Undergraduate / Summer Calculus and it's Interdisciplinary Role [3]


Is this supposed to be your topic? If so, you need to rewrite your essay to focus more on how Calculus connects to other disciplines. At the moment, what you have is mostly an essay on how interdisciplinary studies are worthwhile, which is a different topic. Only the third paragraph even mentions Calculus. On the bright side, you might still be able to use some of the material you already have if you can tie it in to Calculus in some way.

Graduate / Statement of Purpose "An Award for Drawing" [25]

The paragraph is looking pretty strong now. I'd change the first sentence back to "I am engineer who is also an artist," or some such. The sentence as it stands could be an interesting thesis, but the old version works better with what you go on to say. Apart from that, you are good to go.

Grammar, Usage / Memorising beautiful phrases to learn English [7]

Beautiful phrases are worth studying because they are beautiful. Try memorizing some lines from poems that have moved you. They can be a great source of inspiration when you need it, even if you can't work a direct quotation into your essay.

Poetry / Monologue intro on a love poem - a girl leaving a guy because he treated her bad. [9]

I'm not sure what you want here. It's not that you want help with the love poem itself, but with an intro to it? And the intro itself has to be a monologue? Or do you just want an opening line or two for the poem, which you are saying should have only one speaker? Please clarify.

Writing Feedback / "Our desire to conform is greater than our respect for objective facts." - Essay [15]

An excellently written essay, except that most of your examples of objective facts are, well, wrong.


This is indeed a fact. However, underage drinking doesn't necessarily show disrespect for the fact, so much as disrespect for the law itself. An 18 year-old who can be drafted to serve in the military to have the honor of dying for his country may believe that he should be allowed to enjoy a bottle of beer. This is not to say that someone might not drink only to conform, but if they do so, they are not necessarily ignoring some objective fact about drinking, or, if they are, that fact is not the legal drinking age.


This isn't a fact at all, it's a rule. In fact, it's not even a rule, more of a guideline. There are plenty of exceptions. If I am suicidally depressed, and see a man in danger of drowning, I should try to save him, even though I wouldn't necessarily want him to save me if our positions were reversed.


So your decision was based on your awareness of certain objective facts -- that children are cruel, that bullies target those who interfere with them, that it is better to watch someone else be bullied than to be the victim of bullying. One can argue that you made the wrong decision, or that it would have been better if you had taken the risk, but the actual decision was made on a perfectly objective analysis of your own self-interest.

So, I'd say you need better examples. You might look at the Milgram experiments, esp. the Theory of Conformism. Even then, though, you will be have to be very careful to isolate objective facts from subjective moral judgments. Your thesis is defensible, but it will require a lot of effort, precisely because so often the desire to conform is the desire not to suffer social repercussions. That those repercussions will occur is often an objective fact in itself, so the decision to conform really amounts to the decision that one set of facts outweighs another in importance, rather than a decision to ignore one set altogether. Still, as I said, you can make the case you are trying to make, if you really think about your examples. Good luck.

Research Papers / Thesis statement: "Why Are Company CEOs getting Higher Bonuses?" [13]

CEOs for which company? Higher bonuses than who or what? Ideally, a CEO receives a bonus as a reward for leading the company to higher profitability. In some cases, though, other fees they get paid may be erroneously labeled as bonuses. In the case of AIG, for instance, the "bonuses" weren't really bonuses at all. They were retention fees, extra cash paid to ensure the executives stayed, because that was cheaper for the company than having to pay new executives to learn all of the interior financial systems of the company. Had the company not labeled them as bonuses, there never would have been such a public outcry over them. So, it depends which sort of bonuses you are talking about.

Writing Feedback / "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe Research Paper [3]

Your essay is really well-written. You have a clear and well-argued thesis, and the grammar and style are both solid. The only criticism I have for you is that the biographical information in the first paragraph, while interesting, seems out of place, given that your essay isn't on the real-life influences on Poe's work. You are essentially undertaking a formalist reading of the story, and so should craft a more appropriate introduction.

Great choice of topic, btw -- I love "The Masque of the Red Death."

Essays / Select a developmental or psychological theory/perspective; how to structure it? [4]

If you give a brief summary of attachment theory, and of your preliminary ideas on how it connects to social work, we might be able to give you more detailed feedback.

Essays / ILC Challenge & Change in Society HSB4M-A EXAM [16]

It is the sort of thing you tend to miss, isn't it. Seems odd, though, especially when you can still remember how much you'd have rather been doing something else at the time. I think the study sessions themselves are often fun, but are stressful because they tend to be left until the last minute, and because you have to worry about successfully memorizing everything. The learning itself though, is always a joy.

Writing Feedback / Archimedes; "Eureka!" essay [10]

Your anecdote about his death seems out of place. Usually, this sort of essay would go in chronological order of his achievements, then end with his death. It's sort of natural in what is essentially a biographical piece. You might want to move things around a bit and see if that sounds better.

Also, I thought his quote was "Give me a lever long enough, a fulcrum strong enough and I'll move the world." I know wikipedia gives the version you use, and for all I know it could be right, but I'd double check in a more reliable source, just to be safe.

Research Papers / Essay on No drinking on the beach in San Diego [11]

Yeah, this is the sort of perennial debate that never gets truly settled one way or the other, so there should be a ton of material on such bans in general as well as on the San Diego ban in particular.

Research Papers / Essay on No drinking on the beach in San Diego [11]

If you want to write a good persuasive essay on your chosen thesis, do a search for articles written in favor of the ban. If you want to convince your opponents, you are going to have to address their points. So, find out what the rationale for the ban was, and provide evidence that the ban has been ineffective in achieving its goals, or that the costs have been greater than the benefits. In essence, you are trying to turn the reasons for the ban into reasons that the ban should be lifted. This will probably be more difficult to do than simply listing the main anti-ban talking points, but will give you a much stronger essay.

Undergraduate / There were times when I didn't craved for life. A shiny new car. (obstacle or bump essay) [4]

Working at the family restaurant was one of the darkest moment in my life.

You should probably elaborate on just what made this such a bad experience for you. At the moment, the reader can guess a lot of it, from what you say in the second paragraph, but you don't provide enough detail for the reader to really share your sense of how horrible it was. So you had to work a part-time job after school, which cut into your social life. That's unfortunate, but it hardly qualifies as "darkest moment" stuff, unless you've lived a very, very sheltered life. There must have been more to it than that, but if you don't share the details, you can't expect the reader to empathize.

Research Papers / Budget - Problem and solution research paper [8]

I would have thought that you would want to focus on either coming up with alternative methods the school could use to raise money, or on ways the schools could cut costs. I don't know how you would be able to make that global, though. Maybe schools in NJ could look at models of successful schools in developing countries that have long had to make do with much more limited resources?

Writing Feedback / Descriptive Essay: Joffrey's is My First Distance [5]

You might want to elaborate a bit on the descriptions, given that this is supposed to be a descriptive essay. So, you can smell the coffee. Great. So, what's the coffee smell like? Likewise, you could provide descriptions of the people you mention. At the moment, I can only picture generic mannequin-looking people standing around in purple t-shirts, grinning manically because their minds have rotted from too much caffeine, their eyes twitching spasmodically as their fingers flex and clench in anticipation of wrapping themselves around the throats of unwary customers . . .

Okay, so I'm exaggerating a bit . . . you did mention that they were welcoming and respectful (as a spider inviting a fly into a parlor?). But mainly, the only visual clues I have to work with are smiles and purple t-shirts. You need to provide more detail than that if you want your descriptive essay to be successful.

Writing Feedback / My attitude towards writers is mostly positive. Writers have creative and imaginary minds. [9]

Can you find some way to connect your attitude towards writers with your attitude towards writing, perhaps by starting with how you personally feel about writing, and what you know about what writing requires, then moving on to talk about how that informs your opinion of writers? At the moment, the essay really seems like two separate pieces that have been wedged together. I was going to suggest you just pick one and write solely on that, but I see that the prompt won't let you do that, so you need to find a way to unify the two halves of the topic in some way. Otherwise, the essay will seem, as it currently does, a bit disjointed.

Letters / Rinor: My first CV for a job application [6]

"my personality is agreeableness, which means I am an easy going, friendly, and cooperative person in everyday life." This doesn't work. You may have affability as a personality trait, but you can't say that your personality is agreeableness itself. So, you can either take Michael's advice and cut this sentence altogether, or you can revise it to say what you actually intended to say.

Beyond that, your C.V. seems a bit odd. If you were applying for a position with an environmentalist NGO, it would be really strong. But almost none of what you mention has anything to do with being a good translator. Perhaps you should reorganize things so that relevant information is emphasized, and add more relevant details. For instance, it would help if you could say you were fluent in at least two languages, and specify which languages they are. (We can guess English is one, I suppose). You might also want to find ways to connect seemingly unrelated items back to translation in some way, especially if you don't have much else to add that is relevant.

Essays / ILC Challenge & Change in Society HSB4M-A EXAM [16]


This pretty much says it all for this section. Get together with a friend in the same class and quiz each other on the definitions and concepts until you are sure you know them. In fact, that would work for the first three sections of the exam. For the long essay, you might try debating some of the key issues you have looked at. Going over the various positions and deciding which ones you agree with should prepare you to quickly come up with a thesis for whatever the essay question is.

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

I didn't think ibid was used in MLA either, but if that's what the teacher wants, then that is what should be used. Citing correctly is probably overrated anyway. As long as the source is clearly credited and can be tracked down, most people, including teachers and professors, don't much care if a non-essential piece of information is left off, or an extra comma thrown in. I don't think I've ever lost marks for citation errors, and in fact I only recently learned that you don't put a comma between author name and page number in MLA. That's what I did for every single citation in every single essay I ever submitted for university work, and no one ever even bothered to point out that it was mistake!

Essays / In general, how to write a term paper? [15]

The best way to start writing a paper is to start writing it. It can be an outline, research notes, or even just random thoughts on the topic, but get something down on paper (or more likely the screen). Eventually this will lead you to some useful ideas, though you will have to prepared to go back and cut ruthlessly after you have finished a first draft.

Research Papers / Drinking age, lowering age to 18 - research paper [21]

They are not wholly arbitrary. There are objectively good reasons for not allowing a five year-old to operate a motor vehicle. It's just that everyone matures at a different rate, and it is impractical to try to handle matters on a case-by-case basis in a country with millions of people. So, we pick an age that seems a reasonable approximation of the average, or maybe one that is a bit higher, to ensure public safety. The issue is complicated by the fact that adolescence is a relatively new concept. Originally, kids were expected to take on full adult responsibilities pretty much around the time they turned 13, maybe even sooner. So, in Romeo and Juliet, it seems perfectly reasonable to everyone that Juliet should be married off because she is almost 13! The idea that kids could stay kids until they were 18 only takes off once society becomes affluent enough that parents can afford to support their kids that long. Recently, the trend has begun to extend even further, with people in their 20s continuing to live with their parents to save on rent, essentially extending childhood into the mid-20s. At the same time, the information age is making kids seem more knowledgeable and worldly much earlier than we have been used to, creating an interesting dynamic, whereby kids grow up faster, yet paradoxically insist on staying in a childhood-like state for longer.

Writing Feedback / "Bad Boss" Essay - selfish, hypocritical, harassing, malice, poor communicator. [3]

You need to refine your definition of "bad." A boss could be a middle manager, for instance. This middle manager might be considered a "good" boss by his own boss if he ensures that his department meets certain profit margins, even if he harasses and intimidates his employees. His employees, in that case, though, would likely view him as a "bad" boss. Even a top boss, a company owner, for example, probably judges whether he is "good" or "bad" as a boss by what he can get his workers to accomplish, rather than by how happy they are. So, you are going to have to discuss how issues of perspective alter what is understood by "good" and "bad" in this case.

Essays / Select a developmental or psychological theory/perspective; how to structure it? [4]

You would craft a thesis, that will probably end up being something along the lines of "Attachment theory is especially useful for X, Y, and Z in social work practice, but weak at A, B, and C." Then your essay would talk about the points you have listed, in the order you listed them, so that your thesis statement acts as sort of a miniature outline. That will likely give you a structure of

Intro
Summary of theory
Advantages
- Advantage I
- Advantage II
- Advantage III
Disadvantages
- Disadvantage I
- Disadvantage II
- Disadvantage III
Conclusion

That seems to be what the instructions are calling for, at any rate.

Writing Feedback / Today, the dominance of global product brands threatens individual identity [5]

Your essay addresses the prompt clearly with a well-developed thesis. You might want to keep practicing, just to develop your stylistic and grammatical abilities a bit more, but you certainly have no reason to feel particularly anxious.

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

Ibid is shorthand for "the same source as the last thing I cited." So, it tells the reader that the quotation it is attached to comes from the same source as the last fully cited quotation.

However, only certain citation styles use this, so Kyle will have to check with his teacher to find out what citation style she wants, so that he can Google that format to make sure his essay matches it.


You are also an intelligent, articulate individual who gives detailed and helpful advice to others on this forum. A person who might, one day soon, be applying for colleges and jobs, filling out applications that ask him about his volunteer experiences. Posting in online forums as a random member doesn't really qualify, but posting as an official contributor does. That's why we have the designation, so that students using this site who do a really great job at helping their peers out can get recognition for it. Up to you, though.

Writing Feedback / Write about a belief you have and the pros and cons of it (online writing essay) [5]

Better yet, rewrite the essay so that you are relying less on your own personal experience of online learning. It's okay to allow that experience to inform your belief, but the essay is supposed to be about the belief, not about your experiences, and it can be difficult to separate the two if you are too close to the topic.

Writing Feedback / IELTS writing: email and text messaging threats written language [6]

You might also want to consider that even unilingual people already use several languages. That is, the English a person uses with his friends isn't the same as the English he uses with his family, which is different again from the language he uses with his employers, which is probably not the same as the English he used in school with his teachers. None of this has greatly degraded the English used in formal writing, so there is no great reason to believe that the creation of an English used mainly in text messaging will either.

Writing Feedback / I've vowed to change how I interact with people; Fruitful discussion. [5]

I think you once wrote that wordsmiths pick verbal arguments for the same reason jocks often pick physical fights -- because they think they can win. There's probably some truth to that. But it's also fun to explore ideas for their own sake, to construct and deconstruct arguments for the purposes of learning. You just have to make sure that the people you are doing this with understand that the exercise is nothing personal. I've noticed also that some people will never understand this, because they cannot decouple their emotional point of view from their intellectual one. Even someone as intelligent as Richard Dawkins admits that he couldn't handle being in a debating team in college because he would have been forced to argue points of view he didn't agree with. I guess it must be psychologically threatening, if you are deeply invested in a particular point of view, to force yourself to understand how someone else can disagree with you completely.

Writing Feedback / Bioethical Disputes: simple essay on explaining a concept [7]

No, I meant I don't understand how institutionalization is a bioethical dispute. Sorry, I guess the emphasis wasn't clear in the original. Identifying common threads means just what it sounds like -- find things that various bioethical disputes have in common. Try to determine if the same principles underlie many of the disputes you are aware of. That way, you can talk about several issues while still focusing more narrowly on a single principle.

Writing Feedback / Archimedes; "Eureka!" essay [10]

The distinction between density and weight is important though -- if you only mention weight, it will be impossible to explain his experiment.

As for the effectiveness of your existing paragraph as an intro, a famous historical anecdote is always good at catching the readers' interest, so if you aren't being held to a very strict word count, I see no reason why you shouldn't include it. I assume that it will tie into your thesis, which will be easier to judge once you post the next paragraph.

Writing Feedback / Write about a belief you have and the pros and cons of it (online writing essay) [5]

You need to draw a sharper distinction between online and regular classes. At the moment, a lot of your cons apply to regular classes as well. Where you do make a distinction, it tends to be vague and ill-defined:


Explain why. How exactly does an online class end up taking more time than a regular one?


How is this different from regular classes?


You mentioned "blackboard" before. As far as I know, blackboards are what you find in regular classrooms, not online ones. Perhaps you should explain this as an online concept, for your readers' benefit.

You might want to consider looking at other pros and cons of online learning, those that have been raised by researchers studying online classes professionally. Do a bit of research, even just using Google, and you will be able to add a lot more depth to your essay.

Graduate / Statement of Purpose "An Award for Drawing" [25]

The connections between your ideas in your first paragraph are still a bit loose. Try to tighten them a bit.

Your second paragraph is solid, except for one sentence: "As a volunteer you would be inspired by their zest for life." Why not stick with the first person here?

Your third paragraph is excellent, and just the sort of thing you need for this sort of essay.

Good luck.

Book Reports / "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker critic my literary analysis essay [4]

You say that Dee learns about her heritage, but you never specify exactly how this experience changes her. Does she come to realize that she is being too materialistic? Does she come to some great realization about her cultural background? Or does she miss the point, but in a way that allows the reader to come to a realization, either about black culture or about the importance of heritage generally? Answering these questions might lead you to a more focused thesis.

Graduate / Statement of Academic Objectives (graduate program in taxation) [6]

The essay definitely isn't boring or heavy to read -- you seem genuinely excited by issue of taxation, which is difficult to do, so congratulations. Kevin made most of the minor fixes I would have suggested already, but here is one additional piece of advice -- try to avoid clumsy passive structures in your writing. So,

"Building an effective network is another objective in my graduate studies."

could easily be rewritten in a more active way

"I also hope my graduate studies will allow me to build an effective network."

This sounds more natural, and flows more smoothly with the rest of your writing.

Writing Feedback / Process Anaylsis Essay in 5 paragraphs (CompTIA Network+ Exam) [5]

This is an excellent process analysis essay. The only suggestion I can think of is that you might want to consider adding specific examples to demonstrate each step. So, give an example of a network strategy and what you might write on the flashcard for it, an example of a specific topic and what you might learn about it from an additional resource, and so on. This probably isn't strictly necessary, but it would make an already strong essay even stronger.

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

Wow, your essay is definitely improving -- you have managed in your introduction to make the reader care about the topic, and explained why it is important. Your second paragraph has a good rhythm, and seems to capture the potential of lithium batteries quite well . . . almost like what you would want to do in a conclusion. The copy and paste function of your word processor might help you there. Eric has given you some excellent advice. Let me add to it by saying that your third paragraph is just way too technical, especially for an essay aimed at persuading an English teacher. It also isn't really necessary, in a persuasive essay. The entire paragraph can be reduced to a single sentence:

"Lithium batteries provide the same amount of energy as nickel-based cells, while being substantially lighter, a great advantage given that most battery operated devices must be transported by hand."

You don't need to explain the technical specifics or the mathematical formula that proves that lithium batteries can be lighter than nickel-based ones. No one is likely to disagree with your statement strongly enough for the extra detail to be necessary. You would be better off explaining how much weight could be saved, and giving examples of technologies that would be easier to use if lighter. In other words, you should give examples aimed at people who use batteries, rather than examples aimed at people who are battery enthusiasts. Why? Because your teacher (i.e. your audience) is a person who uses batteries, not a battery enthusiast. To build on your car example, someone who really cared about cars would love to hear about engine specs and other technical details about the cars being compared. But what if you were writing for someone who didn't particularly care about cars, someone who used them rather than collecting them or building them? That is, what if you were writing for the vast majority of people who buy cars? Then, all you would need to say about the engine is that the engine of car X was more powerful and fuel efficient than car Y. You wouldn't bother to explain the mechanics of why this was. You'd move on to talk about how car X had more features, including air-conditioning, power windows, etc. (Things that would seem unimportant to a car enthusiast mostly interested in engines). So, again, keep your audience in mind as you write the body paragraphs, and you'll be fine.

BTW Eric, have you considered becoming an official contributor -- you give really solid advice.

Writing Feedback / All Quiet on the Western Front, main theme of camaraderie [4]


So, you say he has lost camaraderie, but then you say that he has gained camaraderie. This does not make sense. You need to add a clause or two to make it clear what you really mean. Apart from that, your essay is on the right track. You have a clear thesis and plenty of relevant quotes. You need to strengthen your case for making a distinction between camaraderie and friendship, though. Friends normally share common interests, after all. You are right about the idea of war creating a certain group mentality, though. Camaraderie in the sense you are describing presumably applies even between soldiers who do not know each other, possibly even between those who do and who do not much like each other. They are still united by a shared purpose and a shared set of dangers and experiences. So, if you can find examples of this occurring in the book, it would allow you to flesh out your contrast between camaraderie and friendship, which is important because the distinction is entirely your own, or your own and whatever source you are drawing on -- the dictionary definitions overlap. Good job overall, though.

Grammar, Usage / How to use quotation marks at the end of a sentence. [14]

Will word processing programs actually convert now? I know you can change the language settings and then run a spellcheck, but I didn't know you could convert directly from one to the other. Where do I find that in MS Word?

Undergraduate / 'in love with the stage' - Common App--Elaborate an Activity [13]

How's this:

At 13, I fell in love with the stage. Since then, I have tried acting, playwriting and directing, but have most enjoyed the latter. In 2004, I directed my first drama, a play about a group of youths on the edge of the underworld. This experience taught me to orchestrate a team and oversee an entire play production, from proscenium to backstage. I learned also how to act as a moderator when actors were dissatisfied with each other's performances. After months of work, the script evolved into a vivid play that received a standing ovation on opening night, and that eventually won me an "Outstanding Director" award from the Hong Kong Art School. This experience taught me that life is a play for which I am both playwright and director. Now, I dream of one day bringing a first-rate play to an even more prestigious stage.

Speeches / "World Rights" ; Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech [5]

You might want to talk a bit about what you are supposed to have accomplished. Yes, you are accepting on behalf of an organization that stands up for world rights, but to have won the prize, the organization must have achieved some specific goals that have advanced the cause of world rights. So, since that is what you are being honored for, you should probably touch on that in the speech, along with an acknowledgment that you still have a long way to go, etc. Try reading previous acceptance speeches by actual winners to get a sense of how these things usually go.