PS Very Rough Draft PLEASE critique! Forum

[MichaelB123]

Scrapped and rewriting

[paratactical]

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[MichaelB123]

Too many of your sentences start with gerunds and you have some comma issues. Fixing those errors might help you fix the flow.

Thanks. I'm going to take it by my university's writing center and try to get all that fixed.

Any thoughts about it other than that? Is it a good topic?

[CanadianWolf]

Positives: I liked your use of the word "assiduous" & I was delighted that there was not an additional paragraph.
Negatives: Everything else.
Unfortunately you turned one paragraph of material into five paragraphs of very poor writing. There is very little substance or insight in your essay.
Clearly writing is not your strength. Try to organize your thoughts in a more concise manner.

[MichaelB123]

Positives: I liked your use of the word "assiduous" & I was delighted that there was not an additional paragraph.
Negatives: Everything else.
Unfortunately you turned one paragraph of material into five paragraphs of very poor writing. There is very little substance or insight in your essay.

Any way you could be more specific? I am having a bitch of a time trying to write this thing.

Thanks

[paratactical]

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[MichaelB123]

It's hard to tell if this is just the "rough" thing you wrote or if this is actually a first draft that you've spent some time putting together because there are problems on a sentence level that make it hard to edit. The topic is a little ho-hum, but that's not necessarily the death knell for it unless you can't write any better than this.

Yea this is just rough. So do you think some serious editing work could fix it up to a workable level or what?

[CanadianWolf]

Try starting with the basic 5 paragraph technique of writing an essay.
First Paragraph: I want to go to law school for reasons A, B and C. (Introduction).
Second Paragraph: Detail reason "A" in crisp, clear sentences.
Third Paragraph: Detail reason "B" in a similiar fashion.
Fourth Paragraph: Detail reason "C" as above.
Fifth Paragraph: Conclusion restating reasons A, B & C for why law school.

Essentially your current essay is :

I started college as an accounting major, but later switched to philosophy. Unsure of a career path, my philosophy skills should help me in law school. Please admit me.

To be blunt: Your personal statement suggests that you didn't derive much substance from your study of philosophy. Try to think of some factors that influenced your outlook on life, towards others, your own motivation & toward your future plans.

[paratactical]

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[CanadianWolf]

The five paragraph essay about "why law school" should be used as a writing exercise to refine your organizational skills & to write with clarity. I am not suggesting it as a final topic.