Writing Feedback / Report for a university lecturer describing the information on Japanese tourist traveling abroad [3]

Edho, complete the way that you present the information in the overview / introduction of your essay. It is true that you've written three sentences in your introduction paragraph but one inaccurate/fragmented sentence "Both are during..." (unclear subject) was otherwise a very strong start to your essay. Your mistake was compressing the information in a single sentence, but the other two sentences have more complex structures. Format your opening statement into at least three sentences this way:

- The bar chart illustrates... (1st sentence)
- For both charts, the values are measured... (2nd sentence)
- Overall, Japanese... (3rd sentence)

The first body of your essay also has the same problem. If you don't serve up the information from the chart in the proper way within the essay, you will badly damage your final grade in the essay. I suggest that you approach the first body in the following manner:

- To begin with, in 1985 the number... (1st sentence)
- However, there was a small... (2nd sentence)
- It gradually rose... (3rd sentence)

Keep in mind that each paragraph of your essay needs to have at least 3 sentences in each before it can even be considered acceptable by the examiner. The idea is to have you present a complete thought and understanding of all the aspects of the chart you were provided. By limiting yourself to only 2 sentences per paragraph, you fail to display your ability to express yourself in the English language, which is a major component of the scoring system.

In addition, try to use some other variations in describing the data. Using "percent" or "million" in a whole paragraph will not improve your score in lexical resource part. Try to use fractions (for percentage) or use only "the majority / minority" without mentioning the exact data in each sentence.

Essays / 1984 Quotes/Thesis for Fear [3]

You need to specifically mention what kind of fear that you're talking about in your thread. This is because not all countries experienced fear in 1984 like what you've mentioned earlier. However, I have searched and tried to figure out the solution and I come up with some sources that might be helpful for you. First of all, you need to read George Orwell's 1984 book entitled 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'. Try to figure out some essential points by quoting some of his writing in the book. Thus, you will find some valuable quotes that might support your essay. For instance, you can take a closer look on these links that I have provided below:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

prezi/fnegwly6kdgr/the-role-of-fear-1984/

I don't need to summarize and write everything the information on those websites here because you can read and figure out yourself about what points that you can take for your thesis. Nevertheless, regarding to the structure of the essay, I might say that it is quite simple and not really complicated. You just need to write a clear introduction paragraph which describes the thesis statement and its outline. Then, the next 3 paragraphs would be the body paragraphs which consist of the detailed explanation about the outline of your thesis statement in the introduction. Lastly, you can paraphrase and sum up all the necessary information and conclude the essay by writing a concluding sentence in the last paragraph (fifth paragraph).

Hope this helps :)

Writing Feedback / The percentage of four different type of films distributed in Australia and Britain in 2001 [9]

The resolution of the image that you have uploaded in your thread was too small. I can't see and analyze the diagram clearly. Therefore, I do apologize if my feedback below can't be as accurate as you expected. However, in the first paragraph, why don't you combine the first and second sentence instead of making them separated? It might look better because it can be considered as 'variety of complex structures' and it would possibly enhance your 'grammatical range and accuracy' score.

In the second paragraph, I am not quite sure about the 'language of change' that you've used. As far as I know, 'stood at' should be placed in the beginning of the paragraph and it indicates the starting point of a particular variable/data. Yet, you've put 'stood at' at the end of the paragraph in which it was also unclear because I can't see the graph that you've uploaded in this thread in order to check whether you've written the accurate percentage or not.

Overall, despite some words repetitions and some flaws that I have mentioned, I might say that this essay has generally addressed the requirement of the task clearly and it might get an acceptable score.

Hope this helps :)

Writing Feedback / Deciding which age of the life is the happiest is a controversy [5]

IELTS task 2 is actually quite simple if you understand clearly what kind of writing pattern that you should use. Firstly, the most essential part is your introductory paragraph. It is unfortunate that you didn't give any clear overall progression to what extent that this essay will be developed. It is necessary to be stated in the last sentence of your first paragraph. You need to outline the general ideas that you're going to develop in your body paragraphs.

Then, it seems like you did ignoring some punctuation rules. I can see that you accidentally wrote some words with improper capitalization and contractions. In academic type of essay, this kind of thing really matters. Thus, I suggest you to proofread them and re-check any kind of contractions and wrong capitalization and change them into the more appropriate words for an academic writing.

However, you also need to know that I rarely see any kind of essays that separate "the result" into a different paragraph. Usually, a / some result/s should be placed in the last sentence on each body paragraph. This would make everything clear and improve your clarity of your writing. I reckon that you need to focus on this one also.

Hope this helps :)

Research Papers / Research topics on data mining - suggestions? [33]

I might say that if you do the research about this topic, you would have a descriptive research or perhaps comparative research. If you want to make a descriptive research, your purpose should be about either an individual or company profit. For instance, when an individual (e.g. an actor/actress) has an Instagram account that has 1 million followers, a company that wants its product to be advertised/endorsed by that actor/actress should do a research about his/her followers. It should be about whether this particular actor/actress have a "real" 1 million followers or not (which means real human and not fake accounts). If, for example, the company asks this actor/actress to endorse its product but then his/her followers are mostly fake, the company will not get any significant benefit by advertising its product through this person. Therefore, the company do 'data mining' to filter the fake accounts and calculate the probability of having a significant advertisement through this media.

Undergraduate / The world needs engineers that can and will change it for the better. Chemical engineering statement [3]

It is unfortunate that "The world needs engineers that can and will change it for the better." is not supposed to be like that. What do you mean by "it"? This is the first sentence and it seems like the word 'it' refers to nothing. Perhaps, the more appropriate sentence would be like this "The world needs engineers that are able to change the world for a better future." and "Today, as growing global demands, protecting and saving our environment is what really intrigues are the matters that really intrigue me." Also, instead of saying "I want to study...." which is too mainstream, why don't you try to paraphrase them. It can be "Studying in Chemical Engineering will ........ because ........", "Chemical Engineering holds an important role in the society and therefore, I have a dream to study......." or many other possibilities to paraphrase your "cliché" sentence.

You need to know that the first paragraph is the most essential part since it will determine the first impression for the readers/selection committees. Thus, you are suggested to avoid making any mistakes since the very beginning part of your essay if you want to impress them. You can probably write a catchy-hook to make them interested in reading your essay further.

Hope this helps :)

Scholarship / Education is the most effective tool in which you can use to change the world. [4]

What kind of feedback that you expect if you don't include the prompt of it? Since this is a 'scholarship' category, there must be a clear prompt that tells you what to write or what to elaborate. If I read and take a closer look on your draft, you did explain about education and the history of it. What for? I have known some scholarship essays but they never tell its candidates to explain about the history of education like what you did. Most of them tell their scholarship candidates to give some clear reasons about "why do you want to study there?", "what are your goals in life?", "what will you do for your home country after graduating from the university?", and many other similar prompts available. The thing is that I suggest you to write what the prompt tells you to do. You don't need to explain the general history or information that most of people have already known about it.

Therefore, you can just reply this message by giving a clear prompt about your essay and I will proofread them again.
Hope this helps :)

Writing Feedback / INFORMATION ABOUT COMMUTING PATTERN IN HOUSTON, TEXAS AND CO2 EMMISSIONS [3]

As an additional feedback, reaching 6 or above is quite difficult isn't it? Even though you have written as flawless as possible, you only get 5 from one of EF contributors assessment. I might say that I do agree with her for certain extent, especially when it comes to your grammatical range and accuracy. Those are quite problematical and it is possible to hold your score range in around 5 or less. Let me show you some of them in the detailed descriptions below.

- Car with just driver break the record (...) while cycle/walk only stand at 4%...
- Nevertheless, car with one person only obtain
- The highest proportion at this category is reached by train...

- ...cycle or walk appears as the most
- Conversely, the most contributed on CO2 emission is seen on car with one person category which stand at 0,32 kg per person while sharing car category only release less than one-third of the highest emission.

Take a closer look on those words in bold, your subject-verb agreement is problematical. "Car" here is a "Single Data" not Car in its plural form. If you think that "Car" is plural, why did you write "cycle or walk" as singular? Thus, your writing is quite complicated here, there are lots of similar mistake regarding to that particular tense. This is one of the assessment criteria (grammatical range and accuracy) that matters for at least 25% of total assessment. Be consistent for all of the things, especially tenses usage, that you write on the essay and you will definitely reach your desirable score.

Hope this helps :)

Writing Feedback / A lot of technological enhancements have taken place in developing societies [6]


Just be more careful in giving such response towards the prompt. That sentence can be categorized as an unclear outline of the thesis statement. Next time, try to be more precise or specific in what kind of pros and cons that you are going to deliver in the body paragraphs. You just need to mention the general idea of it, not the whole elaborated argument/assertion(s). Therefore, the appropriate or recommended response would be like this:

This essay will first discuss the efficiency of computers and medical discovery as its primary advantages and second, the dangerous invention of weapons and the increasing usage of motor vehicles as its drawbacks.

In addition, avoid making too short conclusion like what you have written. Remember to at least create a paragraph that consists of three sentences minimum. That is the characteristics of strong and well-developed paragraph.

Hope this helps.

Letters / You took your family to a nearby restaurant. Disappointed with the meal and complain to manager [8]

Please tell us in your title about what kind of letter it is. I would assume that this is one of the IELTS writing General Training tasks, particularly task 1. In the IELTS band descriptors, it is clear that you need to achieve certain parameters in order to make your essay can reach your desirable score. A major mistake comes up when you wanted to address the manager. You don't need to mention his/her role, but you just need to mention either 'sir' or 'madam'. Also, it seems like the idea development of your letter was unclear at times. You need to pay more attention towards the given prompt. Therefore, the first thing that you need to explain is about why did you visit the restaurant in the first paragraph after mentioning the purpose of the letter. Then, you describe the problem in the second paragraph and write a clear action about what should the manager do to his/her employees.

With regards to your grammatical range and accuracy, I might say that some of them are still problematical. You need to differentiate the usage of 'visit' without additional preposition 'to' and the word 'visit' by using additional preposition 'to'. For instance:

When 'visit' is a verb, there is no 'to' after it. The sentence should be:

- I wish to visit this wonderful place again!

If 'visit' is a noun, we do need the 'to':

- I wish to make a visit to this wonderful place again!

Hope this helps :)

Writing Feedback / The tendency that youth graduates find it difficult to find a job nowadays [8]

Due to the unclear purpose of this thread, I am not sure about what should I do. Most essays that are posted here have their own specific prompt that should be followed. Since this is your first post, I won't judge further about the mistake that you did regarding to the rules of this forum. I just hope that the moderator here will not take a serious action such as banning or suspending your account.

With regards to the essay, I can see that it is an argumentative essay. There are lots of types of argumentative essay but most of them do NOT have a VERY LONG concluding paragraph like what you have written in your thread. This is a wrong approach to write an argumentative essay. At first, try to write at least three sentences in your introductory paragraph because an introductory paragraph should consist of a topic sentence, a thesis statement, and the outline of the thesis statement. Then, when it comes to your body paragraph, you need to elaborate what you have written in the introductory paragraph, especially in the outline of your thesis statement. Additionally, in concluding paragraph, you just need to paraphrase your introductory paragraph and add a recommendation, hope, or fear of the future. Therefore, my suggestion is that to fully revise the whole essay based on the structural things that I have mentioned earlier.

Hope this helps :)

Scholarship / Chance to choose for change your future- 2017 Scholarship Letter of Self Introduction [4]

1st paragraph:
Even though this is a paragraph that tells about your course of life, view of life, study background, your hopes & wishes, you need to remember that this should be in academic format and therefore, the usage of contraction shouldn't be there. Also, you are not suggested to put 'BUT' in the beginning of the sentence, you can use 'However/Nevertheless' instead of that.

2nd paragraph:
I can see that you have valuable experience in short semester study in Korea. Yet, the tenses that you wrote are inconsistent. If you are sure that all of the experience were in the past, you need to be sure that it should be in either past or past perfect form and not in present perfect form.

3rd paragraph:
If your plan about entering the government companies don't work out, what will you do? Contributing to your country is not always by working in the government companies. You can work in private companies and still help the government as well. Thus, I think it is better to state wherever you work, you can always help / at least try to help the government by your own effort.

4th paragraph:
Subject/verb agreement are missed here and your way of explaining things looks like in a spoken form. Besides omitting contractions, you need to know that, for instance, Study in Korea not just make my future goal accomplish but also give me the best experience in my life. Studying in Korea would not only accomplish my future goal, but also would give me the best experience in my life.

Hope this helps :)

Undergraduate / Something went out not like I expected [4]

It is not something that irrelevant mate, it is just you add more information that is unnecessary. Also, you missed some important points that should be elaborated. Try to differentiate what I have just said earlier. For instance, in the first paragraph, you have mentioned the first challenge about the people but then you just left it out without any elaboration. I am quite sure that you need to also explain how you manage the situation of the people in the place that you moved in. Then, in the last part of the second paragraph, it seems a little bit jumpy because you wrote a clear challenge about your struggle, but you didn't explain the reason why did you finally come up with good marks on each subject. Therefore, I can say there are two major things that are problematical in your essay. However, apart from those, you might need to take a closer look on the prompt again. It says 'the most significant challenge' and not 'the most significant challenges'. This means it needs to be only one challenge, not more than one like you have written above.

Nevertheless, this is just my opinion or feedback related to your essay. It is not necessary to be considered anyway. I hope that I am able to help. It is still your decision whether to accept this or not.

Undergraduate / Something went out not like I expected [4]

The idea of challenge that you brought in this essay has imbalance portion of discussion. You are told to "Tell us about the most significant challenge you've faced or something that didn't go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?". I have read the essay and I am quite sure that your outline might look like this:

- 1st challenge = people's mindset & tradition were the opposite of yours
- 1st effort to manage the situation = no clear explanation

- 2nd challenge = the notes had no technical relevance to the syllabus and no accommodation
- 2nd effort to manage the situation = self-studying by buying textbooks

- 3rd challenge = struggled many times and didn't find the resource
- 3rd effort to manage the situation = no clear explanation. It seems to the reader like it was really surprising to reach good marks on most subjects.

From the above-description, I suggest you to revise the essay in a clearer way that somehow your challenge(s) can be managed well by you. Yet, something that actually still bothers me is the prompt itself. It is pretty clear that it should be "THE MOST SIGNIFICANT CHALLENGE" which means not more than one. It needs to be specific on 'the most significant challenge' only, not the others. I am afraid that you have unconsciously gone out of the prompt. Just think about it and make some revisions based on my feedback.

Writing Feedback / To purchase either a house or a business is the question [8]

At first glance, your essay seems a bit messy due to unequal portion of each paragraph. Some of your paragraphs are acceptable and some of them are not. Any kinds of essay needs to have at least three sentences for each paragraph. If you take a closer look on IELTS / TOEFL reading passage, there is no paragraph that has less than 3 sentences. Thus, my suggestion is that you need to add some sentences or possibly combine a paragraph(s) that is(are) too short. That's why it is also important to mention the words limit (if it is available).

In addition, if this is an academic essay, the usage of contraction(s) are not allowed. You have written some of them in this essay and it needs to be altered. Yet, this is not an academic essay, you can ignore this suggestion. Moreover, I also found some lexical resources that improperly used and placed within the essay. For instance, you need to differentiate between 'piece of mind' and 'peace of mind'. Then, what is the meaning of 'supper'? I reckon it was a 'late dinner' if I'm not mistaken. I've tried to look up in Cambridge English dictionary and found nothing but 'late dinner'.

Let me know if you have revise the whole content and I will give you further comments. Hope this helps :)

Writing Feedback / IELTS task 1 - Reasons for study and the amount of employer support. [3]

Hoang, I think you have misinterpret the meaning of 'overview' sentence. If you take a closer look on the IELTS public writing band descriptors, you will see that you are not supposed to give the details (percentage) in an overview sentence. An overview sentence should only describes the general trend of the given chart. For instance, it is better for you to write the first sentence without mentioning further about the percentage. Also, it will be much better if you combine the first sentence and the overview. You need to remember that a strong paragraph consists of at least three sentences and not less than that.

The good thing is that your grammatical range and accuracy looks fine. I only see a minor flaws regarding to the use of gerund, singular-plural, or subject-verb agreement. It is fortunate that the mistakes that you make do not disturb either the clarity or the meaning. Thus, it is more likely that you will get an acceptable score for this part.

Hope this helps :)

Scholarship / Objective Study Essay for AMINEF Fulbrigt Scholarship, Master in Industrial Design [13]

Let me come up with the feedback for the details of the first and the second paragraph because I can see that you have gathered a very comprehensive feedback related to the general content from one of EF contributors. In the first paragraph, you are NOT suggested to begin the paragraph by directly mentioning 'I want to...'. There are many possible ways to start your paragraph appropriately rather than what you've done. It is better to mention 'Enrolling in a postgraduate program, particularly in Industrial design, encourages me to be a designer who can transform......'. Some variations in starting the paragraph would be beneficial towards the quality of the essay itself.

In the second paragraph, this statement 'This program is strongly related to my previous education' looks like a little bit jumpy. Remember that the prompt about 'Explain how your proposed field of study fits in with your educational background' is supposed to be in the fourth position. The first and the second paragraph should be related about the first and the second prompt first and then you can come up with the rest. My suggestion is that you can alter the arrangement of your essay based on the given prompt to impress the reviewer. Try to be as organized as possible. Remember also that 'clarity' is the main objective of every type of essay.

Hope this helps :)

Writing Feedback / PTE essay: Is it foolish to get married before completing studies [7]

You need to remember that in academic writing / essay, you are not supposed to write 'but' in the beginning of the sentence. This would make your essay becomes less academic and it is possible for the examiner to reduce your score. I am not an expert of PTE essay, but I am sure that this kind of essay is similar to IELTS writing essay task 2. Thus, my advice would be pretty much the same. Alternatively, you can write 'However/Nevertheless/On the other hand'/many more instead of 'but'.

With regard to the content, I might say that giving examples in the introduction paragraph is inappropriate. You just need to give clear main ideas about what the essay will be developed in the body paragraphs. Thus, you can say that the main possible discussion that is more likely to be described in the following paragraphs. For instance,

But I disagree with that, in my opinion, (...), for example take responsibility, get closer and so on.

However, I disagree with the notion, because in my opinion, a couple can gain benefits that cannot be obtained by a single man/woman. This essay will discuss the increasing responsibility and the additional powerful support from his/her partner as the advantages of marriage.

Hope this helps :)

Scholarship / Programmed to achieve goals. Self introduction-letter for Scholarship [10]

While the earlier part of your essay seems fine, it is quite unfortunate that the last part is problematical. You are suggested to write an 'essay' and not a 'power point'. You are not supposed to state your reasons in 3 major points like what you have written above. Besides, you mentioned that you have 3 key reasons but then you wrote 4 reasons to be exact. Also, each or your reason is not adequately supported by a proper example or explanation. Therefore, it makes your reasons become common / usual reasons that everyone might have. Try to be creative and elaborate your ideas. If, for example, you have limitation (words limit) in exploring your ideas, do not forget to mention it here so we know what specific part of your essay that should be omitted or replaced. I suggest you to mention the exact words limit for this essay to ease us in checking the content.

Scholarship / Plan of study, tight connected with the economy of Nigeria - Commonwealth Shared Scholarship. [2]

In this essay there are several main points that have to be delivered clearly in the statement, as follows:

- describe how your plan of study relates to development in your sector and country.
- how, on your return, you will apply your new skills and qualifications,
- what outcomes you will hope to achieve.
- The outcomes should be related to a national development priority or objective.
- suggest how the impact of the potential benefits of your work might be measured.

Your essay is indeed a well-written one. You have clearly answered each prompt in your essay. I like the way you arrange your ideas coherently. Yet, you have to be ready if several statements on your essay are questioned by the reviewer. Thus, I think that when you write 'I intend to secure a position...' makes me think that 'what if your are rejected by Federal Ministry of Science and Technology?' What would happen? Will you just surrender? because I reckon that becoming an Environmental Bio-technologist is not an easy goal even though you have graduated from reputable university in the UK. Somehow, you need to make the reviewer really sure that your plan is more likely going to work.

Hope this helps :)

Writing Feedback / Life is adventure, and adventure is a challenge. [2]

Miftah, sorry to say but there are lots of corrections needed in your essay and therefore, my suggestion is that you need to proofread it first before posting in this forum. At least, you are suggested to try to check the spellings for each word. If you think it is difficult to check them in your computer/laptop, I might suggest you to use this forum. For instance, when there's a red line under/below your word, that's the sign that the word that you write is wrong (look at the attached image if you still don't get what I mean).

Also, if this is your daily activities, I think it is not necessary to write "Life is adventure, (...) that must be faced." the essay is just a simple daily activities, why bother to write 'life is adventure'? Plus, it is not related to what you have written in the whole essay. When you say that 'challenge' and then, you write 'wake up', it also seems awkward to mention that even waking up is a challenge which means the person who were written in the essay is extremely lazy.

Hope this helps :)

• 
  This is the example of spelling correction feature of this forum.
  

Writing Feedback / Does the punishment required in order to educate a children? [4]

Did you write an outline before composing the whole paragraphs? I am concerned about the coherence and cohesion of your essay. Your paragraph development looks really scattered and not well-arranged. As suggested by Holt above, you have mistakenly chosen the wrong approach to write your essay. Needless to say that your grammatical range and accuracy also confuse the reader at this point. I suggest you to be really sure about the subject-verb agreement, singular-plural and any other aspects related to grammar before composing a single sentence. Try to practice step-by-step if you feel that it's really difficult to learn composing a whole essay at once. For instance, you can familiarize yourself with introduction and how to create an appropriate response without confusing the examiner. Let me show you some help for your introduction paragraph.

Some people think that through (...) appropriate for a children.

Punishing the children in the process of learning the difference between right and wrong at an early age is really essential for children because it can educate them in understanding this difference. However, I personally agree with the notion due to the high possibility for them to be a good person in the future. This essay will discuss how reducing their pocket money and giving additional obligatory tasks can teach a good behavior later on.

Writing Feedback / IELTS (unpaid work is important for the young people?) [6]

Rozhnaz, apart from spelling and grammatical errors that have been mentioned by one of EssayForum members, I am sorry to say that this kind of essay might get only 4 or lower than that due to unrelated answer like what you have written above. You need to focus on what the question is about and how to answer that type of question. Please take a closer look on this prompt while I am analyzing your answer (introduction paragraph)

People think that young people should be required to do unpaid work helping people in the community. Are disadvantages of this requirement greater than the benefits for the community and individuals?

See? That is pretty obvious that the answer should be "Yes and why?" or "No and why?". Yet, the truth is that your answer is somehow circling around without having any clear stance on what side are you on. Choosing both sides equally might turn your essay away in the middle of nowhere. In the very last sentence of your introduction paragraph, you can just simply mention that 'This essay will discuss how crime related activities that are acquired from unpaid work can outweigh the benefits of having lots of experience.'

Hope this helps :)

Scholarship / Current duties and responsibilities / human resource development - Australian Award Scholarship [4]

The content of the first prompt looks fine, but the thing that is unfortunate is your grammatical range and accuracy. It somehow confuses the reader. I can see that you were struggling to create complex sentences accurately but unfortunately the result was the opposite. Remember that any types of essay, especially academic essays, prioritize clarity above all. If your essay is too complicated and unclear to the reviewers, they are highly likely to consider it as a failure and not worth to pass the selection process. Thus, my suggestion is that you can simplify the sentences usage in your response towards the given prompt, either the first or the second one. For example, instead of writing 'Involved in the planning...' you can simply write 'The responsibilities that I have ranging from ..... to ...., particularly in the field of.....' 'In the .... stage, I am highly responsible for supervising...... as my main tasks.', and many other sentence paraphrase possibilities.

With regards to the words count, approximately can possibly mean that it is around 100 words. Thus, I personally think that your response towards the prompt should be at least 100 words and not less than that. I have counted yours and it only has 88 words for the response of the first prompt and 99 words for the second one. This should be avoided by adding some additional words that might be necessary for the response itself.

Hope this helps :)

Graduate / Great interest on computer science - SOP: M.Sc. in Artificial Intelligence [3]

I have no idea whether there is a standard of a Statement of Purpose or not. Yet, comparing to mine, I didn't put any childhood memories that might be the beginning/starting point for me to learn English(in your case, to learn Computer Science). Thus, I personally think that it is not really necessary to put that in the introduction paragraph. This would also helpful in reducing the words limit (if there is any words limit available).

Another feedback from me is related to variations in starting a paragraph. It looks quite obvious that 3 out of 6 paragraphs of your essay started in a similar pattern (started by the word 'I'). Varying them would be beneficial towards your final output later on. You can possibly switch them into either Gerund or Passive voice. For instance, you can change from 'I specifically want to...' to 'Solving challenges can be much easier when I can become a machine learner.' Also, try to add some variations of cohesive devices to make your essay becomes coherent, such as 'Furthermore/However/Moreover/In addition/many more.

Hope this helps :)

Letters / He has sterling communication skill - giving approval for talent of a student [5]

I can see that you have gathered a very comprehensive feedback for one of EssayForum contributors. As additional points, my feedback would focus on the paragraphing structure of your letter, lexical resource usage, grammatical range, and accuracy. First of all, it seems like you have written some unconscious word/phrase repetitions. This can be avoided by using proper synonyms to replace the previous phrase/words. For instance, when you write 'kind of person', it is written 3 times in a single letter. There are actually many possible synonyms to replace them, such as '.... is a person who...', '.... is a ..... person.', and many more.

If you take a closer look on the last part of the letter, you will notice "If you require any further information, please feel free to contact me and I will write it for you." Does 'it' refer to 'information'? If yes, it was a redundant thing to do. It is already clear that if someone 'contacts' others, they definitely look for 'information'. Also, the reviewer might not contact your dean via e-mail / letter only. You need to know that there's a Skype or other social media that can use 'call' / 'video call' feature. This is the platform that is usually used by an employer/reviewer/selection committee to interview/confirm its candidate/employee abilities/skills.

Writing Feedback / The pie chart describe the degradation of agricultural land productivity in the worldwide. [6]

Avoid making mistake in the beginning part of the essay because that is the place for you to impress the examiner or possibly earn a high score. It is really unfortunate that you picked the wrong grammatical tense in the first sentence. The paraphrase of the question must be in the form of present and not in past form. This is because you give a factual report what the graph/chart mentions/describes. Also, this essay might only reach 4 or even lower due to the absence of 'overview' sentence. You are not suggested to directly mention the data without mentioning the general trend or the overview of the graph / chart given.

Furthermore, it is also required for an IELTS writing task 1 to have an appropriate grouping. It seems obvious that you missed them. Take the diagram that you've uploaded in this forum, you can simply classify/split the information into 2 equal parts. Therefore, the first body paragraph should be about the pie chart and the second body paragraph should explain about the data from the table. Before making body paragraphs, do not forget to write an appropriate introduction paragraph which consists of 'question's paraphrase', 'possible measurement (x and y axis)', and 'the overview sentence'.

Hope this helps :)

Writing Feedback / Who should care more about our health if not we ourselves? IELTS writing task II about healthy life [4]

For me, your ideas look like scattered all over the place. You are in dire need of an improvement, particularly in terms of structuring your paragraph into a proper and appropriate format. First, composing a bulky paragraph should be avoided in order to make your essay as clear as possible. Take your introduction paragraph as an example, Don't you realize that it was ONLY 2 sentences with very-long-and-confusing statement? Avoid making a very-long-but-inaccurate sentence to improve the clarity of your essay. You need to remember that clarity is a MUST. Let me help you fixing your introduction paragraph in the detailed descriptions below.

Nowadays, people tend to ignore the way of healthy life (...) lack of exercise, so it is clearly that the dependency of people to the doctors and medicine is increase rather than following the way of healthy life.

These days, people have a tendency to ignore a healthy lifestyle, and they prefer to depend on health specialists and medicines to maintain their health. However, I firmly agree with the notion because of the annually increasing obesity rate in the world proves it. This essay will discuss how majority of occupations and lack of exercises can cause this problem to occur.

Writing Feedback / BAR & LINE GRAPH - three dimensions on the screens [3]

The details below are the assessment of your essay. Please take a closer look on them.

Task Achievement
- It is quite unfortunate that you haven't written the appropriate overview for the task and therefore, you can only obtain 5 for this part. Grammatical error (it should be in past form) since the overview sentence and 'too general' information by simply stating 'an increase' and 'upward trend' also take a part in dragging down your score. It is also unfortunate that you forgot to mention 'Live action' eventually surpassed 'animation'. This is I think the information that is essential and should be written in the overview/introduction part.

Coherence and Cohesion
- I assume that this part also only get 5.0 because of several reasons. Firstly, your essay lack of a proper overall progression (overview). Secondly, you wrote inaccurate cohesive devices within the paragraph. For instance, when you wrote "it can be seen clearly that...", "the most interesting fact is that...", it was mistakenly wrong. That should be cohesive devices that are appropriate for the overview because you should explain the general trend. There are many possible cohesive devices that are accurate for this. Instead of those, you can simply write 'To begin with,..", "In addition,...", or many other possible cohesive devices except the ones that you have written above.

Overall, assessing 2 parts is already adequate to assume that the overall score for this writing is 5.0 or even lower. It has already represented 50% of the assessment and usually it doesn't fall far away from that range. Try to focus on creating an appropriate overview first to boost your score later on.

Hope this helps :)

Writing Feedback / IELTS Practice task 2 - History education and its importance [4]

As an additional feedback to improve your band score later on, you can write a more appropriate introduction paragraph. If you take a closer look on IELTS band descriptors of writing task 2, you can see that 'overall progression' is needed to achieve band 6 or above. Thus, you are suggested to write 'overall progression' in the introduction by outlining the thesis statement. The idea is to have you explain in brief what would be elaborated in the first body and second body paragraph. Let me show you how to do that in the detailed descriptions below:

People have valued role of local history (...) for the same importance between them.

"It is more important for schoolchildren to learn about local history than world history. To what extent do you agree or disagree?"

These days, it is argued that local history is more essential to be learned by schoolchildren than world history. However, I would agree that local history bring more advantages than world history. It is due to the possibility of increasing nationalism and uniting new generation to love their own country.

As you can see, the ideas that should be elaborated in body paragraphs are crystal clear since the very beginning part of the essay (introduction). This is what is called 'overall progression' and quite possible to improve your band score to 6 or above.

Writing Feedback / Ability of Various Language for British Students - data based on the charts presented [4]

Among hundreds of IELTS sample answers on the Internet, you need to at least pick one of them and make it becomes your own pattern of writing. However, I would recommend you to read IELTS sample answers on either IELTS buddy or IELTS advantage. I refer my TASK 1 writing style from IELTS sample answers on IELTS buddy and my TASK 2 writing style from IELTS sample answers on IELTS advantage. As a result, I got overall band 7.0 in my IELTS test. Thus, doing the same thing like what I have done is worth trying.

Let me help you deciding what kind of sentence pattern that might be beneficial for your writing skill in the detailed descriptions below:

1st paragraph:
- 1st sentence is the paraphrase of the question,
- 2nd sentence is the measurement that might be applicable (it can be percentage for this case),
- 3rd sentence is the overview (what the pie chart show in general perspective)

2nd and 3rd paragraph:
- 1st sentence is the most noticeable data (usually the highest or the lowest),
- 2nd sentence is the second rank,
- 3rd sentence is the third rank or you can just mention 'the other data / the rest of the data'.

Hope this helps :)

Scholarship / Objective Study for Scholarship Admission - in reference to questions about myself [6]

Despite content-related feedback that was given by Holt, I would prefer to look at your paragraphing structure and words usage. I think that it is actually a common 'Indonesian' problem when we draft something, we rarely take a closer look in the details because we are going to revise it anyway. You need to know that drafting is different from outlining. If you are somehow neglecting grammatical accuracy and lexical resources in your draft, it would be difficult for you to notice your mistakes for a second time, except there is someone pointing that out for you. Thus, my suggestion for you is that try to be careful in drafting, so you don't need to double check everything when you want to submit your essay for a correction purpose in this forum.

Let me help you pointing out your weaknesses in this essay. I hope that you can follow through and consider this as a helpful feedback. If you take a closer look on the first, second, and last paragraph, it is 'perhaps' you accidentally/unconsciously started your paragraph by using the word 'I'. There are many possibilities instead of only using that word. You can start your sentence by using passive voice by mentioning the object / making the object as the subject, for instance you can write 'Continuing my study in the U.S. is really beneficial' instead of 'I want to continue my study'. Therefore, varying your paragraph / sentence structure would also be helpful for the essay itself.

PS: is it Fulbright Master scholarship?

Writing Feedback / PTE: Over a billion adults legally smoke tobacco. The long term health costs are high - for smokers [8]

I can see that the revised essay is better than the previous one. You have chosen one particular side in order to answer the prompt of the essay. This is what you should do for the next essay practice or the real examination. However, there are some points that need to be revised in order to improve the quality of your essay, particularly in the introduction part. It is much better if you can outline the details of your thesis statement in the introduction paragraph. At least you can mention the general ideas that you are going to explain in the body paragraphs. Therefore, your introduction will not be lack of sentences. As we all know, a strong and well-developed paragraph should consist of at least more than two sentences.

The conclusion part is quite the same. You are not supposed to write only a single sentence like what you've done in the essay. You need to at least paraphrase your introduction paragraph. This would help you create more appropriate conclusion. Also, do not forget to add a recommendation / hope / suggestion in the very last sentence of your conclusion to indicate that you are aware of what would happen in the future.

Hope this helps :)

Writing Feedback / Writing 2: people think instead of preventing climate change, we need to find a way to live with it [7]

Arlen, I am sure that you have already known that in the instruction of IELTS writing task 2 it is pretty clear about what to do. You are asked to write in NOT less than 250 words unless your score will be reduced. This is the very first thing that you MUST remember. Writing an IELTS task, particularly task 2, with less than 250 words will only make your score cannot go beyond 5.0 no matter how accurate your grammar is. If you write more than 250 words, at least your score will be safe enough to get around 5.0 (it also depends on four essential IELTS criteria in writing band descriptors).

Thus, my suggestion is that if you want to play safe (at least to write more than 250 words), try to consider the followings:

1st paragraph:
- Write not less than three sentences that consist of question paraphrase, thesis statement, and the outline of your thesis statement.

2nd and 3rd paragraphs:
- Try to write more than three sentences in this paragraph by mentioning the reason why, explanation, and example along with the implication of the example that you have given.

4th paragraph:
- it simply consists of the paraphrase of your introduction paragraph, and gives a recommendation/suggestion/hope for the future.

Writing Feedback / GRE Argument task for a hobby shop at Grilldon [3]

Payal, in argumentative type of essay, a clear introduction paragraph that has overall progression of your ideas are necessary to be mentioned. It is unfortunate that you wrote an unclear response in the beginning part of your essay. Thus, I suggest you to at least mention what are the general ideas that you are going to elaborate in the body paragraphs. I am sure that it would improve your GRE score later on. The following approach is recommended to be placed in the introduction paragraph. I hope you can follow through.

The author predicts that Grilldon should be [...] evidence to support author's argument.

It is predicted that Grilldon should be the site of HobCo hobby shop. This essay will discuss three major ideas why Grilldon is not supposed to be the place for HobCo hobby shop. Therefore, the possibility of biased research sample, its illogical assumption, and lack of evidence to support the claim are brought into the discussion as three major notions to negate the author's view.

Writing Feedback / IELTS - Writing t2 - Mobile telephones have brought many benefits but they have also had negatives [3]

Phuong, sorry to say that your essay still cannot reach 6 or above due to lack of overall progression. The introduction paragraph is one of the most crucial parts in IELTS writing, particularly task 2. Let me help you by giving an example of a strong and well-developed introduction paragraph.

Instead of writing this one:
Nowadays, the development of [...] then give my opinion on the matter.

It is better to write like this:
These days, some people think that mobile phones bring many advantages while others believe that it has negative impacts as well. It is argued that the merits of this outweigh the drawbacks. This essay will first demonstrate the benefits of how mobile phones can educate people and make them relax, followed by an analysis of how the primary disadvantage, namely distracting humans' concentration, is not valid.

The point is, you have to state the general ideas that you are going to elaborate in the essay since the very beginning part of your essay. This is one of the criteria that you have to pass if you want to reach band 6 or above.

Undergraduate / Loyola Marymount Supplement - The primary purpose of education [3]

Selin, I think it was quite unfortunate for me to be late in helping you with your essay. Yet, the first thing that you should underline here is that your essay is NOT in the URGENT section, so we cannot reply it immediately. A regular essay thread can only have answer in an unpredictable time. Sometimes it might be really fast, but sometimes is not. This is why you need to bear in mind for the next post. The next 'regular' essay thread that you are going to post should be at least posted in 2-3 days before the due date / deadline.

However, since this is an expired essay, I would like to give my general feedback related to your content of this essay. I might say that your answer is still acceptable under some conditions. There are two major points that should be described/elaborated in this kind of essay. The first one is that "Fr. Arrupe's meant" and the second one is that a clear example of someone, except teachers/parents, who works for justice for the least of their neighbors.

For the first answer, you have clearly explained everything since the beginning until the end of the essay. I reckon there is no serious problem with that. Perhaps, your grammatical range and accuracy is quite distracting the reader to read your essay. Nevertheless, the thing that is quite problematical is the second point. You only explain 'Sunduz' in only a half paragraph. The portion is imbalance. If you write 5 paragraphs like that, I am sure that explaining the example should be at least in two paragraphs. This is what you should revise later on (if you still have time).

Writing Feedback / Some people think that wild animals should not be kept in zoos. [5]

My additional suggestion for you in this essay is that you are not suggested to write a predictable pattern by using particular cohesive devices that you have mentioned above e.g. "on one side...", and "on the other side..." . It seems to the examiner that your writing can possibly be indicated as monotonous. You are suggested to write by harnessing some vocabulary variations (cohesive devices) to start the paragraph. It is possible for you to mention "To begin with", "However", "Nevertheless", "Furthermore", "Regarding", "Concerning", "With regards to" or many more instead of the above-mentioned cohesive devices.

Also, I would also suggest you to avoid using "But" in the beginning of your sentence(s). For your information, "But" is one of the example of coordinate connectors. In a complete list, those are "FANBOYS", "For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So". These are coordinate connectors and shouldn't suppose to be placed in the beginning of the sentence(s). There are many possible cohesive devices that can be used to replace them. Some of them have already been written in the previous paragraph of this.

Overall, in my opinion, this essay is still worth at least 4 and not 3 because you still did explain and answer the questions even though mostly they lack of clarity.

Writing Feedback / The line graph provides the information about the number of people who visit Australia [2]

Combining the information from the graph and table into the overview sentence is quite simple. You don't need to worry about that. I think that it is better to simplify your overview sentence rather than make it complicated like what you have done in your essay. Instead of writing this sentence:

- It is clear to see that, the number [...] observed in every single country listen in the table.

You can simply write like this and it is acceptable:

- Overall, it can be seen that, the number of visitors who visit Australia showed a significant upward trend whereas Japan appeared to be dominant amidst five other countries throughout the period.

As you can see, both noticeable data are clearly depicted in the example that I have given to you. Additionally, I also notice some repetitive patterns in your body paragraph. Try to start everything clearly since the very beginning. The examiner might confuse when looking at your body paragraphs. You did write the first sentence for each without saying which data that come from either the line graph or the table. At least you need to mention them once in the beginning part to address the examiner and improve your clarity as well.

Undergraduate / Challenging English - Learning this language became my goal [9]

Let me just sum up what you have written so far. In this essay, I reckon that the obstacle/problem that you are talking about is English. Eventually, it becomes your strength. Please take a closer look on the timeline of your essay. You faced the problem in the fifth grade, and then is it true that you can solve it in more than 5 years? I just assume if you're going to enter a college/university, then you're supposed to be just graduated from high school (12th grade) if I'm not mistaken. This is the important thing that I would like to underline. You forgot the essential existence of timeline in which it really helpful in giving an imaginary condition about problem-solving experience that you have. Thus, my suggestion is that you need to put a clear timeline for the betterment of your essay itself.