'another step towards shaping the future of India' - My most significant achievements

Dear All,

Please read the essay mentioned below and provide the following feedback :

1) What is good and what can be improved.
2) How is the start and end. What can be improved.
3) Rate the essay on a scale of 5. Rate separately for content and presentation.
4) Word limit is 300, so what to trim

Achievement is all about...
Achievement does not assume a material form - something that can be gauged by the salary one draws or by the status one enjoys in an organization or society. Achieve-ment lies in generating benefits for the welfare of all the stakeholders associated with society.

How I led from the front
A true leader is the one who persuades his / her team to work in harmony to achieve excellence.

In my case, I leveraged the strength of the individual team members even as I at-tended to a few details that needed to be ironed out. I took the initiative to ensure that knowledge-sharing, providing feedback and receiving feedback and working for achieving excellence became an obsession with the team. I worked closely with the management so the team members at the bottom of the pyramid were benefited and in the process the management too realized the worth and significance of the contribu-tion made by this layer of employees - not just the high-fliers.

Along with the team I headed, I worked my fingers to the bone so all of us could real-ize our potential. To me growth is not just vertical - it is horizontal too. I instilled this philosophy into every member of the team and together we worked our way towards excellence - not just success because success is after all one of the by-products of ex-cellence.

Educating others
Moving forward in line with my definition of achievement, I motivated the senior citizens of my locality to spread literacy amongst the children of construction workers and house-maids. Nothing satisfies me more than seeing children from below-the-poverty-line families and the lower middle-class occupying top positions in MNCs and helping their families to rise above the poverty line.

My conviction
I firmly believe that for India to become a super power in all senses of the word in quick time all of us should realise that education and the resultant financial empow-erment of the people is the only vehicle that can transport the movement to success. An estimated 30 million enlightened and financially-empowered Indians, spread across 130 countries, account for inward remittances of USD 50 bn plus annually, thus contributing significantly to the country's foreign exchange reserves.

As I take another step towards shaping the future of India, I am reminded of the fol-lowing message issued by N.R. Narayana Murthy:

"I am proud of my association with the ISB, as I have watched it grow from a mere idea into a robust institution that is shaping India's youth into business leaders and entrepreneurs".

Hi there!
Okay, first off, before I give any constructive criticism/advice, just a warning: I do not have a lot of experience and knowledge of essays.

1) Subtitles:
I think that your subtitles should be in capitals, so that the reader can tell that the following information is another key idea or subtopic. It helps structure your writing better, too.

2) Spelling:
I noticed that in some words, you have a hyphen when it is unnecessary, so just check that. Eg. "Achieve-ment", "empow-erment".

3) Phrasing and Wording:
"Achievement does not assume a material form - it is something that can be gauged by the salary one draws or by the status one enjoys in an organization or society" (Here, you need to clarify whether what you are describing is the definition of achievement or material form. )

"I took the initiative to ensure that knowledge-sharing, providing feedback and receiving feedback and working for achieving excellence became an obsession with the team. " (I don't think that this wording is as effective as it could be. You should be more formal in your language when writing essays. For example, you can say instead: I took the initiative to ensure that knowledge-sharing...became habits that my team instigated to achieve excellence." But this example may not express the message you want to show. )

"To me growth is not just vertical - it is horizontal too. Explain this further. Tell the responder what you mean when you say 'growth is also horizontal'. I instilled this philosophy into every member of the team and together we worked our way towards excellence - not just success because success is after all one of the by-products of ex-cellence."

"I firmly believe that for India to become a super power in all senses of the word in quick time, all of us should realise that education and the resultant financial empow-erment of the people is the only vehicle that can transport the movement to success." (Just have a little punctuation to help the reader in understanding the sentence better. )

That's all for constructive criticism :)

What I liked most about your essay was the quote at the end. This concluded your essay extremely well, and I felt that it reinforced the sense of determination in your tone of voice (in the writing, that is). On top of that, I feel that it seems to be a strong inspiration to you, so that's excellent. I also feel that your paragraph about your conviction was very well-written and conveyed a very powerful message. I liked your comparison to education and resultant financial empowerment being a vehicle towards a goal, which in this case, was 'success'.

Also, I think an introduction will be very helpful in terms of structure, and it introduces the reader to the topic which you will talk about later on, ie. achievements, what you have been doing, where you have been working. For the introduction, background information about perhaps what area you work in, or the area in which your achievements have been made.

About requirement 3 that you gave, I don't usually mark essays and writing in general, so I won't be a great help in that area either, so beware of that! :) Your scores are:

Content: 4/5
Presentation: 4/5

For what to trim, I think that generally, your information is well-written and well-structured, so I think that if it's over the word limit, rephrase or reword a few sentences and see how you go. I don't think cutting whole chunks out will be good, because I reckon that the paragraphs that you've written are good the way they are.

Overall, well-written and well-structured essay! I like the subtitles, it was refreshing to know what I was going to read in the following paragraphs. I liked the tone of voice in the essay and this showed confidence, which I felt was really good. Your essay has demonstrated thorough and well thought out evaluation of your achievements. Excellent job!

Sorry for this delayed reply Turquoisia.
Your suggestions/comments are highly appreciated and certainly will be implemented in essay. Will post the corrected one soon.

Regards
Prashant

No worries! It's great to hear about your project! Keep in mind though, that my comments are just suggestions, so don't feel like you need to change anything you don't want to.

Turquoisia