Essays / "Confessions of a Student" [25]

Do you mean that you should simply compose the summary of all of the topic sentences from each paragraph of the thing you are summarizing? If so, then that is a valid approach, as long as you make sure to paraphrase the sentences rather than copying them directly (which would be plagiarism, even in a summary paper).

Undergraduate / Obedient yet rebellious, disciplined, unruly; this person influenced me [25]

As the essay stands, it is unclear what separates you from X. You explain X's characteristics, but not really your own. Plus, you say that you took on some of X's characteristics. But if he is an alter ego, and you start taking on his characteristics, then he isn't really an alter anymore. So, you need to explain more clearly how you differ from X, and, as Kevin said, how X came about.

Undergraduate / 'A Modern School in New Delhi' - UT Austin Essay 1 [4]

Overall, the essay seems fairly general. Its a common answer to this topic (adjusting to a new school), and is written without any specific anecdotes. As a result, it is unlikely to stand out from the crowd. I would suggest revising to either be more specific or to focus on a different experience.

In any event, a few grammatical fixes:

"Getting admitted to Modern School, New Delhi, in the eighth grade seemed like a huge achievement at that time, as I hailed from a small suburban junior high school."

"As I said" omit this and similar phrases.

"Even worse was that you can retort back to them " I think you mean to say "cannot" here.

Undergraduate / Honors Essay U of Washington "unplugged" [10]

Ah, okay, the prompt sort of specifies communication technologies. That's fine, then, but you still need to explain how you interpret it. After all, do you think it covers land line phones? They aren't specifically mentioned, and are old enough that you could reasonably consider them exempt, but they are also communications technology, and more reliant on wires than are cellphones, so you could also reasonably include them. You also still need to focus on "the influence this would have in your life, your anticipated reaction, reactions of others in your life." This doesn't mean you have to focus on how terrible life would be without technology, but it does mean that you should probably acknowledge some of the specific challenges that you would face. For instance, how would your friends react if they couldn't get a hold of you by either phone or email? How would you arrange to meet with them, especially if they are the sort of people to make plans at the last minute, or to change key details on short notice? If you have, or would have, a job, how would your employer react, especially if your job involves heavy use of the Internet? If you were a student, how would you communicate with professors? What if you were in a class where the professor specifically requested that you email in assignments? If you follow current events, how would you handle being limited to the mainstream newspapers for your information sources, especially if you believe them to be too biased to be of use? If you want to take a positive attitude, you can talk about how implementing your solutions to these problems would make you a better person, but to ignore the problems altogether isn't positive -- its unrealistic, and prevents you from fully answering the prompt. You don't have to deal with all of the issues I've raised -- some probably don't apply to you -- but by the same token, there are probably others that I haven't mentioned that do. Keep in mind that the goal isn't to be more negative, but more thoughtful and realistic, and you should be able to tweak your existing essay rather than having to do a complete rewrite. Good luck.

Undergraduate / Obedient yet rebellious, disciplined, unruly; this person influenced me [25]

You could go with a juxtaposition of two traits that both have clear advantages, I suppose. Introversion and extroversion, perhaps?

Undergraduate / common app short answer help ("bare room lined with mirrors") [19]

Excellent essay. Great job. Here are a bunch of very minor grammatical fixes:

"Eventually, I learned that a judge would rather see an excellent dancer in a potato sack than a mediocre dancer in a glamorous dress."

"That summer, I would practice various jumps and rhythms in my basement for hours until they were flawless."

"I realized that accomplishing my ultimate goal meant transferring from my beloved dance school to a significantly larger, more competitively driven school."

"this atmosphere that promoted champions who never forgot why they started Irish dance, rejuvenated my passion." Lose the comma.

"In three years, I have gone from a struggling competitor, to partaking in both regional and national competitions, to nearing a qualification for the world championships."

"I have learned the values of hard work and practice and intensified my love for dance."

Undergraduate / Obedient yet rebellious, disciplined, unruly; this person influenced me [25]

The approach could be interesting. The only problem I can see is that, if you are a good person and potential applicant, then your alter ego is likely not to be, and so his existence weakens your application. OR, your alter ego would be a great applicant, but you would not be. Either way, that seems to be an issue. If you can make both you and your alter ego seem like good applicants, then it shouldn't be a problem.

If you are really stuck, but decide not to go with the alter ego, don't forget that you can invent a teacher or friend who taught you something important. The admin officers have no way of fact checking these essays, after all.

As to the plagiarism, no. Most students use only slightly modified versions of application essay for all universities.

Undergraduate / The two required essays for UT, need critique [9]

If you want to elaborate on the statement Lee mentioned, maybe you could look at how we should decide which products are worth buying (some of them undoubtedly are) and which ones are frivolous. (A cellphone is really useful. Getting one for the first time is a great idea. Upgrading to one that has a built in camcorder when you don't even use the built-in camera on the one you have -- not so much.). You might also want to consider the ways in which acting on the desire to obtain material goods is in and of itself a community service. Consumer spending is one of the main engines of economic growth, and as such of our ever-increasing standard of living. Thus, the same people and organizations that usually criticize consumerism are also the first to complain if the public starts saving money, because the economic hard times it creates or worsens affect them too.

I'm not saying you need to do any of the above, necessarily, but dealing with the obvious counterarguments to your own thesis will tend to strengthen your essay.

Undergraduate / UW ESSAY ("a traditional Indian expatriate family") [4]

Not posting your work five hours before the deadline at 3:00am might ensure more thorough feedback. Just a thought for future reference. :-)

"I was born and brought up in the budding culture of Muscat, Oman in a traditional Indian expatriate family"

". . . or throw anything at you but, just stares till you're done drawing it." Lose the comma.

"Who is this?" This question doesn't make a whole lot of sense in this context.

"I burst into tears."

"Being an introvert, I didn't like the idea of starting from scratch."

I'd leave off most of what you have written about what happened to you after you left India, and expand on the challenges you faced and how you overcame them, using specific anecdotes to demonstrate the general truths you have now.

Undergraduate / Honors Essay U of Washington "unplugged" [10]

Your essay does have a few structural problems. You don't mention that you plan to spend a year "unplugged" until too late in the essay.. That should be in your introduction (2nd para). Also, you might want to explain what you mean by "unplugged." Do you mean that you will eschew all technology that runs on electricity? That could be difficult. You could walk/bike/skateboard to get around, I suppose, as long you don't need to make long commutes, or to visit anyone outside your local area. Without phone or email, you will find it difficult to keep in touch with others. You could write letters (reviving an almost lost art form) and send them by snail mail to keep in contact with friends and relatives in distant locations. But making plans for an evening out or to drop by for an impromptu visit would be difficult, and keeping in touch with employers might become all but impossible. In other words, just because technology has its drawbacks doesn't mean it doesn't give very real advantages -- that's why we use it, and while it is certainly possible and probably even worthwhile to give it up, at least temporarily, I doubt it would be as easy as you seem to think. Or do you mean that you plan to be unplugged in a more limited way. Less computer and phone time rather than none? And do you also plan on limiting yourself only to the latest information technologies, so that cars and planes and landlines would be okay? Just some things to think about.

Undergraduate / Dilemma on writing an essay on 'a person who has impact on your life' [14]

As promised:

"I used to write in my diary about his iinspiring life lessons, but unfortunately my diary was lost during our house-moving." Is the last clause relevant?"

"He wanted us to maximize our thoughts to achieve our full potential ." How exactly does one "maximize thoughts?"

"He told us about himself; "

"and I am excited to discover more about myself more .

Hmmm . . . at this point I'm beginning to find the essay drags a bit. Do you really need to mention the teacher's sarcastic streak? Or explain your personal decision to focus on engineering, which seems to have little to do with your teacher? Maybe you could cut some of the unnecessary details to create a tighter essay?

Undergraduate / USD ESSAY (Catholic University); 'My mom and dad are uniquely different' [5]

You spend a bit too much time talking about generic qualities about your parents -- they were loving and generous and supportive! Hooray! Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending upon your point of view) this is also true of the parents of many other applicants, so just talking about that won't help you to stand out from the crowd. You might want to cut back on the generic stuff to make room for some more interesting material. You do have some good specific details -- the ice cream cone and the show about children in Africa. These are excellent, and you might want to expand on them. You should also consider adding more about how exactly you will help the university. Lauren is right -- your contributions at the moment seem a bit light because you are using such broad, vague concepts.

A couple of grammatical points:

"Out of the countless people I've met, places I've been to in the world, and inspiring books I've read, there has never been anyone or anything more influential than my parents."

"I would soon be won over by an ice cream cone after a hard day's work.

Essays / Is there UT word limit? 'it must be no longer than 120 eighty-character lines of text' [10]

A page in Microsoft Word, using standard formatting, weighs in at approximately 1550 characters. So, you're looking at roughly six pages, though that is a maximum. Your own essay might be considerably shorter, depending upon what you have to say.

Undergraduate / "After I took a psychology course..." - University of Texas at Austin Essay [10]

Really strong essay overall. A couple of minor points:

"I figured it would make an interesting paper for my final exam" Unless you really mean that you copied the article and handed it in as your own work, you should probably say "I figured its subject matter would make an interesting basis for the paper for my final exam"

You could probably replace "The significance of this issue to me is that it" with "This"

Undergraduate / The two required essays for UT, need critique [9]

A few thoughts to consider:

"All kinds of people come and go in life." This sentence is unnecessary. Omit, along with the second sentence, and reword the beginning of the third sentence to make it your first one.

Throughout your first essay, you mention negative as well as positive aspects of your grandfather's personality. I have no doubt this is an accurate reflection of how you actually view him, but the essay would probably be stronger if you focused purely on how he was a positive influence on you.

For the second essay, I think you probably mean to criticize consumerism rather than materialism. A quick find and replace should fix that.

Undergraduate / Appropriate word limit? - Write a brief statement regarding your educational plans at UW Madison [19]

If you are still going with the original prompt, an educational plan would be just that, what you plan to do in regards to your education. What are you thinking of majoring in? Are you going to go on to postgraduate studies after you graduate? What do you hope to learn from attending university, apart from the subject matter itself? That sort of thing.

Undergraduate / Dilemma on writing an essay on 'a person who has impact on your life' [14]

Some feedback on the first paragraph:

"Teachers are significant in their students' lives"

My math teacher who taught me in 8th and 9th grade was a great influence to me; I still try to remind myself what I felt when I was listening to his lectures, when I become lax and uninspired.

"When I was to leave because I was coming to India, I didn't tell him . . ." That you were leaving for India? That he had influenced you? This sentence is ambiguous.

I'll be on later with more comments on the rest of the essay.

Undergraduate / georgia tech essay (if delayed one year to go to school what would u do) [6]

A note on prepositions. It isn't so much that you can never end an English sentence with a preposition as that the prepositions you are using are either unnecessary or incorrect. Trying to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition at all costs can lead to unnatural and convoluted sentences. As Winston Churchill once said when an editor rewrote a sentence he had ended in a preposition: "This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put."

Undergraduate / Currently, I have A+, Network+, and Administrator Window XP Labsim on my computer [5]

Oh, I just realized I never answered your original question: yes, this essay answers the question. The only problem you might have is that you focus on one area, whereas the prompt asks for "areas," plural. However, I assume this is only one part of your application, and that you have covered your other strengths in other essays, so you should be okay.

Undergraduate / An Art student's Personal Statement for UCLA's Art and Designs [5]

A few more suggestions:

I also realized this is the only chance in my life to study in the America, where diverse and abundant art is being created.

"In general, I appreciate all kinds of arts, but I have a special interest in designing modern art." You don't actually get a choice in this -- by definition any art you create is going to be modern art. Do you mean that you want to create art modeled after Modernist (with a capital M) artists? If so, you should say so. Otherwise, you might want to explain which type of art you are into instead (painting, sculpture, etc.)

"I also found your program very interesting because it helps students learn how to interact with or impact on the society with art and designs." This sentence is awkward. Better is "I also found your program very interesting because it helps students learn how to influence society through art and design.

Grammar, Usage / How to enrich my writing? [10]

Well, you could post work that you have written on current issues, and we could give you feedback on how to improve them. Likely much of our advice will include general hints and tips that you could use to improve your overall writing abilities.

Writing Feedback / "rules of the game" in society - essay, opinions [7]

A good way to start this sort of essay is by defining your key terms. So, what do you mean by "society?" Also, are you talking about "society" as a universal concept, or are you using it to refer to a specific society or set of societies (such as Western democracies)? What do you understand the phrase "rules of the game" to mean? Does it refer to laws? norms? stated social values? actual social practices? some combination of these? Also, what do understand the term "safely" to mean? Physical safety? social safety? economic safety? some combination of these? Once you have established what you mean by all of the key terms, constructing a logic argument about the relationship between them is usually easy. If you don't pick set definitions, though, logic goes out the window fairly quickly.

For instance: A man who chooses to dress and act like a "Goth" in America is defying social norms, which means he is refusing to play by the rules of the game. He suffers no government penalty for his choice. Therefore it is safe not to play by the rules of the game.

If we then take this conclusion, and turn it into a premise:

"It is safe not to play by the rules of the game."

and combine it with another premise

"A man who protests against the government publicly in China is not playing by the rules of the game."

We get the following conclusion:

"It is safe to publicly protest government policy in China."

Note that the conclusion here, though derived by perfectly valid logic, is absolutely false. That's because the terms "society" and "rules of the game" are being defined differently in the first example than they are in the second. This is why you need solid definitions to anchor your essay.

Undergraduate / IS it okay that me and my friend write about the same situation? [13]

In other words, you and your friend should write the essays separately, without prior collaboration, even if they are about the same event, so that they don't end up being identical. If you do that, you should both be fine.

Undergraduate / 'I wanted to become a Veterinarian' - Inspiration at the Kennel [38]

If you are going to post a new thread asking for feedback on an old one, it is always a good idea to include a link to the original. Alternatively, if the other thread is quite old, and you have recently posted a substantially revised version of your work, you can post that version as a new thread.

Undergraduate / Georgetown Foreign Service Essay [8]

A good way to follow Kevin's suggestion might be to take "Albeit sometimes varied classifications, the characteristics of NTS threats are in fact clear" and rewrite to list the characteristics you have in mind: "The main characteristics of NTS threats include . . ." This at least has the advantage of moving you directly from the general to the specific, and the specific is usually more interesting than the general.

Essays / "Confessions of a Student" [25]

A much stronger ending. A believable near-miss on the road shocks you into stopping, and the quotation from Shakespeare is excellent.

You still need to work on the beginning, though:

"I remembered, my first drink, was an experiment introduced by a friend in a senior class. Drinking was meant as the last resort, you see. I was desperate to pass that exam" I don't know that anyone, even in high school, would recommend alcohol as a study aid, or would believe that drinking would improve their test scores.

"The following day, my head was throbbing with an intense headache, and I couldn't see straight. During the test, I seemed to be unable to grasp hold of my concentration. My brain was totally blank, and nothing would come out of it. First, one beer, no matter how fast you drank it, wouldn't leave you this hung over. Your body would have finished processing the poison (which is essentially what alcohol is) within a hour or two at most, at which point any hang over effects would have largely disappeared. Plus, one beer isn't enough to dehydrate you, on its own, to the point where you would have a major headache.

Second, why would you continue drinking after this? You drank the first beer to try to improve your school marks, and it failed horribly to help you. Worse, it made you feel terrible for an entire morning. It isn't believable that anyone would just start drinking more after such an experience -- alcohol can be addictive, but like most bad habits and addictions, you have work on acquiring it. One drink does not an alcoholic make. Even fairly regular casual drinkers normally swear off alcohol for a day or two after waking up with a really bad hangover. Now, if you found yourself under intense peer pressure to drink, that might explain it. If you found, as many do, that alcohol allowed you to be more relaxed and outgoing, you might, especially if you were a bit shy before, have decided that drinking was worth the hangovers. Over a period of several months, you might have then started developing a tolerance for alcohol, needing more and more to get the same buzz. This in turn might have led first to psychological then to physical dependency on alcohol . . . and so on. This is the general way people slide into alcoholism, btw.

Essays / Question for UNC essay (word count) [26]

What exactly was the prompt for this essay? The fact that I can't immediately tell might be an problem -- the essay doesn't seem to have much of a point to it. You have told about an experience you had, but you don't mention the significance, or what you learned from it, or why it's important to you, or anything along those lines.

Undergraduate / My first Essay. how a college education will change your life [28]

The essay definitely needs to be revamped to talk more about the particular university you are applying to. The topic doesn't specifically ask "why us?" but the fact that it asks you to talk about what you hope to gain from a college education, and that you are apply to ESC, means that a "why us?" approach is sort of implied. Also, it would be one way of tying together the answers to the various questions you have to deal with so as to have a focused, interesting essay instead of a series of unrelated answers that follow the instructions without being particularly compelling.

Essays / Reality TV essay - ideas to begin writing [35]

If you make a list of current reality television shows and see which ones are getting good ratings and which ones aren't, then find common elements within the shows in each group, you can probably make same fairly accurate predictions about where reality television is heading.

Book Reports / 'symbols throughout the book' - The Stone Angel [15]

This seems like the sort of thing a Google search might help with. Try searching for 'Stone Angel symbols," and you should find plenty of sites discussing the various symbols in the novel.

Undergraduate / Georgetown - School or summer activity most involved in - significance [4]

Some sort of discussion of the insights choir has given would really help. Perhaps you could talk about how you learned to be open to new experiences (since you didn't want to do it initially) or about how you discovered that its people that are really important (since the social element of choir is something you emphasize). The latter would be especially easy to link back to attending Georgetown, I should imagine.

Undergraduate / Georgetown Essay - "Limit. Maximum. Boundary." [5]

Hmmmm . . . the essay doesn't really tell the reader that much about you. You want to challenge yourself and you think like a visionary. As opposed to all of those other applicants who wrote about how lazy and conformist they were? The point of this sort of essay is to tell (or better yet, to show) the admissions officers who you are. This essay does not do this. Therefore, you should rewrite it, preferably focusing on relating some sort of demonstrative personal anecdote.

Essays / "It's Only Natural" - effects of the global spread of the English language (argumentative essay) [15]

Well, these are great instructions for your assignment. You should definitely follow them when writing your first draft. I look forward to reading it if and when you post it.

Undergraduate / Colgate short answer; most meaningful piece of advice - "Chin up and smile" [5]

"I couldn't believe my mom could be so evil as to trick me like this. Chucky Cheese's, my butt; this was definitely not Chucky Cheese's."

Strong writing overall. I don't know that the advice and situation are out of the ordinary enough for this sort of essay, though.

Undergraduate / Currently, I have A+, Network+, and Administrator Window XP Labsim on my computer [5]

Some suggestions:

"with those training in those programs, I was able to acquire many essential computer skills."

"Every now and then I would maintain and tune up my computer until it ran as fast as a new computer."

"I utilized the skills that I obtained from Testout Labsim on Drew's computer."

"In no time, I had resolved the problem by terminating the virus and restoring the settings back to their defaults ."

" I realized that the skills I have acquired have boosted my confidence , which will allow me t o achieve an A+ certification that will enrich my resume. With its powerful computer-based training and simulation tools, Testout software has provided me with a unique training program to fully and effectively prepare me to havea successful Computer Career."

Undergraduate / Pepperdine University - an application essay. [4]

Here are some grammatical fixes for the first paragraph to get you started on the revision process:

"I have been taught that my homeland, Vietnam, is a poor land lying on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia." The inclusion of the details about Vietnam's geography weakens the "However" you use in the next sentence, which refers back to the poorness of the land, a quality that your current sentence does not initially emphasize.

"However, I know my country is only economically poor, not culturally poor"

"I'm happy that my homeland has a wonderful culture replete with unique products"

"I can't help being sad because that essence is not fully displayed to the world"

"At the age of 13, I desired to do something to support my country's products, products with which I grew up."

Writing Feedback / About edgar allen poe essay [11]

You could rewrite it as satire on shock writing in general, using examples from Poe to back up some of your points, but then you would need to add examples from other authors too, which would involve major rewriting, as well as likely putting you off topic. I'd consider looking more closely at how Poe uses shock tactics. You could even argue that Poe's shock tactics underlie a lot of the suspenseful elements of his work. Just don't leap to the conclusion that his work therefore has no literary merit.

Student Talk / How to improve English writing? Learning through reading. [130]

Read a lot. By far the best way to improve your writing skills in any given language is to read material written in that language. That way, you begin to absorb the writing styles of published authors, and to get a sense of which grammatical structures are most commonly employed in professional writing.

Essays / "Confessions of a Student" [25]

Okay, you have definitely started. Now, make it a lot longer. Specifically, you need to add a lot more detail. You can build suspense by vividly describing how you started to drink more and more (I'm pretty sure you probably didn't go straight from beer to whiskey. If you did, you should certainly have noticed something of a stronger effect, both in terms of the drinking and the hangover. If this is made up, then you should definitely make the slide into alcoholism seem more gradual.) Then, you really need to add more detail about how you ended up stopping drinking. People who are "deeply addicted" to alcohol don't just stop because they get a stern talking to from their parents. You need to describe your inner conflict as struggled against the drug ravaging your life, a moment of hitting bottom, an epiphany, etc. In other words, you need to add all of the elements that make a good story -- escalating difficulties, conflict, climax, resolution, denouement.

Undergraduate / Georgetown Foreign Service Essay [8]

The good news: Your essay is well-researched and grammatically solid.

The bad news: Your essay is also a bit on the dull side. In part, this is stylistic. You use weak verbs, often relying on forms of "to be" (is, was, were, etc.). In part, this is related to your choice of content. Your essay at the moment focuses on describing NTS's and how they have become important. This is a tad dull, not least because, in the shadow of 9/11, you aren't telling people much that they don't already know. I'd focus more on "what you suggest should be done to deal with it." You mention that it is hard to propose specific solutions, but the very fact that it is hard should make any attempt to do so interesting. Alternatively, you say that "Besides, scholars have not reached a consensus as to whether non-traditional security is a broader concept that includes traditional security, or a separate idea that excludes traditional security." You could take a stance on this issue yourself and use the essay to argue it, though you'd have to be careful to do so in a way that kept you on topic given the prompt.