Writing Feedback / Paragraph Elements [4]

You might also wish to avoid random capitalization:

"Eggs, milk and cheese where just a few of the products that were carried in his tote rack,"

You may also wish to avoid incorrect grammatical comparisons:

"These early entrepreneurs worked long hours, and made very little as compared to today's workers , "

Compare like to like. So, entrepreneurs to other people, not to wages.

Writing Feedback / TOEFL Essay-It can be quite difficult to learn a new language. [7]

Be careful with "because." "Because" starts dependent clauses, which means that it cannot begin a complete sentence unless it connects to an independent clause that could stand on its own.

So,

"Because the alphabet, the vocabulary and the grammar rules of Japanese is totally different from Dansk." is incorrect, because it is a sentence fragment. You would have to fix it like this:

"A person who is native speaker of Japanese has more difficulties with learning Norwegian than does a native speaker of Dansk, because the alphabet, the vocabulary and the grammar rules of Japanese is totally different from Dansk.

or like this:

"Because the alphabet, the vocabulary and the grammar rules of Japanese is totally different from Dansk, a person who is native speaker of Japanese has more difficulties with learning Norwegian than does a native speaker of Dansk."

Essays / Raising a teenage boy vs teenage girl - writing a comparision and contrast essay [5]

That's one way to go about it. Alternatively, you could come up with three clear differences between the two. Then, you could write an introduction in which you summarize the similarities, but end with a thesis that states that the differences are greater. Then, you could dedicate a paragraph to each point, comparing the differences between raising a boy and raising a girl as they relate to that point within each paragraph. So,

Para 2

. . . . . diff 1
. . . . . . . . point A (boy)
. . . . . . . . point A (girl)
. . . . . . . . point B (boy)
. . . . . . . . point B (girl)

And so on for the others. This will tend to give you a more focused essay than having two or three paragraphs that you can't really tie back to your thesis.

Book Reports / Thousand Splendid Suns Essay Argument Points; thesis [6]


I haven't read the book, but I get the impression you might mean that she is forced to believe that her life is worthless, rather than invaluable, which does not mean "not valuable" so much as "so valuable it is impossible to estimate the precise value."

Writing Feedback / War -- victor or no victor? [45]


Um, I suspect that for most nations, the measure of how successful a war has been is, in large part, how few of their people died and how many of their opponents did. I would not say, though, that the others' loss of life is unimportant. Killing as many of the others as possible is sort of very important, the main goal of most combat maneuvers, in fact. As Rumsfeld said when a reporter asked him why the U.S. was dropping cluster bombs in Iraq, despite the U.N.'s frowning upon their use: "They're very good at killing people. And that's why we're using them, because we want to kill people." It was a very honest answer, and one that revealed the stupidity of the reporters question, and of the U.N.'s blathering.

As to whether or not there can be winners, America has prospered by winning war after war -- First against the Natives, then against the British, then against itself, then against the U.S.S.R. (and no, the fact that it was a Cold War doesn't make it any less of one.) Had any of these wars gone differently, America would have been a very different, and probably much worse, place. And this doesn't cover its involvement in the two World Wars, though these too helped it rise to prominence on the world stage.

Writing Feedback / "People of MTV generation have no patience. They want instant satisfaction." [84]


You have more faith in teachers than I do. Still, the "squeaky wheel" versus "proud nail" metaphors probably capture the essential difference between the cultures that came up with them as well as anything.

Writing Feedback / Machine Learning versus Learning by Humans [51]


That was the first thing that sprung to mind for me. If I have the power to do something, then I have the ability to do it, which really is better than not having the ability to do it, even if I decide, for some moral reason, not to do it anyway.

Power over others, though, is a tricky thing, an illusion really, because the more you control others, the more control you surrender to them, even if you don't realize it. A master must play the role his slaves expect, and the harsher he is, the more imperative it becomes that he not let the role slip. I think power in that sense is sort of the opposite of freedom, in that the more you gain one, the less you have of the other.

Graduate / "financial industry" - need Help in Polish my SOP [4]

Try to condense what you want to say. For instance:

"My achievements in academics and professional life were inspiring and generated intense desire in me to further my knowledge. After working in the financial industry for over 4 years in various positions and organizations, I found myself inclined towards finance hence decided to pursue the next level of education in Finance. I aimed M.Sc Finance full-time program offered by London School of Economics. The reason behind choosing this course is its unique design, compatibility to my academic pursuits and career aspirations."

could be reduced to

"Four years of working in the financial industry have convinced me that the best way to further my career is to earn an M.Sc Finance from the London School of Economics."

without losing much. The same is true of much of the rest of your essay. Decide what information you want to convey in your SOP, then write that up, using as few words as possible. This will greatly strengthen your essay, and make it much easier for you to edit.

Writing Feedback / Machine Learning versus Learning by Humans [51]

I'm curious -- what is your definition of power? It can't be the same one I'm thinking of, because you seem to view it as a negative, rather than a positive thing.

Undergraduate / Fashion is unique, it's the walking art. Short Essay for Art Institute in Seattle [4]

Go through your essay and replace the general with the specific. You say you are creative -- give a specific example of your creativity. You believe the Art Institute will challenge you -- give a specific example of a way in which you will be challenged. You say you attend fashion shows -- say which ones. And so on. Once you have grounded your essay in concrete details, it will be much stronger.

Book Reports / self theme in Night by Elie Wiesel and The Princess Bride by William Goldman [3]

"self" isn't a theme. It's a word. A rather ambiguous, abstract one at that. Ask yourself what the authors you are studying are trying to say about self. That will yield an actual theme. Then, ask yourself how you came up with the theme. Probably, the incidents in the book that made you think of the theme are the examples you are looking for.

Writing Feedback / Mercutio's importance to the plot and theme - Romeo and Juliet [5]

Kevin is right, you need to focus a bit more on a single key idea (your thesis). You might refine your essay, for instance, to look at how Mercutio is essentially the personification of the comedic spirit of the play. Because Romeo and Juliet was the first tragedy written by a man who had only written comedies up until that point, the play reads much like a romantic comedy for the first few acts, if you ignore the preamble that warns you it will be a tragedy (which helps explain why the preamble is there, btw.) Mercutio's name refers to the idea of something changeable, and it is death that marks the turning point of the play, the point at which it moves out of comedic territory into tragedy. Something along those lines might be enough to unify what you already have without requiring too much revision.

Dissertations / MA thesis... literary theory & criticism [5]

A historicist perspective could be interesting -- you could look at how post-apocalyptic scenarios change (or stay the same) depending upon the concerns of the time. So, in the Cold War, you get a lot of post nuclear war scenarios. More recently, the idea of plagues seems to be making a bit of comeback, perhaps fueled by concerns of bio-terror. You'd have to do some research to see if this was tenable.

Alternatively, I'm sure you could probably take a psychoanalytic approach -- how the archetype of the ruined civilization is used in various workings out of our psychological problems.

Or, you could look at how gender / class is portrayed in post-apocalyptic fiction, and go with a feminist/Marxist approach.

In other words, you can apply pretty much any theoretical perspective that appeals to you. Why don't you give us an idea of where your theoretical interests lie, and perhaps we can help you figure out how to apply those to post-apocalyptic literature.

Research Papers / Global Warming - need to come up with a question for my research paper [12]

This could be an interesting topic, actually. Global warming is written about far too much, but this at least looks at a very specific locale. I don't know if you could find enough information for an 11 page paper, though . . . Why don't you post what you have, and maybe we can offer more specific feedback.

Writing Feedback / 'manned spaceflight and education' - CLEP TEST ESSAY [3]


Your essay seems to focus more on what happened before your trip into outer space, and on how you would have been selected for the flight. That's sort of interesting, but it seems a bit off topic. Perhaps you could try writing another piece that deals more with what a trip to outer space itself would actually be like? Good luck.

Research Papers / Science fair research paper - how to start/goal of? [8]

Is this a research paper to find information on a project you have already picked, or is it a research paper meant to help you choose a project? If it's the former, you can follow the excellent advice you have already been given. If it is the latter, you would want to pick a field of study, say, wind power, and research it with a view to deciding what sort of science project you could do that would show something important about wind power. So, you would start off providing some general information about the topic, and then narrow down your area of interest more and more until by the end of the paper you had a very specific research question you could use as the basis of your project. That is, a question that your project could answer.

Essays / I need help understanding Illustration essays. [11]

You can think of an illustration essay as being a sort of argumentative essay where all of your evidence comes from detailed descriptive anecdotes from your own life experience. That will put you in the right ballpark, at least.

Writing Feedback / "People of MTV generation have no patience. They want instant satisfaction." [84]

Your arguments might also look at what it means to have patience. For instance, people of the MTV generation might have no patience when it comes to waiting for a web page to load, because they are used to high-speed internet. However, they might still have patience for something they expect to take a long time. So, if they were trying to master, say, the art of origami, they might patiently put in hours of practice without complaining. In other words, is patience really just a matter of expectation, with the younger generation having greater expectations of many things happening faster? Or, is it that they can no longer take the time to do anything unless it has immediate payoff? And if so, is this perhaps a different problem than a mere lack of patience?

Writing Feedback / nothing wrong - Young people are less interested in studying than in earning money [5]

"You can't comment on a thing you haven't experienced yourself, or studied it thoroughly."

"So here's my account on why young people these days are more interested in making money than in becoming educated ."

"The world is suffering through an economical crisis"

You seem to be arguing that young people are either forced by circumstances to work rather than study, or else see no economic incentive to study. But, the first instance doesn't show that students are more interested in earning money than in studying, only that they have to do the latter rather than the former. And the second instance is really just another way of reiterating the statement, rather than an argument in favor of it. You might want to look at the non-monetary value of an education, and on what is lost if students give up studying for earning, or study only in order to increase earning.

That said, you've clearly put some thought into this essay, and it shows, so you're on the right track.

Essays / sample size and defining variables [3]

Or is that you have to design an experiment of your own? The last part of the post sort of reads like it is part of a set of instructions for conducting an experiment, even though you mention a question in the first part. Please clarify.

Writing Feedback / CHANGE or AVOID CHANGE? Which is better? [4]

I say you should opt for the specific, even when you can stick to entirely general terms:

"First, doing the same things requires proficiency, which comes from one's talent and patience rather than repeatable techniques. We cannot accomplish a high quality task without skills gained during daily improved same manufacture. Second, concentrating on the same things does not mean avoiding progress, but much more things taken into consideration to enhance the work quality. As we know more detailed about the thing , more problems can be found, thus requires us come up with more relevant solutions."

If there is a vaguer, more general word than "thing" in the English language, I can't think of it off hand. Pick some specific activities that can only be mastered through repetition and practice. That covers pretty much every possible skill one can have, so finding examples should be dead easy.

Undergraduate / Hopsital Soap Opera - college classification essay [3]

I really like the gallery of people you introduce. However, if this is meant as a college admissions essay, perhaps you should add a bit at the end of each paragraph to talk about how meeting that patient changed you. That might also smooth out the flow a bit, too.

Writing Feedback / Violence and the youth - two reports [3]


This keeps coming up when this topic is being discussed. Could you provide statistics indicating just how much, if at all, youth violence rates have increased over the past thirty or so years? For instance, you could look at the chart here:

youthviolence.edschool.virginia.edu/violence-in-schools/nati onal-statistics.html

or take statistics from this article

media-awareness.ca/english/resources/articles/perceptions_of _crime/myth_youth.cfm

or this web site:

safeyouth.org/scripts/facts/statistics.asp

Hmmmm . . . oh, wait, they all say that youth violence has been decreasing for the past decade. This wasn't a deliberate attempt to undercut your point, btw -- they are simply the first three sites listed in Google when I search for "youth violence rates." If you are going to say that video games are fueling an increase in youth violence, it would be nice if you could establish that there has actually been an increase in youth violence. Because if youth violence has been declining for the past ten years, and video games have been getting more popular, then playing video games would seem to prevent teen violence. [unless one realizes that correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation, of course].

Writing Feedback / Do you support it or not? A mall construction in your neighborhood [6]

You might want to think about how some of your points might come across to your reader.


You assume that the wife doesn't already have a fulfilling career? Or that it isn't the husband who is going to be getting the part time job?


You believe that poor people own houses worth $100,000? And that a great way to improve the neighborhood is to price out people who can only afford homes at that price?

If you do in fact believe these things, then that's fine. Just be aware that your intended audience might not agree with you.

Undergraduate / "The Heights"; summer school program [3]


I'd throw in some specific anecdotes here -- things you witnessed, how that changed your views, etc.

Other than that, your essays seem solid. You might want to research the Employee Free Choice Act, though. The main objection to it is that it destroys the right to a secret ballot, which presumably prevents either union organizers or management from pressuring employees into voting one way or the other. At the moment, such an election can be called even if only 30% of the workers call for one.

Writing Feedback / Need your corrections for agumentative paragraph ("my supervisor") [4]

You seem to met all of the requirements. Here are some minor fixes:

"He allows the other coworker to have weekends off rather than someone else, praises the other coworker even though I do most of the work, and got mad at me for being late once even though the other coworker came late too without any punishment."

"when I had wanted to have weekends off long before she ever started working with the company"

"came at around 30 minutes late "

Writing Feedback / Essay about violence and violent behavior in the Media [3]

I notice you seem to use a lot of paraphrasing in your essay, with few direct quotations. Some direct quotations might be a good idea though, especially when it comes to citing the studies you mentioned. That way, you could analyze the studies a bit more to determine how valid they are likely to be. Correlation and causation are not the same things, so you will have to check the methodology the studies used to determine if they really make sense. For instance, you say that one study concludes that


How long of a time elapsed between the introduction of television and the doubling of the homicide rate? Has this occurred in all countries where television has been introduced or only in America? What other social factors were in play at the same time? And so on. The answers to these questions may increase or decrease your confidence in the study's conclusions, but you do need to deal with them.

Apart from that, you have a thoughtful, well-written essay. Good job.

Graduate / Non-native English speaker: SOP in English [5]

Oh, I see what you mean now. You could try

"Though I chose not to complete them, I found my studies at the faculty of engineering very useful. Later on, when combined with my Business Administration studies, they made me a good candidate for career opportunities in petroleum and chemical industries."

That should fix it.

Undergraduate / Intermediate Level in science stream [4]

"I want to proceed further in my studies in the same stream at a foreign institution."

"I have found your institution as one of the best in the field of pure sciences" Perhaps you should delve into the specifics of what exactly you think makes the institution the best. Pile on the praise!

"As I am a citizen of least developing country, my economical status is not so sound to pay the tuition fee. So I expect I will get a scholarship for this four years program." Do you "expect" or "hope"? And if you "expect," rather than "hope," do you have any good reason for this? If not, you might want to go with "hope" anyway, on the grounds it sounds a bit humbler.

Letters / Query Letters to Publishers? Need advice [3]

Some excellent advice from Eric. You might also want to head to your local library and check out some of the many, many books available on breaking into various writing markets. While you're at it, you could even pick up some back issues of magazines you might be interested in writing for, so you can get an idea of what they are looking for.

Book Reports / Did thomas scott commit treason against the Metis? [9]

No. That would have been impossible, as he was an Englishman, not a Metis, and so was never on their side to begin with. If you have to write an essay on Thomas Scott, you need to come up with a better approach to the topic.

Poetry / "To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like..." [6]

You tend to spend too much time talking about Cumming's poetry in general, and not enough about the specific poem you are supposed to be analyzing. So, to take one example, you say

"The lack of capitalization of 'i' eight times in the poem is to emphasize Cummings' belief that capitalization is used exclusively in poetry for symbolic reasons and his belief that the English language is vain by capitalizing a pronoun for one's self."

That may be true, but if it is, it only means that the lower case "i"s don't tell you much about the meaning of this particular poem, as he always writes that way. So, if you cut these details about Cummings in general, you will have more room to focus on the specific meaning of the poem, as you are supposed to be doing.

Letters / Letter to Director of Financial Aid [7]

"The reasons for the revocation of the funds occurred becausewas due to the fact that my percentage for credits taken and credits earned were at a 41% and needed to be at least 67%" What do you mean by the second part of this sentence? Do you mean that "my average for credits taken and earned was 41% instead of the mandated 67%." Or do you mean that "I had only completed 41% of the degree requirements, instead of the mandated 67%"?

"After graduation my plans were to go to college and completeearn a two year Associates Degree, but as life has its own plans I became pregnant in July 06'."

"Even though, I chose to keep my child because of beliefs. I, also, chose not to continue schooling on hopes of attending VGCC to obtain my degree." This sounds odd. One might have thought that having a child would have been a reason to put your schooling on hold for awhile, but you are saying that you put your schooling on hold in spite of having a child. You might want to revise this part to make your meaning a bit clearer.

You should definitely send off this letter once you have finished polishing it. After all, the worst that can happen is that they refuse to reinstate your funding, in which case you are no worse off than you are now. On the other hand, they might reinstate your funding, which would be great, and which they definitely won't do if you don't ask.

Research Papers / Kosovo's independence--government class research paper [4]

Some more fixes for you:

"Kosovo has not been part of a Slavic tribe-it washas mainly lived been inhabited by Illyrians (Albanians)."

"A large number of Serbs did leave Kosovo, not because of any campaign to push Serbs out of Kosovo, but because many Serbs felt uncomfortable living in Kosovo"

"This is their long-expected spring offensive, and it isconstituted a horrible crime against humanity."

Graduate / Non-native English speaker: SOP in English [5]

The tenses also get confusing in this part: "Though not completed, I find my studies at the faculty of engineering very useful. Later on, when combined with my Business Administration studies, they made me a good candidate for career opportunities in petroleum and chemical industries." Ir you are still doing your studies, then "Later on" presumably refers to a future time, but you have employed the past tense for the subsequent verbs. You will have to decide what tenses best convey your meaning, then revise the sentence to make sure you have consistently employed those tenses.

Undergraduate / Essay correction, activities - Yuanyang, China [4]

At the end, you should add a sentence or two that captures what the experience taught you, how it made you a better person, and/or how it inspired you to study whatever it is you are applying to study. Apart from that, you have a well-written, very specific personal anecdote, which will serve you well once you've add an explanation of its significance to the mix.

Undergraduate / BA in gaming, how to start a paragraph? [3]

Which university offers a degree in gaming? I'm so going back to being a student . . .

Writing Feedback / Persuasive essay (Lithium based batteries>Nickel based batteries) [33]

Well, you could try posting the draft and the comments you did get (you said she gave you few comments, rather than none) here, and we can see if we can help you make sense of them.

Book Reports / "Scout, a Courage Crammed Volcano" - Essay on Courage in novel To Kill A Mockingbird [5]


Lol! This is hilarious. You mean it starts in Mexico, causes panic in North America, apparently has a high mortality rate, then turns out to be no worse than the regular flu? I know you go on to explain the particular qualities you have in mind, but you really can't use this metaphor unless you have a negative view of curiosity, which doesn't seem to be the case. Nice try, though.

Writing Feedback / What are the differences between life in America and life in Third World nations [14]


Don't worry -- if America and Canada both stay on their present courses, in twenty years or so we should be ready to annex you lot so that you are all part of the new Canadian Empire. Then we will all be from the same place, and can live happily ever after. ;-)