Writing Feedback / Sat essay: is it best not to change our ideas, opinions, or behaviours？ [3]

Hi,

I am not an expert of SAT. As a reader, I just have some ideas.


This sentence, quoted from the first paragraph, is your main idea.
Your main idea is fine. I believe many would agree with you. However, you did not give any reasons why you advocate this statement in your essay.

Indeed, you gave two examples, which are Garrison's and Ford's deeds. They are great men, making great decisions. But these examples are not reasons. In my opinion, examples support reasons. Lacking of reasons, your essay is not persuasive enough even with two good examples.

I suggest you should provide some reasons, such as...

Reason 1: After meticulous consideration, one should feel confident of his or her decisions. Because no one can know the situation better than he or she does.

Reason 2: To succeed, people should be persistent in the path they choose.

Then you can offer some examples to buttress reason 1 and 2.

I am not a good writer, so my reasons may be bad. However, my point is you should develop reasons before talking about your examples.

Because you did not use reasons to develop your main idea, your argument is unfounded.


These are your ending sentences. Because of Ford's and Garrison's success, people should not change their minds when they think they are correct? How could this be true? For example, Hitler believed what he did were 100% correct. Unfortunately, we all know what happened.

Best regards,

Writing Feedback / TOEFL: It is better to work slower to avoid mistakes - iPhone example [3]

After the introduction paragraph, you used three paragraphs to explain the three disadvantages, which are the degraded name of a company, debased credit of a person, and unaffordable price to pay for the mistakes. This is a good structure. Nonetheless, you still need a conclusion, an ending paragraph, to summarize your essay.

Sincerely,

Writing Feedback / We never know the value of water until the well is dry [3]

Hi,

One of my correction is wrong. I am sorry for that.

Although water covers most of the earth's surface, more than9097percent of earth's waterareisbrackish and undrinkable.

Besides, I think the percentage of sea water could be specified. "More than 90 percent" is not wrong, but inaccurate.

Best regards,

Writing Feedback / THEY SAY LIFE IS HARD - essay [8]

I don't know life is hard or easy.
But I know you should be suspended.
The feedback you provided in others' threads has no meanings.
Thus, you violated the rules here.
Is being suspended easy or hard? I have no ideas.

Writing Feedback / REM Sleep Research Paper - A Better Way to Open Up? [2]

Everyone craves sleep, especially during those long hours at work. The way the sleep process works is impressive.

Sleep is essential for humans. Since the dawn of history almost every human has spent nearly one third of his or her life sleeping; surprisingly, little was known about the process of sleep until modern technology unravels its mystery.

This opening statement may be too bombastic. Well...it depends on you.

Sincerely,

Writing Feedback / IELTS Topic: Same job for a same company VS change job frequently [4]

Well... As a reader. I really want to know your reason after I finished reading your introduction. I am eager to know why you think job-hopping is better. But you just stopped. I think if you could use one sentences or a few words to clearly assert the reason, I would easily grasp your idea. Nevertheless, it is just my opinion. You do not need to change the structure of your paragraph.

I know repetition should be avoided in essay writing. Nevertheless, you use the word "commit" incorrectly.

Here is the right way:
Commit sb to sth
Commit sb to (doing) sth

"to" cannot be deleted.

You can look up in a dictionary.

I want to use Participial Construction. It can link two sentences that have the same subject. But your sentence is correct.

"Who" should not be deleted, otherwise you need to replace "transfer" with "transferring".

Best regards,

Writing Feedback / sat essay: should all people's opinions opinions be valued equally? [8]

Hi,

I must dissent from your explanation. When someone meticulously think about one thing according to considerable knowledge of facts, then offer his or her opinion. This is an informed opinion.

An informed opinion is not necessarily given by an expert. Anyone who is serious about something can give informed opinions; in contrast, those who is flippant about something cannot provide informed opinion.

Please visit the following websites. You can find the definition of "informed opinion"

word-crafter.net/CompII/InformedOpinion.html
uwc.wikispaces.com/Academic+Terms

Perhaps I am the one who misunderstood the meaning of "informed opinion". But based on what I read, I think I am right. I hope moderators or other EssayForum members can kindly give us a hint.

Best regards,

Writing Feedback / sat essay: should all people's opinions opinions be valued equally? [8]

Hi,

1. You are right. I am not familiar with SAT. I am sorry to give you useless comments.

2. There is a significant difference between inaccuracy and fabrication. In these English proficient tests, inaccuracy may be understandable because of the limited time and resources. However, fabrication is fabrication. Besides ethical issues, fabricating data did not benefit your essay. Because we are not native speakers, it is usually so obvious when we lie in English. Examiners can easily discover your examples are faked unless you can fake up a story that is so real.

My question is how do you define the word "informed"?

Informed, according to Longman dictionary, is defined as a decision/choice/judgement etc that is based on knowledge of a subject or situation. So could an "informed opinion" also be a flippant one? If no, then you misunderstood the prompt. The prompt did not ask you should we take seriously about the flippant opinions made by experts?

Moreover, how do you decide who are experts? In Pavolva's case, clearly Anna Pavolva is proficient in ballet. Therefore I did not surprise that her opinions are informed.

I apologize again. I really want to help you.

Sincerely,

Writing Feedback / sat essay: should all people's opinions opinions be valued equally? [8]

Hi,

1. Your prompt is unclear because you did not finish your sentence, which makes me feel confused.
2. You did not properly structure your essay. More specifically, the structure of your paragraph is problematic. I suggest you state the main idea of each paragraph first, then provide examples or supporting evidences. Do not put examples in the beginning of a paragraph.

Sincerely,

Writing Feedback / IELTS topic. Testing on animals and keeping them in unnatural conditions [5]

Hi,
I agree with you that the responses to the same drugs could be different between animals and humans. However, I believe the differences are resulted from different biological essences. For examples, dogs and humans are different physically and genetically. In this paragraph, you pointed out that animals treated unnaturally could affect the experimental results. This is misleading because the biological nature of one species could not be changed even under natural condition.

Maybe you should rethink and reorganize your thoughts.

Best regards,

Writing Feedback / IELTS 'Parents and schooling is also essential to teach children' [4]

basawang

One more correction!

whereas others trendtend to disagree

Good luck

Writing Feedback / IELTS: Amount of control on media information [10]

Hi,

I may not write as well as you guys do. However, one thing I know about writing is that writers should not fake any examples or statistics, which is a despicable folly.

Sincerely,

Graduate / What led you to select your program (Computer Science ) at our university ? [6]

Hi,

I do not think repeating the official name of this program several times is a problem. I believe the style of this application essay should be as formal as possible. Using "it" to refer to this program seems a little bit impolite. However, this is just my opinion. I am not an expert, so I hope others can kindly comment on your question.

In addition, I have one more suggestion. In the second draft, here is your last sentence "I believe a bachelor program is the key of my future success." This sentence explains why you want to pursue a bachelor degree in computer science. Nevertheless, thousands of universities provides computer science programs for students. Why do you choose the bachelor program at the University of the People? As I see, you can firmly state that the program at University of the People is the key of your future career, not any other miscellaneous bachelor programs. Remember, make the committee believe that this program is so special, and you are exactly the one for this program!

I wish you all the best and hope you get the admission offer.

Best regards,

Graduate / What led you to select your program (Computer Science ) at our university ? [6]

I know tuition-free is a crucial factor for your decision. Nevertheless, I guess the committee is expecting students who appreciate the academic achievement of this program, and share the same academic interest. In your first draft, when talking about the advantages, you mentioned tuition-free first. I think that is not wise. I suggest you talk more about the research field and achievement of this program, and how do they match your own research interest.

Sincerely,

Writing Feedback / 'Travel is always interesting' - Essay correction [3]

1. "Research" is an uncountable noun.
2. "Spend" is a verb.

Good luck

Writing Feedback / "Some people think that schools are merely turning children into good citizens,,, [3]

1. "Extreme" is an adjective. You need to use "extremely", an adverb to qualify the adjective "important".
2. "Almost" is an adverb. You cannot use it to describe the noun "people's life". Therefore, I put "every" in this sentence.

3. "Teenage" is an adjective. You cannot use it as a subject in your sentence. "Teenagers" is the correct term.
4. In the second paragraph, the sentences marked in blue color make readers really confused because of your grammar mistakes. For example, in this sentence "all of these things are in order to children into honest citizens and workers." "In order to" should be followed by a verb, such as "transform". Please check your grammar in every sentence, and beware of the usage of words

Sincerely,

Writing Feedback / would you prefer to go on a long trip by car or by train? [7]

7zyas5932,

You need to establish a new thread for your essay.

tuyetden,

I looked up in several dictionaries and web resources. I did not find any supports of what you stated: "give a life for others" means "when somebody wants to go to somewhere, I will help them."

I believe "give a lift" or "give a ride" is the correct expression.

Best regards,

Writing Feedback / Essay is about Dieting which can change a person's life [5]

1. "Diet" has several meanings. Diet could refer to a limited range or amount of food to people eat in order to become thinner, or it could refer to other meanings. I suggest you provide a more clear definition in the beginning.

2. "Unconscious ways" seems strange. Did you mean inappropriate or wrong ways?

3. In the second paragraph, it seems like you tried to mention the positive side of a diet, because you talked about the disadvantages of obesity, which could be solved when people are on a diet. However, you started to talked about athletes who want to gain weight!! I get confused. In my opinion, one paragraph should only have one central idea, and all the sentences should point out the direction to guide readers to the next paragraph. You did not organize your sentence well in this paragraph, so readers may fail to grasp your ideas.

4. What do you mean "in the form of muscle"?

5. Who conducted the research you cited? Besides, I do understand this sentence: If people want to lose weight successfully, they need to afford. Afford??

Best regards,

Writing Feedback / The value of understanding ideas and concepts is higher than learning facts. [3]

Second, ideas and concepts are usually created by outstanding persons. Those people, who dedicated their whole life to specific areas and,in the endthey left all their efforts in their words in the past . Those words are the ideas and concepts we learn now. Thus, learning these ideas is not just learning it realizing the ideas themselves, but learnknowing the spiritfromof those great persons.

In conclusion, we can do nothing without any facts ; nonetheless, if we want to achieve something great, then merely holding facts is absolutely not enough. We need the help from ideas,and concepts,and those brilliant people . ("help from ideas, concepts, and brilliant people" seems weird)

Best regards,

Book Reports / (sikhs visible manifestation of their beliefs) research my world religions class [3]

Hi,

It may be better if you tell the readers what does RCMP stand for in the first sentence: In the late 1980's an issue arose whenRoyal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)officers were prohibited from wearing their turbans while on duty as it had clashed with an old Canadian tradition within the country's growing multicultural society.

Maybe "RCMP" is famous, but as an academic writing, it is better not to use an acronym without any explanations.
Once you have introduced the acronym "RCMP" in the beginning, you do not need to write "Royal Canadian Mounted Police" anymore in your essay

Best regards,

Writing Feedback / would you prefer to go on a long trip by car or by train? [7]

What is "give a life for others"?
Would you please tell me?

Good luck

Writing Feedback / 'the mental desire without money' - Happiness in life - Ielts writing. [8]

Mai Chu,

It is and always will be a terrible idea to present fake research data. It is sad that you are trying to fool your readers. I believe your teacher wants you to provide reliable examples, not fake ones.

Writing Feedback / 'the mental desire without money' - Happiness in life - Ielts writing. [8]

Mai Chu

Hi,


I do not understand this research. First of all, who conducted this research? Second, what is the definition of "delightful people"? "Delightful" means someone or something is pleasant, lovely, enjoyable, or amusing. People who are delightful could be optimistic or pessimistic in their personality. Even if you substitute "delighted" for "delightful", I still do not follow your idea. Delighted people tend not to worry about things too much, which requires no further studies.

I hope you can talk about more details of this research.

Best regards,

Writing Feedback / Getting used to the madness! culture shock I encountered. [2]

From my experience, I would like to say that culture shock is an impact of travelling from a familiar culture and trying to adjust to an unfamiliar one that normally hit people with various emotions and feelings, mostly with discomfort, uncertainty, confusion or distress.

I hadhave encountered culture shock on numerous occasions, to be honest, almost every day during 4 years of my stay in India. The major ones were the huge poverty gap between the rich and the poor , madness in traffic with no traffic lanes or rules but only noise of honking and bumps on the road , daily power cuts for a few hours.andThere is an extraordinarythe diversity of languages, religions, people and cultures in India that were beyond my imagination.

The major culture shock you mentioned here are:
1. the huge poverty gap
2. madness in traffic with no traffic lanes or rules but only noise of honking and bumps on the road
3. daily power cuts for a few hours
4. the diversity of languages, religions, people and cultures that were beyond imagination.

These are all good and valid points, but the second point is too wordy compared to the first and third point. Perhaps you mentioned too many details of the traffic in India. I think "madness in traffic" is concise and clear.

The fourth point is significantly different from others. The first point is about economy, the second is about traffic, and the third is about energy supply. They are all parts of daily life. However, the fourth point is the diversity of different aspects in India. So I believe it is inappropriate to put the forth point with others together. Maybe you can write an independent sentence for the fourth point.

Good luck

Writing Feedback / IELTS - Natural Talent or Training with Hardwork ? Both Views [5]

In my opinion, to a certain extent this is true that some people are born or blessed with unmatched skills which makes them perfectionist in their job especially when we consider areas like sports, music and art. But it is always said " Practice makes a man perfect " , which is undoubtedly lots of people's formulas of success who are focused and have desire to perform.

So which one is more crucial, talents or diligence? You did not tell the reader your conclusion.

Good luck

Writing Feedback / IELTS: The steep price of petrol is not the best solution for growing traffic [4]

I guess your idea is as follows:

Although high oil price can reduce traffic loads and pollution, due to certain disadvantages, we should apply other methods to mitigate traffic and environment problems.

If this is true, you should put more emphasis on the disadvantages. I do not fully understand the drawbacks of high prices based on your essay.

Good luck

Writing Feedback / TOEFL-The best way to relax is by exercises. [11]

isabellaclaudia,

Thanks for your help.

However, Kevin has already pointed out that the right usage of this phrase is "it is no surprise that".

Good luck

Writing Feedback / TOEFL-The best way to relax is by exercises. [11]

letho7990,

You made a wonderful glossary!

Thank you so much!!!

About the sentence structure, some people suggest me to write something simple, not too lengthy.

I think both short and complex sentences are necessary in an essay.

Indeed, I should practice writing some complex sentences. But there is no need to eliminate all simple sentences.

Good luck,

Writing Feedback / TOEFL-The best way to relax is by exercises. [11]

Kevin,

Thank you very much for your valuable suggestion.

It is no surprise that my English is becoming better because many experts such as Kevin are willing to give me helpful advice in Essay Forum.

: )

Best regards,

Writing Feedback / Toefl: A person look and dress is more important for success than having good idea. [5]

I do not understand what did the researchers do.

Besides, you need to use past tense.

4. I think the two reasons in this essay are quite similar.

It would be better if you can develop other reasons to replace the second one.

Good luck

Writing Feedback / TOE- 'Revolution' - a historical event in your country that had a crucial effect? [3]

What is the name of your country and the last revolution?

Writing Feedback / TOEFL - It is better for children to grow up in the countryside than in a big city? [2]

Hi,

1. The prompt ask you to compare the countryside and the big city. But you do not mention any information of the countryside in the introduction. I strongly suggest you talk about the countryside in the first paragraph.


This opening sentence is too broad and subjective. Living is possible on every place in the world?

How about a volcano?

2.


I think you can clearly tell the readers the name of the country and cities in your example.

3.

Your second paragraph is about education.

Your third paragraph is about entertainment.

Your forth paragraph is about the Internet.

However, in the last paragraph, you only mention entertainment.

As I see, the summary is incomplete because you do not summarize all the three points you suggested.

4. "Internet" is a proper noun, so you have to capitalize "I".

Good luck

Writing Feedback / "City park for the city !" Essay Topic [4]

Hi soshianet,

I have one question.

"Relax" could be a verb.

Why do you replace "relax" with "feel relaxed" in the first sentence?

Writing Feedback / 'Adam Realty or Fitch Realty sold a house at the same time' - Gre argument [2]

Hi,

I think you point out several crucial points in this argument. Very good!

However, I have some questions and suggestions.

1.


I am not sure using "you" here is a good idea. How about "people" ?

2. To support this claim the arguer cites certain numberreferences about the turnover and working hours of the firm's agents, and the number aboutmentions the average sale prices of homes sold by agent.

3.


Why is the arguer a female?

4. We also need more information about two agents to support the arguer's claim.

Good luck

Writing Feedback / IELTS WRITING: The exploration and development of safe alternatives to fossil fuels [3]

The development of economy requires a largerlarge amount of energy (especially fossil fuels) to operate factories, machines, and vehicles. However, the unpleasant effects of using fossil fuels are influencing directly onexacerbates the ecosystem and our health. Moreover, fossil fuels are not infinite in supply. Hence, I strongly believe that these fuels should be replaced by saferenewable energy.

You want to discuss two disadvantages of fossil fuels in your essay, but you did not mention the second point in the introduction.

So I add one sentence marked with the red color. I hope it would help.

Good luck

Writing Feedback / IELTS-scientific research not driven for economic benefits should be suspended? [4]

wjxjj123,

Economic model is a research topic in economics.

When people talk about scientific research, usually they refer to natural science such as chemistry, physics, and biology etc.

I guess you digress.

Consider two scientific research topics:

One is the study of stem cell, which may develop new medicine technology and thus making a fortune.

The other one is the taxonomy of grass, which cannot yield any significant economic benefits.

Do you think the latter one should be suspended?

I think your prompt is related to this kind of discussion.

Grammars and vocabularies are important, but I believe the logic is also crucial in Ielts test.

Maybe others can give some comments. Whether your essay is deviated from the prompt or not.

Good luck

Writing Feedback / TOEFL ESSAY ; Course grades are based on exams or based more on class participation? [6]

monamona,

There are No word number limits in Toefl writing task.

ETS will not cut our essays.

Nevertheless, time management is important.

We only have 30 minutes to write an essay.

Writing Feedback / TOEFL- Should university give the same amount of money to its departments? [2]

Hi,

The prompt is about sport activities and university libraries.

So, I think you should focus on sports and libraries.

You have to discuss which one is more important to students, sports or libraries, or both of them are indispensable?

On the other hand,

you do not need to talk about other departments such as laboratories and food courts which you mention in the last paragraph.

Writing Feedback / IELTS-scientific research not driven for economic benefits should be suspended? [4]

Hi,

I do not fully understand the prompt.

What is the definition of "economic benefits"?


Your examples (health, environmental pollution and energy crisis) are all of great interest because they may lead to economic growth.
New drugs, new environmental techniques and new energy sources all might make a good profit in the future.
So I think these examples contradicted to your stand.

In addition, why do you mention economic model?
This essay is about scientific research, not economic research, right?

If I misunderstood anything, please tell me, thank you.

Good luck

Writing Feedback / Many people believe that it is very important to make large amounts of money [2]

Hi,

There are some grammatical errors. Nevertheless, I want to talk about your structure because it may be a more severe problem.

I think you should clearly mention your central idea rather than describe your experience in the beginning .
Here are two types of structure.

#1

1st paragraph: State your stand (Maintaining a comfortable life is more important than earning lots of money.)

2nd paragraph: Reason 1

3rd paragraph: Reason 2

4th paragraph: Summary

#2

1st paragraph: These two options both have some advantages and disadvantages.

2nd paragraph: The advantages and disadvantages of earning lots of money.

3rd paragraph: The advantages and disadvantages of maintaining a comfortable life.

4th paragraph: State which one do you prefer.

You can put your examples in the second or third paragraph.

Do anyone have any ideas?