Undergraduate / Satisfactions from activities as a physician - Columbia University Secondary [35]

I suppose you mean that as a joke. Actually, some linguists feel that Black English, which is the dialect spoken by many U.S. rappers, is where American English is evolving anyway. Languages evolve toward simplicity. Many elements of Black English (which is attractive for other reasons, such as expressiveness) show the usual trend in the evolution of a language, which is toward concision by the elimination of the unnecessary.

For example:
5 cents (standard English)
5 cent (Black English)
The "s" is superfluous, since the "5" tells you that the noun is plural.

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

I've been misunderstood! My "recommendations" were just random juxtapositions of literary works and topics. They were absurd! My point was that it is simply not possible to give somebody a good recommendation without further information about matters such as what they have and have not read, what they like and dislike, what broad genre or time period interests them, etc., etc.

Stacy, at least you have begun to do that. So you want to focus on teens and/or sexuality. In literature? Worldwide or from a specific country? What have you already read that fits within those topics? What interests you about those topics?

Graduate / Masters Statement in life science [5]


I'm not sure what this means. Other sentences in the introduction are similarly awkwardly phrased.

In the middle of the essay, the sudden shift to talking about your job and then the sudden shift to talking about your leisure activities feel jarring. At minimum, better transitions are needed.

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

I like your example of the theft perpetrated against you and the examples of the thefts perpetrated against your neighbors. I especially like your account of your community's response to the crimes. This is useful and unique information. For the essay to be stronger, the introduction should introduce your community rather than talking broadly about crimes and theft. For example, you could say something like "Theft is a problem in many communities. The members of [name of community] decided to fight back."

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

Right. You went off on a time-consuming wrong track by focusing on the different kinds of books. What they were looking for is an answer to the age-old question of the relative value of "book learning" (formal education) versus practical experience.

Undergraduate / "To persue studies on a dedicated level" - Common App. Transfer Essay [4]

Oh, heavens, this is far too rambling to be acceptable as an application essay. The opening line is strong, but then you meander all over the place. This is like a journal entry. It's good as what we call "pre-writing" -- writing to figure out what you have to say -- but will not do as an essay. Say what you say here in no more than two paragraphs and then spend the rest of the essay specifically saying how you will "pursue studies on a more dedicated (and successful) level." What, other than your attitude is going to change? What will they see from you as a student and a member of the campus community if they accept you? How will you contribute to the campus while you are there and what will you do with your education after graduation?

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

First, it's perfectly acceptable, if asked whether you agree or disagree, to choose one position and argue it strongly. That's what you should do, if that's what comes naturally to you. This can, but need not, include raising and refuting an argument for the other position.

Only if specifically asked to explain both sides of a question are you required to do so. In that case, simply list for yourself all of the arguments you can think of on each side. Then, one way to structure the essay is to fully explain the strongest argument from each side, listing the other arguments briefly. Then you may (unless instructed not to pick a side) use a paragraph to explain why you feel one side or the other has the stronger argument.

Undergraduate / "Experiences or accomplishments that defined me as a person" [5]

Right. We don't know anything about you. We can't help without seeing at least a list of things you might include.

Undergraduate / "My Name" - Common Application short answer essay [8]

I think the paragraph is fine as a short answer.

A punctuation correction:

"Vishal Patel, representing the delegation of Gabon."

Undergraduate / Suggestions for personal statement for Top university (Chinese in Canada) [11]

Yes, we get to know you very well from the essay. From the part about the city, we see your philosophy and creativity; from the story of the moment of silence, we learn how you go about solving problems.

Undergraduate / 'in disbelief and shock after our win' - University of Florida essay [24]

You're welcome. Don't forget to let us know how it turns out.

Undergraduate / "Fleeting memories" - Are there any significant experiences you have had.... [16]

Hmmm. Now you have two powerful pieces with two very different tones. I actually liked the first and thought that it could be salvaged if, toward the end, you became more specific.

This second one is again very original, demonstrating your creative ability with language (although you will need to clean up the grammar so that deliberate sentence fragments don't look like errors.) But I worry that it might be almost too vivid in its emotionality. I'd like to hear what others think.

Clearly, though, you can write. So, it's just a matter of hitting on the right story and message to which to apply your creative writing ability. So, don't despair if this goes through a few iterations. You're going to end up with a very strong essay by the end of the process, I can already tell.

Undergraduate / "Want to be a doctor" - Penn State, personal statement [26]

Wow. I am always amazed anew at how collective effort can lead to truly powerful writing that still expresses the author's intention and personality. Everybody deserves congratulations on this one.

Writing Feedback / Least Favorite Place Essay [8]

This is fine as a brief statement but is not a complete essay. You can easily expand it by using what you have now as your introduction and then expanding (in separate paragraphs) on each of the three reasons you dislike the place.

Speeches / How to start Self Introduction in front of several people? [4]

Either is fine in a formal setting. Informally, people tend to say "I'm..." rather than "My name is..."

Undergraduate / Common App Essay: What I learned playing piano at a nursing home. [5]


Were they playing the little songs or classical pieces? If not, rephrase.

While doing so, remember not to use a pronoun (rather than the proper noun) in the first sentence of a paragraph, as this may confuse the reader as to what or whom the pronoun refers.

So, in revising this sentence, you need to say "the residents" instead of "they" and also adjust either the main clause or the introductory phrase, the subjects of which currently conflict.

The essay is strong but would be stronger if, in your conclusion, you demonstrated your intellectual curiosity by showing that you have taken the trouble to look for answers to your question about why music moves people so deeply and/or educated yourself about the ways that music is particularly useful to people with neurological disorders. I don't mean that you should turn this into a research paper, just that you should show yourself to be somebody who doesn't idly wonder such a thing without at least doing a little Googling to see what experts such as Oliver Sacks have to say about it.

Book Reports / Key to get re-submitted! Anicent World History Paper [31]

I struggled to understand this essay, in part because the organization is so weak. Or, rather, because there seems to be no organization at all. Each paragraph begins anew, seeming to bear no relation to the paragraph that has gone before. What I think you should do is look over what you've written, extracting from it the main ideas that you are expressing. Put those ideas into some sort of logical order, and then shift the paragraphs around to fit that order. Write transition sentences to make each paragraph follow from the one before. Finally, put a summary of your main ideas in the introduction in order to prepare the reader for what is to come.

Undergraduate / Satisfactions from activities as a physician - Columbia University Secondary [35]

The difference between then and now is truly global multimedia. So, while the tendency in the past was for languages to diverge, as Latin did completely and English has done partially, there is now the possibility of a new global English, similar to the pidgin languages that have always sprung up at trading posts, to arise via the "trading post" of the internet.

Here's another interesting twist: While trade has usually been the basis of such language development, we now have a situation where cultural products are also driving culture change. For example, many young people around the world are learning English in order to understand hip hop/rap lyrics and, indeed, learning English in part through hip hop and other popular music. And so, you can sometimes hear songs made by, for example, Croatian rappers, in which the English used comes from hip hop rather than international business culture.

Undergraduate / Suggestions for personal statement for Top university (Chinese in Canada) [11]

The content of this essay is superlative. The description of you cycling through the city is very vivid, and the comparison between the city and yourself is clear and sophisticated. I like that you also discuss the moment of silence; however, I would like to see a better transition into that story and a better integration of it into your overall thesis.

There are a few grammatical errors, which I will trust our expert grammar-checking forum members to point out. For my part, I'll point out that "tripping" to Disneyland and Cuba has a connotation you probably do not want to create, so you should choose a different word there. Also, I wonder whether "ponderation" is a word and, even if it is, suggest that you choose another way of phrasing that idea.

Undergraduate / About my environment - admission essay topic [7]

This essay starts off very strong but then fades and fizzles at the end. What's great about the beginning is that it's lively, detailed, and specific. What's wrong with the last paragraph is that it's vague and therefore lifeless. The penultimate paragraph is in between. Work on bringing the spirit and specificity of the first paragraph to the paragraphs that follow.

Great start!

Writing Feedback / CBEST-writing: an unforgettable person; 'my grandfather always wore his black glass' [5]

Yes, I do think it fits the topic. I like the details that you give about your grandfather and would like to see even more. I'd also like a stronger and less generic introduction.

Graduate / MBA - Career Progess and Goal Essay [9]

This essay will need to be trimmed ruthlessly. It's far too long. I suspect that an Admissions Officer would quit on it about a third of the way in.

You can cut in two ways: by cutting content and by making your language more concise. You should do both.

Concerning content, read through the essay asking yourself at every sentence: Are these details essential to the story? If not, and they don't add anything else (such as a more entertaining reading experience or a glimpse of your personality), omit them.

Once you've settled on what you will and won't say, add a sentence or two to your introduction that orients your reader to what is to come, the overall trajectory of your career and the conclusion you would like the reader to draw from that.

It's no use correcting sentences that may be cut, so I'll wait for your revision before making specific suggestions about sentences.

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

For the most reliable information, you should use the internet resources available via your school library. This way, you will be sure of choosing sources that your teacher considers acceptable and that are, indeed, reliable. For books, you can use Google Books.

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

Or we could just randomly pair up novels and themes, pulling from all times and places, since that wasn't specified either:

Humor in Lysistrata vs Catcher in the Rye

Images of women in Slaughterhouse Five versus Last Exit to Brooklyn

Sexuality in the late novels of Charles Dickens

Sexual orientation in the early novels of Jeanette Winterson

Really, the possibilities are so endless as to be absurd. We need to know more in order to be helpful.

Book Reports / Courage exists in several forms ;To Kill a Mockingbird - Various types of courage [5]


Demonstrating that some people show courage sometimes is not quite the same thing as demonstrating that courage is a prominent characteristic among those people. I'm having a hard time seeing this as an accurate thesis statement.

Writing Feedback / "Separate classrooms for male and female students" - practice ACT Essay [4]

Just FYI, you missed (and probably aren't aware of) the strongest reason this has been suggested: not because boys will be distracted by girls but because a drop-off in math achievement at around age 12 has been demonstrated in girls and seems to be associated with conformity to gender roles as puberty approaches.

Also, again just FYI, you don't need separate classrooms for male and female students to be treated differently -- they already are. Numerous studies have demonstrated preferential treatment for male students (calling on them more often, praising them for correct answers, giving them credit for answers that were actually first put forward by girls, etc.) Separate classrooms keeps this from happening, or so the theory goes.

Writing Feedback / Story that affected me most - my TOEFL essay [5]

Yes, I like the details in this story very much. Your grammar and sentence structure are quite good, with only minor errors or occasional awkward phrases.

Undergraduate / The Most Influential Person in my Life essay (my husband) [6]

Flesh out your introduction with a preview of the points you are going to make about Fred.

Make sure to use Fred's name (not a pronoun) the first time you mention him in each paragraph.

Writing Feedback / Letter to a Manager; You were delivered with different items to what you ordered! [9]


It's always hard to catch one's own errors. That's why professionally written pieces go through both editing and proofreading before they are published. Always have somebody other than yourself look at anything you write before you send it off or turn it in.

Writing Feedback / Advertisements affects on consumer goods - ielts preparing [15]


That's always good to do. Also ask, "Is that really true? How do I know? Is it a fact or just my opinion or guess?"


"Several" in the sense of separate is generally only used in legal documents, such as leases.

Writing Feedback / Similarities of Love and Jealousy in today's society - Dreaded Shakespear [42]

Hmmm... I think what your teacher is saying is that you substituted summarization for explanation. In other words, you said a lot but never really explained your thesis.

"Sounds too conversational" means that your language is not sufficiently formal. This may also refer to lack of organization or structure.

Writing Feedback / CBEST-writing: an unforgettable person; 'my grandfather always wore his black glass' [5]

Keep your verb tenses consistent:

"Every time me and my brother went [past tense] to his house, he always [present tense] smiles and prepares [present tense] our favorite yogurt drink to welcome us. Because of my parents' occupations, they were [past tense] always busy at work."

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

If you are studying literature, then I assume you have some novels that you like. Start there. Think of one or two of your favorite novels. Do a little Googling or searching in academic databases to see what literary critics and other scholars have had to say about them. You could also list them here, to see if we have any ideas. But the question as you have framed it here is just too broad for us to be helpful to you. We could suggest random topics from the whole of the field of literature, but I can't imagine that would be helpful.

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

Your topic is good, especially since the concerns of intersexed individuals have begun to be discussed more openly in recent years. I'm confused, however, by the second paragraph, which doesn't seem to tie into the rest of the essay.

Your grammar is generally good although, as is so often the case, your writing will be stronger if you strive to make it more concise. You might also want to do a little research on the topic about which you're writing. Not to make this a research paper but simply to inform yourself about what the people for whom you express concern have to say for themselves.

Writing Feedback / Credit cards's advantages [8]

Not to mention that the benefit of not carrying cash is obtained by a debit card, without any of the risk of debt overload that comes with a credit card.

Essays / "The opportunity to teach something you know" - GED Prep Class Essay help [5]

Right: It's always a good idea to ask for clarification from teachers rather than just guessing what they want. And, these days, you can often ask by email rather than waiting for the next class session.

Speeches / a lost word speech [6]

I'm looking forward to this essay too. You definitely want to check out the OED in general, not just for this assignment. For this assignment, you might also want to ask older people in your life if they can think of any word that has fallen out of use that they miss.

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

I like the three objects idea but, unless the three objects in question jump out at you immediately, you may need to work backwards, asking yourself which characteristics you want to demonstrate and then choosing objects accordingly. A more challenging way to do it would be to ask yourself: Which objects do I actually touch/use most often in the course of a day or week?

Writing Feedback / Mythology - Timeless Questions - Timeless Answers [3]

Sean is right. You've got some good insights but the essay as a whole is incoherent due to lack of organization. Let me guess: You just sat down and started writing without outlining first, right? Now you've got to go back, pull out the main idea of each section, and then create an outline that moves through those points in some logical order. Then move the paragraphs around to fit the outline. Then write transition sentences as well as an introduction and conclusion that match the rest of the essay.

Undergraduate / "My grandparents" - UCF Undergrad essay [6]


Whoa -- that's an overly long sentence. It's good to say that you want to use your college years to find out what you want to do. Just say it more simply. You might also, as Sean suggests, give an idea of what you'd jump into right away. Look at the active campus groups. If you were on campus right now, which would you join?