Writing Feedback / The higher goal the bigger efforts for it. (SAT Essay) [5]

Your essay would be more convincing if you had at least one example that wasn't a competition. That is, you argue that people have to be competitive to succeed, but then give three examples of competitions. Obviously you have to be competitive to succeed in competitions. That's why they are called competitions. You aren't really proving anything worthwhile unless you can show that competitiveness is also vital to success in situations not deliberately designed to reward competitiveness.

Essays / I don't know how to start my essay.. [13]

Let us start by discussing murals. Specifically, I know nothing about murals. Let us suppose, though, that in a moment of masochism, I decide to write an eight page essay on them. I could stare at a blank screen feeling stupid, or, I could do a search for murals on Google. Out of an abundance of too much free time, I have actually just tried this. Quickly skimming the first three promising sources I find, I start making notes. They start something like this:

Earliest cave painting a form of mural. Used in religious ceremonies. Many murals in churches

Mexican Revolution. Murals used to challenge social oppression, justify revolution.

1930s America. African Americans use mural art to challenge racial bigotry.

A pattern is beginning to emerge here. All of the sources talk about murals as serving a political purpose. So, now I go from having a really broad topic (murals), to having a much narrower one (murals as political art). This of course allows me to do a new search in Google. I can take more notes from my additional sources, looking for more connections I can make between them. I also realize, in passing, that some of the sources are from Google Books, and are 300+ pages long. If someone can write 300 pages on the topic of murals, surely I can manage 8 with ease. I am learning and becoming more confident with every passing minute.

If you look up essay in a dictionary, you'll see it comes from the French word essayer, meaning "to try," to make an attempt." So, do some research, write down what you can, then post the prompt and your draft/notes here for more specific feedback.

Writing Feedback / It's with God's miracle that human miracles are innovate; Human Mind vs. the Computer [8]


So . . . God's creation is infallible and perfect
Human beings are God's creation
Human beings are therefore infallible and perfect
As human beings are infallible and perfect, their creations must also be infallible and perfect.
Human beings create computers
Computers are therefore infallible and perfect

Stop me if I've missed something, but I'm pretty sure the above is an inescapable chain of logic that completely destroys most of your opening points. Revise your introduction so that it makes sense.

To that end, you might want to define your key terms. As far as I know, the human mind is only a very complex biochemical computer. It is more advanced than the computer you are reading this on only because organic brains have evolved over 3 billion years, whereas humans have been building computers for only around 40 years. Hardly a fair contest.

"Technically speaking, the human mind has a hard disk of infinite gigabytes of memory, and its RAM is immeasurable. " This is just wrong. If it were true, you would be able to remember what you had for dinner on July 2nd, 2003. Our RAM generally consists of enough space to hold about seven numbers or 1/10th of second of visual input. I may have messed up the numbers here, but that doesn't affect my overall point.

"its processing power can never be mind-boggling, because it is originally made and programmed by the human mind." Again, this does not follow logically. There is no reason why a simpler organism cannot make a more complex one. You wouldn't argue that a statue could never be bigger than a human being because it was made by human hands, would you?

At this point I point I stopped reading your essay. It consists of baseless assertions not grounded in any research into neurology or A.I. programming, and reveals a total lack of logical thought. I'd have to disagree with Kevin and give you an F. I'm assuming that this is meant as an academic essay for a university course of some sort. If it is meant as a personal essay meant to explore your ideas, for, say, a high school course, I'd go considerably higher, C range, probably, as the grammar and style are bearable.

Writing Feedback / Some of my thoughts - an essay [8]

"some thoughts - an essay" This seems to be the crux of your problems. An essay is not usually a collection of thoughts, or rather, it is not usually just a collection of thoughts. It is a collection of thoughts organized for a specific purpose. The ideas in your essay seem to share a certain theme, but there is no clear thesis statement, or transitions guiding the reader from one idea to the next. What you have now could be a good brainstorming freewrite that you could use as the raw material for an essay, though, so try rewriting it after first distilling your main point down into a clear, easily understandable sentence that can act as a thesis.

Writing Feedback / Limiting the Use of Dispable Plastic Bags [5]

As our nation's wide use of disposable plastic bags causes a large number of environmental problems, and as people's conscious of environmental protection has improved, China has established new law s limiting of the use of disposable plastic bags.

Disposable bags have been offered sped in shopping malls , super markets and other such places alike for many years. Because people don't have to pay for the plastic bags, they discard them thoughtlessly,throwing them away here and there, andcausing lots of cleaning problems. With the huge plastic market, factories produce more and more plastic bags, thus cause a few fatally pollutions. [This last part makes no sense. I think you need to explain in more detail what you are trying to say]

So limiting the use of disposable plastic bags is meaningful. Therefore, people would pay more attention to environmental protection, and we can make our living places more comfortable and cleaner, and we can also limit the pollution of our planet.

Graduate / Explaining my circumstances in better way, for an interview. [6]

Some more background information might be helpful here. What sort of interview is this for? What is your main purpose in the interview? Why do you think you will be asked about your relatives? If we knew the answers to these questions, we would have a much better idea of how to help you.

Essays / Creative essay about New Zealand [5]

Try to take an approach that really interests and inspires you. I'd suggest focusing on one specific aspect rather than trying to literally cover everything you can learn about the place. For instance, you might research its use in films, or its marine life, or the history of its founding. Once you have found something that you can work with, brainstorm ways you can tie your knowledge of your specific aspect to broader elements of New Zealand culture

Undergraduate / Stevens or NJIT - which college to choose? [9]

You might be better off looking to see if there is any reason not to attend either of your two choices. There really isn't that much difference between most universities -- in the end a degree is a degree. Where you got it might make a bit of difference in how easily you can find a job when you are first starting out, but after that, no one much cares. In terms of how much you actually learn, the university experience will generally be as rewarding as you make it. Some universities, though, are just not very good, or have certain programs that are particularly poorly designed. So, if you do some background research, you should be able to find out if either university has a bad reputation when it comes to computer engineering. If not, you can probably go to whichever one appeals to more without worrying.

Undergraduate / (Hardships / Family history / Institution / Qualities) - college essay remake [6]

Your essay. . . need some changes.

See my response to your comment on a previous thread for more details.

Writing Feedback / My father sacrificed alot in his lifetime ; Someone Who Has Influenced My Life [10]

At the moment, your essay's thesis is something along the lines of "My Dad's a wonderful person." However, it should probably be "My father has taught me to be _____, ______, and _____," with each of the blanks filled in with something appropriate. Then, you could dedicate a paragraph to explaining each attribute that you picked, demonstrating how you learned it with reference to specific anecdotes about your father. This would give you an essay with the correct structure that was clearly on topic, which should raise your grade considerably.

Writing Feedback / Essay on Obama's Stimulus Plan [8]

Well, if you have to remain neutral, perhaps you could focus on the fact that it is controversial, turn that into the foundation of the thesis. That way, you can still outline both sides without prejudice, while emphasizing how far apart the two sides are. That would give you a clear, interesting thesis. At the moment, you don't really have one. You just sort of outline the two cases and say we have no way of deciding between them. Other than that, the essay is solid.

Writing Feedback / "Leave it to Allah!" Does this article sound good in English? [48]

"on the evening of" is correct.

Comment on the translation: Not bad. A few sentences seem a bit awkward:

"I left my office in the evening heart broken, as the sight of that woman and her child could not get out of my mind."

"and was about to escape from the " the law representative ""

Also, the sentences don't flow together all the time. However, they may not have done so in the original passage, so that might not be a flaw in your translation, per se.

Essays / Discovery of the "New World" [15]


This could be interesting. It is true that North America isn't very multicultural -- oh, wait, its main cities have either reached, or are close to reaching, a state where no cultural group constitutes a majority of the population. Never mind.

Okay, that was just me playing devil's advocate -- your thesis is certainly arguable. I would say, however, that you probably don't mean this: "preserve and reduce the deficit of culture." I think that you mean that Native culture could have been preserved, and the deficit thereby reduced.

Writing Feedback / My sculpture paper, Emile Antoine Bourdelle [6]

I agree with Kevin -- you have met the requirements and given a decent description of the artwork, but you need to present yourself as a more thoughtful, reflective, hard working student. Remember, the ultimate audience for this essay is your teacher, and presumably you want your teacher to have a good impression of you.

Undergraduate / 'I love the sciences' - UVM Waitlist Letter [7]

Overall this is a well-written enough letter. If you are writing it to try to balance out your low GPA, though, perhaps you should explain why it was so low? Or maybe you covered that in your initial application? A couple of minor things:

"Complacently, this letter will become one such document;" Complacently is the wrong word. Revise.

"I took Chinese in 9th grade for the opportunity to go to China on Brookline High School's infamous China Exchange Program." Why infamous? Is it particularly bad?

Writing Feedback / Introduction essay for Death of a Salesman prompt- Critiques? [3]

You're on the right track. Willy is only truly happy when he is working with his hands. If he had become a tradesman, he would have probably done very well for himself. Instead, he decides he wants to be #1, to make money and influence people, so he goes into sales. But, he isn't really very good at sales, and is fairly unhappy at his work. Biff, on the other hand, knows perfectly well that he would be happiest working on a ranch, and so decides to engage in the true American Dream, the pursuit of happiness, rather than in Willy's corrupted version of it.

Writing Feedback / The Big Three, Japanese Archetypes [3]

Not bad. Try elaborating on the three personalities a bit more in your first paragraph. For instance, you could explain the saying that you quote near the end, and identify key personality traits by name that would be associated with each person. That might give you more to work with when you come to situate yourself among them in the second paragraph.

Essays / Discovery of the "New World" [15]

As far as I know, there isn't any particular formula, though it probably tends to follow the same general patterns as introductions in other sorts of academic essays. For your essay topic, whose point of view are you supposed to be writing from? I doubt that the Natives, the European Settlers, the African slaves, or even contemporary American citizens would answer the question you have in the same way.

Undergraduate / Supplemental application for UBC -- Passion, Bachelor of Science program [13]

"Because I always wore glasses as a child, I became interested in eye care"

"Describe and evaluate one experience that significantly influenced your academic goals. (200 words max.)" Your essay for this is weak. The overcoming of adversity in childhood is a decent enough topic, but you need to tie it in to your academic goals more strongly. At the moment, you merely say that you want to become an optometrist because "I want to give my family a good life that they deserve. I do not want to see my father laying on the stairways anymore because he is too tired to walk up the stairs to his bed." But you could do this as another sort of doctor, or as a lawyer, or as an engineer, or as a police officer, or as a bank robber, for that matter. So, your answer really tells us nothing about how your academic goals developed. Also, now that I think of it, you are supposed to focus on one specific incident, and you don't really -- you more give an overview of your childhood. You should write a new essay for this one, I'm afraid.

Essays / How to write Term Paper on Alzheimers? 5 pages with cover and bibliography [7]

Don't forget that you can post your drafts here as you complete them. It is really much easier for us to provide useful feedback when we have at least some of the material to work with.

Undergraduate / Personal statement-Law ("The world makes way for the man...") [4]

Your general approach to this essay is strong, especially the first half. The second half could be improved by discussing what you hope to accomplish by studying law, specifically. What field within the legal profession do you intend to go into? If you plan on becoming a lawyer, what sort of law do you plan to practice? How would this make you a responsible citizen? And so on. This would be more convincing than simply saying you want to get into the legal profession to make a difference, although it is good that you at least list specific issues that concern you.

Essays / art sculpture 6 page essay to start off with - a hook? [5]

Quotations make excellent hooks, so if you can't think of anything interesting to say about your topic to open with, find something someone else has said about it that is interesting, and steal it. Just don't forget to cite so you aren't guilty of plagiarism.

Writing Feedback / Something That Changed Me - Becoming a Bully [13]

Your comments tend to be brief and unhelpful, but I have to give you some credit for this one -- good job.

Anshul, your essay is quite insightful. Once you have taken the advice of the other posters in this thread, post your revised version of the essay here for further feedback.

Writing Feedback / The mighty (movie) essay. Max's past. [5]

". . . Max wanted to think of it as a victory a cold clumsy hand pounded him in the face."

"With a mad insane cry" "mad insane" is a tad redundant.

Very well done -- this is an excellent example of what descriptive writing should be.

Essays / Cause and Effect Essay Trouble [6]

Well, if your teacher has a sense of humor, you can write an essay on how we should ban dihydrogen monoxide because it causes cancer. After all, 100% of patients who are diagnosed with cancer have ingested large quantities of the chemical prior to developing the disease. Check out lhup.edu/~dsimanek/dhmo.htm for the sort of tone you could adopt.

Or, if your teacher doesn't appreciate good satire, you could look into any sort of pathological or abnormal psychology, and how it develops, i.e. what its causes are.

Book Reports / The Crashing Symbols of The Glass Menagerie and My Little Town [27]

Expand more on the meaning of the song lyrics at the beginning of each paragraph.

Essays / Help with essay - why should we tolerate hateful speech [7]

Do research.
Come up with a thesis based your research.
Write up a first draft of your essay in which you state your thesis and attempt to prove it with your research.
Post that draft here for feedback.

Writing Feedback / "Important truths begin as.." (CLEP English Comp w/essay) [4]

Overall this is a fairly well-written and thoughtful essay. You might want to add a bit more detail to your examples, though.

"For example, there was a time when proposing that the world was round, instead of flat , or that the sun was the center of the universe, not earth, was considered blasphemy. It was easier for people of that era to understand that they were on the planet that was being orbited by all others."

Why is knowing the relative motion of the sun and the Earth an important truth?
"There was a time" When?
Why was this truth so fiercely fought by the Church? That is, why was it easier for people to believe that the sun orbited the Earth?

You could use similar sets of questions to guide you as you revise your other examples, too. Good luck.

Writing Feedback / "Leave it to Allah!" Does this article sound good in English? [48]

"Are there any alternatives except for however?" Consult a thesaurus for a comprehensive answer to this question.

I'd is short for "I had better" in this case. Note that the same contraction could be used for "I would," though, as in "I'd write more, but this should be clear enough."

"Not long after" = Soon after, shortly after.

"southern Tehran," would refer to the southern part of the city. "to the south of Tehran" would refer to some location outside of Tehran, to the South.

"large god , or a big dog" Both adjectives are fine, though the choice of noun depends on context, obviously.

Replace "man" in your examples with "Men" or "Humans"

Undergraduate / Boston U Int. (Experiences with Dad, Confidence, Stock Market) [13]


I'm afraid you've lost that battle. "Because" now shows up as a valid meaning for "since" in most dictionaries, much the same way as "hopefully" now means " it is hoped" in addition to its original meaning. The tide of change in language eventually washes away even the most obstinate grammarian's most cherished rules.

AFS, good job with the essay. You have a strong, specific anecdote that shows you have a valid personal reason for being interested in business. Just make the minor changes suggested by the others and you'll be ready to submit.

Writing Feedback / A good X ( Teacher, Roomate, Classmate, Friend, etc.) [3]

You really need to pick one X. (Teacher, Roommate, Classmate, Friend, etc.). Anything general enough to fit all of these is going to be so vague as to be meaningless. Now, the difference in qualities that separate a good teacher from a good roommate, for example, is much more interesting. Alternatively, perhaps you could write an essay about what makes a person good as a person. In other words, what makes a person a decent human being. If you take that approach, though, you will need to consider carefully the benefits and drawbacks of every personality trait. Generosity is good, unless it makes you a sucker for every con man. Ambition is great, until you start trampling over people to attain your goals. Patience is a virtue, until it becomes laziness, etc. This approach would require you to be genuinely thoughtful in your assessment of what constitutes the good, which in turn would yield, hopefully, an interesting essay.

Undergraduate / Supplemental application for UBC -- Passion, Bachelor of Science program [13]

Specific examples, as other comments have pointed out, would be good. In addition to the advice you have already been given, you might want to consider asking yourself what qualities you have that would make you a good fit for a science degree, specifically. Passion and a commitment to hard work are good qualities to have in any field. Do you have any qualities that would be more useful to you in your pursuit of biology than they would be in say, pursuing a degree in Fine Arts, or English Literature?

Essays / How to write Term Paper on Alzheimers? 5 pages with cover and bibliography [7]

Wow, it hadn't occurred to me that word processing could still be troublesome, but I guess if you haven't had to write anything for 30 years, then you would have had no reason to really ever use one. Still, you must be at least somewhat computer savvy, or you couldn't have found this website and figured out how to use it! I'd suggest downloading the latest version of Microsoft Office, or having someone you know who is into computers to do it for you. The Office word processor program (Microsoft Word) is really quite intuitive, and you can usually find instructions on how to do anything merely by typing a description of what you want to do into its help search.

Undergraduate / NYU SUPPLEMENT QUESTIONS -- DEADLINE SENSITIVE [4]

These already seem pretty solid. The only suggestion I can think of is that you might want to briefly explain what you mean by human rights, which causes mean most to you, why you are drawn to them, that sort of thing, if you can find the room. I realize that the word count limit will make that difficult, though. Good luck.

Writing Feedback / Essay on Obama's Stimulus Plan [8]

Kevin is right -- you do a good job of outlining the arguments both for and against the stimulus package, but you don't say which side you yourself favor, or why. You should do this, as an argumentative essay is much more interesting than one that merely presents all points of view equally, especially as you provide no information that would help someone who did not already have a strong opinion on the issue decide between the positions you describe.

Writing Feedback / "Leave it to Allah!" Does this article sound good in English? [48]

"All the mistakes of the ordinary people are forgiven except for those of the religious men" I don't know if this is what the original text said, but I am guessing you might want to revise it along these lines: "All the mistakes of the ordinary people are forgiven by society except for those of the religious men." Otherwise, you make it sound as if it is Allah who is doing the forgiving, in which case it sounds as if you are saying it is okay for ordinary people to do whatever they want, which I assume is not what you, or the original author, is arguing.

Book Reports / Opening paragraph - 1984 by George Orwell - Big Brother control [5]

An opening paragraph normally has more than two sentences. Perhaps you could come up with something that goes a bit deeper than merely listing the obvious control techniques. Maybe you could focus entirely on surveillance in the book, or on the efforts to control not merely behavior but thoughts.

Writing Feedback / Pan's Labyrinth vs. The Fountain essay [4]

Aye, the essay is well-written enough. I am curious, though, about your conclusion "both main characters deterioration is caused by their lack of a rational deduction between the truth and what appears to be so." One could argue that their deterioration is caused by the pressures of too much reality crashing in upon them, and that their imaginary worlds (if you choose to believe that only the mundane aspects of the character's lives are real) help keep them sane. I believe it was Eliot who said that humankind cannot bear too much reality.

Writing Feedback / The Ultimate Controversy: Argument Essay [19]

"Ultimately, Brandon McInerney and all juveniles who carry out premeditated and hate crimes must be tried as adults" I don't know that you have succeeded in showing this in your essay. The counter-arguments you present in second paragraph seem stronger than your own arguments.

"Brandon McInerney, as well as other juveniles, has a brain chemistry that makes them more likely to take risks and to be unable to fully understand the consequences of his actions" If this and the fact that he had a horrible role model in his father are the main reasons why he committed his crime, then how do you justify your thesis? You go on to say "All minors who are capable of conducting mature actions must be able to accept full responsibility," but this is directly contradictory to your earlier point, in which you explain why Brandon wasn't fully responsible for his actions.

You can fix this in one of two ways. First, you could change your thesis, and argue that Brandon shouldn't have been tried as an adult offender. Second, you could introduce stronger arguments for your existing thesis, if you passionately believe he deserved to be tried as an adult. The first approach is easier, in that it requires little more than rearranging paragraphs and rewriting transitions, but the second would probably be more worthwhile as a learning exercise. If you go with the second option, here are some points you could use:

1. Punishment is meant to act as a deterrent -- the punishment must fit the severity of the crime, which can only happen at the moment if the offender is tried as an adult. (You sort of touch on this already, but you could make the point more forcefully.)

2. Punishment is also about protecting the public. A son of a sociopath who has committed murder at 14 is likely a sociopath himself, and at the moment, we have no way of curing sociopathy. Letting him back out into society at 21 would therefore put innocent people in danger.

3. While he might not have understood the moral implications of his actions as well as an adult would have, he surely knew that violent acts are condemned by society, and that murder is generally viewed as morally and legally wrong. Thus, he still chose an immoral course of action of his own free will, and should be held accountable for it. The fact that, as a teenager, he was more likely to take risks or to ignore consequences for his actions doesn't matter, because we don't expect people to refrain from murder merely because they are afraid of the legal punishment. We expect them to do so because it is wrong.

Good luck.

Writing Feedback / Power Privilege essay [8]

You still need to work on defining power. You might start by going over to dictionary.com, which lists 20 separate meanings for the word just as a noun. It really is necessary for your essay to do this. For instance, if power is the "ability to do or act; capability of doing or accomplishing something," which is dictionary.com's first listed meaning, then your argument that power is always gained at the expense of someone else's is unconvincing. How does my having the ability to do something in any way prevent you from being able to do it too?

Likewise, when you talk about the work you were doing, which you claim ended up "leaving me quite powerless," surely you still had the power to seek employment in a more remunerative field? How does your decision to go into a field that you knew would be low paying reflect any particular social power imbalance? You can't answer these questions unless you have defined power, first.

Most of the rest of your essay suffers from the same problem. You talk about empowerment and powerlessness, but these all have "power" as their root word, so what you say about them doesn't hold up without a coherent definition of your key term.