Undergraduate / How my inability to speak has affected me in negative ways [6]

See if this conclusion works for you.

My religious belief caused me to be bullied by so-called "friends" for 8 months. I kept silent as they mocked my cultures dress style, traditions, and artistic dance style via social media, racist actions in face to face settings, and condescending actions. They made me feel uncomfortable and unwelcome every chance they got. I kept silent because I feared that speaking up for myself and my background would make the harassment even worse. I endured the discrimination out of fear of being labeled as a "sissy", a "crybaby", or a socially inept person. All of which I knew I was not. My upbringing and religious training became my enemies in this case. The silence that I was taught was to be my protector in times of doubt and fear was turning into my worst enemy. A far worse enemy than my friends or parents could ever be to me.

My inability to speak, the silence that I was trained to use in order to avoid conflict or end an altercation caused the most negative effects on my life. My silence allowed people to walk all over me like a doormat because I did not want to risk breaking with my traditional training an escalating various situations in the process. My silence told those around me that it was alright to mock me, kick me, and ridicule me. They would get away with it because I would choose to remain silent. Was silence really bliss in this case? Maybe for others, but not for me. I acknowledge that silence can be a friend in most instances. However, for me, silence was the enemy that I could defeat in most personal and social settings.

You can make this the basis of your revised conclusion. Good luck with your revision work!

Undergraduate / Why Information and Decision Science essay [3]

Zuzzana, what you have here is a very badly developed personal statement that does not relate in any way to the question that the prompt has posed before you. The question is about your choice of major/minor at UIC. I do not know how you got the idea that you should tell a story about what happened to you when you were 4 years old or asking your aunt for a Tamagotchi toy was the right response to this question. Let me see if I can explain the prompt expectations to you below.

The Information and Decision Science major is a course of study that would be of high interest to someone who has a great interest in two fields of study, computers and business management. Why is that? The course focuses, specially at UIC, on Information systems, operations, supply chain management, and business data analytics. Therefore, you should only be applying for this major if you have an interest in becoming a 21st century business person. From what I have read of your original response, it seems that you did not do any research regarding your chosen major. Can you tell me why you chose to apply for this major? Maybe there is something that you did not properly reflect in your essay which is why the essay that you wrote became inapplicable to the prompt.

Scholarship / My country Rwanda has seen huge progress in various sectors these past couple of peaceful years... [3]

Lambert, you should shorten the presentation of the problem that your country is facing because it covers a total of 2 paragraphs in an essay that should only be 2 paragraphs long. The best way to shorten your essay would be to simply present the unemployment data for unemployed youth population of the country. By doing this, you will focus on the real problem unemployed youth of your country and, later on, the relevance of this information through the Vision 2020 program of the government.

By the way, telling the reviewer that your country is living in relative peace at the moment is unnecessary. That is not a question being asked in the essay prompt and it is not information that can help to better inform the reviewer regarding the problem of unemployment in your country either. So when a piece of information is not really helpful in the overall essay, you should just remove that reference.

For a more relevant mention of the Vision 2020 of the Rwandan government, it would be best if you can discuss how this vision has inspired you to pursue higher studies instead of just explaining the goal of the program in countrywide terms. You should immediately present your idea that in order for the government program to succeed, then the college age youth of the country needs to be prepared to carry the responsibility of making this a reality through proper education and professional preparation. Which should be the purpose of your pursuing the Mastercard Scholarship at the U of T.

Basically, your essay should be complete within 2 paragraphs, properly focused using the directions i have given you above. The essay will be short, informative, and offer a clear overview of all the necessary data for the consideration of your scholarship application.

Graduate / Scholarly and research area(s) of interest, experiences that led to your preparation in the field [21]

Shuting, in the paragraph where you are explaining the work that you are doing as an assistant to the professor, it is not enough for you to simply enumerate the work that you did and the equipment you used. It would be beneficial to your application if you can present the observations that you made while executing your duties. I am guessing that somehow, the work exposure you got during this time had something to do with your interest in higher studies. So you should try to include that information in your essay.

Regarding your post study plans, you don't have to worry about it being only something you imagine at this time. Why don't you try to include it in the essay so we can decide how to best tie it in with the previous information? You don't have a word limitation so you should consider yourself lucky. You can be as definitive, information inclusive, and detailed in your presentation. Although, I believe we should aim for the maximum 750 in this case. Anything longer may just become redundant for the reviewer.

Undergraduate / I'm writing about my interest, talent in mathematics. 'Some students have a background...' [2]

Antonio, in my opinion, the essay will work best if you remove the reference to the way that you were taught math at school which led to your boredom. Specifically, I would like to have you consider removing what you currently have as the opening statement. That is the portion that really does not help because it sounds like you are complaining about the Mathematical teaching method in school when you were younger. Let's not make any reference to age whatsoever in the essay so that you will come across as a well rounded and informed student applicant instead. Your opening sentence in your current second paragraph would really work well in enticing the reviewer to read your essay when compared to the current opening. Try it yourself. Read the essay in its original form, then remove the current opening paragraph, I bet you will spot the immediate difference.

The part that opens with "That was Six year ago" should instead open with "Six years ago, my school was invited..." Opening the paragraph that way makes the intention of the paragraph clearer to the reader. The rest of the paragraphs from that point have been developed well, as far as I am concerned.

Now, I found myself wondering if you are applying to become a Math major in college? If you are, then maybe you should consider using a different topic for this essay. The prompt is normally used to allow the student to show a more relaxed side of himself outside of his academic interests. Something that the other common app prompts did not allow you present because those were focused on discussing your chosen university or major. Consider changing your topic if I guessed right and you are a Math major. If you are not, then the changes I suggested ought to work find for your purposes.

Letters / Music Resume: Identifying Points of Confusions & Possible Solutions [4]

Hi Zhang, I ran through your resume and I think that there are certain points that you can clarify or add information to in order to add stronger content and considerations to your list. One of the thoughts that occurred to me was about the private music tutor aspect. Since you underwent it for 5 years, I can only assume that you either had one or move singing coaches (not voice coaches as those are two different terms that are sometimes interchanged) right? Were they notable singers from your country or perhaps members of international singing / music organizations? The same comment applies to your piano tutors. If so, then you should mention that :

Private Lessons:
Years covered
Under the tutelage of:
Name of singing coach
Coach organization membership

By adding this information, your make your singing foundation notable, memorable, and impressive. The idea is to inform the reviewer that you have been serious about your singing career from the very beginning and have taken great pains to ensure that you got only the best possible starter training from the very start.

With regards to your participation in the Pudong Youth Orchestra, you do not really need to put the words (city district) in parenthesis. That is not important information. Unless the actual name of the group is Pudong City District Youth Orchestra, then you can insert that descriptive term in there. Otherwise, the formal title of the orchestra will do.

You have a pretty impressive musical background. I bet you will be a strong competitor for admission based on your resume alone. Good luck with your application !

Undergraduate / Boston University supplement essay: tell us why BU is a good fit for you, why you apply? [2]

HI Jessica, there is no need for you to include the course code in your essay. The university reviewer will automatically know which class you mean if you mention the actual course. If you want to bring your word count down even more, use the course code instead. The reviewer will still know what you are talking about. Now, on to other matters.

I would not speak of the diverse campus experience at BU if you have not yet done an actual campus immersion or visit. That is because the diversity experience is not something that you can explain away in a theoretical form. You need to have actually experienced it and detail the event in your own words and experience. It cannot be based on research or interviews of alumna.

Another out of place section is the mention of Chinese as fitting well into the program. Since you are not allowed enough words to actually explain why speaking Chinese makes you a good fit for BU, it is senseless to present the information in your essay. If you can't expand on an explanation, it is best not to include it in the essay. You don't want to leave the reviewer wondering about what you mean by mentioning Chinese as fitting into the program because you left the topic sentence hanging.

Overall, the essay content that you have really is a good fit for the prompt. The only possible problem content that I can see so far, are those that I mentioned above. While I think you should totally skip the diverse experience reference, you can adjust the other parts of the essay (you make the choice) so that you can better explain the Chinese language reference that you made. It's a pretty strong draft and you should be proud of what you have written so far.

Writing Feedback / (summary)Strong Personalities Skew Study Samples [5]

Vicky, where is the link to the article that you based this summary on? We need the link in order to compare your summary with the original. Otherwise, we cannot tell if you missed some information or misrepresented some information in your summary. At the moment, what I can tell you as of this moment is that your summary is really too short at 103 words. You should always aim for the minimum 150 words per essay. This will not only show a minimal ability to develop an English sentence structure, but will also allow you to carefully present some grammatical skills and vocabulary knowledge in the essay.

The summary that you wrote does not contain any transition phrases or sentences, which makes the introduction of the various information sudden and seemingly disconnected from each other. It would seem that you just took note of some highlights from the report and typed it as it was presented. There is no development of the ideas that would have added to the information that the summary could have imparted to the reader.

You have made a pretty good effort with this summary but I know that you could do better. I look forward to your succeeding essays which, I am sure will benefit from the notes I have given you above. I hope you remember to apply the changes in your upcoming essays. That is, if you have the chance to do so.

Undergraduate / I come from a family of chefs- MIT essay [8]

Alvin, you can really discuss almost all of those points in your essay. Just keep in mind that you have a maximum word count to deal with. So it may not be in the best interest of your essay for you to be discussing so many topics in it. I suggest that you narrow down your discussion to the top 3 most important factors that helped you shape your dreams and aspirations. That way you do not find yourself suddenly at a lack of words because you overshot the maximum count.

Three choices for the discussion should be more than sufficient to cover the important aspects of the prompt. I know that you feel like a lot of factors contributed to your development but the reviewer is only interested in the most important personalities or places that helped you achieve the status of who you are today.

The only aspect that I do not believe works for the revision is your desire to explain how you shared your passion with the world around you. You are supposed to discuss how the world influenced you, not vice versa. So skip that part. You should never present information that is not being asked for or is not applicable to the prompt you are provided with.

Don't go off tangent with this essay. You have at least 2 other prompts where you may be able to discuss more of what you want to share with the reviewer. For this essay, just stick to the requirements and stay within the word limit. Keep it simple and direct to the point.

Writing Feedback / Snowman Revenge - it was built on a hydrant. [5]

Iklasul, it seems to me that you did not even try to create an original summary for this story that you are presenting. You only changed some parts to include grammatical and sentence structure errors but you did not change enough for me, as a reviewer, to not realize that you plagiarized most of the content of your summary. This is not an original summary and the original article is linked to the work that you did to prove it.

This summary would get a failing score in the actual test because you did not even try to apply some effort in properly summarizing the story. You have to at least try to write an original summary so that we can properly help you. It is better to present a bad, but original summary, then what you have presented here.

Writing Feedback / BE KIND TO OTHER PEOPLE [2]

Ahmad, do you have a prompt that you are responding to with this statement? I am not sure about how to review the content because I have no idea where your response is coming from and what it should apply to. However, even without knowing the prompt, I know that the essay is riddled with punctuation, grammar, and lexical problems.

For example, you do not have properly placed periods in the essay even though you knew to capitalize the start of the next sentence. So I knew where the next started and the other one ended. Why did you forget to place the period in those areas? The same opinion applies to the way that you did not use punctuation marks when you should have within the essay. There are also coherence problems with the statement such as the reference to someone "sues" a shirt. I am not sure what you meant by sues. Did you mean "uses" and not "sues" ?

Keep in mind that you should review your responses and make sure that the reader will be able to understand what you saying clearly. Otherwise, your explanation or response will fail in its task of informing the reader. Are you doing this exercise or a qualifying test? Please let us know because the advice for you can be adjusted even further in order to help you pass those tests. Otherwise, this basic advice will already deliver some very important reviews and advice for your English writing development.

Writing Feedback / (Summary Article) Illegal Miners in Ghana Moving into Ristricted Forest Areas [2]

Dedy, your grammar accuracy problems in the sentence development and confusing use of lexical resources have made an otherwise informative summary immensely difficult for the reader to comprehend. I found that I had to read your passages multiple times before I was able to figure out what it was that you were trying to say. Most of the problems come from your lack of English language vocabulary.

Due to your unfamiliarity with the language, you had a tendency to use the wrong term in reference to an action (e.g. duo instead of due). It would be best if you refer to a dictionary, if you have the chance to do so in order to look up the meaning of a word before you use it in the essay. Lexical accuracy is important because it shows an advanced knowledge of English language and comprehension abilities as well.

As for the body of your essay, when you say that the illegal actions of the residents are causing harm to the water and land areas of Ghana, make sure to cite the examples of the damage done from the original article. This offers the reader a better idea of the summary that you are presenting. Let's just say that what you lack in coherence quality, the example should make up for in helping the reader understand your message.

So, the essay suffers an overall task accuracy problem due to the grammatical and lexical errors which led to a very weak cohesive and coherent structure for your essay. I hope that you can address these weaknesses in your next practice test Take note of my advice regarding improving your English word usage as you write your next test. If we cannot improve your comprehension and sentence development skills, it will be difficult for you to pass this section of the test.

Scholarship / "Every strike brings me closer to the next home run" Global UGRAD Program [4]

Nikoloz, call me crazy but as I read your essay, I found myself thinking that "he wrote his application essay in reverse!" I came to that conclusion because your essay became more and more interesting as I reached the end of the paper. The information in your last paragraph has much more room for development so I felt that it was such a waste to place it at the bottom of the essay. I hope you will agree with me when I say that this statement should simply be revised in order to become an even more effective opening statement for your essay.

If your reverse the essay and place the conclusion at the beginning, totally deleting the reference to baseball because it is such a shallow reason for your to be applying to the program, and then place the statement about self - development under the new opening statement, your essay will almost be ready to use.

The story behind why you wish to become a member of Global UGrad is really admirable. However, you should add some information that shows your excitement at learning from your international group mates as well. Don't just focus on the exchange of cultures between Georgian backgrounds and American culture. You need to be inclusive in the discussion because the program will have hundreds of other students from other parts of the globe, whom you will be expected to mingle, collaborate with, and learn from during your semester abroad.

By the way, please place paragraph spacing whenever you can. The essay is difficult to read at this point because there are no clear demarcations between topics. It is difficult to figure out where one topic ends and another begins. It is necessary to do this so that the essay will not stress out the reader and make the reviewer think about not finishing reading your statement because of the difficulty in keeping track of his place in the essay reading.

You really have a pretty solid essay here. The adjustments I am suggesting are aimed at better highlighting that fact. I am looking forward to reading your revised essay. I am sure it will only get better and more impressive from here.

Graduate / Evaluate my statement of purpose for MS in electrical engineering, UC Berkeley [2]

Mounika, your presentation is that of an affidavit and not an essay. Please revise your opening statement because you need not introduce yourself in a manner that makes it seems like you are taking an oath of public office. You are only applying for admission to MS school. The format you have chosen to open the essay with is wrong. Just simply open with a statement that indicates your purpose for higher study. Be direct to the point and do not make references to your high school education.

In order to properly develop your essay there are a number of things that you have to do. First, we have to remove the wordiness of your essay. Second, we have to focus on your professional experience if any. Third, we need to present your current qualifications. Fourth, your post study plans covering 5 years at least. Finally, the reasons why you chose to apply to UC Berkley.

For your first paragraph, state your purpose for higher studies immediately. Relate it to your current work experience in order to solidify the reason for your interest in MS studies. Makes sure that the progression of academic training is consistent with the current work you are doing and any future work you may find yourself doing. Do not be too detailed in the college section. Instead, highlight your work experience, which I hope you have because work experience is vital to MS studies.

Your second paragraph, needs to explain what your thesis statement will be. Upon that presentation, you will be able to discuss how UC Berkley fits into your plan to develop this research paper. This is the section where you should show a keen interest in the course offerings, research facilities, and notable professors of the university who are working in the same line as you and possibly, developing research similar to yours. Indicate a strong desire to complete your studies at UC Berkley because of these reasons.

The third paragraph, should explain your immediate, short term career plan in relation to your studies. Are you applying because you are hoping to be promoted on the job? Possibly switch careers? Or are you just doing this for personal academic advancement? Be clear in this paragraph and make sure that the plans you present are impressive.

A fourth paragraph will just be necessary in order to wrap up your discussion. Reiterate your interest to enroll in the upcoming semester at the university and assure them that you are more than capable of completing the course of study because of your previous academic, work, and research interests / activities.

Remember, this is not a formal affidavit. This is a statement of purpose. You do not need to state your name at the start, nor swear to anything. Just follow this outline and your essay will sound more like a statement of purpose.

Graduate / Scholarly and research area(s) of interest, experiences that led to your preparation in the field [21]

Hi Shuting. Your statement is definitely taking shape by leaps and bounds. There are only a few areas of correction as I see it in this current version. These are minor corrections that should not affect the overall development of your statement. In fact, I believe taking these specific portions out will help to enhance the presentation on a more professional or academic scale. Let's work out the problems by paragraph.

In paragraph one, I would like you to be more specific in the statement about solving pollution problems. Since you mentioned China's problem early on the paragraph, mention it again at the end to remind the reader that you are doing this for China's improvement. If you can find a way, say something about an interest in developing a problem to pollution on a world-wide scale after you graduate from the PhD course.

Paragraph two should not indicate your responsibilities in the project in numerical form. That makes the paper look unprofessional. Just enumerate your duties in order of performance. The reviewer will be able to keep track of those duties himself. You did not perform so many duties that warranted a listing or bullet point presentation for the tasks so don't do it that way. The same advice applies to the work of the professor in paragraph 4.

In the last paragraph, you need to explain how and why UCLA became your university of choice for higher study. Was the choice based on their current research in the field? The work of a specific professor you hope to collaborate with? The kind of advanced laboratory that they offer their PhD students? Or maybe it has something to do with the kind of research networking you can do while attending the college? These are all reasons that you can turn to in an effort to explain why UCLA is your first choice school. These are necessary components in a statement of purpose.

Definitely end the essay on the most positive and hopeful note that you can. Your future plans, which hopefully can tie in with your PhD career at UCLA should help to boost the chances of your admission. I am looking forward to the further enhanced version of your essay at this point. By the way, what is the maximum word count? At this point, we should also start editing for word count compliance.

Writing Feedback / IELTS writing task 2: too much exercises is bad for one's health, do u agree or disagree? [5]

Anh, since this is your first try at the writing task, I will not score you based on the writing band. The reason I will not do that is because I would like to concentrate on pointing our the shortcomings of your essay so you can take note of them for future improvement. These will be the parts that you should be sure to show improvement on when you complete your future writing tasks.

To start with, the introductory paragraph needs to be made stronger. Your paraphrasing of the prompt is not adequate enough. It is too short and does not supply the reviewer with a reference as to the discussion outline that will be undertaken in the essay. An example of an improved paraphrased introduction would be as follows:

While has often been said that exercise is good for the health, recent exercise trends have shown that the opposite of this belief may also be true. There is a growing public opinion that too much exercise could also be bad for one's health. As an observer of the growing exercise trend, I tend to agree that too much exercise could have negative effects on health. I will discuss my reasons for supporting this belief in the following paragraphs.

Kindly take note of the length of the paraphrased introduction. It must be at least 3 sentences long, properly sum up the meaning of the prompt, and deliver your discussion points for the succeeding paragraphs.

You need to practice dividing your paragraphs by placing a space between the discussion topics. The current format of the essay places undue stress on the reader's eyes. Keep in mind that you are also being scored on the presentation of the essay so make sure to add spaces to allow the reader's eyes to breath in between statements. It also helps in the comprehension of your work and allows the reader to easily refer back to certain information within the paragraphs.

Make sure to write a full 5 paragraphs in order to deliver the required number of paragraphs. Each paragraph should have a minimum of 3 sentences, maximum of 5. You will need to adjust the content of your current paragraphs in order to meet this highly specific requirement of the writing task format.

Please always remind yourself that your opinion is not considered the conclusion of the essay. Rather, it is considered either the 3rd of 4th paragraph. So that means you need to be able to provide acceptable information in support of your opinion. Do not rely on a simple concluding statement to represent your opinion and conclusion. You will definitely loose points for that.

As for the conclusion, you need not make it complicated. It is simply the same as your opening statement. You should conclude by simply saying something similar to:

To conclude this essay it is important to take note of the fact that the evidence previously presented in this essay strongly supports the discussion that...

Cover your writing task requirements in the aforementioned manner and I guarantee that you will get at least 6 on your band score in all 4 sections of scoring.

Writing Feedback / Children's access to computer games - improve my writing skill [3]

John, for starters, your opening statement has a redundancy because you stated your opinion twice in the paragraph. You only need to state that once. What you should have done, was increase the amount of overview information that you presented after the paraphrasing of the prompt. Presenting a summary of the upcoming discussion would have helped to not only avoid redundancy, but also provided a better focus for the reader in terms of being able to follow your flow of thought and discussion.

When you quote information your essay such as "according to recent reports", you need to be able to mention who mentioned, the information and why, along with where you got the information. Otherwise, it becomes hearsay and weakens the essay. Hearsay means that there is no actual source of the information so it should not be deemed as true and verified. It is best if you just keep the information in this type of essay limited to your personal experience or knowledge. That way your task accuracy score is not affected.

Then we have the problem of you mentioning schools in the concluding statement of the essay. The schools were never part of the original prompt information and therefore, should not be included in any of your paragraphs. Add to that the fact that you should not have presented the resolution to the problem as your concluding statement.

The resolution should have been another paragraph in the essay. Ideally, it should have been the 4th paragraph with the 5th paragraph representing the summation of the prompt, discussion, plan of action, and your opinion. Keep in mind that no new ideas can be presented in the conclusion as there is not enough room to continue developing the discussion if it becomes necessary to do so in order to close the essay.

Writing Feedback / Popularity of the specialist, grammar and voluntary-controlled schools on three periods [3]

Ichaa, it is important for you to continuously represent the type of school in your summary. Specially in your last paragraph where you mention the digits for 2009. It seems that you decided to get sloppy and just gloss over the information by giving a worded overview instead of presenting the actual 2009 figures. For accuracy purposes, the essay must present all of the pertinent data until the very end of the summary. Otherwise, the summary becomes less informative and the process inaccurate.

Additionally, the last 2 paragraphs do not meet the minimum sentence requirement of 3 sentences per paragraph. You can easily resolve that issue by turning your commas into periods. Thus making a new sentence for each presentation rather than making it one continuously related sentence, which is what the comma creates in the sentences.

Undergraduate / Another late night at the hospital. Constructive Advice Needed on Nursing Program Entrance Essay [2]

Chloe, what is the maximum word count for this essay? Your work seems quite rushed and unfocused at this point. Were you paying more attention to keeping within the word limit rather than the content of the essay? It seems like that is what you were doing in this draft. Anyway, the essay can be better focused if you apply certain specific changes to the essay. BTW, are you already a nurse? Or do you work in a hospital in some capacity? Let me know what your hospital background is because we might be able to integrate it as an important part of this response.

So, back to the specific changes. Skip the first 2 sentences that describe your activities after getting home from the hospital. That is irrelevant to the presentation. The main focus should be on your aunt and how you cared for her because that is the experience that you are bringing to the table as a future nurse. Explain how you ended up taking care of her. Skip the part about you being in high school. Just focus on how you dealt with the caregiver situation and why you had to handle it that way. Don't mention the family anymore. They are not the focus of the essay. In fact, the only reason that I am allowing you to present your aunt in the story is because the lessons you learned tie in directly to your role as a caretaker for her.

The rest of the essay that relates to the discussion of compassion and caring for the sick is exactly the kind of response that fits with this essay prompt so keep all of those parts. Just edit the aforementioned portions which, I believe will help you develop a more focused and applicable response.

Undergraduate / How my inability to speak has affected me in negative ways [6]

Definitely a better presentation and a good attempt at a significant transition sentence. However, I believe that that is an even better way to transition your statement. Please refer to my example below:

My parents knew that my silence was something they could expect from me. My silence was a form of winning for them because of our religious beliefs. Our religion dictated the utmost of respect for our elders. Therefore, my silence was a way of honoring my parents wishes and respecting our religious beliefs. At least, that is what my parents choose to believe and I let them continue to believe that. In truth, religion does play vital role in my life and has successfully helped me to integrate my Indian culture in my current life.

Unfortunately, religion is also one of the major reasons that I am bullied by people outside my family. Specifically, from the xenophobes around me who believe that making fun of me because of my religion and cultural traditions is alright, because I choose to keep silent about it.

Do you see how the transition sentence at the end of the paragraph leads directly into the continuing transition in the new paragraph before you introduce the actual topic for discussion in the paragraph? That is the smooth transition that you should strive to present to the reader in order to make the change in topic almost flawless while your essay is being read.

Writing Feedback / There are some conflicting theories on the subject - Who did discover America? [2]

Septia, your information presentation is confusing and does not allow the reader to accurately follow your flow of discussion. This happened because you made a mistake in your second sentence presentation. The main question that creates a glaring flaw in your summary is "Who is Zuan Chabotto?". This is followed up by "When did he travel to the Americas?". Finally, "Was he recorded in history as being the first one to land on America?" More importantly, what criteria was used in the research article to assess who rightly discovered America? Was it based on who landed first? Or who named the country and claimed it for his mother country?

The sentence development in the overall essay is not really good. It causes stress for the reader because it leaves one with more questions rather than answers because of the fact that your summary lacks key information which were contained in the original source. The explanation of the discovery of the letter is so wanting that it is obvious that there is a lack of understanding on your part. You need to practice more of your listening skills and seek the advice of your instructor regarding how to better recognize key words and essential parts within written text.

Always review your work before submission. If you find that you cannot understand certain parts, then go back to the original if you still can and look for the additional information to clarify your essay. It is of the utmost importance that you present accurate information in your essay because the examiner knows what to look for and that will have an effect on your final score.

Writing Feedback / You can't Hide from Government Hacking [2]

Mushon, please remember to refer to the country that is being reported about in the summary. When summarizing a report based upon a country or location, it must be mentioned in the summary in order to answer the "Where?" question. All the more it must be mentioned because you are not a resident of the United States of America and therefore, should not make it sound like the ruling in question affects you when it does not. That is a misrepresentation that creates an inaccuracy in your report. Therefore, the U.S. Department of Justice established a law that allowed law enforcement officials to hack U.S. based computers, not wherever a person is.

Pay attention to the tense usage in your essay. Since these reports have already happened and you are merely summarizing the information, the correct tense usage would be "past" tense. In addition to that, your lexical resource is really quite faulty in this essay. For example, "judgers" should be "judge" as you are referring to the position of authority and not an act of judgement. "Plant" should be "planting" since it refers to the act of placing something in a position of use.

It would seem like you have a pretty good grasp of the issue being discussed. The main problem we have here lies in your lexical resource and grammatical accuracy sections. I suggest that you pay particular attention to those sections in your next essays.

Writing Feedback / In my country-Taiwan, many high schools encourage students to be a volunteer. [2]

Arlen, in terms of task accuracy, the essay would possibly score a 5 for a number of reasons. With regards to Task Accuracy, the problems with your work are as follows:

1. While you generally address the prompt in an acceptable paraphrase, there is no clear overview to your essay because there is no introductory data to support your stance.

2. While you discussed certain important parts of the essay, it is not properly developed within the paragraph so there is no clear purpose for the discussion being presented at certain times within the essay.

With regards to coherence and cohesion, you could score a maximum of 4 because:
1. There is no logic or coherence to the way that you have your paragraphs set up.
2. The progression of the discussion is affected by your lack of properly arranged ideas even though you are presenting somewhat correct information within the paragraph.

3. There is an obvious lack of properly used cohesive devices.

In terms of your lexical resource, expect another 4 based upon:
1. An obvious limited vocabulary range which could have been better helped by the presence of a dictionary or thesaurus while you were developing your essay.

2. Your inability to form simple, understandable sentences really caused your self-expression to be incomprehensible to the reader. Hence, there as no way to properly understand what you were trying to explain in some paragraphs, specifically paragraph 2.

3. The passages were not easy to understand and left the reader wondering as to what you were actually trying to say due to the lack of proper word usage in developing your sentences / paragraphs.

Grammar accuracy and range in my opinion would only be a 4. Reasons for this are as follows:
1. There is a limited range of sentence structures presented in the essay. The sentences often do not follow the proper sentence development rules.
2. The errors in sentence development are simply too numerous. The grammatical errors contained in the essay make it extremely difficult for the reader to understand what you are trying to say even after having read the passage twice or 3 times.

Undergraduate / I come from a family of chefs- MIT essay [8]

Alvin, while I admire the way that your family has influenced your desire to become a chef and strongly support you in your quest. I am not sure if this is the right way to approach this essay for you. Mostly because it seems like you were already able to sum up the method by which your dreams and aspirations were shaped by your family members and community in one paragraph. It would be really hard for you to expand upon this discussion within 200-250 words at this point. As an overview or list of topics for discussion within the full essay, you can use this work that you have come up with. Expand upon each portion within a single paragraph as best as you can in accordance with the prompt expectations. Don't bunch your grandmother and parents into one discussion paragraph.

In order to expand upon the content, it would be best if you could deviate from the culinary aspect of your upbringing by presenting a more personal side to the way your family and community shaped your personality. Aside from the desire to become a chef, how else did they influence you to become an upstanding member of the community? Perhaps there are certain character traits from each individual that you see in yourself because you were influenced towards that slant. Don't limit your dreams and aspirations to simply the culinary aspect. Look at your overall development as a person (e.g. your outlook about the world, your plans for your future, why you want to become an even better person based on their influence, etc.). Then write about those topics as complete paragraphs.

It will be easier for us to help you edit and revise the essay once can share your completed work with us. I look forward to reading the complete draft of your essay soon. You have a good start, you just need to revise the content to make it work better for your needs.

Undergraduate / How my inability to speak has affected me in negative ways [6]

Babu, your numerous paragraphs about how silence has negatively affected you are engaging and enlightening. However, there is a sudden change of topic within the essay from the point where you were dealing with your parents to when you dealt with your friends. Don't shock the reader that way. As the reader comes across the sudden shift in discussion, the reader will think that there is a missing link between the two paragraphs because the reader will be confused by the sudden shift in presentation. You can avoid this problem by properly presenting a transition sentence at the end of your story about your parents, slowly introducing the religious aspect of your respect for them and as the reason for your silence. Then present a transition paragraph that will inform the reader that the next story, will be about the treatment you receive from your friends. Then you can present the story about the bullying. Transition sentences are of vital importance because it helps the reader keep track of the stories you are sharing and allows you to better present your story in a manner than can be recalled by the reader.

Scholarship / Characterize a personality which has added enthusiasm within your own life [4]

Okoh, this is a good outline for your essay but it is not the right way to start the essay. What you have done is outlined the traits of your mother which has provided you with an inspiration within your own life. From this list, you have to develop full paragraphs that will better explain these traits and how you were inspired these characteristics of your mother. So one trait = 1 paragraph. I count at least 5 character traits in this overview so you should have at least 5, well developed paragraphs in your response. Keep track of the word count though and make sure you don't go under or over the required number of words.

Let me also tell you that you should never make reference to your childhood in an essay. It is always best to leave the essay age neutral when you are discussing someone or something because "childhood" starts from the age of 1 and reviewers would rather that you pick responses that show a sense of maturity, understanding, responsibility, and logic when referring to ages in your essay. They do not like it when you use terms such as "Right from when I was a child" or "As far as I can remember". Simply state that "My mother has been my inspiration in life." That is more age neutral and acceptable as a neutral age reference.

Book Reports / My favorite fictional character [2]

Manar, how many paragraphs are you allotted for this essay? Your presentation needs work because you have written the equivalent of only one paragraph. Your thoughts are disconnected in the essay due to the under developed topic sentences and lack of transition statements between the paragraphs that could have helped to better establish the discussion topics per paragraph.

Did you actually read the Peter Pan books? Or did you watch the cartoon? There are some glaring errors in your statement that shows how little you actually know about the full story aside from the commonly known information. For instance, in the cartoon, Peter Pan invited Wendy and her siblings to Neverland. So you are wrong to say that he only helps boys. The boys that Peter Pan helped in Neverland are known as the Lost Boys. When you describe your favorite fictional characters, make sure to properly refer to the information in the movie/ book / tv special / or cartoon. Peter Pan is known for his child-like disposition, that is why he rarely gets mad and treats his enemies like playmates rather than adversaries.

Truth be told, there are a lot of problems with your description of your favorite character because you are not truly familiar with the story, Peter Pan's character, and the supporting characters that helped to make him your "favorite" character. Due to the wrong information or lacking information in the description of Peter Pan, it is obvious that you did not really familiarize yourself with the character. Your teacher, who is highly familiar with the story will see this in your work and give you a not so good grade that will reflect the kind of haphazard work that you did in this book report.

Writing Feedback / I strongly argue that learning a new language is very important for kids in their earliest stages [2]

Abib, you would only get a 3 on the task accuracy score for this essay because you not only did not present the paraphrased prompt correctly in the opening statement, you also did not accurately discuss the topic of the essay. There is a big difference in the discussion of early language learning in school starting at early grades and studying languages at the earliest stages. There are no proper supporting discussions presented in the essay so it is obvious that you did not understand the requirements of the question properly. Your English comprehension skills are graded in the task accuracy and you immediately failed it. I doubt that you would get better scores in the other 3 criteria because you already failed the most important part.

I suggest that you try to write a new, more prompt responsive essay based on the same prompt. When you are not sure of what the prompt is asking you to do, it won't hurt to ask someone who has better English skills than you for clarification. The practice test stage is the best time to make these mistakes so you can adjust your learning needs accordingly. In this case, you need to concentrate more on your English understanding / comprehension skills so that you can write the correct response to the question.

Writing Feedback / English Essay: Persuasive Essay on Lying [4]

Rose, actually, your paper is not properly representing the discussion of lies. You say that there are times when lying is justifiable, I will admit that there are situations when that is correct. The problem is, you are not properly categorizing lies in your essay. You speak of white lies only as the focus of your essay. In order to properly support your opinion, you should have used the more professional types of lies which are as follows:

1. Lies of Commission - This is when someone tells something that is not a fact. This is also known as twisting the truth.
2. Lies of Omission - Is when you leave out an important part of information. This is usually easier to tell for people because it entails only telling half the truth.

Had you used the correct professional classification of lies in support of your evidence, the essay would have become more authoritative and shown that you did deeper research for this paper instead of just using the first result that turned up in a Google search.

Graduate / Evaluate profile for MS in Data Science Fall 2017 [5]

Pallaw, this still isn't going to work for your application. Your statement of purpose paragraph is confusing and does not clearly represent your purpose for applying. Your research inspiration should be presented as a separately developed paragraph that explains the reason behind your purpose. What is your research thesis? Why is it relevant to your purpose? How will your education at this university help you achieve those goals? I don't read any response to these questions that are standard questions for the development of your statement of purpose. You need to revise your opening statement based upon the previously stated concerns.

With regards to your research presentation. You have to consider your work experience in relation to what your thesis / research paper may be. Look at the flaws of the field you are working in in relation to data mining. Consider your college thesis question. Does your college thesis have any relation with your interest and desire to do more research in data mining at this point in your career? It would be beneficial to your essay if you can show a solid foundation for your interest in this field stemming from your college days.

That type of discussion will provide an insight into the type of continuing education that you are hoping to achieve by enrolling in this masters class. Normally, the interest in research for a masters degree comes from two places, the college thesis and the current work experience. See if you can find a way to combine those two in order to develop a proper thesis statement for your MS studies. That will be the anchor upon which you will stake your MS education. If your thesis statement is impressive enough, along with your work experience, and college education, you just might catch the reviewer's eye. Additionally, you can focus on how the university can help you achieve that status? Mentioning their abilities as an educational institution and expressing a desire to work with some of their specific professors, whose research aligns with yours will also help your paper.

Your five year plan needs to be more detailed. How do you hope to climb the professional ladder within that time in order to achieve your goal? How do you see yourself advancing the data mining field within 5 years? Be specific. Don't just present a generalized plan that obviously shows that you do not have a developed study and career plan for your immediate career upon graduation.

Needless to say, you still have not developed a usable foundation for your essay. I hope that you will be able to do more than just develop the foundation for your proper statement of purpose using the guidelines I have set before you.

Graduate / Scholarly and research area(s) of interest, experiences that led to your preparation in the field [21]

Shuting, thank you for the vote of confidence. I admire your trust in me and my advice. I hope to never fail you and to continue helping you achieve your dream of getting into your first choice PhD university. By the way, you can always work out having your essay deleted from the system with the admin so that you can avoid any possible plagiarism after we are done editing your work. So, let's get started shall we?

It would be best if you combined your paragraphs about your motivation and purpose for enrolling this course. The motivation and purpose are synonymous and are best presented in a combined paragraph at all times. That way you clearly explain the motive behind your purpose and, from the very start, display a career or educational goal that you have set for yourself.

This being a PhD essay, it would be best if you concentrate your experience only on the work that you did in relation to your masters degree dissertation. Normally, your next round of research should be a step above the previous work that you did. So, in order to accurately reflect the development of your skills, in relation to your preparation for the Phd course, it would be best for you to detail the specifics of that research. Start with the question then proceed to explain the method of research and results of the research. This will adequately show the reviewer how you have prepared to take on the demands of a PhD course. Needless to say, the project experience should be integrated into this presentation as well.

When you refer to specific professors and their research, note how your own previous and current / future research work ties in directly with the current work the professor is doing. If you can create a seamless connection between the two projects, the reviewer may give your application higher consideration.

Work on presenting your essay in a fluid, conversational manner. Don't divide it into discussion topics by outline the way you have now. This is still a formal interview on your part so it should come across as you presenting information to the reviewer in an almost interview sort of way. Break it into connected paragraphs with transition sentences, not into numbered outlines.

I think that if you reformat the essay in the manner I suggested, you will find that you do not need too many words in order to deliver the prompt requirements. You will have an essay that is informative and just the right length for the reviewer to finish reading in just the right amount of time.

Undergraduate / I was excited to learn about the Liberal Studies Core Program at NYU. "Why NYU" Writing Supplement [5]

The first part of your essay is just a rehash of the well known information about NYU and can be found within any blog, website, or youtube search. It is generic in information and doesn't really stand out as unique reasons to wish to attend NYU. This review applies to the first half of your statement. So you should remove the first half of your current statement and only present the second half that deals with your desire to attend NYU because you were drawn to their progressive values, etc.

Develop your response to the statement on a more personal note. Strive to project a genuine interest in enrolling at NYU based upon a personal and academic development that you feel you can only gain at the university. Activities and student organizations that you may enjoy participating in at the university could also fall under this category unless there is a prompt regarding pursuing your intellectual interests at the university that you should respond to separately.

Writing Feedback / The bar chart below shows the estimated sales of jeans for two companies next year in Turkey. [7]

Another word of advice, I suggest that you read the online English business newspapers. Focus on the news articles relating to sales, projections, and other related information. Take note of how they present their information and what information they deem vital to their reports. Try to emulate their style in your writing because the charts, diagrams, and other information that you summarize for these report summary essays are similar in presentation and content. That should help you to develop your writing style in this area as well.

You can call my attention if you need to Mohammed. I will respond when I can. Please just be patient and wait for my response because I may not always be at the computer when you post your essay. The other students and contributors will also make their own suggestions for your improvement though so make sure to consider their advice as well. I will always review your essay even if there are other reviews already there. If I do not respond in an acceptable time frame, please call my attention to it. I might not see it at once as there are multiple essays posted for review at any given time so I might not notice your work immediately.

Graduate / Scholarly and research area(s) of interest, experiences that led to your preparation in the field [21]

Shuting, the rule of thumb for a statement of purpose is that it has a maximum word count of 750 unless otherwise specified. Keep in mind though, that the maximum word count is not the target here. Your essay need not be too wordy or descriptive in order to be informative. You can actually write 600 words and have a pretty solid statement of purpose to present for consideration.

Try to avoid duplicating the content of your statement of purpose with the other essays that you will be submitting. I assume that you were also required to submit a letter of motivation along with your statement of purpose right? Therefore, you need only concentrate on an convincing presentation for your purpose in that paragraph. Duplicating information makes the essay not only repetitive but unnecessarily long so reviewers often appreciate non- duplication of content.

As for describing your scholarly and research area of interest, be sure to present the question that you wish to respond to during the duration of your studies. Explain your perceived importance and relevance of this research for future use in this field of study in order to convince the reviewer of the future benefits of your research in the field.

The experience that you share in relation to your previous work or research should be more than enough for the reviewer to properly analyze your skills. You must refrain from over explaining your skills to the reviewer. Always let him be the judge of your skills based upon your work experience. One thing they hate is when the student runs long in the explanation in an effort to better explain his skills. Your description of your work or research experience should reflect the kind of development and skills that you have in this section. He can make his decision based upon the related experience that you present in this section.

Your future plans should cover a solid presentation of a 5 year career plan. Not just some general comment about your future plans. Right now, the information that you have shared with me makes me think (and I could be wrong) that you don't really have a solid career development plan covering your possible immediate short term goals. Strengthen this paragraph with a more solid, almost visual explanation.

As for the chronological order, I won't be able to judge that until I see the draft of the essay you have written. I cannot really advise you regarding the best way to present the information until I know what you have specifically developed for the essay. I hope you can trust us to read the essay draft that you have developed. That is, if you want our help regarding how to best present it to the reviewer. No pressure.

Writing Feedback / The bar chart below shows the estimated sales of jeans for two companies next year in Turkey. [7]

Hi Mohamed, after carefully reviewing your summary report for task, accuracy, coherence and cohesion, lexical accuracy, and grammar range and accuracy, it is my belief that you would score no higher than a 5 in all sections. This is because your essay, while informative, has problems in defining the time frame of the chart information.

There is a need for you to use time reference words consistently in the essay in order to clearly depict the time frame from the chart. Then, in the first paragraph, rather than mentioning the companies in a parenthesis, you should have mentioned them as part of the actual paragraph. That is because the names of the companies are an integral part of the summary and should never be placed in a parenthetical position because that makes it seem like an afterthought. Here is an example of a better developed presentation of your opening summary:

The chart depicts the estimates sales for the upcoming year for Mango Co. and Jack& Jones Co.. Both companies deal in the sales of jeans in Turkey. The projected monthly income for both companies are presented as a comparison in the chart , measured in units of thousands of pairs per month.

The above paragraph shows a wider range of vocabulary as the words estimated sales and projected monthly income refer to a time in the future, which is the setting for the summary report. Make sure to always be consisted in your time frame references. The rest of the essay is acceptable and accomplishes the required task.

Writing Feedback / The chart below gives data about the proportion of people who used the Internet from 1998 to 2000 [3]

Huyen, the overview of the essay as well the succeeding paragraphs are not in compliance with the required minimum number of sentences, that is a minimum of 3 sentences and a maximum of 5 sentences, in order to present what would qualify as a proper summary and overall discussion information presented in this essay.

There is an overall lack of expanded discussion within your essay which would result in your failing this essay test in an actual exam setting. When you do not meet the required minimum number of sentences per paragraph, you end up having a large part of your score lowered, In this instance, I believe you won't score higher than a 1 because you failed to properly develop a logical discussion for the charts presented within your essay. It is not enough to just present the information in essay form, you need to be able to at least, develop a simple discussion regarding the presented information. That is so that you can prove your comprehension and analytical skills to the examiner.

You could have done that in this essay using a comparison of the figures as provided in the chart. Sometimes, simply expanding upon a discussion allows the essay to develop a more cohesive and logical presentation. Please aim to do that in your next essay. I know you can do it.

Research Papers / All life on earth is dependent on the weather. Global Climate Change [2]

Hi BJ, you have your work cut out for you in this research paper. While it is quite informative and quotes academically acceptable resources, the actual focus and topic of the discussion is not made clear in your opening statement and your succeeding paragraphs. It is almost like you are trying to discuss 2 topics simultaneously in one essay. For a thesis statement, also known as the opening paragraph, you should make sure that the reader can clearly identify and understand the topic / premise of your discussion. Right now, you are voicing out an opinion, without really presenting a clear discussion topic for the overall essay. By the way, please don't end the paragraph with an exclamation point. It is just rude and academically unacceptable for you to do that.

Another point of academic writing violation on your part is in your final paragraph. You inserted another quote towards the end of the concluding paragraph. Please keep in mind that you are not allowed to close your essay with new information being presented in the concluding paragraph. That is because the concluding paragraph should only close the discussion either by repeating your topic and opinion or by asking the reading to develop his own opinion. How you close the essay will depend upon the purpose of the information you have presented.

Research Papers / How to Prevent Diabetes. Measures That Can Be Used To Prevent this disease. [2]

Jacqueline, I know that you have the thesis statement in the "How to Prevent Diabetes" section of your research, The title of the section actually tells the reader the topic that the research paper will be looking into. That said, you still have to clearly spell out your thesis statement in the last sentence of the topic introduction. Something as simple as "This paper will look into methods by which the 3 types of diabetes can be prevented through weight management, regular exercise, regular clinical check-ups, and other related preventive measures." By doing this, you allow the reader a clear overview of what topics and the order of discussion will be presented in the succeeding parts of the research paper.

Additionally, you should look into the success rate of the preventive measures you are presenting in the essay. While your theoretical presentation is sound, the strength of the practical application, along with the authoritative voice of your paper will mostly come from the presentation of verified or verifiable data (in the form of results) for each preventive type discussion.

Those are the only 2 points that I believe need to be strengthened in your work so that you can have a chance of getting a higher score with your research. Don't get me wrong, your essay is already good. However, I think that my suggestions can help you make it even better.

Research Papers / Why Deaf Culture Should Gain More Recognition [2]

Geoffrey, I am not sure if your teacher has told you this but you have not properly presented your thesis statement in this essay. The clarity of the topic is lost because your first sentence doesn't really make much sense. You have to clarify that you were a year and a half when your brother was born deaf. There is a redundancy and lack of clarity in that statement so you should review it for a better presentation. Next, you are never supposed to present a quotation in the thesis statement. That is an academic violation and will result on a large deduction of points in your final grade.

More importantly, the essay has more than 30 percent of quotes. Once this essay is run through a plagiarism checker by your teacher, it will immediately by flagged for plagiarism. You should strive to always paraphrase but never in successive paragraphs or multiple times within the same paragraph.

Your essay loses focus towards the middle. Do you want to discuss deaf discrimination or the right of the deaf to opt for a cochlear implant? I believe that your essay will be better if you present the cochlear implant discussion as part of your thesis statement at the start. That way it becomes part of the reason for the discrimination discussion.

Overall, you have chosen a very interesting and under represented discussion to present in your essay. It is very informative and allows the professor to get to know a personal side of you that would not be visible in class. While the essay has its strengths, it is the weaknesses that I wish to have you focus on because improving those parts will allow you to gain a better grade in this class.

Graduate / Motivation Letter for Master Degree admission; could anybody review it and help to make it shorter? [12]

Parjo, you should save the discussion about helping the small businesses for your statement of purpose. That is one of the purposes that you have for further study and will be better discussed in that essay prompt. This essay should reflect more of your personal reasons for wishing to pursue these studies. That is why it is called a motivation letter.

The motivating factor for your desire for higher study is personal, the fact that your parent's store front burned down and they lost almost everything related to their business. As their child, your full concentration should be on helping them recover. That is the strong motivating factor that you have. The desire to help the other small businesses is only secondary and as such, isn't the strongest motivation that you have for aspiring to have a masters degree. Think about it. Isn't the main reason for your study the fact that you want to help your parents bring their business online internationally? So they are your priority. The family business comes first, the others, second. The primary motivation is the family business.

If it were up to me, I would just focus on the personal motivation in this letter since you have a true personal interest in the matter. However, if you wish to add the small business concern, then go ahead. Let's see how you plan to work it in and I'll see if there is anything that I should do to improve it.