I feel that the essay still needs improvement. Any constructive criticism would be much appreciated!
Prompt: Mason's community is comprised of authors, scholars, scientists, inventors, athletes, artists, and innovative thinkers. Focusing on your leadership experiences and extracurricular activities, describe how you would lend your voice to Mason's Class.
Essay : As I steadily stepped up to take the next order, a young girl wearing soccer cleats ran up to the counter. By the look of sweat running down her face, I could tell she had just finished her soccer match.
"I want a vanilla dipped waffle-cone with extra rainbow sprinkles, please!" the young girl exclaimed.
After I entered the order in the cash register and gave the change to the young girl, I graciously stated, "Vanilla dipped cone with extra rainbow sprinkles, coming right up!" As I grabbed the waffle-cone and started to gradually turn the handle on the vanilla machine, I heard a loud thump.
"What happened to the machine?" my co-worker Jake called.
"I think we are out of vanilla ice cream" I replied anxiously.
I hurriedly walked to the cooler located at the back of the store and checked to see if there was any vanilla left. After I found no signs of any vanilla, I went back to the lobby and asked Jake, "Did you forget to remove the ice cream from the freezer and store it in the cooler?"
Jake fairly admitted, "There weren't any customers during the morning, so I wasted time by playing the new release of 'Angry Birds' on my phone."
When I apologized to the little girl and other incoming customers that we had ran out of vanilla ice-cream, I noticed the look of fluster on their faces. In particular, the little girl started to cry heavily. As some of the customers started to head out front door, I realized that I had to satisfy the customers by not ruining their nights. So I stopped the several customers that were heading to the exit door by handing them a coupon which allowed them to receive any free ice cream. Suddenly their grim faces transformed to a smirk as they thanked me.
The next day when the manager Chris heard about the incident, he yelled at Jake, "How many times have I told you to remove the ice cream from the freezer and store it in the cooler!"
During the next few weeks, I worked extra tedious hours alongside Jake in order to help him gain back the trust of Chris, the manager. I guided Jake through the daily work procedures by providing him a checklist of the procedures and advised him when he didn't carry out the procedures properly. Chris noticed the improvement in Jake's efficiency at work and eventually felt that Jake deserved to keep his job.
When I was faced with the challenge of helping the flustered customers and helping Jake keep his job, I reacted accordingly to both situations by using my leadership skills. Thus, I am positive that my leadership abilities will help me to become successful when I am faced with obstacles at George Mason University.
This, as a narrative, is really well written! Your closing paragraph has a change in tone that makes it evident that you have dropped out of your original format; I like how clear that is.
A couple of notes: especially in the first few paragraphs, you use a huge number of adverbs ("graciously" "gradually" "anxiously" "fairly") my advice would be to use the find tool (usually ctrl or cmd + f in most writing softwares) and search for all the instances of "ly." You certainly don't have to remove them all, but I recommend reworking a few of the sentences to describe the situation without the use of "ly" adverbs. However, I do like the tone I get for you as an employee so--especially in the instance of "graciously"--try to maintain some description of your demeanor.
A nitpicky complaint of mine has to do with repetition in the first few paragraphs. Once you've introduced the young girl, you don't need to re-state her identity when she speaks for the first time. I think it would flow more smoothly as "...sprinkles, please!' she exclaimed."
As far as content, it would help me to understand that Jake isn't your superior when you first introduce him. His concern makes it sound as though he is your senior, if not your boss (the word "co-worker" isn't punchy enough. Maybe he is your /new/ co-worker?) Furthermore, some description of the time of day or setting early on in the essay would be helpful--finding out that it was nighttime midway through the essay sort of threw me off.
"We had ran" should be "we had run" because it's in the pluperfect tense.
When I got into your comma usage in "The next day when the manager Chris heard about the incident, he yelled at Jake, ..." I found myself stuck between a comma splice and an em-dash. I think it would be most succinct if you were to remove "The next day..." altogether and begin with "When the manager..."
"I worked extra tedious hours" this set of adjectives confused me a bit: were the hours extra-tedious, or did you work extra hours that happened to be tedious? However, I do love this section! It presents a good example of your leadership.
Finally, I am not totally certain that this essay answers what you could provide to the community--certainly it confirms that you can face your own struggles, but I recommend emphasizing that you feel capable of helping other students at Mason as well. That last summary paragraph is a perfect place to do that.
Overall this essay is solid :) the more nitpicky my comments are, the better the overall essay is! Good job and good luck.
so I wasted time by playing the new release of 'Angry Birds' on my phone
so I was playing the new release of "Angry Birds" on my phone.I realized that I had to satisfy the customers by not ruining their nights.
I realized that I had to do something to dilute the annoyances of these customers.So I stopped the several customers that were heading to the exit door by handing them a coupon which allowed them to receive any free ice cream. Suddenly their grim faces transformed to a smirk as they thanked me.
So I quickly stood at the exit door and began to issue a free ice cream coupon to the customers who were leaving the store. I noticed their grim faces transforming to a smirk and many a them thanked me too.Thank you guys for the criticism!
SengeDolma, I actually appreciated your nitpicking! Now I am sure that my essay is solid.
I wanted to get a feedback on my revised last paragraph.
Last paragraph: When I was faced with the challenge of helping the flustered customers and helping Jake keep his job, I reacted accordingly to both situations by using my leadership skills. While I am positive that my leadership abilities will help me to become successful when I am faced with obstacles at George Mason University, my leadership abilities will become most useful when I am helping other students at Mason.
Your last sentence gets the point across, but you repeat and undersell yourself: " While I am positive that my leadership abilities will help me to become successful when I am faced with obstacles at George Mason University, my leadership abilities will become most useful when I am helping other students at Mason."
could be pared down to "This situation gives me confidence that I will not only be able to support myself, but also bring my leadership to other students at Mason.
Otherwise I think it's a great essay! Would you mind reading mine? Essayforum was being frustrating so I posted a new version on my blog. I can't embed a link, but if you go to sengedolma_blogspot_com it's the first post. (be sure to replace the underscores with periods!)
Either way, good luck!
