Writing Feedback / The First Day on My New Job [3]

Huxiaolan, when you write a reflective essay, it is best to not to do a numbered list of the events that transpired. Just discuss it as you would in a normal voice. Using the number system makes the essay sound like you are writing for a formal paper instead of a casual narration. Make sure that you are consistent in your tone of voice. Reflect in a past tense or passive voice so that you can focus on the action that you did. It would also be to your benefit if you shared the name of the company that you worked for since you already shared the name of the HR officers and your immediate superior. By the way, unless you have explicit permission from these people to use their names in your essay, it would be best if you did not do that. It is a violation of their privacy for you to mention their names without their consent.

Scholarship / Supporting statement - how will the study contribute (AAS - Applied Linguistics) [3]

Romeo, do not approach this essay from an "I will" angle. The point of this essay is to have you consider what you inabilities or lack of training in this field is in relation to the professional problems that you have and hope to resolve through the completion of this course. You do not need to outline how you hope to use the information you learned. Instead, you should be discussing the type of professional improvement you hope to attain through this process. Remember, the question relates to how this study can contribute to your career. The contribution needs to show where you are at this point in your skills and training, what you hope to improve upon via the masters classes, and what kind of improvement you hope to show at the end. In my opinion, you need to rephrase the first paragraph and just remove the second paragraph in order to address the prompt requirement in a more applicable manner.

Scholarship / OFID scholarship essay - Reforming the tax system in Tunisia [2]

Chiraz, this is totally the wrong approach to responding to the prompt. In order to create a more relevant response, you have to first, present the problem that Tunisia faces, which in this case, is a problematic tax system. Don't leave that for the end of the essay as a mere mention because that is the focal point of the prompt. You basically need to present the following information per paragraph:

1. An explanation of the problem the country faces and why you believe that this is a problem that needs to be immediately resolved.
2. Your plan of action as to how to fix this problem, which requires you to complete a masters degree in order to formulate a workable solution to the given situation.

3. Why you believe that this course of study will help you to develop your solution.

Your response to number 3 should be expanded enough to allow the reviewer to understand exactly how the scholarship program can help you achieve these goals. You can actually take the sentences from the last paragraph and use those to start new paragraphs in your revised essay. They sound like good starting points for discussion that can help you respond to the prompt in a better light.

Scholarship / After study I want to be involved in maintaining the quality of Indonesia's marine environment [5]

I would be best if you change the second sentence of your paragraph response. There is no need to explain the reason that the department exists to the reader. Just explain what kind of job you will be doing as a member of that department. From there, if you want to, you can also change the last sentence to instead, reflect the kind of change that you hope to bring to the department. That sentence currently feels like it doesn't really focus on a particular career path upon your return. Be more specific. If you need more characters to accommodate the changes, you can remove the phrase at the start about "After I graduate..." since that is already implied in the prompt. You can just go direct to the point in order to more properly use the available word count. Your response is good, but it can be better. I hope you consider my suggestions for your essay. I am sure it will help to improve the overall content of your response.

Undergraduate / Why do you want to attend one of the military service academies? [2]

Isabel, I have a tip for you. Try to relate your desire to help amputees with the experience on the field that becoming a Navy officer will offer you. Make this military service experience relate to your future career. After all, you will not be in the service forever, but it can help you become a better designer of future products that can help the injured or debilitated veterans live as normal a life as possible in the future. That way, the Navy becomes the necessary exposure experience that will help you to become better in your chosen civilian profession when your tour of duty ends. Explain that being a military veteran, you will be able to take your real world experience and the experience of the soldiers in the line of fire, to help them become whole again. I like the slant of your essay. It is all about creating the proper foundation for your future college degree in a manner that will look good on your future college application. You just need to revise the first paragraph in order to accommodate the change that I am suggesting.

Scholarship / I choose Subsea Engineering at the Curtin University, because... [2]

Nurul, there needs to be an equal discussion coverage of both the reasons why you chose to enroll in this course, as well as the reasons why you chose this university to study in. Reduce the information about your education. Focus the discussion your professional reasons for study. This will be the criteria that made you decide to enroll in the given course. Ensure that you represent the actual reasons and not just generic indicators such as "future plans". The criteria needs to be based on an immediate need that you hope to resolve or respond to once you return to Indonesia after completing the course. The reason why you chose the university cannot be a one liner that says you chose the university based upon its ranking. You are not choosing a shirt to wear here. You are choosing a place where you hope to grow intellectually, morally, and socially. So you need to come up with better reasons for opting for this university other than "it ranks number 35 worldwide". Tell us what it is about the academic offering and training that the university course offers you which you cannot find in other Australian universities or universities in your country. What made this university stand out for you?

Undergraduate / I choose to further my education in Canada high quality education and security [4]

Nguyen, just summarize your educational background and experience in one paragraph. This essay will be presented to the visa officer along with some other documentary requirements. So the intensive educational background and experience need not be discussed in this essay. What you do need to discuss in this essay, which I do not see at the moment is why you desire to study in Canada and how the Canadian study experience can change you as both a person and a professional. Try to explain the reason for your desire to study in Canada in relation to the profession that you plan to return to in Vietnam upon graduation. I cannot stress this enough. You need to make it clear to the visa officer that you have no plans to stay in Canada after you graduate because you have compelling reasons, both in terms of family ties and career outlook, that demand you return to your home country immediately upon your return. These are the factors that could get your visa application approved or rejected in the end. If possible, refer to supporting documentation that you should have submitted along with this letter.

Book Reports / To Kill a Mockingbird Essay - Atticus's Advice [2]

Johnny, this is an opinion essay so there absolutely no reason for you to reference any outside sources. Therefore, you need to remove the reference to Martin Luther King Jr. so that the discussion focus is kept on the book and the opinion of others. Your opinion should be reflective of your understanding of the overall story in the context of the quote provided. That means, you need to lessen the references to the other parts of the story as well. There are too many novel based quotes in the essay which, although helping you to explain your point, is seen by most teachers as a cop out and a short-cut in dealing with the prompt requirement. Try to write a new version of the essay that instead, shows how deep your understanding of the novel, in relation to the quotation, is. Make sure to highlight your personal opinion based upon your personal experience. That will make the opinion you are presenting more relevant to the topic for discussion. Relating your personal experience, in relation to quote is usually the best method of presentation for this essay instruction.

Undergraduate / UT Transfer Essay "A": How can I improve the quality of my personal statement? [3]

Brian, in as much as this essay is highly personal, informative, it doesn't really offer the proper information that the prompt requires. As a transfer student, the instructions given to you are very clear. You are to only discuss what you have learned so far in your current academic institution, and where you see your studies headed once you become a transfer student. Actually, your essay should start from paragraph 8. Modify the paragraph to give a summary of your military service and its relation to your desired major. Explain how that experience, added to your previous academic training, and your forthcoming education at the new university will combine to give you the kind of academic experience that will result in your unique professional qualities upon graduation. By the way, don't recite the whole oath in this essay. I know that it belongs to the university you are applying to so merely referencing it is actually enough to get your message across. If you must, just pick one or two lines to present in the the essay. Putting the whole oath in there doesn't really accomplish anything. Edited in that manner, your essay will be better presented and allow for a better understanding of your character and career goals.

Research Papers / Compare/Contrast Research Paper, help with grammar/conventions, only present tense and no 1st person [2]

Caitlin, you need to change up the use of the word "perpetrator" and "abuse" in your essay. Get a thesaurus and look up the varios ways that you can describe the same word throughout your essay. The constant use of the same terms throughout the essay creates a redundancy for the reader that causes a sense of boredom towards the middle reading of your paper. It appears that your vocabulary is highly limited, which portrays a negative trait for you as a student. Next, focus on dividing your extra long paragraphs into paragraphs. When the words appear that compressed on the page, the reader cannot really keep track of your explanation, much less keep their place on the page. Therefore, dividing the long paragraphs at proper division discussion points would help to make the essay more understandable to the reader. I can't fault your information in the essay. It appears to be well researched and does its best to explain the differences between the two forms of abuse to the reader. So the problem with your essay is not content, but rather, word and format presentation.

Research Papers / Introduction - The influence of celebrity worship on college students [3]

Vanessa. the thesis statement and purpose of the study is not really clear in the opening statement. What is the full thesis for your research? If it pertains to how celebrities affect different social fields, what social fields are you planning to study and what is the method of research/survey/polling? What criteria will be used to gauge the measure of effect that celebrities have on social media? You need to thresh out the research establishing paragraph a little bit more. There is also a confused tone in the essay. It seems that your presentation varies from being a research paper to being a literature review, to finally, being an article. You need to finalize the format of your research and presentation through your wording so that the reader will not be confused as to the kind of paper that you are actually developing. It will also help you better focus the research material and information for presentation. Try to spread out your in-text citations within the paragraphs. Don't focus it in just one part. That way the essay develops a more relevant discussion that allows you to better present your personal voice instead of just focusing on the quoted text.

Writing Feedback / I decided to do running - there are many advantages of running to our body [2]

Weijjiang, you should focus on only one aspect of running for your essay instead of trying to develop a number of discussions within it. That is because your current version lacks a chronological presentation of facts. If you wish to discuss more than one topic in the essay, then you should first outline your topics for discussion, making sure that the related information are located within proper paragraph distance of each other. At the moment, your essay lacks coherence, the result of your lack of outline when it came to the discussion procedure. Your essay also suffers from grammatical problems such as capitalized words when it should be written in lower case and your list not being properly formatted for presentation to the reader. The list should have also served as an outline of the succeeding discussion where you would have better represented a discussion of the topic list. the listing doesn't have any importance the way you have it presented now. It doesn't really inform the reader of the benefits because your benefits discussion is not focused. Basically, you just need to make sure that you focus on your discussion topics and allow for a well developed presentation of the topics. Try to limit your essay to only one or two related and important topics in order to prevent confusion in the presentation of the discussion.

Scholarship / Details of any other experience/information which you consider relevant to your application [3]

Bolarinwa, your essay does not satisfy the qualifications for the scholarship information. I do not read any relevant work experience on your part, which is the main requirement of the prompt. In order to qualify for this scholarship, you have to show that you are working a field that directly relates to your chosen masters degree and you can justify a career progression using this particular certification. There is no true discussion of your abilities in relation to the masters degree nor an acceptable reason as to why you feel qualified for the scholarship. Being from a low income family no longer justifies a scholarship grant because all of the scholarship applicants are from low income families, are hard working students, and feel entitled to the scholarship. There is no unique reason for them to award you the scholarship at this point. It is not about how the scholarship can help your country but rather, how your studying this masters course will help you to help your country. The second paragraph does not justify your qualifications for the scholarship because you just enumerated the course outline, which doesn't tell the reviewer about your qualities and traits that make you a good candidate for the scholarship. Discuss your accomplishments in your college days and your current profession instead. By having notable accolades, you will be able to justify the prompt requirements.

Scholarship / Master of Environment - proposed course and institution for Australian Awards Scholarship [3]

Meilia, when you are asked for the method by which you chose your proposed course, it cannot be something that seems so whimsical as it is in your current essay. Instead, it must reflect a connection to your current profession, your professional requirements for higher study, and the benefits that you will gain in the practice of your profession upon your graduation from this course. Your decision to enroll in the course should be more specific than just the widening of your interest in sustainable environments, that reason does not sound like it has a direct relationship with your career. As for the reasons why you chose the universities, leave the ranking of the universities out of the discussion. That is irrelevant to your decision to enroll in one of the two universities. Instead, the response has to relate to the kind of learning, training, and practical experience you can receive from the university as it applies to your interest in the field. You need to show a familiarity with the course offerings and training programs instead of the general references that you make in the current version of your essay.

Writing Feedback / The value and quality of women's work should be more appreciated [3]

Ngai, you have inaccurately discussed the paraphrased statement. The opening statement needs to only deliver your understanding of the prompt topic plus the method of discussion prior to your agreement or disagreement of the topic. An example opening statement for this would be:

These days, men commonly hold positions of high responsibility in companies. This is the situation that exists even as most workplaces have come to be more dominated by women, who sometimes comprise 50 percent of the workforce in a company. This imbalance in the leadership role in offices has led to the debate regarding whether companies must be forced to hire a percentage of women for the high profile jobs. I actually agree that companies should hire more women in positions of responsibility for a number of reasons which will be discussed below.

You need to learn how to pick a strong line of reasoning and then developing the discussion thoroughly in the paragraph. It is best to not confuse things by presenting more than one supporting evidence or opposing evidence in a paragraph so that you can devote your time to delivering a proper discussion of the given reason in relation to the topic. At the moment all of your discussions are not thoroughly developed and therefore, creates a weak argument in support of your position. So, given the shortcomings of your essay, I believe that your essay might score a 4 in an actual setting.

Scholarship / I chosed University of Melbourne and Monash University. AAS 2018 Supporting Statement [3]

Azaa, the first two paragraphs of your essay is not necessary in the position that you have placed it in. It does not directly respond to the question about how you chose your course/s. If you instead open with the third paragraph, you will be delivering a direct response to the essay prompt regarding the choices. This will then free up the current unnecessary information for integration in the paragraphs regarding your reasons for choosing the universities you mentioned. By explaining the needs of the Mongolian professional in relation to the course offerings of the university, you will be able to better explain how it applies to your professional career and the future development of the Mongolian economy.

You just need to integrate the earlier information into your essay regarding the choice of universities in order to create a persuasive line of reasoning. All of the information in your essay is good and relevant. It is just the current format and placement of the data and references that makes it less helpful to your application. Editing the content to integrate the information should fix that problem in a jiffy.

Research Papers / Research on Ethics of Cloning (Wooly Mammoth) [2]

John, you are trying to discuss too many topics all at once, without giving yourself the benefit of a proper outline with which to discuss the topics in a chronological, cohesive, and coherent manner. You have to develop a proper thesis statement first. Remember the purpose of the thesis statement? It is meant to help you create the discussion procedure and a presentation of the topics for discussion to the reader in order to prepare them for the upcoming paragraphs. As such, you should never include actual information in the opening statement as you have done so in this essay. You see, the current opening statement that you have doesn't really prepare the reader for the discussions and instead, confuses the reader because they keep getting hit by different topics or redundancies in your paragraphs. Specially when it comes to the discussion of the possible illnesses that the cloning of the Wooly Mamoth might bring. It will help if you first outline your topic for discussion and then cut it down for relevance, content, and connection with the thesis statement. That way, you will retain only the related topics and prevent yourself from over discussing parts of the DNA discussion. It should help you to better focus your essay. By the way, check your sources and make sure that you do not have more than 30 % of quotes in the written work. I notice that you have a quote in every paragraph, which will not help your essay if your professor decides to run through a plagiarism checker. The more quotes you have, the more chances that this essay will be declared plagiarized. Try to paraphrase and offer proper in-text citations in place of actual quotes in order to avoid plagiarism issues once you submit the research. If possible, try to shorten the length of your research paper. It is a bit long and I felt boredom setting in even before I hit half of the written text. Work on presenting more interesting and informative essays. Don't drag out the discussion longer than it should be in the presentation.

Scholarship / Discuss the disappointments, failure, or risks in your life so far and your responses to them [5]

Moon, you need to be direct to the point when you respond to the essay. It would be best if you remove the lengthy opening statement with simply the start of your narrative. The reviewer doesn't need to waste his time reading your definition of failure and the transition into the story itself. Just get to the point because the reviewer doesn't have the time to waste reading preparatory statements. While I do not think that this essay will be very good for you, mostly because you showed that you agreed to help your classmates cheat and colleges have an honor code that ask the student to not cheat nor help others cheat, the essay does have some merits. I am just worried that the topic you chose could be focused upon by the admissions committee because the story you shared could influence the image that they will have about you as a student. If you were willing to help students cheat then, what will stop you from helping them cheat now and in the future? If it were up to me, I would ask you to change the whole story because of the possibility that you could get rejected for admission based upon the story that you told. However, if you feel that this is the best story that you can share which depicts the prompt requirements, then use this story. I am just not confident that it will work in your favor. Who knows though, the admissions committee just might see some merits to your story that will change their minds or consideration of their honor ethics with regards to your admission.

Graduate / An individual beyond grades and test scores; Personal Statement for Graduate Admission for Korea [4]

Ashhar, do not present your response in an outline form. That is not the expected response for this essay. Instead, write it in a continued form, using transition sentences or paragraphs whenever necessary. The reason that you should write it in continuous form is because the narrative requires you to connect all of the prompt discussions in the narrative. By using the interconnected form, you allow yourself more freedom to discuss and interconnect the prompt discussions for the benefit of the reader. You can better build up your character, abilities, mindset, traits, and other related information in a manner that creates a coherent and cohesive discussion. The essay that you have written comes across as well thought out and is effective in discussing the prompt requirements. However, the reader gets cut-off while reading your work because they have to suddenly read a new prompt and adjust to a new response. Instead of just fluidly reading an essay that transitions from one discussion to another. My advice is this, lose the prompt questions and just make sure that the paragraphs move fluidly towards the next discussions. That way the reader is acclimatized to reading a continuing narrative instead of split up topic discussions that they will not be able to seamlessly integrate in their thoughts because of topic dividers.

Scholarship / Specific examples of dealing with difficult situation, providing a good change [4]

Ayu, let's get one thing straight, the issue you are supposed to present has to do with your most recent work related challenge that highlights your leadership skills and ability to work with other teams or organizations. Using an activity that happened in 2015 isn't going to work for this essay. It is too far into the past and does not reflect the leadership and teamwork requirement of the prompt. In fact, there is no real marked issue that you had to deal with in this essay. Try to find a more serious problem, not necessarily work related, that will highlight the leadership skills that you have. It can be some problem related to a community project, a volunteer activity, or otherwise, that required you to become a leader, work with other people, and resolve the problem in a cooperative sort of way. Do some self reflection regarding the prompt requirement. Think of something in the recent past that applies to the leadership and team work requirement of the prompt then write a new essay. That would be the best way for you to develop a proper response that reflects the essay requirements.

Writing Feedback / Translation of a short movie to my little brother at school [5]

Sawsan, it is difficult for anybody here to translate this essay for you for a number of reasons. The first, is that most of the sentences that you wrote do not make any sense in English. This essay sounds more like you used an online translator to write the essay in English coming from your mother tongue. That is the main reason why this essay doesn't make sense. The best thing for you to do at this point is write the essay again. This time, do not use a translator, if necessary, use a Turkish - English dictionary for writing the essay. Not the online translator. I know you are out of practice when it comes to writing in English but using the translator is not the way to fix the problem. You need to apply yourself and work on improving your English skills the hard way. Right now, I am sure that the essay makes sense in Turkish, but you cannot transliterate from Turkish to English. If the English sentence development and structure is not followed, what you end up with, is this mangled, incomprehensible bunch of words. Believe me, I would help you to fix this essay if it were possible and simple enough to do so. It just isn't easy to do when the essay is in such disarray like yours is. Try to write a new essay. This time, use only simple English words instead of trying to be creative and dramatic. Just speak in a natural manner. Keep your English presentation simple. That would be the best way to get back into the practice of writing in English.

Writing Feedback / Choosing an university which is far from home or in your country? (write a compare & contrast essay) [4]

Saman, you need to learn how to practice sentence variations. Try not to always start your sentences with the same phrase. In this case, "Studying abroad" and "Studying in your country" was used at least 3 times to start a new sentence. That is considered a form of redundancy and shows that you have a limited ability to form English sentences of the complex kind. You present some pretty convincing reasons in your compare and contrast essay with regards to both topics. Your conclusion however, needs more work. It is the weakest part of your essay that does not close the essay on a strong note. It is somewhat simplistic in approach and does not really summarize the discussion to the point where an implied opinion is present. Perhaps that is because you did not present a personal opinion paragraph in the essay. If the instructions allowed you to use a personal opinion, the essay would have been stronger overall. This is not a bad attempt at writing the essay though. You show an analytical ability that can serve you well in English essay writing in the future.

Essays / Question about if it is not recommended to argue an idea that isn't very dominant in a book. [3]

Jennie, if you want to be able to write a 3 page essay on a book topic that is only in the first half of the story, you will find yourself pressed for a way to achieve the 600 word requirement, even if it is something that can be found in both books. The only way you can effectively write a comparative essay on those 2 novels will be to find the predominant discussion that exists throughout both books. It would be best for you to focus on the overall theme of both books, assuming that these are similar as the dominant topic. Delve on the differences in development of the theme, but the common resolution that is achieved by the characters in the end. Arguing these topics using a compare and contrast argument should be helpful in your achieving the required word count. Just make sure that you choose a continuing idea or theme to argue, not something that is only in the first 15 pages of one book. That will make writing the essay very difficult and the word count almost unattainable.

Writing Feedback / The prevalence of Western clothes. [5]

Linh, I think this essay can score at least a 5 overall. One of the main reasons that I held back on giving you a higher score is the fact that the essay was asking you for a generalized opinion of the topic and you instead, gave a personal opinion. If the essay does not say "what is your opinion", then there is no need to personalize the opinion as what is required is a blanket, general opinion that is acceptable as an explanation to most people. The third person pronoun or terms such as most people, one, others, groups, and other similar terms, create a general perception of the opinion you are presenting, which would have been more in line with the discussion. While the essay that you wrote is strong, you show a clear understanding of the topic for discussion, and you managed to present convincing evidence, it is the personal opinion statement, and the improper sentence development that pulled down your score. One of the grammar problems in your essay is your use of the connecting word "because" at the start of the sentence. You cannot use a connecting word to start off a sentence in academic writing where the rules regarding the placement of connecting words in a sentence is precise and unchangeable.

Undergraduate / My reasons of choosing master of health management. [6]

Myo, the essay does not respond to the prompt at all. You will need to write a totally new essay that will better adhere to the prompt requirements and guidelines. It would be best if you discuss the two universities in the essay as a part of the reasons that you chose specific courses at these universities. That means, you need to consider how each course that you have chosen to attend at the university specifically applies to your professional goals and ambitions. In discussing how you chose your proposed course, you don't need to explain your academic and professional background as you did in this current essay. Instead, you need to focus on the problem points of your current career and why you feel that enrolling at this university, in a specific course ( that you need to mention) relates directly to resolving that issue. Along with those, the reason that you chose the institution must reflect a keen understanding of the university programs and training facilities in relation to your course. It isn't just about the ranking of the university. It should be only about the academic excellence of the university as well as the type of training that you can receive from them. The current essay that you have written does not even begin to come close to the required elements of the prompt. Hopefully, you can follow the instructions I provided in order to create the proper essay response for the AAS application. If you require additional reviews, please make your post urgent so that I can continue to advice you there. I cannot continue to advice you in this thread as I am only allowed to give you one free advice per thread / topic. That does not include the revisions you might be making.

Writing Feedback / Driving offenders must face consequences [2]

Muhammad, the English sentence structure of the essay is not very good. It usually confuses the reader while reading due to the improper sentence structure and grammar use. The lexical resource is also a problem in this essay because you are using words such as "enchanted infrastructures" which does not make sense because there are no "magical" roads in real life. So using that term is wrong and shows that you have a very poor grasp of the English language, the word meaning, and proper usage. All of which will combine to create a dismal score of 4 in the overall bandwidth considerations. An additional problem of your essay is that, although you presented a personal opinion in the opening statement, you did not discuss the reasons behind your personal opinion within the essay itself. All you did was discuss both sides of the topic, which is a partial fulfillment of the prompt requirements. The final part, the one that requires you to discuss your opinion, was not represented in your writing. Due to these numerous problems with your essay, the score cannot be higher than the 4 that I indicated above.

You need to familiarize yourself with the meaning of various English words and its usage in sentences. While you cannot memorize the English dictionary for this purpose, you should at least make an attempt to improve your writing abilities by reading other English essays, English newspaper articles / books / comic books. I suggest reading more comic books in English because the illustration of the situation normally explains the sentence in the dialogue bubble. Thus making it easier for you to understand the sentence meaning, how it was structured, and how the keywords were used in the sentence. These are the problems with your essay that can easily be improved upon through the practice of reading illustrated English material.

Research Papers / The Evolution of Board Games and Their Future in Society [5]

Kenneth, the research information that you present feels rushed, not thoroughly researched, and lacking in sources that are factual, which can help to explain the evolution of board games. Using listverse, which is an open website, does not help your research because it is not considered an authoritative source of information. Your references to the history of games jumps about from different eras and loses consistency when you say that the bible story does not contain a relevance to the history of games. It actually shares a history with board games because the game of dice, which involved betting on numbers even then, is a very example of a board game. So the bible reference is definitely relevant and considered authoritative as it is a well known and accepted history of mankind and his history. I strongly suggest that you revise the paper. This time, outline your discussion before you begin to write the paper. Base your new outline and discussion on the following sources:

Combine the new information regarding the history and evolution of board games with your previously researched information. A word of advice though, if you cannot cite the name of a person along with the location of the source, do not use it. That will be questionable as an authoritative source of information. Stick only to articles that have authors, publication information, and verifiable url's. These changes should help to improve the focus and presentation of your research paper.

Research Papers / Essay for English: Legalization of Marijuana: The Future is here [2]

Kory your essay is composed of more than 30 percent of quotes. This is something that poses a problem for your if your professor plans on using plagiarism checking software. When your essay has at least 30 percent of quotes, the program flags that as a plagiarized paper. The only way around the plagiarism checker is to paraphrase the quotes, based upon your understanding of the given statement, and then giving the proper in-text citation for the original source. At this point, your essay does not really give an idea of how you are personally arguing your thesis statement because you are relying on paragraph long quotes from other sources to make your point. That is the weakest link of your research paper and will also be the reason why this is not going to get a decent grade upon final review by your professor. You should also avoid using the same source for information successively in a single paragraph. You must include related information from other related sources in order to show that you did the legwork in terms of research. That will also lower the chances of your whole paper being flagged for plagiarism. Limit your direct quotes to only 1 or 2 lines from the source speaker whenever necessary. Towards the end of your essay, you seem to deviate from the original discussion of the American debt being paid for partly by the legalization of Marijuana. Since you did not mention this secondary discussion as a part of the original thesis statement, this will be considered a deviation and will tend to confuse the reader. It is best to outline all points for discussion in the thesis statement in order to let the reader know that you will be discussing more than one topic in the essay. Just make sure that you can connect the debt payment defense with the latter part of the essay so that you can come up with a strong concluding statement. At the moment, the paper is nothing more than a draft that requires content focus, content trimming, and proper paraphrasing for the quotes.

Undergraduate / The community in which I live, of which I am a member. [2]

Hann, you took a research approach to responding to the essay rather than the personal, contemplative approach which is the required discussion format for this essay. Having said that, it should be obvious that you have not responded to the essay in a manner that will properly inform the reviewer about the kind of community that you live in and what your participation in its improvement is. Think of the community that you belong to in terms of your race, ethnicity, religion, ideology, or heritage. That means, you do not just describe the community that you live in, but the community that has helped you to become the person who you are today. Give the community a name. For example, "I belong to the small fraction of Latino members of the community in Aspen, Colorado", or something like that. Then explain how your community creates and strengthens the bonds between its members. Maybe you participate in some specific community outreach programs, or you are a member of an organization that represents your community? Explaining those topics will help to describe your community and your place in it. Do not explain your explain your community in general terms of location, population, school district, volunteerism, etc. These are generic approaches that are best used for creating a research thesis statement. Not a college application personal response statement.

Writing Feedback / Veganism -- Giving advice on my essay! This is for a final grade. [2]

Fabia, you can actually lengthen the content of your essay if you continue to respond to the questions that you posed within your thesis statement. Vary your response by including information gained from the experience of vegetarianism or vegan practitioners in your research. Connect their experience with the research that you came across. More importantly. Don't just focus on creating a supportive research. A supportive research is useless if you do not try to debunk the myths or popular beliefs about the negative effects of vegetarianism and veganism. In order to create a solid foundation for your claim about the benefits of the other 2 alternative food sources, you have to first prove that the popular negative beliefs or bad publicity connected to the belief does not tally with the results of actual research and the experience of the alternative food practitioners. Adding these 2 discussions to your essay will create a more cohesive discussion, a more interesting thesis statement, and also, create more informed readers of your research all the while adding to your length and relevant research content.

Writing Feedback / The percentage of students who studied at four types of secondary schools over a period of ten years [4]

Anh, the main problem with your opening statement is that it does not really tell me what to expect in the upcoming discussion. As an outline, your essay is not effective because it doesn't immediately represent the types of schools to be compared, the years of comparison, and the sort of information that you will be presenting (e.g. a comparison of data, and presentation of main features). All of these elements need to be presented at the start in order to create a proper discussion outline, which will prove that you understood the instructions and that you have the ability to create a chronological discussion of the facts in the succeeding paragraphs. Doing so would have provided you with an increased Task Accuracy score.

While you will not score highly in the lexical considerations of your writing due to misspelled words and the simplicity of your discussion, you did a good job of comparing the immediate information. However, your GRA will take hits because of the way you misspelled words, did not really develop proper sentence structures, and lacked in complex sentence usage. Overall, this is a 5 band score essay. A deeper analysis of the provided information and use of more and better developed complex sentences would have increased your score to possibly a 6.

Writing Feedback / The primary reasons behind low productivity of agriculture land. Two graphs description IELTS TASK 1 [2]

Hadeel, you must avoid redundancies of information in your essays. Your irst 2 paragraphs contain the same information in the first half. I think this is caused by your lack of familiarity with the information presented in the pie chart and the data chart. Your overview summary int he first paragraph is also lacking information. You should have divided the topic outline into 3 full sentences covering the types of degradation and the countries that were indicated in the chart. That would have given the overview a more complete feel and allowed your properly outline the discussion and instructions provided in the original instructions.

Since your comparison sequence covered 3 different countries, the more proper format for your essay would have been to allow a discussion per country, of the related information, within the same paragraph. So you could have written a total of 5 paragraphs covering the summary, the worldwide comparison, then the percentage per country. This would have allowed for a more accurate and related comparison of information within the essay.

Due to the redundancies in the presentation, a lack of cohesiveness and coherence in your discussion, and stress that your information presentation put on the reader, I do not think you can receive a score higher than a 4 for this practice test.

Writing Feedback / Destination most of students after graduation [3]

Afif, in the case of this essay, it would have been better if you combined the first sentence with the full paragraph beneath it in order to create your opening statement. Remember, the overview will be most effective when you can illustrate the provided information in a summary or recap form. That helps to increase the task accuracy score because the elements for discussion, as well as the method of discussion will be fully threshed out at the start of the essay.

The overall presentation is sound and shows that you took a decent amount of time in considering the evidence presented on a deeper level than just what was on the paper. While you tried your best to use complex sentences, an obvious attempt at improving your GRA score, you were not as successful as you had hoped because the sentence structure became a bit confusing for the reader. While I applaud your attempt at the complex sentences, if done improperly, like in most instances in your essay, it ends up reducing instead of increasing your score. It is best to write simple sentences, which can best represent your thought process, and get a small increase in your score, than to try to be complex and reduce your scoring considerations. Overall, this is not a bad attempt at writing an essay that has the potential to score a 5 in the final consideration.

Research Papers / The influence of gory games for behaviour of gamers in reality. Research on Video Games and Violence [2]

Estevan, when writing a research paper, you must do so from a third person point of view. In order for your paper to be considered objective in its information presentation and discussion, the author needs to disengage himself from the discussion. Look at all of the evidence from a factual standpoint instead of personal. So opening the essay by saying "When I say..." is not the proper way to proceed with the paper. Change and all first person pronouns to that to a third person point of view in order to create the credibility required of your essay information. You should also aim to balance your discussion by creating a reference to the opposing facts before presenting your supporting evidence. That way the discussion allows the reader to create an educated opinion based upon the information provided. At the moment, your essay is too one sided and lacks an equal voice in terms of considering all sides of the proposed discussion and its counter opinions. This is a pretty solid draft though. You are going in the right direction. You just need to adjust certain aspects of your research.

Writing Feedback / IELTS Task 1 Exercise "comparation among UK student who didn't go into full-time work" [5]

Rista, the comparison method that you used throughout the essay is the best presentation that I have seen so far of this essay topic. You have clearly analyze the information and presented it in a manner relevant to your chosen discussion within the paragraphs. I will say that though your grammar is not perfect, you did manage to make your presentation more understandable than most to the reader. I have a piece of advice for you. Do not us the term "nevertheless" in a continuing sentence. That term is always used to start a comparison presentation. In this instance, I did not see any comparison following the use of that word so it was misused in the essay. You also should never have a stand alone sentence as you do in this sentence. You must always present complete paragraphs of related discussions otherwise you will get marked down immensely for technical instead of content errors. Based upon this observation, I believe that your essay can be reviewed and considered for a score of 5 overall.

Writing Feedback / What students did after leaving college, without job? Describing The Graph. [8]

Sytia, the first comment that I have is with regards to the context of your sentences and paragraphs. the lack of English language knowledge and weakness in sentence structure and grammar causes a significant amount of stress for the reader. That is because the topic of your sentences are always unclear and are hard to define by a simple once over reading. Even multiple readings leave the reader still wondering about the point and accuracy of your statements. Another problem with your presentation, when compared to the actual graph, is that you present the figures in decimal points, when the actual figures are delivered to the reader in thousands using a comma. always use the same presentation as the original since you are supposed to be presenting an accurate summary of what is being presented to you. Changing the format format from the original will result in a mark down of your Task Accuracy score.

Your overview summary at the start does not deliver a complete presentation because it is only one sentence long. There is also a redundancy as your first and second sentences are exact replicas of one another. Since there is no change in the information presented, it would seem that an error or a lack of proof reading occurred on your end, which would be another reason to lower the overall score.

There is a lack of proper sentence development in your paragraphs because you do not use full stops in your paragraphs. Perhaps you were not informed that there is a minimum 3 sentence requirement per paragraph during your class? The sentence structuring will result in another point deduction for you because the improperly formatted paragraphs cause additional stress upon the reader, who is not allowed a chance to properly process and differentiate between presented information. Avoid using commas whenever possible and opt to use a full stop instead.

I won't score this essay for now, mostly because this is your first try and you have room for improvement. I look forward to scoring your next practice test though. Keep writing!

Writing Feedback / Where went majority of UK students since they finished their school? [4]

Nurul, while you did meet the minimum word count requirement of 150 (you wrote 158 words), you did not accurately represent the necessary comparisons, discussions, and information presentation in the essay. It does not meet the format and presentation requirements of at least 3 paragraphs comprised of 3-5 sentences per paragraph. You must aim to present an expanded discussion of the provided chart because that will be the method by which your English comprehension, grammar accuracy, and sentence construction abilities will be judged. While you did a good job with your presentation here, the shortness of the essay will limit the possible high scores that you could get when you use better developed idea presentation and explanations. You can achieve this by separating your essays into 3 topic paragraphs. The 5 paragraphs should be comprised of your summary overview, 3 body of paragraphs, and a concluding statement. Presented in that format, you will be able to aim for a higher overall score than you will have with this current essay. This essay cannot score higher than a 4.

Writing Feedback / Destination of UK Graduates and Postgraduates in 2008. Describe Table IELTS Task 1 [3]

Nindy, next time you post your essay, please make sure to include the illustration for my reference. I do not have the ability to confirm the validity of the information in your presentation without it. It will be impossible to accurately score your work as well due to the lack of base points for consideration. With regards to your essay, I can only comment on the formatting style because that is what I can see and rate without the need for the graph.

Your writing style inconsistent. All of your paragraphs must have at least 3, but no more than 5 sentences per paragraph. That is the requirement that can allow you to properly summarize the illustration you were provided and also, offer a clear explanation of the information to the reader. Note that your essay does not have a consistent discussion based upon the sentence requirement.

You were neglectful of the sentence formatting requirements in this essay. Only the first word of every sentence, as well as the indication of proper nouns must be capitalized. Your work carries misplaced capitalized words or words that are not at the beginning of the sentence and do not qualify as proper nouns within certain paragraphs and sentences.

Make sure that you space your paragraphs properly. Paragraphs 1 and 2 are not accurately separated and that such, looks like you did not proof read your essay before submission. Perhaps you meant to include the second paragraph with the first part of the essay?

All of the problem points that I have pointed out here have a direct effect on your final score. So make sure to avoid these problems next time.

Writing Feedback / The typical destinations for students after graduating. IELTS Writing Task 1: Comparing the chart [4]

Farinda, I normally score the essays presented for review for the students, but in the case of first time participants, such as yourself, I do not give a score because I want to call your attention to the method by which you can improve your writing style and thus, improve your final, overall score as well. Let me get started with the first paragraph.

Your first paragraph, is the overview statement. This is the paragraph that calls for your to summarize the topic for discussion, the method of discussion, and other key elements of the essay in an outline form. You are not supposed to present any pertinent discussions in this aspect of the essay yet. Now, the problem with the summary that you wrote, is that it does not cover the complete information presentation per chart. These presentations need to be done as a full sentences instead of a summarized presentation. This is because of the required 3-5 sentence per paragraph requirement of the essay. Any paragraph shorter than 3 sentences will be given a marked down score.

You were provided with 3 charts for discussion. Therefore, each chart content should have been represented in a single paragraph. Each paragraph should successfully compare, contrast, and present the information for each section indicated within the chart. This will create a solid and proper discussion that will be considered highly informative by the reviewer.

As for the concluding sentence, you will need to increase that by a few sentences in order to create the proper format for the presentation. Your actual discussion is acceptable. It is just that you missed a few important formatting requirements and information in the overall presentation. If you manage to avoid the same problems in the next practice essay, I can accurately score and offer you additional advice then.

Writing Feedback / Transportation facilities and shopping mall. Describing maps IELTS TASK 1 [3]

Aman, my opinion is that you cannot score higher than a 4 with this essay because you did not accurately represent all of the information that you were given in the illustration. For starters, you did not provide an accurate overview summary. The overview summary should have been presented as a paraphrasing of the topic and discussion instructions that you were given for presentation in the essay. The lack of this information created an incomplete first paragraph / opening statement for you. You will of course receive point deductions for every aspect of the illustration that you failed to represent in the summary essay, of which there are many. You failed to represent the various facilities and locations being proposed for the 2 different proposals, comparing the carried over suggested facilities whenever possible.

I would also like to call your attention to the second sentence of the second paragraph. When you say "For instance", you are expected to make a comparison between two subjects in the sentence. You do not have a comparison in that sentence. It is an incompletely developed sentence and will severely affect your GRA score.

It is because of these problems with your essay that I feel you will not get a passing score in an actual test. Make sure to correct the errors in your next practice test so that you can improve your overall score.