VERY Rough Draft. Right/Wrong Direction? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the honest and quick feedback everyone. I'm obviously changing my direction after your thoughts, so I decided there was no need to leave that potentially (and unintentionally, btw) offensive PS hanging around the internet.

[Ramius]

SoThis isn't necessarily a bad topic, but you border on some unacceptable themes from time to time IMO. When you talk about defending criminals vs. defending the CPD, you very clearly voice opinions, even though you try to thinly veil them behind your love of studying the law. I would avoid such stances when you're crafting a PS. I would much rather see how your thought patterns maybe changed both when defending the accused and the stiff arm of the law. I was turned off by the whole, "those poor accused souls are just a product of their circumstance. Screw Chicago 5-0" mentality you used.

As you already said, this needs some heavy editting for grammar and especially verb tense. You have pervasive passive voice throughout and that is unacceptable for your PS. Really try to keep your voice active as it conveys your involvement in the PS and paints a much more interesting picture for the person reading it. The amount of passive voice you use here was just painful.

Sorry if this critique was a bit harsh, but I didn't want to sugarcoat the underlying idea here: you have a lot of work to do on this before it's ready for submission.

[risanian]

I agree with Matthewsean85's comment. Additionally, I firmly believe you convey a potential sense of immaturity with your 'the rapest and murderers are innocent and the "system" is to blame' mentality. Also consider is your audience, for instance the dean of admissions at Yale Law School, who was a special agent for the FBI.

One last tip is you can post this on http://illreadyours.com, it's a peer review website like TLS but the posts are only viewable to other members. You review someone else's PS and in return another user reviews yours.

Good luck.

[Gradvocates Editing]

This personal statement makes outrageous generalizations and inappropriately attacks the Chicago Police Department as being the scum of the earth, even comparable to murderers and rapists. Not good. Don't assume that your audience shares your controversial point of view.