1st Draft Please Critique Forum
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denardisgod
- Posts: 16
- Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2010 5:59 pm
1st Draft Please Critique
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Last edited by denardisgod on Sun Jul 08, 2012 5:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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samsonyte16
- Posts: 77
- Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2009 8:52 pm
Re: 1st Draft Please Critique
I'll be honest. This essay has a lot of problems.
First, your opening sentence wastes two clauses before getting to the point. Your opening sentence is supposed to draw the reader in. The best ones tend to be concise and a bit "dramatic." Yours isn't. I actually like the idea of using a mugging as the basis for your essay and your description of the incident isn't bad, with the exception of the sentence below which imo comes off as caustic.
The last paragraph has its own issues. I think its OK to include a paragraph in your essay about why you like a particular school, but you have to personalize that paragraph and show that the school really is a natural fit. You can't say that the school is "amazing" without offering evidence of why its amazing for you.
My advice is to think more about the mugging incident - how did it fit into your larger experience abroad, what did it really mean in your intellectual development. Try to unpack that in more personal terms and you should have something to work with.
First, your opening sentence wastes two clauses before getting to the point. Your opening sentence is supposed to draw the reader in. The best ones tend to be concise and a bit "dramatic." Yours isn't. I actually like the idea of using a mugging as the basis for your essay and your description of the incident isn't bad, with the exception of the sentence below which imo comes off as caustic.
The rest of the essay doesn't really work. You talk for a paragraph about the larger causes of the mugging, but never really finish the thought or connect it back to your own interests. The "taking the easier path" metaphor seems contrived - walking on the less crowded side of the street may have been the proximate cause of why you were mugged but it doesn't really reveal anything about your character. Also, that Robert Frost quote is way over-used to the point of being cliche.In the university classroom his rhetorical powers may have fallen on deaf ears, but here, on the street, gun in hand, he was a modern Cicero.
The last paragraph has its own issues. I think its OK to include a paragraph in your essay about why you like a particular school, but you have to personalize that paragraph and show that the school really is a natural fit. You can't say that the school is "amazing" without offering evidence of why its amazing for you.
My advice is to think more about the mugging incident - how did it fit into your larger experience abroad, what did it really mean in your intellectual development. Try to unpack that in more personal terms and you should have something to work with.
