Undergraduate / I always try staying responsible for the actions I take and the words I speak - my father influence [3]


Who is this "we" you are referring to? Who manages to make it through twelve years of school without teachers berating them on the importance of responsibility? For that matter, who has parents who don't emphasize this over and over?


"Yet?" As if this is somehow a surprise. Do you have any idea how common a pick "my father" is for this essay?

And this really is the main problem with your essay. It isn't very original, and is the sort of thing that just about any student could have written. Worse, you don't come off looking very good, needing someone to point out the obvious, that goofing off and free-riding is socially unacceptable. And while you have a fairly strong narrative that shows us how irresponsible your were, you dedicate only a couple of sentences to telling us how you've changed. If you are going to stick with this topic, you need to reverse that -- tell us quickly how you used to be irresponsible, then show us in detail how you are now well and truly reformed.

Writing Feedback / A licence to Write ? [11]



This is confusing. You clearly point out that success and affluence is linked to the acceptance of a certain set of values. You then profess to admire people too stupid to accept those values, even though they can see all around them proof that their existing values are inferior and do not equip them to succeed. I realize that this isn't what you mean to say, but this is strongly implied in the way you have written your essay, perhaps because you have not made your assumptions explicit, and your assumptions are not necessarily going to be shared by your readers. For instance, by Western values, I might assume that you mean, among other things "rationality, future-orientation, and the Protestant work ethic ". So, if those who embrace such values are rational, hardworking, people who look to future, then, by implication, those you seem to consider as opposed to them are presumably irrational, lazy, and backwards looking. Again, I know that isn't at all what you mean, but your choice of phrasing brings to mind, and seems to support, the very arguments you presumably wish to cause your readers to reject. Thus, I would suggest rewriting it to avoid this.

Undergraduate / Goats- changes to the community [6]


Yes. The arm hair example can be profitably removed from the essay. You could use the extra space to talk about how your interest in this issue ties in to your suitability as a university applicant.

Essays / Term paper on cross-cultural communication [4]

You notice how the first suggestion you got didn't really work as well as the one you could come up with on your own, because you are more familiar with the coursework than anyone else on the site? That's going to remain true. But, based on what you say here, why not write a paper that attempts to answer the question of how differences between English and Vietnamese styles of communicating could lead to misunderstanding in classrooms in which the students have one of those as their first language while the teacher has the other as his or her first language?

Writing Feedback / Should Euthanasia be legalized? [16]

Also, you should quote anything you take directly from the web. Otherwise, you are guilty of plagiarism, and may get into a lot of trouble. For instance:

You:
"Her efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, and Diane died without any assistance on 11th May 2002."

The site you obviously took it from (paul.raine.googlepages.com/dianepretty)
"Her efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, and Diane died without assistance on 11th May 2002."

Without the quotation marks or any citation, this is just plagiarism, plain and simple.

Undergraduate / Common Application Essay: The Life of a Mind Detective [17]

You're getting there. Some more minor fixes and suggestions:


And how many minds do you have?


"A lucky family," perhaps? Something is either the "*est" or "one of the *est."

"Sometimes I even feel that psychologyis like an long-time lover"

Undergraduate / 'Duke Chapel and my academic ambitions' - Duke Trinity Essay [5]

Ah, I hadn't really noticed the two paragraph requirement. Still, you are clearly dealing with two separate aspects of Duke in the first paragraph, and merely running together what should be two separate paragraphs into one isn't going to fool anyone. Perhaps you could work with the usefulness of attending a campus that celebrates diversity when you plan to look at *international* economics? It's not the most original approach to the topic, but it will allow you to merge your two points fairly quickly and naturally.

Poetry / A Sonnet I Wrote For my Shakespeare class [8]

Well done. Great imagery, nice twist at the end. I wouldn't worry too much about the meter -- it takes awhile to get the hang of it, and you have a decent rhythm going in most of the lines anyway. I don't know if I would change much, actually. Poetry doesn't follow too many rules nowadays, so it's difficult to get it "wrong," as long as it sounds good, which your poem does.

Undergraduate / 'Duke Chapel and my academic ambitions' - Duke Trinity Essay [5]

This is really quite good. You list a lot of specific details about Duke, rather than talking in generalities, as most applicants do. Your first paragraph seems a bit random, though. You could probably fix that by splitting it into two paragraphs, one that deals with Duke's diversity, and one that deals with its Economics program. You'd then only need to rearrange things a bit to make sure each paragraph was unified by a clear topic sentence, much as your second paragraph currently is.

Writing Feedback / life in prison is better punishment than death penalty [5]


Yes, I gathered that. But you have to explain why one should hold that view if you want your essay to be effective.

Undergraduate / UC app. prompt#1 "My parents" [6]


What are your aspirations? How have your family's experiences influenced them? You don't seem to have addressed this part of the prompt at all. Perhaps you could cut out most or all of the first paragraph to make room to do so, as the first paragraph doesn't really say much good about you, and these sorts of essays always should say good things about you.

Writing Feedback / "Teach for India" why? [3]

1. The grammar needs work.

2. That doesn't matter at the moment, though, because you need to rewrite most of your essay anyway.

3. You are far too vague in the first half, and the second half is a list, not an essay. So contributing to a nation is good, and makes you a better person. Hooray! There must be dozens of ways, if not hundreds, that you could do this other than applying for this particular position. You need to be far more specific about why this particular program appeals.

Writing Feedback / DESTRUCTION OF GREENHOUSE; Earth has loosen his source. [6]

The environmentalist movement is merely a manifestation of the human need to adhere to some sort of religious belief. Although nominally secular, it is characterized by the same fanaticism, irrationality, and conservatism that it's adherents are so quick to condemn in the Judeo-Christian religions.

There. That should keep you busy for awhile.

Undergraduate / "different aspects of my life" - FSU Essay: Paragraph 1 about Vires, Artes and Mores [4]

Yes, I understand that it's only an intro. In fact, my advice to people posting their essays here, especially these sort of essays, often includes the suggestion that they eliminate intros that don't say anything worth reading, and that just waste the admissions officers' time. For instance, in the paragraph that you posted, you don't need to define the term for your readers. The term is defined in the prompt, so obviously they know what it means. You aren't saying anything much beyond "I'm going to be talking about Mores," which, if you are going to be talking about it at all well, should be obvious to the reader without you having to announce it. So, get rid of this, and start in with the narrative, which pretty much has to be more interesting.

Writing Feedback / WHAT is the message that advertisement is communicating to the viewer? [2]

You need to greatly tighten up this essay. You might start by looking at how the elements you describe work with the brand name. That is, ask yourself where the word "Nike" comes from, and what that "check mark" logo represents. Then, ask yourself how the elements you describe fit in with that theme.


I think you've got that backwards.

Undergraduate / I Do Also Have a Dream. [8]

What is the prompt for this? The fact that I can't tell isn't a good sign. Beyond that, the most obvious thing that struck me about the essay was this:


That is not the sort of attitude towards education that admissions officers look for in an applicant. I know what you mean to say -- that trying to get an education in a second language was difficult for you, but the phrasing here goes past that to mean that you view education itself as a burden and a means to an end, rather than something to be valued for its own sake. This may be how you actually view education, but, if so, you shouldn't broadcast it in an admission essay.

Undergraduate / 'Not athletic' - Common App short answer extracurricular - football [2]

Playing football is a passion of mine, but it has not always been. In fact, many people, including myself, do not even consider me to be an athletic person. I joined my school's six man football team in my sophomore year because I wanted to try something new and different. Although it was challenging at first, I eventually learned the ropes and was able to keep up with the rest of the team, occasionally earning a play or two into some of the games. After playing the sport for 2 years and currently participating in my third year, I have gained a lot of respect for football and the values it has taught me. I have learned to push myself to be a stronger person (both physically and mentally), and to appreciate the importance of teamwork to achieve success, and above all else, I have learned that challenging myself with different activities has great rewards.

There, now you have some more room to talk about what values, specifically, playing the sport has taught you, which will give you the substance you feel, correctly, that the essay currently lacks.

Writing Feedback / write to thank a local businessman for giving large sum of money to the club.... [3]

Go through and try to eliminate minor errors of tense and other grammatical mistakes. Here are some fixes to get you started:

"I would like to tell you how the money will be spent on upgrading the club."

"The main areas of our club that need to be upgraded are the swimming pool, the gym, and the golf course. "

"As we have received feedback from our customers saying that our leisure facilities are too small, we have decided to make use of the money to upgrade themleisure facilities ."

Undergraduate / "different aspects of my life" - FSU Essay: Paragraph 1 about Vires, Artes and Mores [4]

When I see the words "Vires, Artes, and Mores," I envision all the different aspects of my life that relate to them. And while each word provokes its own individual set of responses, Mores, to me, holds the most significance amongst them. The Latin word "Mores," a term pertaining to customs and character, remains one that represents all that I cannot live without.

There. Much better. Your first sentence is vague as says virtually nothing. Your second is better, but bland, and your third merely repeats it. Pick an experience you have had that demonstrates Mores. Start in directly with the narrative. You will end up with a much stronger essay than you will if you continue in this vein.

Undergraduate / Common App personal experience "Making the Jump" [3]

Overall, good essay. I like your use of similes and strong description throughout. A few minor things:


This is a bit of a concern, if only because it means the experience happened fairly long ago. I don't know how much that matters, but it's worth thinking about.


"This was why I kept coming back every week"


This is a bit abrupt as far as transitions go.

Research Papers / The Conflict of Coastal Urbanization and Water Management [7]

Why not post the revised version here? True, it's too late to make any changes, but on-going feedback might still be useful as you strive to improve your essay writing style for future essays.

Essays / Ishmael Essay - persuasive essay based on a current event [5]

Um, okay. How exactly are you going to connect this to Ishmael? I can see ways of doing it, but I am curious as to what angle you are planning on taking.

Undergraduate / College essay for Wentworth; scraped palms, skinned knees [2]

You like skating (skateboarding?) and are good at it. Great. And this makes you a good applicant for university how, exactly? Until you answer this question, the essay isn't going to work well as an application essay, whatever its other good qualities may be.

Scholarship / My Challenge of being a Team Player (all kinds of sports) - scholarship essay [3]



This seems rather negative. You go on to say that no one blamed you, and that this led you to view the nature of team activities differently, but you don't really elaborate on exactly how the experience changed your attitude, or how this change will affect your future career as a university student. So, why not get rid of your first paragraph altogether, start straight in with the narrative, and use the room you save to put in more reflection at the end of your essay.

Undergraduate / UF essay: there are only few organisations that strive to better this world [2]

Your essay drifts from past to present and back too often. Pick a tense and stick with it. The present tense for immediacy thing works well, but you need to maintain it when you get to the article, especially if you plan on switching back to the present afterward.

Writing Feedback / life in prison is better punishment than death penalty [5]

Still need more depth to your arguments.


Why?


Why didn't she put them up for adoption? Or ask a friend to look after them? Also, wouldn't this woman be able to mount an insanity defense? That is, this isn't the sort of case that would normally provoke the death penalty anyway.


Some more analysis is required here. Also, what is the recidivism rate among prisoners who are executed for their crimes?

Undergraduate / Common Application Essay: The Life of a Mind Detective [17]


You could tighten up your writing throughout by using fewer words to say the same things you say now. For instance:

"However, the thoughts of making psychology my career had not been intensified until the death of my neighbor, a kind and warmhearted man"

"The death of my neighbor, a kind and warmhearted man, intensified my interest in psychology."

Making your readers slog through an extra 8-10 words per sentence for no good reason will not endear you to them.

Undergraduate / Language has always intrigued me; UCF Why UCF? and Unique characteristics [2]


That is very interesting, but what does it have to do with your essay or with why you want to attend UCF?


How? In what ways? Elaborate on this.


Why? What was fascinating about it? Elaborate on this too.


Ow. I stubbed my brain on that cliche you left lying about. Put it away, would you.


Revise for parallel structure.

Hmmm . . . the rest of this essay list your interests, rather than your qualities, until you get to this part:


Unfortunately, this is not unique at all. Every single person who is applying either has the same desire or knows enough to say s/he does. Try to think of something a bit more original. I wish I could give more specific advice, or suggest something you could try, but having never met you, I haven't the slightest idea what qualities, unique or otherwise, you possess, so you will have to come up with the base ideas on your own.

Writing Feedback / Introsuce about college and faculty of pharmacy [3]

Why are you writing this essay? That is, you are obviously trying to introduce the college, but for what audience and to what purpose? The answers to these questions will determine what sort of details you should include, and in what order.

Research Papers / Military Technology research topic [2]

Well, how about the dangers involved in using advanced technology to wage war. Nuclear weapons, biological ones, etc? Or you could talk about how much easier modern technology makes it to depersonalize combat. That missile veered off course by twelve degrees and liquidated 50 non-combatants? Oops. Oh, well, collateral damage is unavoidable in these sorts of things. Or you could look at the notion of military technology as inevitably leading to an arms race that makes the world more dangerous, even if you don't want to look at WMDs specifically. There seem to be quite a few issues you could look at.

Undergraduate / UW MADISON- how will your presence enrich our community? [3]

The two essays are both quite good to begin with. Some random thoughts:


This is a great hook. It is so great, you might want to elaborate on it a bit. I realize that this must be a painful topic for you, but I can assure you it will also be fascinating for the reader. You might also want to mention when/how you ended up in America, how you adjusted to the transition, etc. You have a lot of very interesting life experience, which gives you a great advantage over many of the other applicants, who don't. This is an excellent opportunity for you to turn a negative into a positive.

Also, you mention the volunteer work you did in Afghanistan. Do you plan to do something similar at university? If so, this essay would be the time to mention it.

The second essay does a good job of explaining why your GPA fluctuated. It would be difficult for anyone not to empathize with you, under the circumstances.

Undergraduate / Love of Programming and UCs [4]

This is a strong essay, but it seems written more on the topic of "why do you want to study computer science." Technically it meets the prompt requirements, but the reader doesn't know that much about your background after finishing the essay, only that you love computers and have gone out of your way to learn more about them. This is a good thing to tell the admissions people, but I rather suspect you could use this essay for another prompt, and write a new one on this topic that would highlight some other set of good qualities about you.

Undergraduate / quantum mechanics - Why does Brown interest me? [14]

Actually, this essay has 991 characters. Character count should not be confused with word count. That said, Orlando makes a good point. You can't say that you want to go to Brown because you went to the library there and found a cool room to study in. Or at least, you shouldn't say that. Hopefully, your reasons have to do with the reputation of the university, the way its programs are designed, its class-sizes, etc. Things that matter, in other words, to the quality of your education.

Undergraduate / "The Reason We Trust", "Cured" - my two personal essays for common app [2]

These are both very good essays. The first one is the stronger of the two. The dialogue I'm guessing is reconstructed from a memory of the sort of thing you two said, rather than word for word. You might want to polish up the grammar a bit. So, for instance, instead of " Do you go through your mind before you do things?" try "Do you ever think things through before acting," which sounds a bit more natural.

The second essay is solid, and interesting because most people aren't used to the notion of doctoring as a shameful second choice of career. You might want to condense the first couple of paragraphs, though. I found the essay to start out a bit slow. This is a problem in these sorts of essays, because the tendency is to just stop reading if it isn't interesting from the very beginning, given how many your target audience has to go through.

Writing Feedback / Modernization vs Dependency Theory [3]


Yes, if you are supposed to be using MLA citation.


Consult the MLA guide you picked up at your university bookstore, or ask Google, great god of students and people too lazy to go bookstores. I believe it involves some sort of indented list, but I can't remember off hand, and as this isn't something *I* need to know at present, I see no reason to look it up.


First, "the cause . . . are" violates standard subject verb agreement. And do they argue that the causes are blamed on their culture, or that they should be blamed, which is different and which sounds like what you mean?


If they were exchanging goods and services voluntarily, how were they being exploited? These two sentences contradict each other. The first would be the obvious rebuttal to the second.


You haven't shown this. You have given a fairly good summary of the dependency theory, and a pretty poor one of the modernization theory. However, your inability to summarize the latter well is not a refutation of it. It is perfectly fine to come down on the side of dependency theory, but you need to explain in more detail what is wrong and contradictory with the modernization theory if you want that to work. For instance, you say that


Can you provide evidence of a third world country that has implemented democratic capitalism (or even totalitarian capitalism) and yet that still remains a third world country? That would be a strong argument in favor of the dependency theory.

Research Papers / The Conflict of Coastal Urbanization and Water Management [7]

Have some patience. This is a busy time of year for the site, but we still don't allow essays to go unanswered for too long.

Speaking of too long, your essay is. It isn't just that the assignment forced you to add a lot of detail -- your writing is far wordier than it has to be, and is plagued by passive constructions that are dull as reading about a baseball game in detail. For example:


This sentence got so long that you forgot to finish it.


This section uses "is" three times, including in the dreaded "it is" construction. Now, let's see how you could have rewritten this:

"Fishermen can no longer harvest shellfish in many of our bays and high bacteria levels in the water have closed many bay beaches, where dead sea creatures are constantly washing ashore. Moreover, algae blooms are becoming more common off the coast of Florida (Schrope, 2008) and sea grasses and tidal vegetation are dying off at alarming rates. All of this makes resistance to Swiftmud' sustainable storm water run-off plan baffling.

Hopefully you can hear the difference. Try revising your entire essay in this manner and then reposting. You might find more people willing to read through it then. :-)

Faq, Help / Why is my topic / thread deleted? [78]

I don't know. I don't remember deleting it. Perhaps one of the other moderators did? Did it appear elsewhere on the web? Threads that contain material that has been posted elsewhere violate our TOS, and get deleted as a matter of course, even if you were the one who posted them in both locations. Could that have been it?

Undergraduate / University of Florida Essay: meaningful event (TV Production) [3]

The essay seems unfinished. How did the situation end? What did you learn from it? How will this make you a better student? Also, the "stn" thing is awkward. Just say what it is at the beginning of your essay, rather than interrupting the flow of your narrative later on.

Writing Feedback / Can a computer be hacked easily? Introduction to Computer research paper... [2]


Um, that seems like a fairly important issue, and one that has all sorts of ethical implications.


I'm guessing the purpose of most business hacking is not actually to do damage to the computers. Industrial espionage is likely more popular, as, I would suspect, is electronic thievery and identity theft. Ideally, anyone hacking for any of these purposes doesn't want to damage the computers that have been hacked, and would rather no one could even tell that the hacking had taken place.


But how effective are they? Just because something costs a lot doesn't mean it's any good. For instance, Cactus Data Shield probably cost millions to research and develop. It violated ethical computing standards, turned off consumers, and turned out to be easily circumnavigated by using a black felt-tipped marker. In other words, it was actually worse than having no security at all.

Overall, then, your essay seems like a good start, but still too shallow in its treatment of the subject to be a final draft. Try going into more detail about some of the issues I have raised here, and the post your new draft for more feedback.

Undergraduate / Carleton college short answer: teacher who most influenced you. [2]

Before getting into the grammar, which needs a lot of work, let's look at the content. Tou speak about your teacher very vaguely. You should use specific examples and narrative anecdotes so that we can see how important this teacher really was to you. For instance:


What author? What did you say about him/her?


Such as?


As shown by?