Writing Feedback / [TOEFL] Big company vs Small company [6]

A spellchecker can be useful, but it can also lead to a certain amount of mental laziness, to repeat what I said recently on another thread. Ideally, you should proofread for spelling yourself first, then spellcheck to catch the errors you missed, so that you get into the habit of avoiding spelling errors without a computer to help you.

Research Papers / research paper "influence of financial status parents on their children" i need [5]



What kind of research question can you a worker who constructs things? Your question is nonsensical. "Wright" is the wrong word here. You mean "write" throughout.

Well, you could start with "what influence does parents' financial status have on their children?" You might narrow it down to look at influence on a specific aspect of the children's lives. So, what is the influence on their school grades? Their incidence of violent behavior? Their prospects for future career success? Their likelihood of liking reality television? Okay, so that last one was a bit facetious, but really, you can focus on whatever you find most interesting about the topic.

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

"While working and interacting with the physicians, I noticed that their sources of satisfaction came not only from saving lives"

"as well as their unique life experiences, cultures, and values." Don't forget the final comma before the "and" at the end of a list.

Graduate / MBA demanding/challenging situation Essay [9]


Yes. This avoids the dangling modifier which would indeed have been created otherwise.


much


Yes.


No. Not ever in anything formal.


I think this is fairly obvious as is, actually. I suppose the opening might seem a bit misleading, as you do start out talking about how hard the job was -- i.e. that is was a challenge -- but the notion of your overall experience involving a double challenge seems reasonable given the prompt.

Undergraduate / UCF Admissions essay - family history environment / culture - suggestions / proofread? [21]


That really cuts to the heart of it. In your intro, you talk about the importance of having been exposed to two cultures, then spend the entire essay only really talking about one. Plus, when do you mention American culture, you take an essentially negative stance. Now, if your essay is part of an application to an American university, this might not be such a great tack to take.

Writing Feedback / Should parents be held responsible for acts of vandalism committed by their children? [17]

Okay, your first body paragraph is much stronger now, content-wise, and is wholly on topic. Your second body paragraph is a bit better than it was:



The sentences above mean that your second paragraph is more on-topic. But, the rest of the paragraph still isn't focused enough. For instance, you go on to say how the vandalized store went out of business anyway, in spite of the vandal's parents paying the damage. So, clearly that didn't help much.

Writing Feedback / Tools to attract people to work. [6]

You seem to be using the term "workers" to refer both to people who have jobs, and to people who need jobs, whether they have them or not. However, the essay prompt specifically asks you about a plan to help the unemployed, i.e. those who have no work. As a result, your use of the same term to mean two different things (equivocation) leads to a fair amount of confusion. Also, while you are to be commended for thinking about the causes of unemployment before trying to answer this sort of prompt, you may go into them a bit too deeply, at the expense of discussing the actual topic.

Writing Feedback / [TOEFL] Big company vs Small company [6]

Watch out for spelling mistakes even the best spellchecker won't catch:

"Secondly, a large corporation gives one the opportunities to develop important business skills."

Writing Feedback / Any suggestions on this "tent" descriptive essay? [5]

Overall this is really quite interesting. Try not to get carried away, though. Sometimes, your imagery becomes a bit too wordy, and makes your essay less, not more exciting. For instance:

"The waterproof skin barricaded me from any water of which Mother Nature intended to expel" The original is just verbose. A simpler sentence would be more effective:

"The waterproof skin barricaded me from any potential rain." If you want to dress it up some, you could add some descriptive work that builds a stronger image, instead of merely diluting an already simple one:

"The waterproof skin barricaded me from the torrents of rain I expected the black thunderheads scudding overhead to unleash at any moment."

Good luck with your revisions.

Writing Feedback / Identify what are the most important features of an ideal community and why they are important? [10]

I just gave another student feedback on an essay on this topic, and I'll give the same advice here as I did there -- you need to find some unifying principle you can tie all of your points back to. What connects neighborhood appearance and schools? How do they both work together to improve the neighboorhood in a single way or set of ways? Having a common element will greatly strengthen your essay.

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

It will indeed be interesting to see if your effort here pays off in the marks department. I strongly suspect it will -- you have put a lot of effort into this essay, and it shows.

Undergraduate / Essay for U-Chicago - it's a little childish.. [32]

I find that most people who are good at writing read a lot too, so I thought you were probably an avid reader. In any event, you certainly can be proud of your work, which doesn't evidence any indication of being written by someone who isn't fully fluent in English.

Writing Feedback / IELTS; GENDER EQUALITY @ UNI ADMISSION [4]

Feel free to post your revised version for even more feedback.

Writing Feedback / I believe that police protection and good schools are the main factors to create an ideal community [19]

You're on the right track, I'd say. Mostly, I would have written the introduction differently, to emphasize the key principles that underlie my version of the ideal community. You essentially picked two items from the list in the prompt, without really connecting them to any underlying principles. But, the two you picked work really well together, because they both go to issues of security. The most basic prerequisite for a strong community is security. A police presence to deter criminals is certainly one way to provide security, but by itself it isn't very ideal. The police are their to punish, not to protect, in most cases. That is, they show up after someone has been harmed, and track down and punish the evildoers. They have a much harder time preventing crime in the first place. That's where education comes in. The higher a person's level of education, the less likely he or she is to engage in crime, and the more likely that any crime he or she does engage in will be non-violent. So, having a highly educated populace also makes a community more secure. You don't make these (or any other) connections, and so your essay seems a bit odd, as if you had picked out the points for your answer from the prompt without ever really getting at the core issue you are supposed to be discussing. At least, that was my feeling after reading your essay a couple of times.

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

I'm wondering now where the spellchecker for this site comes from. I notice Word's doesn't flag any of the words on the list so far, and I'm pretty sure they aren't ones I've added. Also, I notice that we can actually add words to this spellchecker (or at least we moderators can, I don't know if contributors and/or regular students have that option as well). So, the three words on the existing list should no longer get flagged here.

Essays / Essay on myself, how to write it? [35]

Oh right, way back at the beginning this thread was supposed to about writing an essay on oneself. Yes, this is the sort of assignment that requires you to post a draft if you want meaningful feedback, as we need to know a bit about you before we can help you mold your ideas into a convincing essay.

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

Your second sentence seems to sort of contradict your first one in this part . . . if you only really feel complete at Christmas, when you can lose yourself in warm fuzzy memories of your childhood, how does that show that you are a self-confident individual who has learned to overcome life's obstacles on a day-to-day basis?

Undergraduate / Are there any experiences or accomplishments that helped define you as a person [5]


Conflict is the heart and soul of a good narrative. You manage to gloss over yours in a single sentence. Show us how you struggled to overcome your self-doubts, what events caused you to slowly begin to believe in yourself, and so on.

Writing Feedback / I believe that police protection and good schools are the main factors to create an ideal community [19]

Now wait a minute, I don't see why you couldn't say that people have always needed to try to make their community more ideal. The longing to make things better than they are, even when they are already pretty good, seems to be fundamental to the human race. One could disagree with this proposition, of course, but it doesn't seem immediately nonsensical.

This might lead, in an essay not meant to be written in under an hour, to an interesting discussion of the paradox inherent in the notion of creating an ideal community when the individuals who compose it, according to the very phrasing of the prompt, have different ideas of what an ideal community should be.

Essays / Help with psychology essay: the information and sensitivity criteria [5]

Aye, your phrasing be a tad confusing. Whose information and sensitivity criteria do you mean? In any event, this sounds suspiciously like a semi-rhetorical question, the sort that you wouldn't be asked unless the answer is "yes." Note, though, that the "impact" you discuss may be either negative or positive, though again, the question sort of implies an expectation that you will talk about a positive rather than a negative impact.

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

"Workers may feel stressed or threatened by their boss' presence, and, as a result, they are likely to make more mistakes and be less productive."

OR

"Workers may feel stressed or threatened by their boss' presence; as a result, they are likely to make more mistakes and be less productive."

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

Well, as you've already handed it in, I'll forebear from giving overly detailed feedback now, but your essay seems to have improved greatly from previous versions. I hope you get a good mark.

Undergraduate / Essay for U-Chicago - it's a little childish.. [32]

You seem very worried about your general style and grammar use, but you don't need to be -- the essay is extremely well-written. I'm guessing you probably read a lot, yes?

Essays / "The delights and frustrations of a teenager" - Expository Essays Help [18]

Your teacher will likely also expect you to use a specific citation style, so be sure to find out which one before writing up your bibliography.

Undergraduate / Medical Secondary [26]

Spellcheckers aren't very bright. Even when they do correctly flag a word as misspelled, they can usually only suggest the correct spelling if you are off by a single letter. If you are off by two, then it gives up.

Essays / "The delights and frustrations of a teenager" - Expository Essays Help [18]

Ah. I see. You cobbled your essay together from random website. That's never good. You don't learn anything that way, and the final product isn't even likely to net you a high mark. You sort of have the worst of both worlds.

Essays / "The delights and frustrations of a teenager" - Expository Essays Help [18]

"Adults nowadays do not understand what are the delights and frustrations of a teenagers ."

"I believe that frustrations outweighs delights in the world today." Avoid using "I believe." It is your essay; obviously it therefore expresses your beliefs. Also, you might want to add a summary of your reasons for believing this, perhaps previewing some of the frustrations and delights in question.

Hmmmm . . . the rest of your essay seems to deal entirely with the frustrations of being a teenager. Unfortunately, this sort of ignores half of the topic. Worse, you haven't found anything to unite this litany of complaints, so it reads something like a semi-random list of things teenagers dislike about being teenagers.

Wait, I see you do mention the delights after all. But, you have no transition into them, and then, after mentioning them, you completely change your thesis to the opposite side. *Sigh*

Third times a charm -- find a common factor, something you can use to link your ideas beyond their all being frustrations or delights. That will give you some way to meaningfully organize your essay.

Writing Feedback / increase minimum wage [3]

Minimum wage laws are established in Canada and each province has its own minimum wage law.


This is a fragment.


Revise for parallel structure.

Go through and try tightening up your writing, using fewer words to make the same points. Also while your content is fairly solid, you have left out consideration of one of the main arguments against minimum wages, namely that they tend to merely drive inflation. That is, the companies that are forced to pay their workers minimum wage merely pass on the costs to their customers. You sort of touch on this, and say that the public doesn't oppose it, but this misses the point -- if the minimum wage results in general inflation, then, in the end, the workers end up getting paid no more in real dollars than they would if there had been no minimum wage. This would result in the government needing to constantly increase the minimum wage (which you admit it does) without ever really being able to chase down the social benefits it is meant to bring.

Undergraduate / Essay for U-Chicago - it's a little childish.. [32]

This is a very thoughtful essay, and certainly not childish. You have in fact employed a thesis, antithesis, synthesis structure of the sort Simone and I were recently discussing on another thread, and you have employed it very well. Some minor fixes and suggestions for you:

"I am eager to talking to my new neighbors"

"Shanghai can be developed to make it as modern as other cities ,"


"Why" are "you" putting random "words" in quotations?

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


Ouch. That is pretty rough. On the other hand, it does force you to master the use of English grammar if you want to do well, which is a useful skill set to possess.

Writing Feedback / Should parents be held responsible for acts of vandalism committed by their children? [17]

Your only problem with taking Simone's approach is that it still leaves open the question of why parents, specifically, should be the ones to pay. You could argue that the parents should have better socialized their kids, but then your second point becomes very similar to your first point. You could merely write this as an extension of your first point, I suppose, but I think replacing this paragraph with a second, more distinct reason might make your essay a bit stronger.

Writing Feedback / [TOEFL] The number of cars will increase in the future [6]

In fact, the conclusion could do with some serious cutting:

Before: "In conclusion, I strongly believe that there will be more car consumption in the future because of the increase in population and people's inclination to use things that are convenient and efficient"

After: "Car consumption will increase with the population because of people's inclination to use things that are convenient and efficient."

Undergraduate / Medical Secondary [26]

It's funny, actually. When I posted the sentence with "underserved" in it order to make the other grammatical corrections, the word got underlined by the spellchecker, which doesn't like compound words. I just automatically used the auto-correct to "fix" it without really thinking. This highlights the dangers of relying too much on technology, which can lead to a certain amount of mental laziness.

Writing Feedback / Identify what are the most important features of an ideal community and why they are important? [10]

Orlando, if you want feedback on your own writing, you should post your essay in a new thread. This one is supposed to be all about helping bubuvio improve his essay.

bubuvio, you might want to more clearly define what you mean by "good neighborhood" and "good schools" in your introduction. We can more or less figure it out by the end of your essay, but it would be nice to know in advance where you are going to go with your arguments.

Scholarship / MBA Scholarship Short Personal Statement [12]


This was my first thought, too. You could also talk about how the experience changed your values, or gave you a unique perspective on life or business, which would also allow you to tie the opening anecdote back to the topic.

Undergraduate / Medical Secondary [26]

Whoops. I misread the original. Yes, underserved works.

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

I liked the Godzilla metaphor, which was, I assume, intentionally humorous. I'd focus mostly on revising the intro and conclusion, as I said before.

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

A boss is defined as "a person who employs or superintends workers" (dictionary.reference.com).


I don't think you mean what you have actually said here. A boss's perception (of what?) depends on the outlook of his employees? Huh? Revise.


Traits in whom? I assume in bosses, but based on the construction of the last sentence, grammatically it seems as if you are talking about employees.

"yet never stops to consider all the times the employee has went above and beyond for the sake of the company.

"I think most employees will agree that communication, flexibility, and trust" Note the comma before the "and."

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


Really? You mean like the millions of Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, and Atheists that collectively make up most of the worlds population?

The body of your essay is actually quite good, being all touching and heartfelt and all that. Your writing style is refreshingly straightforward and direct, too, which helps.

Then, we reach your conclusion.


But, uh, that was the whole point of the assignment.


Nothing in your anecdote shows this.


Or this. Worse, this is all boilerplate, written without conviction and in such a way as it could be made to apply to any university simply by changing the name of the uni. The contrast with the body of the essay makes this glaringly obvious. I suggest creating a more natural transition into a discussion of how dealing with your parents divorce has prepared you for university, or else just eliminate this paragraph altogether, and stop your essay at the end of your previous paragraph.

Essays / Would you consider today's society "celebrity obsessed" ? [6]

Start by defining "celebrities." (Really, you should always start by defining your key terms). What made Michael Jackson a celebrity? Farrah Fawcett? Princess Di? Are they all the same sort of celebrity? Who in society obsesses about them? Why do so many people take an interest in celebrities to begin with? Is it any coincidence that the listed celebrities received the most intense coverage just after their deaths?

Hmmmmm . . . that last paragraph consisted of a series of questions for you to answer, almost like the beginning of a brainstorming activity . . .