive your point home about the importance of your recovery and what you learned from it.

Scholarship / I have been living my life as a leader in the past 5 years, being an English teacher. CHEVENING [5]

Yanna, your essay doesn't require proof reading at this point as it still requires content revision. Delete the first paragraph as it is not really relevant to the prompt requirements. Develop the discussion of your leadership and influencing position as an internal coordinator instead. That sounds like a solid enough example to build the presentation of your leadership and inflicting skills. The earlier paragraph just had you talking pointlessly about your theory about leadership. Just get to the point already. You could explain the 2 skills within 3 paragraphs if you needed to. The actual example of your leadership and influencing should in this essay makes it look like an afterthought. Build the revised essay around this event instead. It sounds like it has the potential to be the most relevant example you can provide. You can retain your current closing statement. It is relevant and closes the essay work a strong voice coming from you.

Scholarship / Networking is a matter of cause and effect. Networking essay for Chevening [3]

Rodrigo, there is a misconception that internship experience qualifies as a valid networking experience. That is never the case. This experience that you shared shows amateur influencing skills. Not professional skills and therefore doesn't have a place in this essay. You must remove the reference to your internship and then clarify that you worked as the head biologist in your professional line of work.

Only work related experiences are required as this is the network threat Chevening hopes to help you grow as a scholar. These networks will also be required of you to share with the Chevening community and future scholars as well. So you can see why college level networks, unless proven to be nurtured and grown up to the present time, cannot be accepted as valid samples in this essay.

Your essay lacks an explanation as to how you are growing your network of contacts and how you plan to grow the network in the future. More importantly, you have to explain how the network you will create via Chevening will benefit you and vice versa. How do you hope to help future scholars as part of the alumnae network? Review the prompt instructions and make sure you have a clear response presented for each topic presented for discussion.

Writing Feedback / IELTS Task 2 - Support opinion - Why is physical education important? [5]

Tran, you are required to restate all of the original text, in your own team understanding working your opening statement. This is a requirement that helps the examiner understand the level of your English comprehension skills. While I admire the fact that you have some background information to share with the reader in this section, you should only present the available facts from the original prompt in this section. Remember that this is an IELTS essay so the factual discussion should start in the second paragraph, not the first. Only a thesis statement is required at the end of the opening paragraph.

In the second paragraph, better represent the prompt reasonably by offering a clear opening please to the discussion based upon keywords from the original. The more appropriate opening would have been too say " Physical education offers important benefits such as...". Opening this way shows that you are responding directly to a prompt question. The same applies to the third paragraph and fourth paragraph.

For the fourth paragraph, you should have presented a personal opinion format for the optional physical education classes since that is what was required by the prompt. After that, a summarized concluding statement should have been presented in order to properly close the essay. As of now, the essay is still an open discussion. Your essay should have had a total of 5 paragraphs.

Kindly keep in mind that there is a minimum 3 sentence requirement per paragraph. Failure to deliver the minimum required number will result in severe points deductions that could lead to a failing score for your test.

Scholarship / Chevening. Networking has helped me collaborate, share information and events with contacts [3]

Tolulope, your networking skills are too academic in nature and will not help your application. The Chevening networking essay must prove that you have the professional capacity to help promote the Chevening scholarship upon your graduation. It should also prove that you have a solid professional foundation that will allow you to make contact with people in your field of work whenever necessary either in the accomplishment of your work tasks or in an effort to help a fellow Chevening alumna or current scholar. This essay doesn't prove that you have any professional capacity to implement an existing network. This sounds more like you are still in college, without any professional work experience, and without a professional network to speak of.

If you want this essay to have a chance of helping your application, you will need to revise the essay to reflect your professional networking experience. Discuss how you developed its foundation, how you maintained it, and how you are presently growing and nurturing that network. After that, you can explain how this network can be of help to you in the future, how the Chevening network will help you, and how your existing and future network can help the scholarship program and its future scholars as well. Remember, after you graduate, you will enter a mentoring role to the next batch of scholars, will most likely need your networking help. That is one of the reasons why you need to present a professional networking discussion in your essay.

Review the prompt requirements and you will see how off-base your essay is from the actual requirements. You can also refer to the sample networking essays here for this scholarship if you need to read examples related to how to develop the proper essay format for this topic.

Writing Feedback / The pie charts below show how dangerous waste products are dealt with in three countries [4]

Gang, you need to use as many synonyms (different words with the same meaning) as you can in your essay because this shows a clear depth of your English vocabulary in relation to your Lexical Resource score. If you can vary your word usage enough throughout the essay, you will also find yourself unconsciously developing more complex sentences. So yes, the textbooks are correct and I would recommend the same in this instance. While the use of keywords are vital in the opening paragraph, variations of the term allows you to prevent reader fatigue since constantly using the same term can be highly redundant.

Do not base your work on the reports of others. Develop your own writing style. If you don't do that, you will be doomed to a limited vocabulary presentation in your essays. Sometimes, you will find yourself falling back on the original term, but only if it is required in a report. In a formal presentation, you may need to stick to one reference word. Since your English skills are being tested in this instance, you need to vary the presentation as best as you can.

In paragraph 3, the reference to the 25% in Sweden is a bit confusing. I would have phrased it instead as; "... much higher than the recycling rate of 25% in Sweden". There are instances when you will need to remind the reader of what the paragraph is about, as in this instance, which helps to clarify your reference material.

Please don't feel disappointed but I feel that the highest base score for this essay is still within the 7 bracket. I know that you so badly want to hit the 8 score but these things can't be rushed. Your improvements are continuous and admirable. I do not doubt that your perseverance will pay off in the future and you will eventually reach the score that is your ideal.

Writing Feedback / The bar chart compares the worldwide sales figures for four different games over 6 years period [9]

Irene, you need to group the discussion points per mobile game, then the sales per year based on the chart. That will allow you to deliver a clear comparison of the sales and create an easier to follow discussion because the reader knows that the information per paragraph is grouped into connected discussions.

Try to develop a better summary overview. The one you have at the moment is inadequate as it does not deliver a clear idea of what the discussion instruction is. You also need to create paraphrased lines that are more different than the original. The one that you have right now is almost exactly the same as the original. It also does not deliver complete information regarding the types of games indicated in the chart and the trending information needs to be better integrated into the overview summary.

While you wrote more than the required word count, it would have been better for your overall score if you could have developed complete 5 sentence paragraphs. The more the lines in a paragraph, the better chances you have of increasing your GRA score through the development of possibly more complex sentences.

Overall, I think you could score a 4 with this essay. There is still room for improvement on your end and I believe that we have the time to accomplish that. Just keep writing and focusing on improving using the suggestions that I have provided to you.

By the way, I would appreciate it if you could include the complete original prompt discussion and instruction next time. I think I can offer you a better review and score if you give me the instructions that you were provided with originally.

Scholarship / MY JOURNEY AS AN UPCOMING YOUNG LEADER IN KENYA [2]

George, your first 4 paragraphs are irrelevant to the essay. Once you remove those paragraphs, your word count will go down to almost the minimum. That reduction will allow you to replace the incorrect information with more appropriate data coming from your being a Quality Assurance Officer at KCA University. Word of advice though, while you can use this final paragraph as the opening statement for your new essay, you will need to use first person pronouns and make sure that you refer only to your leadership and influencing actions within the group.

From the way you are talking in the current paragraph, it sounds more like you are a subordinate working on instructions rather than you giving orders and your subordinates accomplishing them. You need to make sure that this is a real and true leadership experience because Chevening will be checking up on all your claims within your essay. So if this is not a true experience, they will definitely find out. Additionally, the leadership experience that you are relating is too shallow and doesn't seem to really require the sort of decision making and influencing skills that would impress a world class reviewer like the person that reviews the Chevening essays.

You need to portray a pivotal point during your career as a leader when you were called upon to do something that was intricate or complicated and verged on being a failure. If you can successfully explain how you overcame the obstacles through your relationship with your team, then you will have an acceptable leadership and influencing reference in your essay.

As of now, this essay will not compete. It is not qualified for consideration because of the simplicity of the content. Review the work experience of the other Chevening applicants that have asked me to review their essays. Those are your competitors and they were able to come up with more comprehensive and impressive leadership and influencing experience. Their essays should be the template for your revision.

Scholarship / Chevening in pursue of local, perspective leaders and influencers [3]

Sediqqi, your essay is all about the theory of leadership and your hypothetical leadership education. It is not about your leadership experience in the context required by the essay. While this makes for a very interesting personal statement, it is nothing more than that. A college level essay that does a very good job of discussing a topic of value to you. It does not, reflect the leadership experience that you actually have and as such, loses its direction in terms of delivering the necessary information vital to the consideration of your application.

You must write a totally new essay based upon the leadership experience that you gained while you worked at the Ministry of Interior Affairs. Before you write about it, I want you to first reflect upon 2 things of importance to the discussion of the prompt. What is the specific situation that forced you into a leadership experience? How did you work to inspire or influence your co-workers or team mates / subordinates to successfully implement your leadership ideas and objectives? Outline your response to these questions and then develop a draft essay that you can work with to improve which accurately reflects strong responses to these questions. The essay you create will be the new draft for your response to the leadership and influencing essay.

Writing Feedback / [TOEFL] Do students learn much when they work together on assigned projects. [3]

Sajad, you forgot to include the original prompt with your posting. I am not able to assess nor score your essay without knowing what the full discussion requirements are. The original prompt is a standard requirement for all essays being posted at this forum for review. Please remember to attach the picture next time. I'll just give you a general essay assessment for now.

From what I can tell, you may have gone overboard with your opening prompt restatement as you launched into a full discussion immediately when only a paraphrasing was required. Your succeeding paragraphs do not properly focus on a single topic for discussion, which caused a highly confusing and underdeveloped discussion on your paragraphs.

By the way, there is a 5 sentence limitation per paragraph. You must develop your skill in comprehensive writing in order to achieve that. A comprehensively written sentence should not be mistaken for long sentences or run-on sentences. A comprehensive sentence delivers a clear discussion point using only a few words in well structured sentences and paragraphs.

Scholarship / KGSP 2018; program choice motives, family and education circumstances, valid experiences [2]

Sankarshana, your family background needs to be further developed to include a reference as to how your parents are an inspirational figure in your life. It would be best if you could discuss one or both of them as your role models and explain how they are one of the motivating factors in your life. That is important because your parents are the most vital character references that a student can provide. Your parents good character means that they raised a good child who will also be a good citizen.

While your motivation to study in Korea is sound. It also comes across as trying too hard. The motivation needs to come from within you. What is its about Korea that inspires you educationally? Connect your interest in this college course with some sort of Korean educational standard or technological standard that motivates your desire to be trained by the best in their business. Without the personal connection, your motivation is empty and just not enough proof as to why you would make a good student in their university.

For the significant experience, do not include the information about the 12th standard. The essay needs to introduce you more as a person to the reviewer. Your academic documents will more than speak for you as a student. So focus on letting the interview know about who you are and what makes you special. The Dengue story meets that criteria.

You are missing a reference to an influential person in your essay so you need to add that to the information. After you do that, you should remove the outline format of the presentation and smooth it out as a full essay format instead.

Writing Feedback / A person's worth should be judged by social status, material possessions or traditional values [4]

Tadey, here is the thing, you are being asked to write an "extent" essay in response to this prompt. Since that "extent" is requirement for the discussion instruction, your opening statement, though interesting and appropriate to a certain degree, you don't really accomplish the task accuracy requirement of the essay. Consider this more properly representative prompt paraphrase as an example for your future reference:

There is a discussion these days that considers a person's value as directly tied to his personal wealth and social position. It appears that the traditional values of honour, kindness, and trust are no longer considered vital to a person's sense of self-worth. I totally disagree with the prior statement and, in this essay, I will explain why traditional values are still important.

The main fault in your discussion comes from the way that you formatted your original prompt response. You framed it as a single opinion essay and then discussed it as a 2 opinion essay with a personal opinion at the end. In that case, the proper "extent" statement for your response should have been:

"I disagree with the prior statement about wealth and social status being the new measurement of a person's value to a certain extent due to several reasons that I will be discussing in this essay."

Using the above discussion instruction format, your essay allows itself to discuss 2 points of view and a personal opinion instead. Always make sure that you refer to the correct "extent" discussion in your presentations so you can score more in the TA section.

Scholarship / Build a career in business, humanitarian work, activism and diplomacy; why those chosen courses [2]

Jennifer, this is not the way that this prompt is to be responded to. The three university courses that you chose must be discussed individually. Each of the courses must be given its own paragraph that indicates your related academic training, professional connection, and future plans in relation to the course. This is not a poetic essay discussing your personality or academic achievements.

It seems to me that you do not know how to start responding to this essay properly. There are numerous examples of properly written response essays in this forum. All you have to do is read the samples and then revise your essay accordingly. It isn't difficult to do. You just need to use the following format:

1. A summary of your academic background along with a summary of your professional background to the present date.
2. Course 1 - University name - reason why you chose the course - professional experience connection - why this course can help you in your future career.

Repeat number 2 an additional 2 times. One for each university. Then write a closing paragraph that discusses a summary of your future plans. Details of which should be found in your Post Study Plans essay.

Undergraduate / The quiet time. What is important to you and why essay [5]

Chinenye, here is a piece of unsolicited advice. It is alright and admirable to write about your quiet time as a period of self reflection and meditation. It is not okay to relate that point in time to any religious references due to the high degree of tension surrounding such topics. It would be in the best interest of your essay to not "accidentally" insult someone reading your essay because of your description of your religious beliefs. That is, unless you are applying to a religious university. In which case, this essay is right up that alley.

Personally, I would refocus the essay on the topic of learning about myself and finding solutions to my problems through the quiet contemplation that the quiet time allows me. You can even make a reference to meditative yoga if you wish as that is a common relaxation practice in the West and is acceptable as quiet time. I am just worried about the religious reference because it normally does not bode well in terms of application considerations unless in a religious school setting. By the way the term is "evolve" not "revolve".

Undergraduate / MasterCard foundation. Topic of importance essay. [3]

Chinenye, this is truly a subject of importance to you. However, the message that is delivered does not tell me who you are. It reflects the background of your family, the drive of your parents, their ambition for their children, but does not tell me who and why this is important to you beyond the first 3 bits of information I just enumerated. In fact, even the opening of the essay is not about you but about your brother. By the end of the paragraph, I thought the essay was going to be about your brother and I almost stopped reading. The information about you did not come until almost the end of the essay. What is the point of mentioning it then? You would already have lost the interest of the reviewer within the first 2 paragraphs, if you are lucky enough to have him read that far. The reviewer will be looking for personal insight on a topic that reflects your personal development. Not the ambitions of others, not your desire to please our family. Rather, this question is asking you to think of yourself and the point in life that you are at now. Why is your life important to you at this point. Leave the box. Check the family at the door. Focus on you. This is me time. So think of something important to you. It could be a cause, a belief, a desire to achieve something for yourself. Whatever the reason, the only requirement is that it should help to build your character in a written form. This is your chance to let the reviewer know who you are based upon your personal criteria as a person. What else, outside of your desire to please your family is important to you? How has the importance of that topic helped to shape the the person you are today? Think about ideologies, beliefs, opinions. Something that shows the type of character trait that has helped to define you as the person you now are.

Writing Feedback / [IELTS Task2] learning a different language benefits our lives apart from working and traveling [6]

Lin, your score for this essay will fall somewhere between a 5 and 6. There are some problems with your overall presentation, specifically in the opening statement and paragraph 3. The opening paraphrase is not properly formatted. You have included a major discussion of future points for discussion in a paragraph that does not require it. Doing so will result in a lower TA score. The proper presentation should be what you might ask? Well;

Some people are of the opinion that learning a second language should be limited to those who will be working overseas. While others believe that there are other reasons that justify learning a new language aside from the previously mentioned reason. This essay will compare both points of view before I present my opinion regarding the discussion.

You must only present information that is included in the original prompt. Under no circumstances should you present a discussion of facts as you did in this opening statement as that is a deviation of the basic paraphrasing rules. Just write your explanation of what the prompt is all about. Don't add information yet, you don't have the space nor sentence requirement to properly do that in the opening statement.

I think you got confused in paragraph 3. For some reason, you are making reference to how history was passed down before language was invented. What does that have to do with the discussion about languages? Don't confuse yourself. Always concentrate on the prompt requirements and make sure to double check the prompt before you submit the essay for scoring to be sure that is no confusion in your discussion.

Finally, you cannot present the concluding statement as a part of your personal opinion. You must present your personal opinion as a stand alone paragraph because that contains information that should never be presented in a conclusion. You cannot present additional information in the conclusion because that will not close the discussion. It will only leave it open ended, waiting for a proper summary of the discussion in order to close the essay.

Writing Feedback / Some people think that boarding schools are an exellent option for children, while others disagree [3]

Marzuki, the most likely score for this essay will be a 5. I am basing that band score on the fact that the positions your express throughout the essay difficult to understand because of the lack of proper sentence structure and grammar development. These spelling, wrong vocabulary usage, and presentation problems led to the low score. There is no problem with your comprehension skills. The problems come, when you try to express yourself in English. You have a problem spelling the words, which leads to difficulty for the reader. For example, in the first paragraph, you said; "conclusing" instead of "concluding. These sorts of errors could be typographical in nature and unintended on your part, but will definitely have an adverse effect on your final score in the specific section it refers to. In this case, that would be the LR and GRA sections. You also cannot say "theirself". The correct term is "themselves". Other spelling problems are:

Exellent - Excellent
Consedered - Considered
Environtment - Environment

You also need to learn to properly use connecting words such as "the" and "a". If possible, practice simple sentence development exercises. There are available exercises online that can help you do that.

Scholarship / I had always found joy in contributing positively to other people's lives. Chevening Influence Essay [3]

Meidiana, your essay doesn't start off with a strong paragraph. "Since a young age" is the kind of reference that reviewers do not appreciate because it doesn't really mean anything. What age are you referring to? Based upon what experience as a child? Nope. They do not believe that "a young age" qualifies you as having developed a true leadership definition or understanding. It would be best if you simply open the essay in a direct manner, offering a reference to your professional leadership abilities immediately. That will surely catch the reviewer's eye if done properly.

That being said, you must remove the reference to the student committee because that is an amateur leadership trait that doesn't really show a professional leadership ability. Being a university project, there were other people in authority who were truly behind the decision making process. Don't think for one minute that your professor or adviser in charge of the project would not have shot down your suggestions if it were not within preset university guidelines for the occasion. That is why I always advice that applicants never fall back on academic related leadership skills. At that point you are still a "leader in training", not a true leader yet.

Your leadership skills do not seem to be part of your professional work experience. These both sound like you accomplished tasks during your college studies. Is that the case? If that is so, then this is not the way to develop the essay. Most specially since in your last reference, you were not even a real leader but merely a board secretary who decided to take charge of a situation. I do not see any true influencing skills in this instance that will prove your potential as a future leader of your country.

If you can, come up with more professional "crisis management" scenarios where you were the point person on the project. That means, you were in charge and all decisions you made were final. You were not making suggestions, you were making decisions that changed the outcome of a project or inspired your team members towards developing viable solutions that you approved of. It has to be professional sounding, not obviously academic participation trying to sound important because this actual presentation, isn't impressive at all.

Writing Feedback / Social networking is an usefull thing if you use it in the right way. [5]

Song, what is the prompt that you are responding to? Were you asked to just write a statement instead of a full essay? The reason that I ask is because this statement is horribly written. It doesn't follow the proper spacing rules between sentences, you have misplaced punctuation points in some instance, and you are presenting ideas for discussion without really discussing these topics. You are just throwing these information in there without actual explanations.

Now, if you were asked to just write a statement, then my previously stated observations are enough to get you started in a revision. However, if you were supposed to write a full length, 5 paragraph essay, then you have a lot of work to do before you get there. You can get started with developing the topic sentences into individual paragraphs, making sure to thoroughly explain your point of view in each and then creating a proper concluding statement.

At this point, I am not really sure as to how to judge your statement because of the lack of instructions coming from you. If you decide to participate in this forum again, just for practice, please don't forget to give us instructions for the assessment of your work. Thanks.

Writing Feedback / IELTS Task 2: International tourism brings negative consequences for visited countries. [5]

Linh, I admire the effort that you placed into writing this essay. It is analytical and does it best to create a knowledgeable image for you on screen. However, there are a number of mistakes in your discussion development that did not affect the message of the essay but unfortunately still ended up being points deductions because it created errors in your presentation.

For starters, the standard format for all the paragraphs is a minimum of 3 sentences per paragraph. It can never only be 2 sentences. When you write 2 sentences as you did in the opening statement, you will lose C&C as well as TA points. A typical representation of a 3 sentence opening paragraph is as follows:

There are a number of people in the world that have this idea that international tourism is not a good thing for any country. These people have based this belief on several ideas, two of which, will be discussed in this essay. I hope to be able to propose movements at the end of this essay, that will help to remove this negative belief about international tourism.

If you avoid creating long sentences, you will easily meet the minimum sentence requirement per paragraph. Don't write more than 5 sentences per paragraph though, that is another violation of the aforementioned rules. So its minimum of 3 , maximum of 5 sentences. Remember that.

It would be best for your essay if you discuss one topic per paragraph in order to create a more coherent and cohesive paragraph that will best show off your English writing skills. The content of each paragraph should be as follows:

1. Topic sentence
2. Supporting discussion
3. Proposed solution

The above suggested format meets the minimum requirement per paragraph and offers you a chance to truly develop your discussion of a particular topic. You are being judged in the accuracy and completeness of each paragraph, not on the number of information you can provide per paragraph. So the better you explain yourself, the higher your score will be. If you read your current work, you will find that all of your presentations are not accurately explained to the reader. This will again, affect your C&C score in the final tally.

Since there is a minimum 3 paragraph requirement per essay, it is up to you if you want to write 3, 4, or 5 paragraphs for the given topic. If you find you have very little to say, then do your best to write an effective 3 paragraph essay. However, a 4 paragraph essay is normally what brings in the passing score in most instances.

Writing Feedback / Juvenile delinquency in Technology- Grammar correction [2]

Rizka, since you are only asking for grammar correction, I will be instructing you on how to correct the mistakes that you made in the presentation. You can personally apply the corrections to your essay instead. In the first sentence, remove the word "give" and replace it "a". In the second line, capitalize the first word of the sentence as instructed by English grammar rules. Remove the run-on sentence by creating 2 more sentences that refer to the "government attention" and "parent participation". Don't forget to add the period at the end of the last sentence. The current version is missing a period at the end. In the last line, you have the same capitalization errors. Additionally, you cannot start a sentence with the word but. So you have to either use a comma after the word "science" or, revise the sentence structure to have a period after the word "science" and then use a replacement word for but like "However". Same deal, it is missing a period at the end of the presentation.

This sounds like a badly discussed and developed TOEFL essay prompt to me. Since you are not asking for a review of the work though and you only want to focus on grammar correction, then that is all I presented to you in this review.

Undergraduate / Essay on Significant experience or situation that changed my belief or thinking and why. [2]

Chinenye, this is a good draft that has room for improvement and additional information. Before I launch into that though, you need to correct some grammar errors that removes the attention of the reader from your message. These are mostly spelling and vocabulary mistakes that can easily be corrected. Shall we get started?

In the first paragraph, you need to first establish the kind of place that you live in because having your neighbors friend force his way into your room doesn't make sense. There has to be an explanation as to why a neighbor's friend could have easy access to your room. Do not use the word "lounged" because that refers to a state of rest. What you want to say is "launched" which means to suddenly start. The reason for the berating is shallow. Not having a TV is not enough reason for your brother and you to be that hurt as you depict in the essay. Consider some other reason. Something deeper like a reference to family planning, your parents jobs, racial slurs, or something that would call attention to the fact that this could really be an event that transformed your thinking and beliefs.

In the second paragraph. You need to explain why you were embarrassed and what you thought of your family situation at that point. This has to be the contrasting point to the time when your classmates visited her. This has to be the point in the story that had you contemplating your life situation and whether or not it was something you were ready to be proud or ashamed of. Use personal reflection in this paragraph.

Explain the change in your mindset after your friends visited you. Why did they enjoy their visit no matter how small your home was? What made it special for them? You don't really need the last line that you wrote in this essay. It ends on a stronger note with the previous paragraph.

Writing Feedback / What is better for students, living in boarding school or in their parents? [4]

Aulia, somehow, your problem with properly paraphrasing the original prompt is proving to be the biggest problem of your essay writing. You still cannot represent the prompt in the correct manner based upon the first presentation that was offered to you. I wonder how many more examples of correct prompt paraphrasing I have to show you before you start to show some improvement in this aspect of your writing skills. Here I go again:

There are some children whose parents have them live in boarding schools during the school year. They believe that this is a good option for their children. However, there are some parents who contradict this stance due to a number of reasons. In this essay, I will be discussing both debatable sides of the issue in order to present a conclusion to the discussion in the end.

Remember how I keep telling you to present one reason and then fully develop that line of reasoning in the paragraph? I'm really not sure as to why you have great difficulty in doing that owing to the fact that you have 3 body paragraphs to work with here. This is supposed to be a 5 paragraph essay, you only wrote 4 paragraphs. You should have moved the details of the reasoning in the 3rd paragraph that starts with "Finally..." since "finally" connotes that you are discussing a new, unrelated topic. As such, it should be given its own paragraph treatment.

In my opinion, your overall score for this essay should be a 3. I am sure that I need not explain to you why that is. You should have been briefed on the scoring system for English tests by your current teacher or tutor. I sincerely hope to see you improving your writing style with your upcoming essays.

Scholarship / Course choices in Educational Sciences. Chevening essay Studying in the UK [2]

Leyla, aside from the first university choice, where you were able to share a profession related qualification in reference to your preparedness to undertake this course, the other 2 lack that representation. For the other 2 courses, you only discuss the courses itself but you do not make any mention of how these courses relate to your profession or how you are prepared to take and pass these courses should you be admitted to either of them. The final line of discussion that you placed at the end of the essay does not qualify as a general qualification because you need profession specific applications in order to justify and complete your application.

Even if you are interested in these courses, if you cannot relate how the course will help you improve in your career, then the reference becomes useless. You need to always connect the course choice with you professional qualifications. that is not just a suggestion, that is a requirement of this essay.

Basically, your essay needs to be improved using the previous instructions I provided and then, you need to complete a serious grammar editing job in order to clean up your discussion and make the essay easier to understand on the part of the reviewer.

Scholarship / 'nurtured and groomed by parents to be a leader' - Chevening scholarship essay [3]

Mubarak, the Chevening scholarships do not give any weight to personal leadership and influencing examples. They only consider your ability to lead and influence people in a professional setting. That is mainly because you are applying for a masters degree scholarship in relation to your profession. By proving your leadership and influencing skills in that setting, you will be able to prove that you have a purpose for your masters degree studies and that you are capable of going further in your career because of your abilities to direct specific situations to your benefit or benefit of the project. In your current essay, the only part that you can perhaps develop into something similar to what the requirements need is located somewhere within your profession as a medic. You can use the outreach programs in this instance because that is directly related to your line of work. Develop your essay around that profession and leadership / influencing capacity because that is the only part of the essay that works in relation to the prompt requirements. Review the requirements again before you write the new version of your response. You should be able to figure out how to draft your new content based upon the prompt requirements.

Writing Feedback / The children live at boarding school or the other places [4]

Matsuki, first of all, leave the religious references at the door. In a general English test, be it IELTS or TOEFL, it is important to not refer to a specific social status, religion, or gender in order to create an essay that will not offend anyone. So the reference to studying the Qu'ran, take that out. Use general information only.

Next, learn the different word meaning and descriptions for terms. You cannot describe the boarding house a "barracks" because, while that is a type of group housing, that term refers to a military settlement instead of a civilian, educational dormitory. There is also a difference between the words "live" and "life". You have a problem with your English vocabulary usage. The grammar and sentence development is so bad that you will definitely be scored down in all 4 sections of the criteria with your GRA suffering the most and the LR coming in at a close second. This isn't an essay that will pass the test at this point.

At this point, while you did an almost acceptable job in the TA section, you still cannot coherently and cohesively present your line of reasoning and supporting evidence. It may be best for you to not work on these essay exercises yet. You may want to consider doing more sentence structure building exercises first in order to improve your grammar and vocabulary skills.

Writing Feedback / TOEFL: Nowadays working fast has more value than high precision at job? [4]

Sasan, you need to provide the complete original prompt when you post your essay so that we can accurately review and consider your essay writing skills. As of now, I cannot assess your essay for prompt responsiveness as I am unsure as to the directions you were provided for the discussion. However, even with the missing prompt, I can tell you that there are discussion development problems with your essay.

The development problems come from your fondness for run-on sentences. Even with the extremely long sentences, you still managed to write more than the required maximum of 5 sentences per paragraph in most instances. It is important that you learn to express yourself in clearer terms with lesser words. Aim to write a maximum of 300 words within 4 paragraphs (since the conclusion, which represents paragraph 5, is usually optional in a TOEFL test). So you will need to practice writing comprehensive sentences without going over the sentence limit. Don't try to show off your vocabulary skills in the essay, as I can tell that you are trying to do that in this essay. Just aim to be able to explain your point in a clear, concise, and coherent manner.

Undergraduate / Ideal candidate for FIT? Fashion Institute of Technology Admissions Essay - Fashion Design [4]

Emma, don't muddle the essay with references to Guiding, your language skills, and any other non-fashion related references. These are not going to help highlight the reasons why you are a perfect fit for FIT (pun intended). Rather, develop the story about how you worked as an intern at Jigsaw. That is, develop it in a manner that allows you to portray yourself as some sort of stand out in this internship program. Being an intern is one thing, being an extra ordinary intern, that is another story entirely. Simply being an intern at a fashion house will mean nothing if you did not catch the eye of some leading personality at the company or, if you did not accomplish anything of interest as an active intern. That is a section of the essay that should be longer and more intricate because the training you received there could help prove the reasons that you are a qualified candidate for FIT.

When you discuss your fashion design inspirations and icons, it would be best if you offer a paragraph each to each personality instead of simply saying "I love...". The phrase is too amateur and doesn't impress the reviewers. It would be better if you used the terms admire, inspired, inspirational, iconic, icon, and other similar words. Use these descriptive words in order to describe your admiration for these fashion powerhouse names. Make sure to fully explain each inspiration you derive from each person in stand alone paragraphs. At the end of each paragraph, you need to tie in your interest in their fashion ideas and presentations with the reason as to why you chose your particular major.

If you revise the essay in the manner described, you will have time and space to rethink the content of your essay in order to make it more relevant and connected to the prompt requirements. The essay will a have a razor sharp focus that will answer the 2 prompts in an impressive manner.

Scholarship / The importance of developing a network and related skills - CHEVENING [4]

Memduh, this sounds more like a draft for a leadership and influencing essay rather than a networking response to the Chevening prompt. I hope that you still have time to delete this essay so you can write a new and more appropriate response to the prompt. For this essay, you need to understand and accomplish a few things.

First of all, the internet is not considered part of a personal / professional network. I wonder where you got that definition because nobody has ever mistaken the internet for a personal or professional network. While it is a network on its own, it is not the kind of network that Chevening is talking about. Chevening is asking you about the professionals you meet in your line of work and how you utilize them to help you achieve certain tasks, expectations, or career opportunities within your field of expertise. How do you meet these people? From what fields are they from? Have they actually helped you in any way with regards to the previously mentioned occurrences?

Next, think of how you developed this network. Explain how you maintain them for your present and future use. Do you think that this network will still be of benefit to you after you graduate and enter the mentor phase of your Chevening path? As a potential alumna of the scholarship, you will be expected to use your network for the benefit of the new scholars and other graduates who may need your help if you share the same profession. How do you plan to help promote Chevening within your personal network?

The guide questions above should help you get started on a more relevant draft of the essay requirement. Do not use this essay as it will be detrimental to your application. It shows that you do not even understand simple English questions and instructions. This essay will end your application process sooner rather than later. Develop a new one within the guideline parameters I set up for you.

Writing Feedback / Crime appears to be rising in most countries in the world, especially among young people. [3]

Ahmad, since you did not provide the original prompt for my consideration and comparison with your paraphrasing. I cannot accurately say that you could have done a better job at doing a paraphrase. It is difficult to assess that part since there is no comparison point. Please remember to always post the original prompt with your response essay so that you can be better assessed regarding that all too important scoring point of your essay requirements. That said, I did notice a number of problem points in your body paragraphs.

the major problem with your body paragraph discussion is that you have too many topics going on in one paragraph. This has led to a weak development of your reasoning and justification skills for each point that you presented. The paragraphs turn out to be half baked or under-developed because there is no real point to your line of reasoning. That is why there is a single topic per paragraph requirement. One topic sentence followed by 4 supporting sentences and you are sure to get a higher GRA and C&C score. That is simple enough for you to accomplish. After all, you have 3 justification paragraphs allotted for the discussion. Present 2 points per paragraph then make the last body paragraph a strong discussion of a collective solution addressing the 2 problem points. You have to hit 2 birds with one stone, so to speak. That is the only way to make sure that you can improve your scores in the overall criteria consideration. Your opening paragraph and conclusion are composed of 2 run one sentences. Since this is all about proving your ability to write in an understandable manner in English, try to write using more individual sentences. That is the best format for both because there is a 3-5 sentence requirement per paragraph. Any less than 3 sentences and you will lose points in the C&C score section.

Undergraduate / NYU TISCH- Describe an event in your life and how it changed you or someone close to you [4]

Lia, this is nothing more than a creative writing exercise on your part. It does not appropriately address any of the prompt requirements because it focuses on too many characters and an event that happened way too early in your life to actually have an effect on the person you are today. You will need to delete this whole essay. It doesn't work. Think of a more recent time when you had an experience with your father that you feel could have strengthened your father-daughter bond. It needs to be a shared experience because you will need to explain how it changed either your father and his point of view about you or perhaps, it effected a change in you as a person. Either way, this has to be an incident that clearly shows a development of something in either one or both personalities. There has to be a sense of connection on a more mature manner between the characters. That is, if you choose to still write the new essay about your relationship with your father. If you want to change the topic, then go right ahead. You just need to make it more about you as a young adult than as a little girl. The little girl doesn't show any remarkable change that could affect who she is today. Reflect and consider your recent life events then decide how you wish to proceed with the theme of your new essay for the same prompt.

Scholarship / Clear post-study Career Plan Both Short and Long Term upon Returning Home - (Chevening Scholarship) [5]

Jennifer, this is not a post study plan. This is a college application personal statement. As such, this is not the essay that you should be submitting to the Chevening committee as they will realize the error and immediately cancel your scholarship application. It seems to me that you do not understand what a post study plan is all about. Let me explain it to you.

The post study plan is more like a plan of action or procedure as to how you will exercise and implement the knowledge that you will have gained during your time studying your specific masters degree. Think back to the reasons why you wanted to study a masters degree in your field of interest. After you study, do you think you will be equipped to solve those problems? If you answer yes, then how do you plan to do that?

Base your plan on your future career goals and aspirations. Don't forget to make a UK connection with your plans because of the scholarship requirement in that aspect. Your future plans need to tie in with a UK sponsored project in your country. So before you write a new draft, make sure you have the UK connection threshed out first.

Scholarship / Chevening is looking for individuals who have a clear post-study career plan. [4]

Ellora, the first paragraph doesn't really blend with the essay content that you wrote. It's just a word filler. Always begin your essay with a direct response to the prompt. Now, about the reference to the civic work that you did with 3 others, revise that paragraph to focus only on your participation within. Then directly connect that with your plans for your NGO over a period of 5 years. It is very important, essential, and beneficial to your application that you find a UK based NGO in Nigeria that has similar functions to yours. Discuss plans to initiate contact with that group through your NGO so that you can fulfill the prompt requirement about your plans having a direct relationship with the interests of the UK sponsored projects in your home country. Build on that plan in a manner that makes it the predominant plan in the essay in order to call the reviewers attention and make your essay standout among the other applicants. After all, that is a major prompt requirement that should not be overlooked. Explain why such a collaboration is of vital importance to your plans. Revise your essay completely so you can also have better control over the word count. About 300-400 words will be sufficient for your essay purpose. 500 exactly would be even better.