Writing Feedback / The consequences of deforestation would be even more serious than the global warming [4]

Rain, there is a bit of confusion regarding your prompt requirement. The statement sounds more like an opinion essay. Yet, it is asking you agree or disagree with a statement. However, the statement is not stating an opinion but rather the beginning of a question. Kindly double check the instructions and make sure that this is not an opinion essay. Now, regardless of the type of essay discussion you are actually trying to present, the fact remains that you did not offer an agreement or disagreement with the statement provided. You cannot say "I think..." when the essay asks you to respond with "I agree to an extent" or "I disagree to an extent". Your approach to the task is wrong. Which shows a lack of understanding of the prompt requirement. Which in turn, will result in a failure of your task accuracy score. I suggest that you review the prompt requirement, make sure that you are discussing the essay in the manner expected by the examiner, and then write the essay again. Right now, this essay will get a failed score. I'll give you a chance to rewrite this essay though because it looks like the prompt requirement you stated here is unclear or misrepresented.

Graduate / This is an essay for admission to an American university for masters in construction management. [29]

Ratan, this essay is ready to use. It has a clear purpose, a comprehensive and very intricate explanation as to how your academic learning turned into an internship which in turn, resulted in a job. That is a very impressive accomplishment on your part. The essay delivers all of the necessary points for a statement of purpose. While the reasons why you chose TAMU seem to be a bit vague, the fact that you have actual plans for your studies while a student there more than makes up for it. Your study path is something that truly relates to your purpose. One last point for suggestion. Are you required to write a post study plan for your application? If you are not required, then, as a final addition, you should include a short term plan for your career upon graduation. The length of time you wish to represent is up to you. The usual range though is anywhere between 5-10 years. Even without the short term plan, this is the best version of your SOP so far. Good work. You can use this essay as is or add the information I mentioned. Either way, the essay is really well developed. Developed enough to use actually.

Scholarship / The things that I consider before choosing the university of my future study. Australia Scholarship [7]

Hi Dany. Actually, the response did not appear with ba tag on my end which is why I responded to it. There must've been a system glitch on our end. No worries. I'm glad to always be of help. As for this essay, I've got a number of suggestions for you. Let's start with how you chose the universities you would be interested in attending. The criteria you set right now is more commonplace than personal. Don't go for the obvious, always aim for a personal list of reasons for your criteria in order to show a keen interest in Australian universities. Next, please double check your capitalization requirements for the formal classes you wish to attend as those must be capitalized as a proper noun representation. Finally, the prompt asks you to present one university choice , not two. So you have to justify just one university choice with the complete criteria that you used to choose this particular university. Personal, rather than common reason are again, more impressive in that discussion.

You can start meeting the word count by removing the long form meaning of TESOL. That brings your word count down to 2302 characters immediately. Since the reviewer is already familiar with TESOL and its long form meaning, you don't need to repeat it in the essay. Instead of saying "Here are my considerations...First..." You can shorten it further by saying "I chose my universities based upon...the duration of ... ", that automatically becomes 2248 characters. Remove the term "Second" and you get 2240 words. Now, to totally bring down the word count, in the next paragraph remove the first complete sentence plus the word "Then," which gives you a total word count of 2068. Remove the term "On the other hand" and you get 2049 words. Say "It has done partnership with Indonesian universities" so the word count goes down even further to 2032. If you use just the first 2 universities in the list instead of all 2, you finally come down to 1987 words. Well below the minimum while preserving the message and information of your essay.

Writing Feedback / The quantities of goods moved using four kinds of means in the UK between 1974 and 2002 [3]

You incompletely summarized the chart requirements. A complete outline of the four modes of transportation is required in the essay to complete the discussion outline. That is why you feel under the minimum sentence requirement for that paragraph. The overview summary helps to create the first line of high points for your essay. So you must never overlook it's importance when you develop it. Make sure all discussion points are represented in the summary for a maximum grade possibility. Your conclusion has an incomplete representation as well. You need to relay the comparison numbers for water in order to prove your observation that the water mode of transportation showed a yearly fluctuation in the chart. This is a better attempt at solid writing on your part. The problem is that I don't think you can score higher that a 3.4 for this particular task. The basis of the score is the incomplete information provided along with a very mechanical presentation of the information.

Undergraduate / Selected program of study and the aim to make durable, easy to fix, and upgradable electronics [5]

You are not being asked to explain why you spent 4 years in business school so you should never make a reference to your previous degree completed. That is irrelevant to the reasons why you were attracted to the study of electrical engineering. The answer to the prompt is in your attraction to e-waste management. Connect e-waste management to your attraction to electrical engineering. Explain how you were first attracted to building things from electricals that have been disposed of. Don't refer to the work others did in the essay scrap yard and how they earned so little from it. That is related to business, your previous degree. All references to your business degree should not be found in this essay since that doesn't justify an interest towards your current program of study.

Undergraduate / Selected program of study and the aim to make durable, easy to fix, and upgradable electronics [5]

Kduong, you sound more like an environmentalist than a potential electrical engineering student in this statement. The sentiment you deliver does not answer the question, "What interests you about your selected program of study?" The interest usually has a forward thinking theme about your desire to create a better industry or a better world through your invention of something or advocacy for an environmentally conscious electrical engineering field due to an experience in life. I sense that the latter is the sentiment that you want to express. The problem is that you did not do that accurately enough. Try to write a new essay that better describes the way that the junk yard helped open your eyes to the need for environmentally responsible electrical engineering plans and projects. That way your background in business and the inspiration offered by the Google project become more relevant as a response to the question.

Writing Feedback / Our life is very different from this life that our parents and grandparents used to live [4]

Van, you have to post the original prompt instructions for this essay so that I can give you more direct advice regarding the improvements to your essay. For now, the main problem that I can see is that you have divided the discussion into mini paragraphs instead of fully developed paragraphs. The paragraph presentation you have shows too much under developed ideas. You can't just present half discussed ideas in an essay. Each paragraph needs at least 3 sentences presented before it can be considered an almost fully developed idea. A completely developed idea takes 5 sentences maximum for the English tests. There is also the question of the validity of the discussion you present. That is something that can be better assessed once you share the full, cut and paste requirements for the discussion to be presented in this essay. I hope you can post that soon. One last thing, in academic writing, you cannot use casual formats such as the use of ellipses and the word "etc." That is simply not academic writing. Refrain from doing that with your future practice tests.

Writing Feedback / Modern building versus buildings from the past [3]

Haleshi, you can expect a final score of 3 for this practice test. The score is based upon the discussion that you presented, which showed that you clearly misunderstood the prompt and its required discussion instructions. The main point of the prompt was to have you discuss two points:

1. Why do cities in various parts of the world look alike?
2. Is this a good or bad thing?

Rather than discussing the world wide comparison of similar architectures, you discussed a localized version of the prompt instead. The cities referred to in the prompt indicate clearly that these cities look alike throughout the world. So the discussion to presented was already wrong. Aside from that, you used the singular form of city throughout the essay when the plural form is what you should have used since that is the reference in the original prompt.

The discussion presented in your essay would have been more acceptable and scored higher for you if you had only done the comparison of the cities that look alike from a global scale. Cities such as London, Brussels, and Berlin, all located in different countries across the world and yet, have similar looking cities in their countries. One is in the United Kingdom, the other in Belgium, and another, in Germany. The discussion as to why these cities look alike are based upon a shared cultural heritage, environment, weather pattern, traditions, etc., which led to similar architectural styles for their cities. Being in close proximity, the countries tended to share their knowledge amongst themselves, which led to similar architectural styles. Therefore, the shared architectural style cannot be considered a bad thing because it is the result of knowledge transfer and improving architectural styles.

The reason I gave above is a more prompt adherent discussion when composed to what you presented. You understood what the prompt wanted you to discuss, you just failed to understand that it was supposed to be on a global and not localized scale for discussion.

Writing Feedback / Ways to preserve any remaining wilderness areas. [2]

Shivam, upon close analysis of your essay, I do not believe that you can score higher than a 3 for this work. The flaws in your reasoning are serious enough to affect the overall score of your essay because you failed to do two things. The first, is to present a competent and understandable paraphrasing of the prompt requirement. The second problem, is that you failed to anticipate the questions that can be posed regarding your supporting arguments, as well as the lack of consequence discussion and how it shaped your opinion. Both of which were clearly stated in the original discussion and both of which, you were expected to accurately represent in your essay. The failure on your part to do this shows a lack of understanding of the requirements posed before you. Which in turn, led to the lack of properly developed response on your part. Aside from that, the grammatical errors in terms of sentence structure and development also adversely affected the presentation and clarity of your discussion within some parts of your essay. The final outcome, was the score of 3.

Writing Feedback / Writing Task 1 - how many people took computer science at university of UK? [4]

Lincoln, the second paragraph of the essay is a bit confusing for the reader because you did not use the complete years indicated in your descriptions. There are year indicators for every figure that was shared in the bar chart. It would have been clearer if you discussed each figure from the chart based upon the year indicators and within 2 paragraphs. The two paragraphs could have grouped the discussion into an effective manner by indicating a collective discussion for the British home students first. Then, in the next paragraph, you could have presented the same type of collective discussion for the International students. That way the flow of the information presentation would have been easier to follow for the reader. Overall though, your work was pretty good on this essay. It could have possibly earned you a 5 in the final scoring overall.

Writing Feedback / Writing Task 2 - Travelling to other countries with appreciation for different customs [3]

Lincoln, the overall score for this essay will fall under the 4 bracket based on the discussion that you have presented. The overview summary and outline stated in your opening paragraph is incomplete. Since this paragraph is supposed to outline all paragraph topics in chronological order, the fact that you did not indicate that you will be stating your opinion, after a discussion of the two points of view made the summary incomplete and the task accuracy score fall in the scoring system.

Aside from that, you did not accurately represent the two opinions in the essay, per paragraph as being one of the two points of view that you are discussing from an impartial standpoint. It appears that both points of view relied on your personal opinion. That is not the instruction for the essay. You were to present a paragraph long discussion for each point of view first, then present your personal opinion in the 4th paragraph, prior to your concluding statement. These mistakes, when taken collectively into account, resulted in a low score. It is sad that you got a 4 based on a technicality. The mistake in the discussion form affected the overall score of the essay.

Graduate / Motivation Letter for General Linguistics at Radboud University [7]

Choerunnisa, the reorganization of the essay worked well for you. Upon second review though, I found a flaw in your fourth paragraph. You mention joining several organizations and heading these twice. It would be great if you could mention what these organizations are and how they relate to your motivation to study a masters in General Linguistics. Frankly, telling the reviewer what you did in the organization, without giving the name, objectives, and / or mission of the organization makes the statement weak. It's kind of giving the why without giving the "Who? What? " first. So we need to know who (the organization) and then what (the background of the organization in relation to General Linguistics). This additional information should make the essay ready enough for one last review before finalization.

Since this is a motivational letter, the information about the organizations that you were a leader of are irrelevant to the discussion. Since these organizations do not have anything to do with your interest in General Linguistics, as they are more student politics related, the activities do not have a bearing on your motivation to apply for the course. Since it is not related, you should remove it from your motivational letter. It's removal will not affect your essay. Just present the information about the Ajou International Summer School instead because that sounds more like it is in line with the reasons for your interest in General Linguistics. You have to remove the last sentence of that paragraph though because it is not directly related to the General Linguistics discussion either. The information that I am asking you to remove should be set aside and used in your statement of purpose instead, if so required.

But you are still presenting non related information in paragraph 4 even though I clearly told you to remove the references to the student body activities that you had because those do not serve a motivational purpose in your letter. Why didn't you remove it? I fully expected to read a properly revised essay, based upon the advice I shared with you in thread #6. I am going to remind you at this point to revise paragraph 4 to not include the student body related activities. You can adjust the presentation of the tutoring that you did instead so that you can create a more relevant paragraph. Once you make that single, but all too important adjustment, the motivational letter will be complete.

Scholarship / I am a 23-year-old English teacher from Termez - demonstrating myself for KGSP [6]

Sabokhat, you do not have the chance to write a statement of purpose for the KGSP scholarship. The only chance that you have to mention all of the impressive information about yourself is in the Letter of Self-Introduction. There are only 3 essays which you have to write for the application.The other two essays are you Study Goals and Post Study Plan, those do not offer you the opportunity to state the purpose of your application anymore. Sadly, there is no Statement of Purpose for the KGSP scholarship applicants.

The suggested topics for discussion in the letter include an opportunity for you to detail information that would normally be stated in a statement of purpose. So you should be greatly detailed with regards to your academic accomplishments, work experience, and, as in your case, your publication opportunities. These will help the reviewer to better assess your qualifications, both academic and professional, with regards to your application. For as long as you do not go over the one page requirement, you should include as much professional information as you can in the letter. This is your one chance to ensure that you present all of the positive points of your traits as a potential masters degree student. So make sure that you use it as best as you can.

Scholarship / Chevening - to lead the organization and contribute to social development. [7]

The start of your revised thread needs to have a strong and confident voice. The way that you wrote it has a clear sense of uncertainty in your presentation. Have the confidence to say that;

The network that I have developed over the years through my work experience assures me that I will be a beneficial member of the Chevening alumna in the future. Chevening will be sure to benefit from my government and private contacts in my home country anytime the need from any of the alumna arises. In exchange, I hope to help my country, my government, and myself whenever the need for relevant contacts from the Chevening alumna pool becomes necessary for me to call upon. Based on such a relationship, the Chevening network, its graduate scholars, and alumna will continue to benefit from my ever growing network pool.

I think that this statement is something that you can use to better close the essay. You have the option to use the closing statement I created or adjust it to your needs. You can even write a new ending based on what I wrote, the choice is all yours to make.

Graduate / Motivation Letter for General Linguistics at Radboud University [7]

Choerunnisa, please move the paragraph pertaining to the actual motivation that you have for General Linguistics to the top of the essay. This would be the current 3rd paragraph. Make it your first paragraph so that the reviewer will immediately get an idea behind your true motivation. If you review your essay with a more critical eye, you will notice that the content is good, but it lacks coherence. So the presentation is a bit confusing and illogical.

If you reformat the essay by using the following chronological paragraphs, the essay will be easier to revise and understand. Use the following (paragraph) presentation instead: 3, 2, 4, 5. Paragraph one can be totally removed because that is information already known to the reviewer. You should only present immediate and relevant information in your motivation letter.

By the way, the 5th paragraph needs to be revised as well. Just go direct to the point and explain why you have chosen Radboud University for your masters learning program. You don't need to summarize the previous information because you only need to justify your desire to attend the university. Your other skills and related experiences can be best presented in the statement of purpose where you can further expand on the discussion in a proper manner.

Once you have completed your reorganized paragraphs, we can review the essay again and this time, concentrate, further improving the information or presentation of your essay.

Scholarship / SOP. Goal of study, title or subject of research, and detailed study plan for KGSP Scholarship [2]

Hi Caro. The essay that you wrote is more of an outline of what you want to present in your study plan. It doesn't really follow the format nor the required content of a study plan at the moment, but it is a good start. The one important thing that you have to remember with regards to a study plan is this, specifics are paramount. Do not be vague as you are now. Do you remember how you wrote your thesis proposal in college? That is exactly how you should approach your masters thesis study plan. Let's see if I can outline the steps to developing this study plan for you.

1. Think of the course you are interested in. What brought about this interest?

2. What specific field are you now interested in? Why? How far has your country gotten in terms of treatment research related to the topic of your interest? Is this why you feel Korea offers you a better opportunity to study the problem and develop a possible solution to the problem?

3. What is the problem that most attracts you to this research? Explain the reasons for the attraction. Why would this be a good topic for research?

4. Do you have a specific university of interest that you plan to apply to in Korea? Do they specialize in this sort of research?

5. What is the current research that the university is doing in your line of interest? Does it align with the problem that you hope to resolve with your own research?

6. Is there a specific professor you want to mentor you as you write your thesis? What makes you think that he / she would be able to help you further advance your research?

7. How can the university help you achieve your study goals?

By answering these 7 questions, you should be able to develop a far more comprehensive study plan for yourself.

Scholarship / 500 WORD ESSAY EXPLAINING WHY YOU WANT TO STUDY IN FRANCE! [6]

Bryan, your third paragraph, while relevant to the development of your interest to travel to France as an exchange student, removes the focus of the discussion from you and transfers it to the people who you spoke to. In truth, the essay does not require the presence of that paragraph because it speaks of others experience in the program and the hope that you can experience the same. Instead, you should be discussing the connection between your first exchange program, your thirst for knowledge and a desire to experience more in life, and then tie up the discussion with the last paragraph that you have. this is all about why YOU want to study in France. So the reference to the experience of other people is not relevant to the discussion. Tell us why YOU feel that you will benefit from studying in France. What is it that makes you think you will learn more as an exchange student? What academic yearning do you have that can be assuaged by the exchange program? These are the information that you should be delivering in your essay. Sell the reviewer on the idea that you have a unique position as a student that makes this exchange program suited to your needs.

Essays / Help on picking a research topic related to social justice - it must be controversial. [3]

Pauline, it all depends upon whether you want to turn the discussion into a socio - political discussion or if you just want to discuss the rights of immigrant students. Do you want to discuss the scholarship being given out to illegal immigrant students or undocumented students in relation to the fact that citizen students need to get life long student loans in order to complete college? Where is the social justice in that?

When you say social justice, you need to make a list of the controversial topics regarding college education at the moment, then keep narrowing down that list until you find the topic you are most comfortable discussing and one that you can access materials to. While the topic must be controversial, remember that the way you do your research should not be controversial and your ability to do the research will also depend upon the relevance of the topic to the current college community.

Scholarship / TSU -- Scholarship essay about my achievements, interests, and my goals. [5]

Hi Jorden, this is a pretty interesting essay. I believe that it shows some pretty good talents and traits that you have as both a student, community leader, and friend. However, I am not sure how these are all relevant to your scholarship application. Can you please share the prompt requirement for the scholarship with me here? I don't really know how to begin to assess your work because I am not sure what the scholarship essay requirements are. So I would appreciate you giving me a starting point for the actual review of your work. While the essay sounds pretty balanced and strong, It should help your scholarship application to a certain degree. I hope to help you improve your essay so I need to know if there are some paragraph that we have to strengthen further based upon the information expectation of the scholarship program.

Scholarship / Chance to choose for change your future- 2017 Scholarship Letter of Self Introduction [4]

Michael, the paragraph about your academic background needs to be settled in a more understandable manner. There is no need to explain yourself so completely in the paragraph. All you have to do is tell the reviewer about the academic life you have had and include your accomplishments during this time. The questions that you had and how they were answered is not really relevant anymore because you have already reached the point where you are entering a masters degree course for higher academic learning.

Speaking of learning experiences, are you applying for the KGSP without having any sort of actual work experience yet? You have not signified any relevant work experience, which is a necessary part of the essay. If you do not have any actual work experience, then you have to mention it then, in its place, present any relevant internships that you may have had instead. If you don't have any experience of any sort, then your chances for this scholarship will be very slim. Everyone else applying will have far better work and academic experience than you. Having been to Korea as an exchange student only gets you so far in the actual consideration of your requirements.

Remove the reference to your future goals from this self introduction. The future goals are to be presented in a separate essay for your post study goals or career plans. You will have a far better chance of impressing the reviewer with these plans in that essay because you will have more space to devote to the development of the career idea that you have.

Scholarship / I am a 23-year-old English teacher from Termez - demonstrating myself for KGSP [6]

Sabokhat, you need to connect the interests that you have with your point of view about life. How did these interests help you to see life in a particular manner? Did this point of view that you developed help to create the interest in teaching and linguistics that you have today and wish to pursue as a masters degree graduate? These are the questions that the point of view about life has to present about you. It is not clearly reflected, if at all, in your current version.

I do not see any reference to your hopes and wishes for the future. Please write a statement about that, no matter how brief. It gives the reviewer an idea as to why this course of study is of the utmost importance to you and also, provides an overview of what your post study plans might be.

You mention being a published author. In order to make the reviewer believe that, you have to mention the title, publication, and publication dates for your articles. Claims such as those to not carry any relevance to your application if the information cannot be verified. It is imperative that you allow the reviewer the chance to qualify your claim in relation to your application. Otherwise, that will be a disregarded piece of information.

Your work experience is too brief. That should be the longest part of this essay in relation to your desire to gain a KGSP scholarship. As Nic said, Korea is not an English language country. Neither are the classes taught in English. So how can you expect studying in Korea to help you become more proficient in the field of English in relation to your linguistic interests?

Finally, you do not need that very short paragraph at the end of the essay. It lessens the strong message that you could have left the reviewer with had you ended the essay with the 4th paragraph instead. I suggest that you consider removing the current 5th paragraph altogether.

Writing Feedback / IELTS Writing Task 2: Presentation skills. Do you think public speaking skill is really important? [3]

Sinchana, the example that you gave about the doctor is irrelevant to the discussion. You presented his success but it does not clearly related to an ability to be able to conduct public speaking. Public speaking is different from merely speaking to people in private. Public speaking requires an audience and simply talking to people can be done in private. The second paragraph that you wrote about students having to speak in public is also not relevant enough. Had you said that public speaking skills are important when a college student is defending his thesis in front of the thesis board, then the requirement for public speaking skills would have been more relevant. Based on the aforementioned problems of your essay, I do not think that you can score higher than a 4 in the actual test.

Scholarship / Chevening Career Plan - to make our nation one step forward through science and technology policy [6]

There are only 2 more corrections for this essay before we can consider it in its final form. The first, is that you remove the first sentence in the first paragraph that explains "During my study..." because that is information you have already presented to the reviewer in your study goal / plan. Instead, merge the rest of paragraph one with paragraph two. This will create a more interesting read for the reviewer because it discusses a specific plan that has been handed to you for realization by your office.

After that, in the final paragraph, try to do some research about which specific organization or department of the UK government is working with your office. Try to understand what projects they collaborate on and then based you cooperative proposal on that. You need to mention the specific UK office that you will be working with in order to allow the reviewer an opportunity to verify if your proposal will be something that can actually be approved and implemented on the UK end.

Scholarship / Chevening - to lead the organization and contribute to social development. [7]

You do not need to show a comparative example of your networking skills. The skill you display should be the one that you extensively discussed and explained in the essay. The minor, short essay is totally unnecessary and just clutters your discussion. Remove that part of the final paragraph and just focus on closing the discussion about how you will utilize the network and how you can help the Chevening network to grow. The essay came in very strong and stayed strong until the concluding paragraph was introduced. That is when the essay suddenly lost focus and tried to do one too many explanations in the essay. Those irrelevant examples (because you already presented a better example earlier) should be removed so as not to redirect the focus and concentration of the reviewer.

Research Papers / Research topics on data mining - suggestions? [33]

Refer to thread # 15 and 17 in this topic discussion. I listed the suggested topics for you there. I don't think you read it? You should not be asking me to list it again for you if you actually read the response I gave you before. Read the suggested topics. I present the possible discussion points for your research in a clear manner there. I explain every topic and what social media network you can use to complete the research. Number 15 includes the reference to the social media network relevant to my suggested data mining topic. The rest is self explanatory. You should be able to choose a topic for your research based upon those 2 responses I provided. Consider your available materials and your personal interests in terms of data mining discussions then opt for the topic that you can write about best based upon other considerations as well.

Graduate / London School of Economics personal statement Master in finance [2]

Erik, the personal statement is not an extension of your resume. So remove all of the parts of the essay that refer to that. I mean the detailed work information plus experiences. The only part of the current essay that relates to a personal statement are your first 3 paragraphs. The rest, must be deleted because the purpose of writing a personal statement is to introduce you to the reviewer. It is not your opportunity to explain and present your resume. The resume is submitted as a separate document to the reviewer. A more detailed and relevant discussion of your resume should be found in your statement of purpose, not in a personal statement. It is part of your application documents. It does not belong in the personal statement.

The only parts missing from your presentation after the first 3 paragraphs from the original are the discussion about your purpose and objectives in enrolling for masters studies in this field. Once you represent your response to the last 2 prompt instructions, the essay should be completed. This should not be more than 5 paragraphs long. There is no sentence requirement per paragraph, but you always have to write more than 3 sentences. Just be as thorough as possible in your discussion within 5 paragraphs. Make sure to stay within the word count as required. That means, you cannot present less than 1000 words in your essay. I look forward to reading your revised essay as soon as you have it available.

Research Papers / Research topics on data mining - suggestions? [33]

The one that you might want to do the study on could be Twitter. Since Twitter is the one that seems to have the most vulnerable system among all the social media networks. I base that on the number of times that a social media server has been hacked, or has been the target of bot registrations. While I am not doing the same research as you, I have experience in the field of big data mining, which is why I am able to develop suggestions and possible topics for you to consider for your research paper. Actually, the best person to decide which field of data mining would be best for you to research would be, yourself. I already gave you a list of possible topics to choose from. You now have to decide which social media platform you would want to do the research paper on. It will all depend upon the availability of information to you. Do the research based on your preferences and abilities.

Undergraduate / How helping others helps you? MIT essay [5]

Congratulations on writing a prompt responsive statement in a shorter time than before ! This statement that you wrote shows a sense of maturity and a clear understanding of the prompt. While the rest of the essay has some grammatical errors, it does not reduce the impact of your essay. Since you were able to fix the opening statement, the rest of the essay, regardless of improper grammar, now makes a lot of sense when the reviewer reads it. Consider this essay finalized and ready for use. You can set this version aside for submission. If you have any other essays to write, you should begin drafting your response now. I hope to see continued improvement over your next set of essays. I am excited to see your English comprehension skills progress through your college application essay writing.

Scholarship / "Move Forward' My Letter of Self-Introduction for KGSP [8]

Hey Nic, you definitely have to make that clearer in the essay. You see, masters students normally follow a study path that better promotes a professional future for himself. Since that is not the case with you, it would be best if you explain why you are studying a course that is not related to your current profession. Are you planning a career change? If that is so, then explain what the motivation is in the essay so that you can clarify the situation with the reviewer. You will need to adjust the motivation and reasons for study portion in your current version in order to better represent the explanation of those parts. Make sure that you are crystal clear because if there is a disconnection between the career path and your studies, which you do not properly explain, then you could lose the scholarship consideration on a technicality.

Scholarship / "Move Forward' My Letter of Self-Introduction for KGSP [8]

Nic, use the actual university choice to represent your prompt about why you were encouraged to study in Korea. The reasons for your desire to study there could be based upon the information about the university. Consider the connection between your degree and the course curriculum that is offered under the masters course. What notable courses relate directly to either your education or professional experience? What does the university offer in terms of academics and training that you cannot receive in your home country universities? How the project that you plan to complete for your thesis can be used by both Korea and your home country. Don't just enumerate the classes, pick only a few that directly relate to your profession and connect the two. You basically have to sell the reviewer on the idea that you are passionate about learning at this university in particular for a number of reasons. All of which can be considered reasons why you wish to study in Korea.

Undergraduate / How helping others helps you? MIT essay [5]

We need to create a better opening statement for your response. Right now, the way the sentence is grammatically structured, the reviewer will most likely be confused by what you trying to say. So rather than using what you have now, you can either use this new opening statement I wrote for you or, you can try to develop one yourself using my suggestion as a template or example for your work. I would open the essay by saying:

As a high school student, I took great pride in being a good Math ( or whatever subject) student who had the skills to help others who found the subject difficult. It was this skill in providing assistance to students who otherwise would not pass the course that led me to join the online community called Open Study. As an independent learner...

Another minor problem the essay has is your problem with capitalizing proper nouns. Remember that Open Source is a proper noun because it is the name of a place so it has to be capitalized. Yes, even if that place is in cyberspace. Since these two minor points are the only problematic parts of your essay, I would say that you did a very good job on responding to this prompt. You have shown that you can understand the prompt and also develop relevant responses for it when you choose to apply yourself to the prompt provided. Very good work!

Scholarship / "Move Forward' My Letter of Self-Introduction for KGSP [8]

Hi Nics, nice to meet you. As far as I can tell, the reason that your essay is running too long is simple, you are ignoring the rest of the facts required in the essay and focusing solely on your academic background. You need not be so specific about your academic background. A simple overview of your college studies and your related accomplishments there would be sufficient enough. Cut out the discussions about your elementary education. Instead, expand on the discussion about your interest in activism when you were in High School. That will help to explain your point of view about life, which is under represented in the discussion at the moment. It also shows how you developed your early interest in Korea as a country and place of culture.

You need to expand the discussion of your professional experience as well. You can't place that at the start of the essay. Be as specific as you can about your professional accomplishments as those will show your level of preparedness for a masters degree course. It sounds like you are holding back on your professional side. Don't do that. Your professional abilities are more important to present in a masters degree application than your college achievements. That is because you are applying to school, this time, based upon your professional needs. You want to fill in any weaknesses that you might have in your field of work. Enrolling in a masters course helps to remedy that problem. So make sure that you accurately represent your professional experience.

Present the information in the essay in the manner that prompt requirement indicates. It will also help the reviewer keep track of the discussion in your essay. In my opinion, you can safely remove the second paragraph to shorten the education part so that you can cover the related educational experience instead.

Don't worry about the length of the essay. It is supposed to be one page long. As long as you can fit all of the required information, as stated in the prompt, on a single page, your essay is well within the required presentation expectations. If your essay does not fill a single page, then you should worry. All I want you to do at this moment is better align the content of your essay with the prompt requirements.

Writing Feedback / IELTS Writing Task 2: Progress of mankind in recent years [4]

In your presentation, each paragraph has 2 examples which you use to create your message regarding the topic provided, All you have to do in order to find the problems with your essay is to read your essay again after reading my previous comments. The grammar problems are quite clear in each paragraph and explained by me in thread #2. For a more specific example, to help you get a starting point, refer to the second paragraph where you discuss Malaria at the start, then move to technology later on. For a better developed essay, you need to use the 5 sentence requirement per paragraph to solidly discuss the example that you can best develop for the discussion. It is not good to present 2 under developed reasons because that does not accomplish much for you in terms of proving your English thinking and grammar development skills.

Undergraduate / Tell us about your experience learning English. How often do you use English in your daily life? [4]

Valeria, at the point where the essay asks you "How often do you use English in your daily life?", you need to present stronger information regarding the development of your conversational English skills. While it is good that you are teaching your nieces and nephews, which is a form of ESL, and you also enjoy reading English classic novels, these do not really help to illustrate the usefulness of conversational English in your daily life. Mostly because you speak of doing these activities in the past.. So how do you practice your conversational English these days? Make the activities known to the reviewer as something that you continue to do in order to make it more relevant to the prompt requirement of "everyday life". So these can't be just weekend activities, it has to be daily. Reconsider the wording of your information to make those seem like things that you do everyday at present.

The grammar is not so bad that the reviewer will not understand what you are saying. I would say that, without corrections to your currents essay, you will be judged to have an advanced beginner level of English skills. There is no sense in perfecting your grammar on paper if you cannot produce perfect spoken English during your actual interview. Don't have the language problems corrected as much as possible so that you can present your honest level of English writing and speaking skills to the reviewer early on for his consideration.

Undergraduate / We want to read about what makes you special. Tell us something about yourself [5]

Valeria, the essay can use some improvement. For starters, the anecdote that you shared at the beginning is not really believable. When a tale that you tell showcases you playing with your toys in a classroom, that shows a high imagination, but now an actual ambition. The story better suits that representation is the one in the middle of the essay where you have yourself working with a group to teach the underprivileged children. That is more along the lines of a believable presentation regarding how you got started on your ambition to become an educator. It also merges well with the rest of the essay. The story from your childhood does not work as well in presenting your development as a person. It would be best if you integrate information from that childhood story into the one that you did with the group instead. It sounds way more convincing that way.

Undergraduate / Personal insight questions for applying schools. [4]

Johnny, this story has potential. It has a great beginning, engaging middle, but lacking a proper climax to the anecdote. In order for your essay to be more informative, you need to add information that is more centered around you than the students you were helping. While their story helps to explain your participation their lives, we do not see an accurate ending that portrays the effects of your tutoring upon them. For example, we need to learn if they improved as students under your tutelage. If they showed better grades, did this help to improve the way their mother treated them? Did you personally observe this? Can you really defend your belief that it was your presence in their lives as their tutor that helped to improve a small portion of their existence in their mother's world? If so, explain why you think that. With 250 words at your disposal, you should be able to revise this essay to become equally centered on the work that you do, the situation of the children, how you helped them, and what the results of your assistance was. You should also consider lengthening the concluding paragraph of your essay. It feels unfinished. As if there is more to be said but you neglected to mention it. If you can provide those information, then the essay will be highly developed and informative in the proper manner.

Writing Feedback / IELTS Writing Task 2: Progress of mankind in recent years [4]

Sinchana, this is one of your better written and developed essays so far. Even though you have problems with writing proper nouns for things like Facebook and Skype as well as Global Warming, your discussion is somewhat clearer than the past. A word of advice though, do not present more than one example for each topic in an essay because you need to score well in the grammar accuracy portion of the test to bring up your score. Presenting just one fact for discussion will allow you to show off your English thinking skills, which increases your task accuracy, and your sentence development, in terms of grammar range. Do well on these two counts and the two other sections of scoring will also face an improved chance of getting a higher score. For this essay though, I do not think you can score higher than a 5 due to the grammar inaccuracies and incomplete concluding statement.

Writing Feedback / IELTS Writing Task 2: Parenting course program for young parents [5]

Sinchana, as I have previously mentioned, you cannot choose to support both sides in the discussion when a prompt asks you present "the extent to which you agree OR disagree" with a given proposal. The keyword here being OR. Make a choice. Pick one side of the topic. The side that you are most familiar with and can defend even in the simplest form of English discussion. Then in the opening statement, state which side you will be supporting in this essay discussion. You cannot have mixed reviews. You must follow the prompt instruction for every essay that you write. No deviations. A deviation could result in an automatic failure in the exam because you will most likely not present the correct discussion for the topic provided. This seems to be a regular problem with your essays. You are incapable of actually following the English instructions. Do you have a problem understanding how to write the various IELTS essays? If so, you better speak up so that I can help you fix that problem. If you don't fix it, there is a greater chance of you not passing the IELTS when you finally take the actual test.

Graduate / Statement of purpose for Master's course in English Linguistics/ English Literatures and Cultures [3]

Alina, this is excellent work. It is clear, it shows your deep appreciation for English literature, and you show a passion for your profession. However, these are not the contents of an effective statement of purpose. These are the impressive contents for a personal statement. So, while the work is tremendously informative, it is informative in the wrong way. It does not apply to a statement of purpose.

A statement of purpose should accomplish only one thing and that is to show that you have the academic background and professional experience, along with an educational goal, to complete a higher level of studies in the field of English literature. That is why the information in this essay is misdirected. It is important that you write a new statement of purpose that is better suited towards the reviewers expectations.

For starters, the statement of purpose opens with exactly that, the reason that you wish to study this course. You could open with an anecdote about how you discovered a yearning for higher learning in the field, a problem that you observed as an educator of English, or simply, the need to have additional qualifications for a promotion at work.

After presenting the purpose, focus on presenting a summarized form of your college studies. These will include information about your university and year of graduation. Include any accomplishments that you may have earned during that time period. Mention your college thesis, where it was published and when (if published), as well as your possible masters thesis (if you are enrolling in a thesis program). Do not be too detailed. Just present the information listed here.

The detailed part should be about your related work experience. The work experience should contain a history of your employment and additional training received, as applicable to your application. If you are enrolling in this course as part of an employment requirement, mention it here with a brief explanation.

If a post study goal is not required for your application, then present a 5 year career plan for yourself next. This will show the reviewer that you have a true plan of action that will compel you to finish the course, regardless of difficulties. Normally, one continues to work while attending masters classes in his home country, so it is difficult for the student to complete the course. You have to show the reviewer that you are prepared to complete the requirements by proving your 5 year plan is doable.

Finally, explain why you have chosen this university in particular over the others. What makes is special and unique in terms of your requirements? Prove that you know about the university and its English program by discussing pertinent details in regards to your course of interest at the university.

Please note that the instructions I have provided you with are based upon the most important aspects of a statement of purpose and applies to all universities. Unless, that university to which you are applying has specific statement of purpose requirements that you are trying to respond to in this essay. If you were provided with an instruction list for the content, then please share it with me here.

Writing Feedback / IELTS Writing Task 2: The choice of subject between girls and boys [3]

Sinchana, always keep a formal, academic tone in your essays. Always refer to the genders as male or female, men or women, girls or boys, ladies or gentlemen. Never use the slang term "guys" or "gals" as you did for the boys in this essay. That is informal English and, while easier to write and remember, removes your ability to show that you know how to respect the reader who is a person in authority. In your opening statement, you failed to present just one tiny aspect of the prompt, your opinion as to whether the trend should be changed. Remember, the opening statement is the summary of the prompt requirement so you need to make sure that every question is responded to in the short form in the introductory paragraph. Even with that simple error on your part, you will still manage to get at least a 5 in this essay because you actually did present an understandable discussion. There can be some confusion at some points of your presentation but it is not enough to thoroughly stress out the reader. The discussion is logical and makes sense once you get over the grammar problems. I hope that you will continue to show improvement with your next set of practice tests. It looks like you are on your way to increasing your practice scores. Keep it up.