Scholarship / I have been exposed to both office and field challenges - skills proving for Chevening [4]

Njoku, are you writing a project proposal or a summary of your previous design work? You are not trying to win over a client in this instance. You are trying to win a scholarship. Summarize your presentation of the project because it is too lengthy and does not really show any leadership potential on your part. It only shows that you have excellent imagination skills. Someone in your position should be able to justify a leadership skill simply by presenting your ability to delegate and oversee the project as the problems in construction arise. The problems are not limited to the physical project but also includes your people management skills. Show more evidence of your people management skills so that you will have a chance to present your ability to influence people in the same instance. The influencing side is severely lacking in your essay. Shorten the project description to one paragraph if you feel the necessity to include it. With only 500 words though, you should be careful of the information you present. In this instance, you used too much of the word count on a non-essential discussion and lost the allowance for the influencing discussion.

Scholarship / Why and what I chose to study in UK [10]

Hiwot, you do understand that you are applying for a masters degree course right? So that means that you are a college graduate. Which means, you are professional with at least 2 years of work experience. As such, you are expected to have the professional and educational background with which to complete your choice of masters degree course. The reviewer is not interested in your opening remarks. Those are irrelevant. Your educational discussion must focus on a summary presentation of your college course and your academic achievements that will prove you have the educational foundation to understand the course requirements of your chosen masters line of study.

Your opening statement is meant for a college level common prompt response.It is not masters degree level writing. It does not show the ability of this student to write masters degree level papers with a proficiency to understand simple English instructions. The minute your opening statement is read, your essay will be set in the "discard" pile. You will not get an opportunity for consideration if you do not try to level up your writing skills by proving that you understand what the prompts are requiring you to present in terms of information about certain things related to your application. I

am trying to help you do that but it really seems like an uphill climb and I am limited in my capacity to assist you in additional development of your paper because of forum regulations. Try to help me here because I am doing my best to help you.

Revise your first two statements and use the following outline for your paragraph discussions. Do not change anything. Just write it in the manner that I am presenting it to you. That is the only way you can improve your paper and hopefully, achieve a masters level writing skill in your presentation.

Par. 1 - Discuss your college education and your achievements during that time. Explain how it prepared you to become a professional in this field.
Par. 2 - Present your professional qualifications. Explain how long you have been doing this job, what your training and seminars have prepared you to do, what shortcomings you have in your current position that prevent you from resolving certain issues or improving certain aspects of the job.

Par. 3-5- Discuss each university course, present the academic studies that directly relate to the course requirements and your professional background that has prepared you for this educational path. That means, references to "Up to now I had little experience" will not be an asset or a positive statement in your paragraph. Remove all undermining information and focus on presenting yourself as a professional whose interests will be served by this course. Clarify your explanations about how these courses will result in career progress for you upon its completion. Don't say "The program will enable me". Rather, say "Completing this program will allo me to function in a higher capacity as.... within my workplace" Or something similar.

There is no need for a concluding statement or additional presentations. Just write your revised essay based on this outline. That will be its final form.

Scholarship / The question of why? STUDYING IN THE UK QUESTION [3]

Esam, this is a personal statement. This is not a Study in the UK plan. A study in the UK plan must comprise a specific set of information that will help the reviewer assess your preparedness for the course you are considering enrolling in. You must provide an opening statement that establishes your professional background in the field. Then you must discuss each university course based on your interest in the curriculum, what it offers you in terms of career advancement, how your current position at work has prepared you for this course, and how you hope to use that knowledge in the future. After that, you close the essay with a summary of your college education and pertinent training programs or seminars attended. That way you establish the validity of your educational claims in your essay. It is pretty much a template approach for all students. I just pointed you in the right direction. I hope that you can follow these simple instructions so you can make the perfect revision to your essay.

Writing Feedback / Expanding more empty places in universities for young students; education problems essay [3]

Ameila, you started out discussing one topic in this essay and ended with a different altogether. All of your paragraphs do not properly discuss a reason, it only points out multiple reasons in one paragraph. Thus creating an incoherent and non-cohesive essay presentation. It isn't enough for you to simply indicate that you know the reasons. You have to pick the strongest reason and build up your discussion of that in one paragraph. That is how you prove your English comprehension skills and properly address the requirements of the prompt. At this point, this essay contains a mash up of information that you failed ot keep track of which is why you ended up discussing two different topics in the end. One reason per paragraph, that is the best way to write the explanatory statements. Never more than that. More than that and you end up with this failure as an essay.

You were only being asked to discuss an extent of your agreement or disagreement with the given topic. It had nothing to do with the discussion of manpower in your country. That is where your prompt went totally wrong in its presentation. You need to remember to review the prompt requirement as you write so that you do not forget what the topic is and you can double check your work to make sure you are staying on track with your writing. You veered off course with this essay.

All of these reasons piled up to create a non prompt responsive essay. Don't feel too bad though. As we point out your mistakes, you should start to get your writing on track and develop a better focus towards your essay discussion development.

Scholarship / I am fully trusted in my skills, that exceed Chevening requirements for leadership and influencing [2]

I am afraid that you will have to revise the whole essay. Most likely, you will have to write a new one that is better focused on the requirements of the prompt. Your first 3 paragraphs are nothing but endless word fillers. Chevening reviewers have to study the application of at least a hundred applicants per day. They do not have the time to waste wading through your useless babble about what you think leadership is and why you think you qualify for the scholarship. Such wordy essays do not get far as far as the reading of the essay is concerned. Go direct to the point. Start with the year 2005. Clarify what your position was on the team that led you to become the leader after the resignation of the head of the lab. How did that previous position prepare you to take on the leadership role? Now, I read the presentation and I got that you did a good job as a leader. But where was the inlfuencing skill in this instance? Was there any opposition to your becoming the acting lab head? How did you overcome that? Responding to these 2 questions will create the influencing paragraph for that work situation. As per your private business. This does not really sound like a leadership role because of the constant reference to "we" in the paragraph. There is no "we" in leadership, however, there is a "we" in influencing, which again, is missing from this presentation. Leadership cannot exist without influencing skills. Please remember that. The two always go hand in hand in actual experience so these must be depicted as partners in your essay as well. Remove the 2014 Phd thesis discussion. That is not a real leadership experience to speak of. Nothing that you discussed in it required you to lead the group nor influence them. You only set up the presentation so it does not count as leadership and influencing experience.

Scholarship / I develop my leadership skill in professional context since I became an intern in Crisis Centre [4]

Binari, I do not read any leadership role in this essay. It is an interesting essay but it depicts more of an independent role in the project that, while important, does not include leadership skills. Majority of the role that you performed had to do with your learning the ropes of the job, being cognizant of expenses, and information sharing within various departments implementing the project. There is no reference to problem resolution in your essay although you expected your people to report problems to you for resolution. While you did include the team in the decision making process, you did not show any real influencing skills in the essay. The last line of your essay is very telling as to whether or not this is a true leadership and influencing essay. A true leadership and influencing essay would never say, "There were no significant problems caused by financial issues, and final financial report were finished well." Any person who says this in a leadership and influencing essay is either delusional, because no job goes smoothly from beginning to end. There is always a problem, no matter how small, that requires a leadership and influencing skill to resolve. Or, the reviewer will assume that you do not have any true leadership role and you made up this whole essay to just respond to the prompt. Which is why you do not have any definite leadership and influencing situation to depict as a sample of your skills. In which case, you will lose your chance at the scholarship.

Writing Feedback / IELTS W2- Some people believe that it is good to share information freely, others don't [4]

Arlen, the score for your essay will be a 2. That is the best way that I could think of to tell you that this essay does not properly respond to the prompt requirements. The answer you provided barely responds to the task. Read the prompt, you were supposed to write this as a comparative essay with a personal opinion. It was not supposed to be written as a solely personal point of view essay like you did here. The correct prompt paraphrase would have been:

Members of the intellectual world believe that data sharing is an important aspect of research in science, business, and education. Then again, there are some members of the academic society that are inclined to believe that information is a valuable commodity that should not be openly disseminated to others in their respective communities. This essay will compare the two points of view prior to my discussion of my point of view on the topic provided.

The the paragraph discussion format could have been:

Par. 2 - Supports sharing
Par. 3 - Does not support sharing
Par. 4 - Personal opinion (just one opinion either pro or con)

Based on the correct prompt representation and body paragraphs outline, the essay would have been discussed in a more appropriate manner.

Scholarship / I plan to apply for a position of an Associate to a renowned international law firm. Chevening [3]

Adil, your plans are good. Don't change those references. However, the British Chamber of Commerce is a non-government institution and as such, does not qualify as a government UK reference in your country. It does not have projects accredited by the British government since it is a civilian organization. I am afraid that you will have to research some sort of UK government related legal project in your country. That is the only way to make a qualifying representation of how the UK has specific legal interests in your country. It is important that you align your UK reference to the correct institution because the UK government project connection a highly important aspect of your post study plan. If you do not get a scholarship grant, it will most likely be due to the lack of UK government sponsored legal project in your country. I am not telling you to lose heart. I am telling you to ask around. Maybe there is a UK government sponsored legal project or undertaking that you just haven't heard about which can be used for the essay. Otherwise, you will have to use the British Chamber of Commerce reference and hope it works for your application even though it is not a government institution that is dealing with projects and training in your country.

Writing Feedback / Has online social networking helped us or harmed us? [4]

Trang, can you provide me with a copy of the prompt you are trying to respond to? I need to reference the prompt when reviewing your essay. I am unable to truly determine the problems with your content without it. What I can tell you though is that your essay is not the proper length for an IELTS or TOEFL essay. Your second paragraph should have been divided into 2 paragraphs based on the 5 sentence limitation per paragraph. So the formatting is off because you chose to discuss 2 drawbacks in one paragraph. You should have one drawback per paragraph instead. The normal paragraph count is a maximum of 5 depending upon the prompt requirements. I need to be sure of what the discussion process for this essay is so that I can tell you how many paragraphs you should have. On average though, you can get a good score for a well developed 4 paragraph essay. This essay, doesn't give me the confidence that you would score well using this in an actual test. I can better assess your work with your next practice essay. Just provide the full and complete prompt with that one please.

Scholarship / My plan is to continue being a teacher as it will enable me to learn continually, share with others [3]

What are you writing? a Post Study Plan or a Personal Statement? This is nothing but a college level application paper of what inspires you to follow your dreams. This is not a post study career plan. This essay will be thrown away by the reviewer the minute he reads the opening statement. The post study plan must immediately present the ideas that you have for your future career upon returning to your home country. This essay is not about waxing poetic about your past academic life. Delete everything you have written in the essay except for paragraph 5. Only paragraph 5 actually applies to your post study plan because it talks of what you want to do when you return to your country. It is just too bad that your plans are too short.

These do not really cover your short and mid-term career plans. Where do you see your career in 5 years? That is what you should be discussing, how you can get to that point using the education you will be receiving in the UK. Your DFID reference is supremely weak. Your DFID reference must speak of the current projects that are in existence and how you see yourself fitting into those projects as a volunteer, or if you will develop a project that can be sponsored by the DFID. You don't need to describe what the organization is about. Rather, discuss what they do and why you want to be included in the work that transpires in their projects.

I am sorry if I am blunt about my review of your essay. It is just that, with all of the examples available for your reference regarding the Chevening essays on this forum, I find it hard to believe that you could come up with such irrelevant and non-essential essay presentations. The essays you have shown me so far are not worth the time that it took for you to write them.

I strongly urge you to stop writing your essays at this point. Review the essays here first to get an idea as to what information is needed and how to present it. Only then should you draft your essays for your application. If you keep writing essays without really understanding what is expected of you, you will get frustrated and angry at me each time I tell you to write a totally new essay. Which I think I have done twice already, or is it 3 times? I can't keep track. I just know that if you keep writing like this, you will get stuck in revision hell and miss the application deadline. So study the samples before you write any more essays in order to at least have a chance of submitting your essays on time.

Scholarship / Being connected with people from same and different places will help us enhance our career [2]

Hiwot, this is not a discussion about the benefits of a network. This is an essay that is meant to highlight the fact that, after all these years of hard work on your part, you actually have an extended network of professional friends who can help you advance your career in the future either through the help they can offer you when you need it, or they can put you in touch with other people who can help you when you face work problems. There is no defining moment of your network having done so for you in this essay. In fact, there is no external network being presented in this essay. All that I read is how you use the pre-set internal network that your work as a lecturer offers you. Definitely not the best example of networking skills. There needs to be an example of a network you have created. So think about 2 useful organizations that you met through your seminars and describe how you have used that network in your career. Explain why you think these networks are important to you as a professional. The reason why you need a definitive example of your network is simple. You will be judged as to the relevance of your network, its applicability to the Chevening programs, and if it will be useful to Chevening scholars in the future. You do not present any evidence of a concrete, usable network in this essay. You just keep on discussing what you think a network should do for you and how you "used" that "network" at present. Review other networking essays here so that your revision will be on the right track. Delete this essay. It is useless.

Writing Feedback / IELTS-Task2- the reason of learning a different language [8]

Sandra, the difference between the two types of prompts are really easy to spot. For "do you agree or disagree?" that is as simple as presenting a yes or no and answer then explaining why you said yes or no. Yes OR no. One or the other. You do not discuss both in the essay. As for the "Discuss both views and give your opinion", the best way to explain it is through the following format:

1. State reason 1. Provide a justification. Give an example. Transition into the next paragraph.
2. State reason 2. Give the popular belief behind it. Use an example. Transition into your personal opinion.
3. State your personal opinion. Discuss as per the elements of the first 2 paragraphs. Your personal opinion should be singular in presentation and be convincing to a clear degree.

Like I said, the prompt state you wrote was wrong. It does not apply to either of the two prompt types you asked me about. Your presentation was that of a single opinion essay. That is not what either of the prompts you asked me explain was all about. So no, the score will not change for you even if we change the prompt because the prompts you supplied were not in line with the discussion you chose to present.

Scholarship / My positions as site engineer and as a member of the site management team [4]

Mirza, there are two elements in this essay that are irrelevant to the presentation. The first is you school leadership role. Academic leadership is only applicable to college application essays. As a masters degree scholarship applicant, the only concern of the reviewer is if you are leader in your profession. That is why Chevening's prompt clearly indicates "leaders and influencers of their country". The scholarship expects you to be able to change the direction of your country either on a national or economic level. Hence the focus on professional qualifications of leadership and influencing.

The second irrelevant detail is the paragraph about your family. The reviewer will not be impressed by this information because it is definitely not related to leadership and influencing based on its content and discussion. Therefore, this section should also be removed. It will not affect the rightful content of the essay which is the reference to your being an engineer.

Your positions as site engineer and as a member of the site management team readily convince the reviewer that you have the ability to lead based upon your occupational training. That is very strong in this essay. However, your influencing style as a member of the site management team is not represented in a more enlightening manner. You need to show evidence of proper influencing skills either in relation to construction managers, fellow engineers, planner, or subcontractors. These are the people that, based upon your narration, you may have needed to heavily influence at certain times during the project work. Think about some of those times and discuss the one that stands out to you the most in the essay.

After you accomplish that revision, your leadership and influencing essay should be good to go.

Writing Feedback / [task 1] The charts show the relative size of populations of countries of the European Union [2]

Gang, you had a slight misunderstanding of the provided listing beside the pie charts. The reference to "All other countries (21)" is a different listing and doesn't apply to the previously listed countries. It is apparent that all other countries had the largest share of population growth. So that is the actual trending statement in this presentation, not the population distribution in the EU. Don't worry, you are not at the native speaker level yet so small mistakes like these can happen in your presentation. You should outgrow those mistakes as you develop your English analytical abilities. Try to find another essay along this line of discussion. Let's see if you can do better now that you know what to look out for.

Your arrangement of the presentation is very good. However, I would like to caution you against focusing too much on how you present the essay. You could lose valuable writing time doing that. Just outline the essay within the first 5 minutes of your first reading and work from that presentation. Pretend that you are in an actual test setting. That 5 minutes extra time you took to write is valuable. Try to finish writing within 10 minutes if possible so you have ample time to review, revise, and finalize.

As for your score, I will bring it down to an 8 because of the misunderstanding you had about the information presented in the chart and the listing. Good work though. We have some small problems to iron out but I don't doubt that you can rest easy knowing that you will pass this test with high marks.

Scholarship / [Chevening Essay] Leadership and Influence [5]

Adeyemi, your essay is heavy on the leadership skills, almost non-existent in the influencing side. In case you are wondering, no, functioning in different capacities to help up an comers function and improve their own skills does not qualify as infliencing skills. Those still fall under leadership functions because you had to train them and prepare them for the job. An influencer, can take someone who knows the job but is under performing within his assigned tasks and job scopes, give him an inspirational pep talk, guidance, and counseling so that he can achieve his fullest potential as a member of the office team. Therefore, your essay needs to focus a little less on your leadership abilities so that it can show how you handle your team in a manner that results in objectives being reached and line employees achieving their full potential. If you remove the reference to the National Youth Service Corps, you will have enough space to make that presentation adjustment in the essay.

Undergraduate / A NARRATIVE ESSAY BASING ON A PIECE OF MUSIC [3]

Oops! At first I thought that you understood the prompt requirements perfectly. Then I got to the last paragraph of the essay and learned that you listened to the song lyrics instead. So you are just retelling the story based on the song itself. You are not making up a story based on the music alone for this essay. The mistake on your part was you chose a piece of music that already had a story to tell. So you just went ahead and retold it. What the prompt is asking for is an original story that came out of your imagination. I would suggest that you change your approach to this story. Instead of picking a popular song with lyrics, choose an original instrumental composition to listen to instead. Then listen to the music. Close your eyes, write down what you begin to imagine as the music progresses. Imagine the story that can take place, how it would unfold, and how it would end. Choose one of the classics in this instance. One of my favorite instrumentals is Tales From the Vienna Woods. The music unfolds in a setting that can easily be imagined and a story can easily be developed to take place within the musical setting. The notes are both fun and dramatic, and creates a proper sense of climax at certain points in the composition. That is something that you cannot achieve when you listen to modern music that already has lyrics in worked in.

Scholarship / Aviation Scholarship Essay For Female Pilots: What's the best way to stand out? [2]

Madison, I feel like I am starting to read your essay from the middle instead of the beginning. I think that this sense of incompleteness will dissipate if you first, establish the foundation of your dream to become an airline pilot. Where does that come from? Why do you think becoming an airline pilot will make you a positive member of the community. Try to tie in your aspirations and goals to an individual and community setting in order to impress upon the reviewer that you are not just after self aggrandizement in your quest to become an airline pilot.

There is no need to enumerate all of the clubs and associations that you belong to. You must only indicate the clubs and associations that you are a member of where you made a significant contribution either through participation or leadership. Otherwise, the reviewer will not be impressed by you simply being a member of these clubs. Scholarship foundations are normally more receptive to applicants who have shown that they can be upstanding citizens and members of their immediate and academic community. I believe an adjustment in content for that paragraph is in order.

The quotation that you suddenly introduced in the middle of the essay doesn't work with any of the prompt requirements. In my opinion, your essay will do better without it. You can safely remove that without affecting the overall essay because you will be removing the reference to how you were inspired or rattled by your flight instructors anyway.

Your essay does not have any academic achievement or honors indicate. Why is that? If you are only an average student, then you will need to justify your gpa in your application and explain why that is not an accurate reflection of your abilities as a future pilot. Explaining how you were taught and inspired or not inspired by you instructors do not take the place of an explanation regarding your academic achievements or lack thereof. You must specifically discuss that in an appropriate manner in a stand alone paragraph.

Writing Feedback / UK graduate and postgraduate students who did not go into full-time work did after leaving college [4]

Due to certain changes in company / forum policy regarding user participation, I can no longer continue to advice you regarding ways of improving your essay writing skills. It seems that you have been in violation of specific rules that have been brought to my attention and as such, prevents me from further participation in your threads. I can no longer assist you based on these new considerations. If the rules change regarding your participation (in particular) in this forum because of newer observations and considerations, only then will I be able to continue working with you on the development of your writing skills. You may contact the forum admin regarding this situation if you wish. They would be in the best position to discuss this situation with you. Forum policies regarding user participation must be strictly observed. Once you begin to follow the requirements and policies of the forum, then I will be able to work with you again. Until you show improvement in that aspect, you cannot expect any further help from me. I was given rules and I must comply with them.

Scholarship / I am still young, energetic, high self-motivated person who is visionary, enjoy studying and working [3]

Martsom, this sounds like you just extended the content of your resume in the presentation. It does not sound like a personal statement at all. It sounds more like a narrative resume. So this is not what you should be submitting for the purposes of your application. A personal statement delves on the foundation of your interest in the pharmacy field. The story of your father would have helped if it did not focus on the health emergency and rather, showed how difficult it was for you to gain access to the medication required for his treatment.

From that point, you can discuss that this health scare is what drove you to become a pharmacist. Explain that you do not want to just sell drugs and fill prescriptions, explain that you wish to be the drug creator for your island. How you feel that because of its isolation, certain health requirements can only be met by the existence of highly trained professionals in this field. That will be the driving or personal reason behind your desire to study this course.

Go on to explain why you chose this particular university. You cannot just say that you are "completely interested in all the modules offered". That is like saying "I like ice cream, any flavor". It doesn't establish the reasons why you feel only this university can help you achieve the improvements that you hope to bring to your island. Explain what attracted you to the curriculum instead. Do not discuss your work related experience yet. That is to be discussed in the SOP. The PS, is only meant to explain the foundation of your interest and why you feel like you will be a good match for your chosen university.

Scholarship / 'I discovered my skills' - My Essay for the LEADERSHIP & INFLUENCE QUESTION - Chevening scholarship [3]

Eso, this is not a usable essay for the leadership prompt. You cannot use the first 2 paragraphs because those all deal with childhood and academic leadership issues, which do not have any connection with your current profession and how you perform leadership and influencing requirements in the workplace. Deleting those 2 paragraphs will already leave you with 2 professional experiences at the end. Sadly, the work description you provide is that of a subordinate / assistant leader, in the first example, and as a member of a team in the next one. As an assistant leader, you showed limited skills in terms of taking charge because you were not really in charge of anything or anyone. You merely followed the instructions you were provided and assisted the newcomers based upon your training and guidebook. There is no sense of leadership development in that aspect because there was nothing to take responsibility for. You were a mere foot soldier in that instance. Then, in the team level, you do not make it clear if your capacity as a quality specialist meant that you were the leader of the team. From what I know of this position, it is not a leadership position in the "team" leader sense of the word. You belong to a different department. It seems to me that you need more guidance as to how to properly develop this essay. I plead with you to read the other examples of more appropriate leadership and influencing essays on this forum. The examples of those before you should help you create a more appropriate response to the prompt.

Scholarship / Chevening Networking Essay: What I get from maintaning a good networking [4]

Aidell, this essay is very good in terms of showing how your network was created and how you nurture it. However, you skim over the portions that can present solid ideas as to how these networks work for you even as you collaborate with the various people you have met and helped in the discharge of your profession. There are numerous networking examples that you can focus on in this essay. However, I would like you develop a specific set of examples, namely:

1. How the director of ALeRT helped you to expand your network. What situations were present that allowed for this unique work opportunity to take place?

2. Explain which network you have that led to your becoming a member of the WWF and how that membership occurred. How has the WWF helped you with your rhino conservation program? As a part of your network, would you say that the WWF has the most potential to help you grow your professional network? Why?

Bear in mind that you have a 500 word limit on the essay so you don't really need too many examples here. However, if you can add one more example of networking, your essay could be made stronger. Specially if that network is based on a locally based organization that helps the wildlife as that shows that your country is also involved in wildlife conservation. There is a little lack of that representation in the essay. How you handle the examples presentation is up to you. You can go with 2 or more.

Your explanation as to why this network is important is very weak. You need a stronger justification that ties in directly with the Chevening wildlife program (if there is) and how their scholars from this field access and be enhanced by your existing network. At the moment, you are not really making a strong case for that topic.

Undergraduate / As a Texas A&M student I'll have the chance to achieve the goals that I set for myself. [4]

Joey, I am not sure about what sort of essay you are supposed to be writing. You did not provide the prompt requirement for the development of the essay so I am not really sure if this is the way to go. It would appear to the reviewer that your father is the applicant for the student slot and you are writing a recommendation for him based on his skills, abilities, other considerations. I learned very little about who you are and why there is such a heavy focus on your father in this essay. If your father is not the applicant, then he should not be the sole focus of the presentation. Perhaps if I knew what the prompt you are responding to is, I would be able to better direct your essay towards a less father-centric, but still with mentions of your father, in your revised essay. As of now, this is not a good essay. It is confused because it sounds like your father has all the abilities that the student requires and you do not have any of your own solid foundation in relation to your course of interest.

Graduate / DPT Professionalism 2017 personal essay draft [7]

You should remove the second paragraph because that is more of a personal backgrounder on your part rather than a discussion of professionalism. paragraph about shadowing John, the more I read about it, seems to stick out like a sore thumb because it removes the focus of the discussion from you and your definition of professionalism. It instead, focuses the essay on the workings of a PT and how he does his job which, although related to professionalism, isn't what the prompt is asking for. If you just remove that reference and focus on your definition of professionalism instead, based on the remaining paragraphs, the essay should be better off. It will become more interconnected, focus on your point of view, and deliver the definition and discussion that the prompt requires. You don't need justifying examples in this essay because when you present examples, you tend to remove the focus from the original discussion. In order to stay on point, avoid using examples in your essay.

Scholarship / My long-term goals are based on the experience I am looking forward to gain - Chevening [5]

You need to work on developing your project plan that will coordinate in efforts witht he DFID. While this is only a potential project and may or may not materialize, you have to present a solid plan that explains who you plan to get into the front door with DFID. What sort of preliminary collaborative actions can you take you become a part of the organization so that you can eventually share your bigger plans with them? After that, give an idea as to what sort of "big" plan you will be developing that the DFID can, as far are concerned, will be interested in supporting / funding. Overall the essay has developed into a good second incarnation. You fully understood what I expected you to correct when I said "furtherrmore" was a redundancy. Your change made the 2 connected sentences more involved and engaging to read. Save for the UK project that needs an expanded discussion, the essay has come along very well for you. Once you improve on the UK discussion, this should be all set to submit.

Scholarship / Leadership & Influence essay for Chevening - decision making in tough circumstances [5]

I have as different opinion of the essay that you wrote. I find that it is perfect for the presentation of leadership and influencing skills because it shows your leadership on 2 levels. The first level, is that of a team member who rose to a leadership challenge. The second, is that you led the team to victory with seemingly insurmountable odds as represented by the higher authority that you reported to. As for the influencing, the fact that you managed to convince the team to stand by the law and review the case so that you could strengthen the presentation was excellent influencing work. You don't have to go into the nitty gritty details of both leadership and influencing due to the 500 word limit. You have shown a strong team leadership style in this essay. It is exactly the kind of leadership and influencing essay that just might catch the reviewer's attention. This is one instance when the collective reference to "we" in terms of presentation was more than appropriate since you established early on that you were the de-facto leader of the team. You basically represented the collective voice of the team as its 'accidental" leader. Good work. This essay is ready to represent your leadership and influencing skills on a notable level.

Scholarship / Examples of networking skills in my career so far [3]

Hidayah, in paragraph 2 separate the story about your father and the way that your network was able to help him during his time of medical need. Extend the scenario to indicate what kind of favor you requested of the physician and how, because of your network, the physician was able to make it happen. Also, a grammatical correction must be made. In the last sentence you can simply say "re-admit him" as "re-admit him back" is a redundancy. Since you are a member of a national committee, you should highlight that network by emphasizing how the Chevening scholars who are renal pharmacists will benefit from your national network. That is a highlight that should not be discussed in such a short manner. What kind of problems has this network been able to help you resolve? Give an example. Overall, this is much better than your first version, but it still needs some work.

Scholarship / I will spare no effort to enrich my networking, experience and knowledge to serve my community [12]

This is absolutely not a networking essay because it is within your company. The training does not qualify as networking because it was conducted by your company's training center. There is no interaction with other professionals in a related field representing different companies and connected business lines, there is no reference to people met at seminars or corporate training events that indicate an exchange of knowledge between non-company related professionals, and there is no representation of how a clear cut network beyond your company reach has helped you to improve your skills or job management styles. There is nothing referenced here that can prove that you have a network worthy of Chevening consideration. Why haven't you reviewed the sample networking essays on this website to use a template? Look at how their networking representations were developed and emulate it. Networking, as referred to in this essay is not focused in-house, it has to be external in development but internal in application.

Writing Feedback / Boarding school is an excellent paradigm for children to comprehensively develop [5]

Linh, you need to practice how to paraphrase the original prompts. The one that you created for this essay is not really accurate and shows sentence structure errors. Compare your paraphrase with mine:

Some parents believe that boarding schools have major benefits for their children. Others believe that there are some specific considerations that make boarding schools a bad idea for their children. This essay will discuss the pros and cons of boarding schools and present an opinion at the end.

Now, refer back to the properly worded prompt from the original (as your version of the original prompt is obviously faulty, incomplete, and not the original prompt presentation either) and then read what you wrote, then what I wrote. You should see which version is a more accurate paraphrase of the original. Don't worry, you should get better at it with practice.

Your reasoning is sound for both points of view and you have drawn an acceptable conclusion to the presentation. However, you wrote only one long sentence for your conclusion instead of the more score considerate 3-5 sentence presentation. You need to write more sentence in order to allow yourself the opportunity to prove your LR and GRA abilities for higher scoring consideration.

One overall observation, you have a tendency to write run-on sentences. This will result in a sentence that doesn't make sense to the reader because he is not given an opportunity to remember, consider, and understand what has been written. This will result in a low GRA score for you. Always split up your sentences into topic and discussion sentences. Keep it short but informative in order to create more simple and complex sentence representations in your essay. You will score better in that instance.

Scholarship / The concept of leadership was first instilled in me during my undergraduate studies. [3]

Leophil, it would be best if you simply condense the meaning of leadership and influencing to you in the opening paragraph. There is no need to delve into the details of your undergraduate studies and how you learned how to lead there because the assumption in this case, is that you already know how to lead and influence people. Hence the focus on leadership and influencing skills in Chevening's search for future leaders in the countries they are sponsoring scholars for. You need to be existing in a leadership role within management in an office setting. Not an academic setting. While future leaders are trained in college, actual leaders are honed, polished, and created within the profession. Unfortunately, your work set up is mostly based on paper work and you do not have much interaction with other office staff it seems. Maybe we can find an appropriate leadership role for you within your dealings with the problem banks? Since you do not handle a team of people, I am uncertain as to how you can prove your leadership skills. Your explanation of standing up to a higher boss with regards to an appropriate supervision strategy might work in this instance. I can't be sure because you decided to summarize that part instead of focus on it. Try to revise the essay to concentrate on the supervisory strategy situation instead. It seems that is the best bet for you to highlight your leadership and influencing skills.

Writing Feedback / In the chart the population distribution in age, of Yemen and Italy in 2000 and projections for 2050 [4]

Gang, you seem to have developed an affinity for the word "distill". You are limiting your LR capacity at the moment. I believe this is the second essay where you have decided to use this word. Try to vary it up. Look up other words for distill and check if the meaning of each word can be used as a replacement word in the essays you will be writing. Don't get hung up on one word for all your essays. Even if it sounds good. You need to grow your vocabulary range. Remember that.

Good work on the trending statement. Since the Task 1 essay doesn't require a concluding paragraph, you placed it in the most appropriate place where it can have most effect on your score in terms of TA considerations. The fact that you knew not to go over the maximum word count shows that you are conscious of the scoring parameters as you write the essay. It seems like writing these essay have become almost second nature to you already. I am rightfully impressed.

One thing though, when you mention the year, it is more appropriate to say " in the year 2000" as a reference point. Remember, this is a topic sentence so indicating the year shows what the discussion is all about. Simply saying "In 2000" could mean just about anything in a general statement. It is alright to say "In 2050" because you already established that you are referring to year references in the paragraph.

Overall, your writing is getting smoother and the mistakes are almost negligible. I dare say that you are well prepared to take the test anytime you want and you will be assured of passing it.

Scholarship / Everyone is a leader and an influencer in his live. Chevenig essay about leadership. [5]

Hiwot, you changed the direction of the essay midstream. When you related the problem of your student, you focused solely on him and his actions and the results of what you had him do. Try to reframe that presentation to focus instead on you, why you felt you needed to encourage him, how you influenced him to make a life decision, and how you changed his life by participating in his enlightenment process. Talk about what you did, not what you had the student do and what your purpose was for it. A simple revision of that paragraph will do the trick. Your opening paragraph is too short to make an impact that would reel in the reviewer to continue reading your paper. You should work on developing that presentation further in order to make it more interesting. You could also opt to just delete that portion and open with "As Advisor" and say "As an advisor to 75 full time and 40 part time graduates in my capacity as a university lecturer..." which would make the opening sentence more interesting and informative in a smoother manner.

Graduate / DPT Professionalism 2017 personal essay draft [7]

America, the first two paragraphs are unnecessary in the essay. The first paragraph sounds like you are lecturing the reviewer about professionalism. That is something that you should avoid doing as reviewers are highly trained individuals who know more about the job and what the essay requires than the applicant ever will. So talking down to the reviewer will only irritate the person. Remove that reference.

The paragraph about how you were as a young child is also irrelevant. It does not apply to the adult definition of professionalism. Although the paragraph shows me that you are a good person with a kind heart. Sadly, that is just word filler at this point. The essay should begin and follow through from the point where you discuss the essential qualities a student in the DPT program should have.

Try to focus less on the activities of the practitioner that you shadowed and instead, describe how you learned about professionalism during that time. Make sure to highlight the reasons why you feel that this person embodied professionalism in the practice of PT. Make sure that you emphasize how this person served to be your role model and the ideal of a professional in the workplace whom you plan to emulate.

Graduate / SoP for Aerospace Engineering - General improvements on content and flow [3]

Chris, let's start editing the essay by deleting the unimportant or less than relevant paragraphs. You can safely delete the opening paragraph since that is too elementary in information and presentation. Always start your essay from the strongest and most relevant point of information. In this instance, that is the reference to your degree in mechanical engineering since it ties in with your interest in physics and astrophysics. Remove the reference to your floundering academically at that point. This is a statement of purpose, not a personal statement or an essay justifying your low GPA. I am a bit concerned that you do not have any actual work experience in astrophysics to qualify as a candidate. Simply having studied the related programs and applications does not carry the same weight as say, someone who interned with a professor of astrophysics and actually helped to develop research information that was (perhaps) published. Your background as a teacher doesn't seem to tie in with the requirements of this course and doesn't portray you, as I read the paragraph, as a qualified junior astrophysicist in anyway. An SOP heavily considers the professional experience of the course applicant in the field he is interested in. Your interest, your desire to make contributions, and your long term career goals are right on the mark. It is just the qualifying experience that I am worried about at this point.

Graduate / My interest in Data Science - combine math's, statistics and computer science [4]

Astha, what you wrote qualifies more as a personal statement that describes the development of your interest in Data Science rather than an SOP. A Statement of Purpose should, for all intents and purposes, focus on your college and after college experience as the basis for your interest in further developing your Data Science career.

You can open your revised essay with the second paragraph from this version. It creates an interesting basis for your college education in this field. Describe what your actual college major was and what your thesis project was in relation to the MSc course you are thinking of taking. You can use all of the work experience that you have here in order to build your SOP. However, focus only on the most important ones. The ones that actually had you accomplishing something while you were working there. It isn't all about what you learned there, as an MSc student, you must be able to prove that you have the ability to develop changes that can improve the current Data Science systems.

That is why you will need to focus your discussion eventually, on your current profession and office. What are your work responsibilities? How does Data Science relate to it? What problems do you see or foresee arising in the future. These will be the basis for your current interest in pursuing Data Science studies. Discuss what sort of changes you hope to develop and implement in order to further develop the use of Big Data in relation to Data Science in the future.

Don't forget to present your possible thesis statement for your masters thesis. This will further show the reviewer that you have a clear study path carved out for yourself over one year. If you can include a short to medium term career plan, that would be better. Finally, discuss why you chose a specific university at the end of the essay. Why that university over the others? What do you hope to achieve using specific curriculum, professor interaction, or internship programs at the university? How will this education change your career path for the better?

By revising your essay based upon my suggestions, you should have a more accurate workable draft essay created that aligns itself with the requirements of an SOP. You can set this essay aside for the personal statement submission of your application.

Scholarship / Chevening Essay about Network - Professional development through networking [2]

Dhea, you have been participating in various organizations since the start of your career that can actually be considered networks. The problem with your presentation is that there is no clear or definitive method by which these organizations have criss-crossed within your profession to be considered a usable network. It is not enough that you join them, after you join them, they need to create a sense of intersection within your career where you joined one organization, moved on to the next, had to use the previous organization's contacts to to a better job in your current position, and in the process, ended up creating a new network because of a referral or something that allowed you to contact another usable organization connected to your field of employment. Think of this as a physical social network. Where are the common "Friend" points where these connections become useful to you and use those points to create the basis for the usefulness of your network in a Chevening designed need for mentors and other sponsors for previous and upcoming scholars. If this network is useful to you, explain how the network will also be useful to Chevening in the future. Provide examples of the usefulness of your network other than the work that you did for them. That reasoning does not justify that these are networks. It only qualifies the connection as work experiences.

Writing Feedback / Is it Self-Defense? Or is it Spreading Chaos? - Gun Control Essay [3]

Hamza, this research / opinion paper is tremendously one sided in presentation. Any research paper that wishes to inform its reader must do so by properly representing, discussing, and opining on both sides of the issue. For example, when you say that the government did nothing after the Las Vegas shooting but does something when ISIS attacks internally, you need to follow up those claims with clear supporting examples and reasoning. Aside from that, you also need to do research on what type of reaction did come out of the government and present it in line with the discussion regarding gun control. For example, the local police were in charge of the Las Vegas investigation for a time before higher authorities came into play. When an act of violence has the trademark signs of ISIS, the FBI and Homeland Security immediately step in. Then there is the question of how these guns were purchased and what existing gun control laws already exist. One of the major discussion points your research should prove or disprove is that, based upon research and other sources, that there are either enough or not enough gun control measures passed by congress and what is preventing its proper implementation, aside from the NRA and other connected lobby groups.

As a commentary on a single article, the essay is strong, as a comparative argument, it is one sided and weak. It does not have enough resources cited in order to give credence to your opinion in the paper. In order for your argument to be effective, you must show evidence of the weakness from the other side. Your reader cannot just take the opinion of one writer or two writers who share the same opinion and then consider that the gospel truth.

Undergraduate / Your Betterment Is a Choice - Texas A&M Admission Essay Topic B [2]

Michael, this is a very good personal statement that shows the development of your interest in Osteopathy which, I believe, is your chosen college major. This essay does not want you to continue the discussion of the reasons you chose your major. Instead, it wants you to discuss something about yourself unattached to your major of choice. Who are you beyond the Michael with interest in this course? What are your other skills or abilities that make you a unique individual? What other things about you as a person, not as a student, do you think the reviewer needs to know about? Think in terms of who you are outside of school. Character development, a hobby that differs from most, an ability to do something that others cannot or have difficulty doing (like rubbing your head and tummy at the same time) are the normal topics discussed in this essay. So think along those lines as you work on developing your new essay. You should not use this essay for the current prompt. As usual though, you could use this essay for the open topic prompt since that prompt will accept any discussion you want to provide in the essay. It states:

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

Yes, I think this essay will work very well for the open topic discussion essay. Don't get me wrong, the final decision as to the prompt you wish to respond to is yours. If you want to use the original prompt, you will need to change the essay though to make it more appropriate for the prompt.

Writing Feedback / Some people enjoy changes and new experience, others like to stay unchanged. Compare both approaches [3]

Trong, the standard format for an IELTS essay test requires 5 paragraphs of 5 sentences each. the format of which is as follows:

1. Prompt restatement
2. Opinion 1
3. Opinion 2
4. Personal Opinion
5. Closing statement

Each paragraph should contain only one line of discussion because of the 5 sentence maximum requirement. The format for each body paragraph is:
1. Topic sentence
2. Reason
3. Supporting statement 1
4. Supporting statement 2
5. Example

In some instances, the supporting statement can be cut back to just 1 sentence so you will have around 3-4 sentences in that paragraph. Not really ideal but it will still get a decent scoring consideration provided your discussion is always as complete as the ones that you presented in this practice essay.

You need to remember that your personal opinion should never be bundled into the concluding statement because it doesn't allow for the proper closure of the discussion. The focus of the closing paragraph is a reverse summary of the opening statement. This time, repeat the prompt, summarize the discussion, then repeat your opinion. End of story.

This essay is pretty strong and, if it were not for the scoring considerations that are based on preset parameters, it could have gotten you a very high score. The main problem, is that you did not properly represent the opening statement. Let me show you how it should be done:

It is said that people try to live their lives based on 2 different considerations. The first, is that one should know how to deal with the evolution of life and in the process, enjoy the new adventures it offers. The other, is life should not be subject to adjustments so that their routines do not change. In this essay, I will compare these two points of view on life and then present a statement about which approach I feel suits me best.

It is important that you stick to the original prompt discussion and present a proper outline to help you keep track of how to discuss the essay in the succeeding paragraphs. By using synonyms in place of the original keywords, you increase your LR score and allow for a higher GRA score because of the mix of simple to complex sentences in one paragraph. All of these are considered in the final scoring stage.

Writing Feedback / Exercise or a balanced diet to health? Discussion essay. [7]

SG, aside from the problematic opening statement, that left me dazed and confused, the overall presentation that you have is admirable. The essence of each paragraph is clear with only one topic discussed with proper supporting sentences. Good job. The personal statement provides a highly analytical representation of the previous two discussions in relation to your personal opinion. Excellent work. You show the potential to become a very good essayist. All your paragraphs are within the minimum sentence requirement and a majority of the sentences are acceptably worded and formed so you should get a passing LR, C&C, and GRA score. It is the TA that will actually pull your score down because you were obviously unsure as to how you should write that section. Let me give you an idea about that:

A common belief is that exercise of the only way to achieve perfect health. Recently though, another idea has begun to take hold. The idea states that a balanced diet may have more value towards the overall health considerations of a person. In this essay, I will discuss both points of view and offer my own opinion regarding the discussion.

That is a clearer paraphrase of the original prompt. Compare it to the one that you wrote and you will see for yourself why your version is a bit confusing for the reader to understand.

Scholarship / I'm motivated to hone my networking skills whenever possible. Chevening networking essay. [3]

Alvin, this essay that you created only details how you learned how to develop and use a professional network. It does not indicate how you currently create, develop, enhance, and cultivate your scholarship network. By a scholarship network, I refer to the people that you meet in a professional situation outside of the office. The network cannot relate to a co-worker, an immediate supervisor, or someone within the company that introduces you to someone else. A professional network is developed through work necessity or skills development. Your essay does not really portray that you have that ability because you are focused on how other people develop their networks as per your observation. This is not an essay that you can use for this prompt. You need to write a totally new one that indicates what your current professional network consists of, how you use it, if it has led you to create additional networks, and why these networks you have created will offer Chevening an enhanced network of their own. Prove those points and you will have an essay that addressed the prompt requirements in an accurate manner.