Scholarship / My financial situation. Sometimes I need to send some money to support my parents. [3]

Wenwen, constantly complaining about your financial woes in your scholarship essay is not the way to win a scholarship. You say nothing in your scholarship about your academic achievements (if any) or any future plans for your self improvement. Rather, you spend the whole essay bemoaning your financial situation. You are married to a marine who is in debt. You sometimes send money to support your parents in China, guess what, those are not valid reasons to win a scholarship. You work for minimum wage or less than minimum wage and get treated badly. You mention that your job as a cook is too toilsome. You complain too much in your essay and never say anything about your work ethic. You want to win a scholarship? Prove that you are a hard worker who will stop at nothing to gain a college degree. The scholarship members do not care about your work experience and how much you get paid or how you are treated. They do not care if you find the work hard to do. . What matters to them is if you meet the qualifications they have set up for a scholar under their foundation. You need to present academic and socio-civic accomplishments that will make them think that you are a bright person with a potential for a good future who just needs a break academically. Remember, you are competing against other potential scholars with a thousand times more credentials than you. This is a useless scholarship essay. It does nothing to help your case. You should rethink the content of the essay and write a new one that is more aligned with the scholarship requirements. You definitely cannot and should not use your current essay. It does nothing to help your case.

Undergraduate / "We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us" - Every goal in life is determined by the actions [2]

I have now thoroughly read your essay and I have to say that you did not answer the essay prompt at all. You are supposed to respond to the question by relating your activities to your chosen major. Explain how your activities have helped to prepare you for the academic demands of your course. Instead, you are telling us stories about your activities and what you do there. Without relating it to your college prep work at all. You need to make the connection and discuss it within the essay. At the moment, your essay is disconnected from the prompt because, even though you talk about what you learned during your participation in these activities, you have not told us how these activities have prepared you for the various facets of your academic career. For example, when you tell us that tennis is an elegant and rigorous sport that demands complex abilities. Relate that to the way that architecture demands you to create geometric shapes and angles, similar to those created by a tennis serve or movement, then turning it into a reality as a complex and admirable building. Or something along those lines. Responses such as those are what this essay prompt requires as answers.

Letters / 'I was one of his master thesis defense committee member' - Letter of recommendation [4]

Hi, I tweaked your essay and came up with the following adjustments. I hope it meets your needs.

I highly recommend XXX as a candidate for the PhD program of your esteemed institution. Having worked with him over the past 2 years in my capacity as his professor, Vice-Chairman of the Graduate Institute of Photonics and Optoelectronics and master thesis defense committee member, I can assure you that he will make an excellent addition to your masteral study student roster.

XXX has the ability to work independently or collaboratively on design experiments. Providing valuable assistance and advice whenever needed. HIs abilities have, in my opinion, surpassed his peers and allowed him to develop at a far rapid pace intellectually as evidenced by his exemplary master thesis defense.

XXX possesses an eye for research and presentation skills. Pointing out certain aspects of projects during his thesis defense that one would not normally consider to be important or valuable as a result of his observation and experimentations. I admire him most for his eye for detail and accuracy in responses to questions posed before him.

XXX is a rare student whose ability to publish 2 academic papers in one year has offered him a brighter future in his chosen field. His combination of intelligence, commitment, perseverance and enthusiastic character will certainly make him a valuable member of the Ph.D program in your school. I encourage you to look favorably upon his application.

Writing Feedback / Topic: Causes Reducing the amount of book-reading "READING-CULTURE WHETHER IT STILL EXISTS" [4]

Thien, you have a tremendous volume of information this essay. While that is a good aspect of your essay, unless we know what the exact prompt is, it will be difficult for us to advice you about the proper content or topic related concerns of your essay draft. The essay in its current form contains too much information that ends up cluttering the page. I am sure that you have a prompt for this essay. Once you share it with us, we will be able to help you edit the essay and make it easier to read. We will most likely have to edit the information you presented in the essay once we learn what the topic you are supposed to answer is. Don't worry, we are here to help. So expect us to give you additional advice and instructions once we know what we are dealing with at this moment :-)

Undergraduate / The brief of Carnaval - Process analysis essay [3]

You have written a very creative descriptive essay for the carnival. That shows creativity on your part but it does not answer the needs of the prompt. You were supposed to write a process analysis essay. That is not what you wrote. A process analysis essay is all about directions. If you use the carnival as the topic for this essay, you should provide us with information about how the carnival works. How does it happen? What are the chronological steps that need to happen in order to mount the carnival? Giving us a descriptive essay that falls under these criteria, you will have written a process analysis essay. That said, I suggest that you revise the essay to reflect the expected answers in the prompt :-)

Undergraduate / What does your Oberlin look like? - Supplemental Essay for Oberlin College [5]

Actually, your essay does not answer the prompt. You provided the information that you discovered through research about the university. What the prompt is asking you to describe is your idea of the Oberlin academic and social community. You should respond to the essay by imagining your life at Oberlin and how you believe you will be functioning as a student and member of the community. What does your Oberlin look like? Imagine if you will, how the university would look if you were to envision your own version of the university. What would compose the academic and social setting? How would such a setting help you succeed at the university? Don't answer the prompt with results of your research or your understanding of what the Oberlin academic and social community is like. Be creative, develop your own university using the commonly known information about the school but put a spin on it in order to make it creative and interesting. Once you accomplish that, you will have properly delivered a response to the essay prompt :-)

Writing Feedback / Write an essay that either supports or opposes the use of cell phones. [7]

I cleaned up your essay and brought it down to a 6 sentence count. I hope it works for you :-)

- I believe that cellphones have many positive uses that we all benefit from. First of all, it contains all of the applications that we need in order to function in daily life. Everything from the calendar of activities to our most frequently called numbers are contained in this palm sized device. It is our still and video camera, and houses hours of our unforgettable memories for instant reference. It is our computer when our tablet and laptops fail us. It keeps us better connected with one another in our digital world and ensures the continuation of our smooth social and family relationships because of its ability to help us communicate in multimedia forms with one another.

Graduate / I plan to specialize in operating systems [2]

Evan, what is the prompt you are trying to answer with this paper? It has an overload of information and because of that, does not really have a central theme or topic to represent the essence of the essay. Please gie us an idea of what direction this essay should be headed in by posting the prompt. Without that, we will be unable to help you. Overall though, I believe that we will need to help you sort out the information contained in this paper because of the varied topics indicated. We should only retain whichever parts will help respond to the essay prompt of the school you are applying to. Let us know if this is for a common app, personal statement, or central identity paper. That information will also help us determine the path for editing. Will this be a general essay to be submitted to multiple universities? Give us a nudge in the right direction buddy. We'd love to help you out :-)

Undergraduate / Personal Statement, The Whistler Trip - Undergraduate [2]

Darin, it will be easier for us to help you meet the word count if we knew what the question you are trying to answer is. Kindly provide us with the essay prompt as soon as possible so that we can help you with that. Having read the essay, I can give you an overview comment of your work. So far, the essay has a homey, comfortable feel to it that is trying to draw us into the weekend that you had. The dialogue that you provided may or may not be necessary to provide information, depending upon what the prompt is. There is room to remove certain filler sentences and words which can help you bring down the word count. Like I said, we can't really advise you about how to cut the words down without the prompt. However, that has not affected the effectiveness of your essay. It is better to have a long essay and have to cut it down rather than having a short essay. A short essay means you will have to write more words to meet the word count or the essay doesn't meet the prompt. I believe, without knowing the prompt, that you have somehow met it. Again, I will reserve my final comments and suggestions until after I know what the prompt is :-)

Graduate / As a child I loved to tear things apart - International Dental Program SOP [8]

Daisy, the introduction definitely has an interesting hook to it. I would advice you to add to the part about coming to realize that Dentistry is an art form though. Try to relate it to your interest in tearing things apart and putting it back together. Describe the way say, a cavity was filled by taking apart the tooth (drilling it) in order to make the hole bigger and remove the decayed portions of the tooth. Then let us know how amazed your were at the sight of seeing the cavity filled and having the laser light applied so that the cavity looked like it was never there. Or something along those lines :-) The reason I am asking you to add this is because it ties in directly with your interest in taking things apart and putting things back together again. Which is something that happens each time a tooth cavity is filled :-) I hope my suggestion works for you :-)

Writing Feedback / Effect of popular events on our life [8]


-Every group of people... or may be as large as a whole country or countries ...


- ... important, scary ... wide rangeand variability of...


- Feast Days are popular and happy events that enable people to escape from their daily routine and relax. These events are normally celebrated by people through out of the country or out of town vacations with family and friends. The happy events have, as the description connotes, a happy effect on the life of the people who celebrate through fun and entertainment. That is why feast days and national days of celebration allow a whole country or countries an opportunity to take it easy and forget their troubles for a while.


- Sad and popular events include political elections, natural disasters, and world wars. All of these events have a negative effect on the people of countries as their lives are thrown into turmoil and uncertainty and the economics of their country is thrown into an abyss of disaster in relation to their trade, tourism, and lifestyle.



- This should go up to a paragraph after the happy popular events because sports activities are shared by nations and country's alike. Try to bring it up in placement then we can edit the paragraph for content. It has to flow in relation to the previous paragraph which is why I will not edit it for now.

Graduate / After the nuclear meltdown happened , I shockingly viewed the #Fukushima trend on twitter [8]

That being the case, I suggest that you combine the "we" and the "I" scenarios in your essay. While it is important for you to display your team spirit and cooperation in the essay, it is more important to highlight your personal attributes that will help you in achieving your short and long term goals. After all, if you plan on becoming a vice president in the future, you need to show that you are capable of taking command responsibility for all the results of the team undertakings. This means that good or bad, you are willing to stand by your team and take the greatest risk and responsibility for the success or failure of your tasks. Can you try to do that with the essay? We need to display both sides of your ability to work. While you can work with a team, you need to prove that you are capable of leading the team and also working alone if necessary. Is there a possibility that you will be able to revise the essay in such a manner? We can try to develop the essay from that angle if you wish. I will of course, assist you with it :-)

Writing Feedback / Repairing our current roads would lead to many positive consequences [6]

Now this essay version definitely aligns itself with the prompt and shows us that you have a clear understanding of how to execute the expected information. Always take the time to analyze the essay prompts before you write your essay. Make sure that you understand all of the points required and that you are not providing too much or too little information in support of your claims. The same goes for if you are opposing an argument in an essay. If you can continue to develop your essay writing skills along this path, you are sure to gain a better grasp of the English written language and see a marked improvement in your future essay writing practice tests :-)

Writing Feedback / Animals are waiting for us to be rescued [5]

Here is a list of terms that you used in the wrong context:


- All animals, just like humans, were born with the ability to reproduce. The term is reproduce, not rebiirth.


- We cannot create animals in the manner that the universe created their species, but we can clone them. Refer to cloning of animals on the internet so you will understand why animals are now creatable by humans but certain ethical guidelines prevent that. Remember, we also create dog hybrids by cross breeding. Thus, animals are in a way, creatable by man already.


- Animals do not form, they are already formed. However, they need to evolve in order to survive in this world.

Undergraduate / Mathematics major; It took me quite a long time to finally realize what I wanted to study in college [18]

Throw out the last paragraph referring to Forensic Analysis. Stick to only the Math part and develop your concluding paragraph around that. I will try and help you polish the essay some more :-)

- Don't mention anything that may be connoted negatively by the admissions officer. In this case, the succeeding sentences painted you in a negative light as a student who could not decide upon your future. You need to prevent such an image. Showing instead an image of a wise and analytical person who knows what is necessary in life and how to get it. That is an image further strengthened by the inclusion of the next paragraph into this one.

- ... by choosing a path that would instead lead me to financial stability rather than the path of learning something I enjoyed.

- I advise deleting any references or sentences that do not help the essay improve its content. Keep only the major references that help enhance your image as a student in high school.

- Since you mentioned applying for the scholarship, let us know if you won it. If you did not win it, then don't mention it. Remember, keeping your image positive is very important in these application essays.


This is the edit that I have come up with so far. Let's see how the revision instructions affect the next version of the paper and if you have any additional information to include after we removed the paragraph about becoming a forensic analyst :-)

Undergraduate / 'I got hired as an office assistant on campus' - UC Personal Statement Prompt 2 [6]

Azucena, let me try and help you polish this paper :-)

- When you have been applying to various jobs for more than 2 years and received nothing but rejection, it makes you question whether you truly have what it takes to land a job in today's employment world. Gainful employment is something that is very tough to achieve, specially for a person like me who has no work experience and can't use determination and fast learning skills as the only reason why I should be hired for a job. This was the situation that I found myself in. I was feeling rejected and hopeless. Rather than letting the negativity get to me, I decided to use the rejection to better myself instead.

I began working on my communication skills, developing it so that I would seem more confident in my interviews. I enhanced my writing abilities to prove my English language proficiency, and I also began to dress better in order to show myself off to the interviewers. These little changes that I made had a huge impact upon my interviews. I began to get call backs and after 2months of failing to land a job, I finally stood a better chance at getting one.

- When I finally landed my job as an Office Assistant on campus, I felt vindicated. My actions to further improve myself in relation to my goal in life paid off for me in the most positive way. It was because of the constant rejection that I learned the importance of striving for self improvement. The missed opportunities showed me how to look at the bright side of life and made me realize that an ambitious person will not so easily give up on his dreams, aspirations, and goals in life. It was because I developed this new mindset and used it to my advantage that I got the job I applied for. These are also the skills that I know I should never let go of because it will be the foundation of my future success in life. Hence, the reasons why I am so proud of finally gaining employment as an Office Assistant.

You can use my suggestions as the template for your next revision or, you can feel free to use this version if you wish :-) I hope I was able to help you out.

Writing Feedback / Friendship; constantly borrowing money can lead towards a plenty of negative results [2]


- Borrowing money between friends is something that happens due to circumstances. Depending upon how the loan is approached, it can either be a benefit or a burden on the friendship between two people. This essay will present some of the reasons as to why either of these scenarios could happen between friends.


- Money is the hardest thing to borrow and lend to friends because this is an item which exists in our lives for an utmost necessity, survival. By borrowing money from a friend, we are asking him to risk his survival in favor of our own. Asking a person to take a risk with money, which in most instances, could prove detrimental to the living status of our friend, is like asking him to put his life on hold for your own. Most specially if this borrowing becomes a habit and makes it seem like you are just asking your friend to safekeep a certain amount of his personal money for your own needs. When such a trend of borrowing develops, then it is most likely to affect the friendship in a negative way because the person constantly giving the loan will eventually tire of the situation and decide to end the friendship so he can get his money back.


- Friendships are supposed to be free in this world. By borrowing money from a "friend" one effectively places a financial value on the friendship, thus changing the dynamics of the relationship with that person. A borrower will soon find that he has very few "friends" left in the world owing to this negative habit. It is one thing to be supportive of your friends, it is another thing to financially support them via a loan.


- Therefore, lending friends money can truly have an adverse effect on a friendship since it calls into question the true foundation of the friendship and offers a financial loss to the lender friend. It is because of these reasons that I believe that friendships can be negatively affected by loans between friends.

Undergraduate / Overcoming my past and seeing my potential - application essay [4]

Cynthia, your essay could actually be shortened if you chose to instead discuss your accomplishments in life instead of the bullying at the start. My idea is to tell admissions officer that you are a successful person and that you are confident in that belief / knowledge even though you grew up believing otherwise. It is important to let the reader know that you have already overcome this obstacle before you even present it. That way you will remove the doom and gloom from the essay, the cliche portions, and also, lower your word count immensely. You don't really need to detail information like at what age the bullying started and who the bullies were. However, you should mention that because of certain circumstances in your life, such as being fat, ugly, poor, etc, your peers at school viewed you differently and since it affected your self esteem it reflected in your grades, which led the teachers to believe that you were not capable of accomplishing more in life. Then close the essay by saying that by applying to college you have proven all of your detractors wrong. You will amount to something because you are the only person who can actually achieve your potential as you see it. Which is something that others cannot. This turns the essay around by creating a message of hope and inspiration for others who may be suffering the same type of discrimination as you are at the moment.

Do you think you can revise the essay in that format? Please try to do so and I will do my best to help you bring down the word count if you still find yourself a few words or so over the limit :-)

Essays / Introducing My Friend- college speech [2]

Muhammad, we do not write essays for students here. We only assist in the writing, development, revision, and reviewing of essays that the students have already written. So here is my advice, write the essay yourself. Develop what you can about it and then post it here for review, comments, and assistance. If you need help in relation to how to write this essay because you do not know what to discuss, then do the following:

1. Write down the name of your friend at the top of the page.
2. List down the best traits that this friend has which you admire.
3. Explain each trait to the reader and why you feel that it is an important aspect of your friendship with this person.
4. Conclude the essay.

That is the most basic essay format for your topic. After to draft the paper or write the first version, post it here so that we can help you further improve the content before you use the paper in class :-)

Undergraduate / Mathematics major; It took me quite a long time to finally realize what I wanted to study in college [18]

Okay, you essay threw me through a loop there. You have obviously been taking your ideas for the qualifications of a forensic analyst from the CSI programs rather than real life. A forensic analyst needs to be interested in more than just Math. Math is just the tip of the iceberg. Also, since Math is not going to be your major, why are you even discussing it? You should be discussing Forensic Analysis instead and how your passion for that field of science developed. If it evolved from watching crime shows, then mention that.

Forget everything that you talked about in this essay relating to Math. It is not your chosen major, Forensic Analysis if the career path you have chosen and your essay should reflect that. I have come across 2 websites that should be able to help you write a stronger essay pertaining to the development of your interest in Forensic Analysis. Consider the requirements listed on the page of the job profile a thttp://careerplanning.about.com/cs/occupations/p/forensic_tech.htm as your guide towards developing your essay. Other helpful websites include work.chron.com/education-required-become-forensic-scientist-14661.html and work.chron.com/personal-qualifications-qualities-forensic-scientist-9508.html . Just cut and paste the url's into your new browser window in order to access these pages.

After you read the requirements for a degree in Forensic Analysis, you will realize why discussing math in your paper , specially on such a shallow level of understanding and usage, will not help your application. You need a science related bachelor's degree, masteral, or doctoral degree in order to enter this field.

Scholarship / "but suddenly everything was changed, after the project's founder death " statement for chevening [2]

- Marwa, I believe that you should rephrase this paragraph because you are telling the scholarship reviewers information that they already know about their organization's mission and vision. You should instead play up and develop the reasons why a third world journalist would seek a scholarship in a British institution for one year. Since one year seems like a limited time to complete a masters degree, you should fully discuss the intention you have and plans related to how you plan to successfully use that year long scholarship for your personal, academic, and social development. It is my opinion that you can actually skip this paragraph, hence the strike marks, and instead use the second paragraph as your introduction because it contains valuable information about you and the foundation of your media career that catches the eye of the reader.

- Creating a new paragraph that combines the information from these two lines creates an effective hook for the reader and immediately shows the kind of potential you have as a journalist. However, you need to develop it a bit more to show your leadership potential by explaining your role in the founding of "DOTMSR" since the Chevening scholarships are looking to fund the studies of future leaders in their fields of interest.

- This paragraph shows your ability to lead a team and offers an insight into your trait as a person of principle who will not stand for what you know to be wrong. Excellent addition to the essay. However, it weakens because of the problem with tenses that exist in the paper. You need to double check your paragraphs and make sure that you are discussing all of these events in past tense. Right now I see a mix of present and past tenses which as you know, cannot be done in any form of English writing.


- Why do you have a quotation mark at the end of this paragraph? I do not see any starting quote anywhere. Rather than saying "The experience I am looking for to gain..." Give the reader a solid idea of what kind of experience you hope to get in the UK during your studies with an emphasis on why learning those things are important to you.

The essay also has a number of grammatical problems that need to be resolved. Since i am advising you to change certain aspects of the essay, those changes can be made later as the overall content of the paper is set to change and I would like to save you the bother of one grammar revision when I know that this is not yet the final form of this paper :-)

Undergraduate / "A Ladder" - My name is Alina and the age doesn't matter. Welcome to my world [4]

Alina, see if the changes I am suggesting works for you. This is still a work in progress so I will need you to work in the changes into the newest version before I can work on reducing the word count for you. I apologize in advance for coming on strong with regards to your constantly introducing yourself in the essay. You need to understand why you don't need to keep doing that throughout the paper. Refer to my notes and suggestions below.


- By the age of 15, I was speaking English, Japanese, and French. I also began to enjoy the sport of fencing. Most importantly, it was at this age that I joined the Intellectual Decathalon Team (ID). By joining the team, I began to develop my own identity as a learner, since I did not enjoy physical team sports. Through intellectual competitions like Brain Battle, I began to enjoy studying as a leisure activity.

- You don't need to mention that the team lost the competition. Just that you joined the team. You have a limited word count and your only intention at this point is to introduce an overview of your identity. Take note of the way I revised the paragraph to reflect your age experience without having to constantly reintroduce yourself. Like I said before, you need to only introduce yourself once. If you insist on repeating that line over and over, you will have a difficult time bringing your word count down. Trust me about this. You don't need to constantly introduce yourself. I don't know how many times i have to repeat and emphasize that. YOU DO NOT NEED TO KEEP RE-INTRODUCING YOURSELF.


- When I turned 17, I began to enjoy the world of collaborative learning. That is one of the reasons why I excelled so well in the "Civilization" program for students interested in Economics. We worked together in teams and created real, functional business models that we were allowed to practice in a controlled setting.

Writing Feedback / Headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia - GRE / Argument [5]

Kasra, in my opinion, an essay flows smoother when you do not use a number count of any sort when writing it. The flow and smoothness of an essay is not dictated by the numbering of your paragraphs. Rather, it is determined by the content and method by which you write the essay. It is alright to use the word "conclusion" in the final paragraph to indicate its end but as long as the paragraph contains the restated prompt, summary of facts, and your emphasized conclusion, it is not really necessary in my opinion. The way you write the essay though is up to you. If you prefer to use the number count per paragraph then do so. Each person writes in a specific way that he or she is most comfortable with. I would not want to influence you into doing something that does not come naturally to you unless you want to try it yourself :-)

10 days to the test? That does not offer much time to prepare for a major English test. Are you taking the TOOEFL or IELTS? Developing your English writing skills to the level of a native speaker will not be possible within 10 days. However, it is possible to become familiar with the written language in that period of time. You will need to dedicate hours of essay practice test writing per day in order to develop that familiarity and, as I often mention to the test takers here, you can never go wrong by reading as many English materials as you can in order to get an idea of the various methods by which essays can be written in English. Writing a response paper after reading other English materials will also help you develop your analytical skills in English thinking and writing.

You won't be an English expert overnight or within 10 days but it is possible to gain a type of familiarity with the language that will allow you to develop a sense of confidence when writing in English, even if those are only simple English words being used in an essay :-) The key is to constantly practice essay writing as you near the test date. I hope my advice helps you out. Good luck! :-)

Graduate / I am an undergraduate from Electrical background with 1.5 years of experience; Statement of purpose [21]

Is there a word limit on your statement of purpose? Why is your draft so short? It sounds more like you are presenting a theory rather than a purpose for your study. Tell you what, try to write the essay using the following guideline:

1. Ask yourself, what the possible connection is between your career and sustainability and environment management?
2. Find the direct connection between the two and then list the reasons they connect (HINT: It has something to do with the way electricity and the way we use it affects our environment)

3. Develop a strong reason as to why this connection needs to be dealt with in your line of work.
4. Find the reason why a masters degree in the field of sustainability and environment management is necessary in order to deal with the issues of your professional career.

5. Discuss these reasons in relation to your short term goals.
6. Plan your long term goals and discuss.
7. Conclude the essay.

Once you have written an essay according to this format, post it here and we will review it again to see how we can make it work better :-) The current version that you posted just does not fit the requirements of a statement of purpose.

Graduate / Language, linguistics, and future plans: a statement of purpose [4]

No problem. Remember, you want to keep the admissions officer interested in what you have to say. Work on developing your hook for the introduction in order to better establish your answer. Hit the admissions officer with your reasons for enrolling in a PhD. Make sure to give an over view of your future plans in relation to the completion of the degree. Offer a solid summary of discussion in your introduction in order to deliver an opening statement that will open the eyes of the admissions officer to the fact that you are a potential stand out as a student and that your application stands out from a sea of applications :-) Keep it short, but informative. He has other sources for information about your academic, professional, and extra curricular background. Just remain focused on the requirements of the essay and make sure to supply all the necessary information as dictated by the prompt :-) Good luck with the revision. We look forward to reviewing and helping you more with the paper soon.

Writing Feedback / Animals are waiting for us to be rescued [5]

Shon, I know what you are trying to present as reasons in this essay but I have to tell you that you have failed miserably in defending your stance. Mostly because you are not familiar enough with the English language to be able to properly express yourself. You lack a clear understanding of the English vocabulary including when and how you should use it. I will try to reorganize this essay for you in such a way that your thoughts become clearer and more understandable. Please note the way I presented the essay and make sure to understand why I said things a certain way.

- A number of animal species have become endangered due to human ignorance. It is because of the way that animals are treated by humans that their species need to be saved. Animals have ability to reproduce, but not at the same fast pace as the human beings can due to differing gestational and birthing processes. If the animals are not protected and rescued by the humans, there may not be any more animals in the future for the next generation of human beings to study, enjoy, and care for.

- While animals can probably be cloned in the future, at the moment, their numbers are dwindling due to the human interest in hunting them down regardless of whether the female of the specie is carrying offspring or not. The animals that roam the planet now come from an ancient line of species that have evolved over time with the planet. Therefore, animals are still trying to evolve with the planet and keep up with the way the humans are treating them. However, our treatment of animals have driven most of their species towards extinction and once that happens, an environmental imbalance will exist and disrupt the ecosystem of our planet.

- It is important that animals are protected by human beings in order to ensure the future of the planet and our own human generations. It is only proper that humans help the animals survive in order to allow the next generation of human beings to continue to study their species for the benefit of mankind. Without these animals to study, our knowledge of human, animal, and planetary evolution will cease to exist. Hence the imperative need to put a stop to illegal hunting and the destruction of their natural forest habitat in favor of urbanization.

- So, animals need human help in order to continue to survive and allow humans to continue studying their evolution and effect on our planet. It is only logical that we continue to do our best to save the animals because the future of mankind depends upon it as well.

Shon, the only way you will improve your grasp and use of the English language is through reading and writing. Please read more current events and other interesting English language reports or studies in order to get an idea of how an interesting English essay is written in both informal and formal (academic) styles. By doing that, you will be able to greatly improve your grasp of the English written language :-)

Scholarship / In Ghana many things will affect growing from childhood to adulthood one way or another [2]

Stephen, you have a wide net thrown for this essay in terms of topics being discussed. There are a number of points that you mention which tells me that this is a college application essay. However, I am not sure about what prompt you are trying to answer. It would really help us in reviewing your essay if we knew what the prompt is so that we can make the proper recommendations regarding the content and adherence to the essay prompt. There is room for content improvement in the essay, but that will depend upon where the essay topic should be headed. The grammar errors can also be corrected once the topic and content of the essay has been modified and revised to suit the prompt requirements. I look forward to hearing about the essay prompt so that I can offer you better advice regarding how to narrow down the topic for discussion in this essay and how to best present your content.

Writing Feedback / It is significant that zoos are used to protect rare animals - IELTS essay [6]

Here is a sample conclusion:

In this debate,one can conclude that there are no right or wrong answers. Those who believe that zoos are cruel and should be closed because animals are kept in cages far removed from their natural habitats deliver solid arguments in support of their stance. However, we cannot discount that the side that believes the zoos should be kept open because the zoo preserves the wildlife and prevents their extinction have a better supporting argument. My opinion though, is that the zoos are the only safe haven for animals because they are kept alive and healthy in an environment as similar as possible in a constantly changing world that renders their natural habitats extinct.

Writing Feedback / The city which I enjoy the most is a combination of history and modernity - TOEFL essay [4]


- Excellent introduction! Save for some edits that I am suggesting, I feel that this is a very strong start to the essay.


- have the Capital palace... Beijing and China. and culture of the Chinese people .


- This is a strong and very compelling argument on your part.


- You have obviously researched and thought out your answers very well :-)


- You need to separate the part about the government spending money on the preservation of old buildings as the concluding statement. You currently present a new idea and suggestions in this paragraph which violates the essay writing rules. You are not allowed to present new ideas in the conclusion. So you need to rework this part.

Writing Feedback / Seeking a bright future in the land of opportunity [4]

You can definitely use this essay for that prompt. In fact, is specifically addresses the needs of the essay so you won't have to change much of the the content but, you will need to improve the grammar because it has some problems here and there that need to be addressed. Rather than discussing the "I am a student at..." part in the end of the essay, you need to change that instead to a description of how you have changed as a person due to the life experiences you have had over the past 8 years. That is so the essay will fully address the final prompt of the prompt that states


You can post that revised essay as a separate thread so that we can comment on it as well :-)

Undergraduate / I am engaged in an environmental organization - your extracurricular actions [4]

Suman, you are almost there :-) What I need you to do now is to discuss each activity that you presented in terms of what you learned from the activity. Take for example the 3R project. Why did you feel this project was very important to you? How was it implemented? After the successful completion of the project, what was your opinion of the way the 3R project affected your immediate environment and yourself? I would like you to discuss each activity along those lines and then close the essay with your statement about how the projects, the organization,and yourself ended up in a truly learning experience. We are directing the paper more towards what we need to present at this point :-)

Writing Feedback / It is significant that zoos are used to protect rare animals - IELTS essay [6]

Shu, you certainly did your best to express your relevant and very good opinions on the topic presented. I applaud you for your excellent effort and clearly thought out and developed essay. However, your grammar needs help in order to better present your ideas. Let me help you out with that aspect of the essay. I will offer my suggestions about how the essay could have been better presented :-)


- People believe that zoos restrict the movement of wild animals within their cages. They are forced to interact with humans, which leads to their domestication. A process which removes their natural instincts for survival in the wild.


- Others believe that the zoos protect the animals, specially the rare kinds, and thus prevent the endangerment and extinction of the species. As more and more animals are hunted for the needs and luxuries of humans, the zoos present a safe haven for these animals whose mission and reason for being is to protect and conserve the life of the animals that need care.


- I am of the opinion that these zoos serve a benefit for the animals whose diverse wildlife and habitats are being threatened by the constantly expanding use of forest land and resources by humans. As their habitats are demolished in the name of human advancement and as climate change continues to adversely affect the wild life habits, these animals need a place to protect them from the dangers of an ever changing world. This kind of protection can only exist for them in zoos.


- Your conclusion is wrong. You are not supposed to present a new idea or present suggestions in the conclusion. Do a correct restatement of the prompt, summary of discussion, and presentation of your opinion again in order to properly close the essay.

This is an excellent effort. Keep up the good work!

Writing Feedback / Seeking a bright future in the land of opportunity [4]

Bero, while the essay that you wrote was quite informative. It was more of a personal essay that simply spoke of your background instead of answering the key dictate of the prompt which is to


Therefore, you need to choose a talent, interest, or commitment on your part which you can discuss in the essay. You did not make reference to any of the three choices for the topic, hence the essay prompt was not correctly satisfied. I suggest that you choose a talent of yours or a commitment that you have made in life, perhaps pertaining to your college education, and then explain how striving to achieve that has helped you prepare for a Rutgers education. Now, this will take a little research on your part because you need to know what a Rutger education is all about. Going to the university website should be able to help you learn about the objectives, goals, and mission of the university. Perhaps you will find something in your past experiences that will connect directly to one of those descriptions. Discuss those in order to properly answer the prompt.

While your essay says a lot about you and I can tell that you tried your best to satisfy the prompt, your answer was not as pointedly direct and did not really reveal anything in relation to the prompt specifics, which is why I am advising you to revise the essay after doing some research and reflection. I believe that the essay will benefit from that process of development on your part. Try your hand at the revision. We are here to help you out :-)

Undergraduate / 'I got hired as an office assistant on campus' - UC Personal Statement Prompt 2 [6]

Azucena, I believe that your essay will benefit more from your telling of your struggles to find a job. I am sure that with each application and rejection, you learned how to modify your approach to your interviews and dealing with people. So let us in on that journey. We are interested to know how you developed as a person through these trying times that you had. It is from these life lessons that you learned to become proud of your accomplishment, which was getting hired as an office assistant on campus. Tell us about the barriers that you had to overcome and how you did that in order to achieve your end result. Show us how your self confidence was built up by the rejections and relate all of those to the reasons as to why you are particularly proud of this accomplishment. After you complete that, we can begin fixing the grammatical problems of the essay. Don't worry, there is enough time to polish this essay and make sure that it is the best it can be :-) The essay at this point sounds too generic and generalized in discussion. Since this is a preliminary interview, you need to be as specific as can be and allow the admissions officer to see a side of you that the other common app prompts may not allow you to show.

Letters / 'I have imbued him with my teachings' - evaluation of a professor, supervisor - letter [5]

Harin, this recommendation letter is too long and needs to be cut down. I will take the opportunity to cut down the content for you, aligning it better with the content of a recommendation letter. Our intention is to present your personality in the point of view of the person writing the letter. Right now, it is too detailed to the point where certain information becomes unnecessary already. The admissions officer has other sources for the same material mentioned in this letter that creates a redundancy.


- Having worked with Mr. XXX over the past 3 years as his professor in the subjects of Embedded Systems, Digital Electronics, and Microcontrollers, graduation project supervisor, and as a personal friend, I am quite familiar with his abilities both professionally and personally. As a student, he has been quite inquisitive, never being satisfied with superficial explanations. His curiosity has always led him to think outside the box so that he can delve deeper into the fields of study that puzzle him. His character is that of one who never settles for conventional wisdom and always seeks extraordinary methods of learning competence.


-I combined these two paragraphs into one for you.


- Having completed several successful projects over the course of his graduation, he has proven to have an uncanny patience for constant revisions, which eventually led to the publication of his research paper. This high level of motivation, combined with his research tenacity and public speaking skills have proven to be his strongest points both as a student and a person. He displays the same excitement and dedication to his extra curricular activities as well by participating in Bachpan, a social intitiative where he works with the rural children of the Valletva village by homeschooling them during weekdays.


- Mr. XXX is an extra ordinary young man with a congenial personality that helps him work with even the most difficult personalities. He is capable of working in the most stressful and difficult work environments and has managed to deliver more than is expected of him with each of his undertakings. All of these are the reasons why he graduated in the top five of his class.Considering everything that thing young man has to offer your university, I know that he will make an excellent addition to your student roster which is why I am giving him my highest recommendation as a student for acceptance into your university.

Can you try to revise the essay in this manner so that it can be better reviewed? I believe that this is a tighter version of the essay and should work well for your purposes. We just need to see it in the revised format to make sure we did not miss anything :-)

Graduate / I am an undergraduate from Electrical background with 1.5 years of experience; Statement of purpose [21]

Envisuste, although it will be a difficult to do, I believe that we can put a spin on your work experience which can relate to a masters degree in Sustainability and Environmental Managemetn Am I right that you are applying for acceptance in that field? Your description of the major was quite vague and the title was incomplete for the masters degree so I had to Google it and look it up. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Anyway, I think you can start with discussing your current work experience and how it has affected your work environment. Clearly mention the occupational hazards that are constantly in your presence and the effects of those dangers on your health and the health of your co-workers. What you need to be able to prove in your SOP is that there is a direct connection between your experience in the electrical field (as an engineer?) and the sustainability and environmental factors you work in. Remember that with a masters in this course, you will be able to determine the critical factors that affect the air, water, climate, and sustainability and environmental management of the ecosystems around us. As a person familiar with the electrical field, you should be able to discuss the importance of handling contaminants and the natural assets of your work surroundings. If you have somehow presented some ideas as to how you have already been applying such solutions to your current work practice, you might just be able to present a solid SOP. Can you try to write a draft SOP using my suggestions just so we can see how it looks? From there we can work on better aligning it with the needs of the SOP for this particular field.

I did not say it would be easy to make the connection between the two fields but if you are willing to work with me towards somehow connecting the two, we just might be able to pull this off for you :-) Let's try to work together on it :-) What do you say?

Writing Feedback / IELTS: What is the most happy age between teenage and adult. Discuss both views. [5]


- Chawapon, this is a good introductory statement. However, you left the last sentence hanging because you failed to present an overview of your personal opinion on the matter. Remember, the introduction is an overview of the discussion that will be following so try to be complete when presenting the topics for discussion.

I will be restating your paragraphs for you in order to show you a more accurate way of discussing the topic of the paragraph.


- Some people believe that the youth enjoy their young lives or ages because they have no responsibilities in life other than school. There is less at stake for the youth because their parents do most of the worrying about the day to day life decisions for the family, hence the less stressful life. Adults on the other hand need to worry about day to day things like budgeting their income, working to earn money, and delivering on work responsibilities.

- Chawapon, there is a flaw in your discussion because the life of a teenager is not stress free. It is filled with worry about passing school marks, peer pressure, and deciding upon what they want to be in the future. So you can instead discuss this from a lesser stress degree than adults. Definitely not from the stress free stand point.


- Adults are perceived to have more fun in their lives though because of their freedom to earn and lack of curfew at home. Adults are independent of their parents and thus, are allowed to make their own decisions regardless of the consequences. They are responsible enough to take charge of their lives and their problems, thus with more freedom to dictate their own lives, they also find more freedom and happiness.

- Chawapon, Don't forget that teenagers also have tasks that they are responsible and accountable for with their parents. These may be small tasks but they are still character building and allow the kids to develop their sense of responsibility and freedom as adults.So again, you have a flawed line of reasoning in this paragraph.

Now, where is your point of view on the given topic? You were supposed to discuss your opinion on the matter aside from the two sides of the issue that were previously provided. You need to add that in order to complete the essay. Your conclusion is not only incomplete, but it tried to present a new idea towards the end of the essay. You know very well that essay conclusions cannot include a new idea. Revise the conclusion to include only the requirements which are a restated prompt, summary of the information, and re-emphasizing your opinion on the topic.

Undergraduate / I am engaged in an environmental organization - your extracurricular actions [4]

Suman, this is an interesting work and extra curricular experience. It is unique in the way that it combines both the work and extra curricular choices, which allowed you to better elaborate on the experience. While admire the activities that you did within the organization and your ascension to a high position of authority as a volunteer, you spoke so much about your activities that you have forgotten to explain how the organization and its movements have helped you grow as a person or increase your awareness of the world around you. That is an important aspect of these types of essays which you need to highlight. You should just limit the activities you are discussing the ones that you participated in directly, telling us your role in it and how it affected your point of view on the particular issue the activity was concerned with. Don't worry about going over the word count, we can help you bring it down to 150 words after you have fully discussed the topic :-) Try to revise the essay to be more about your participation in the activity than telling us about what the activities were about. That will make the essay more effective and in line with the prompt :-)

Graduate / I am an undergraduate from Electrical background with 1.5 years of experience; Statement of purpose [21]

Wow! You are going to have to spin an almost impossible web of tales in order to get into the program you are applying to because there is nothing in your work experience or background that relates to it. That is, unless, you can provide the admissions officer with a connection between your work in Electrics with the objectives and goals of a master student in Ms Environment. Tell you what, if you can give us a brief history of your electrical background, specifically what course you graduated from, and the complete title of the Ms degree you are applying to, we might be able to find a way to help you connect the two unrelated fields of study. It is a long shot but we can try to find a field of study, no matter how small or distant, that can somehow relate the two interests. That way, we may be able to use your almost 2 years work experience in the field of electronics. By the way, don't forget to detail the work experience you currently have. That is the only way we can try to find a possible common ground between the two. It is an impossible task at the moment, but we might be able to find a way to somehow make it work for you.

Graduate / Language, linguistics, and future plans: a statement of purpose [4]

Crfrig, you do not need to waste so much time on your introduction. You have wasted a lot of space and word count just by introducing your topic when you should have gone directly to the point of your essay. Immediately state the reason for your interest in acquiring a PhD diploma in relation to your current career and future aspirations. Don't dwell so much on your past experiences and achievements. These should only be mentioned in passing as you discuss your more important goal and task before you, that of writing an academic paper during the course of your study that will somehow change the landscape of linguistics and language studies. Your goal here is to impress the admissions officer with your future aspirations in line with your previous work, not necessarily academic, experience. Since you are already at the Phd level of studies, it is understood that you have mastered and done well in your previous academic endeavors ranging from your college to masters experiences. Now you are looking towards a PhD education for the highest possible education that will help you with the next phase of your career growth. That is where your essay should center. Discuss the future with as little as possible looking back references. Only discuss your past achievements if it will help highlight your future goals and potential achievements. Keep the essay short yet informative. After all, you have already submitted documentation with it that can give the admissions officer another source of information regarding your academic and professional achievements. Our goal now is to present you in the most positive light possible using your future plans for your academic career. Right now, you have spent too much time living in your past achievements for it to make an impression about your future goals as a holder of a PhD degree. You should build up the future you instead in order to show the career path you are planning to take and give the admissions officer an idea of where you plan to take your career next, how you plan to achieve that, and why the PhD is very important in attaining that goal.