mgt503 assignment 1 solution spring 2022

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This assignment presents the solution to Mgt503 Assignment 2 from Spring 2022. The solutions are in the form of  code, and may be run using the  interpreter , which is included in most operating systems by default. The solutions assume that you have already run the case exercises, or are familiar with their structure and content.

Mgt503 Assignment 1 Solution Spring 2022

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DESCON Engineering Ltd. is a leading organization working as an engineering consultant management organization since 1973. The organization is facing staff turnover despite being a good player in the market. Managers observe dissatisfaction and demonization among employees, which is due to several factors. Monotonous and repetitive tasks, reduced work flexibility, less demanding work, and limited creativity and innovation can make everyday tasks boring for employees. Mgt503 Assignment 1 Solution Spring 2022

Employees who are happy and engaged are the ones who stay with the organization. So managers want to motivate individuals at work to learn continuously instead of working the same way every day. Managers should design jobs deliberately and thoughtfully to reflect the demands of a changing environment, which in turn creates stimulating and interesting work and adds variety, challenge and depth to an employee’s daily routine.

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Mgt503 Assignment 1 Solution Spring 2022: The aim of this assignment is to familiarize students with the concept of Job design and its various approaches. It will help students to redesign some jobs while working in an organization to improve their job satisfaction and motivation.

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Mgt503 assignment 1 solution spring 2022.

Prerequisite: DESCON Engineering Ltd. is a leading organization that has been operating as an engineering consultant management organization since 1973. The organization is facing staff turnover despite being a good player in the market. Managers observe dissatisfaction and demonization among employees, which is due to several factors. Monotonous and repetitive tasks, reduced work flexibility, less demanding work, and limited creativity and innovation can make everyday tasks boring for employees. Mgt503 Assignment 1 Solution Spring 2022

Employees who are happy and engaged are the ones who stay with the organization. So managers want to motivate individuals at work to learn continuously instead of working the same way every day. Managers should design jobs deliberately and thoughtfully to reflect the demands of a changing environment, which in turn creates stimulating and interesting work and adds variety, challenge and depth to an employee’s daily routine.

Subject of discussion: Given the above scenario, DESCON Engineering Ltd. needs to reduce employee turnover by working on different techniques. Suggest three approaches to designing employees’ jobs so that they feel more satisfied, motivated, and accountable in their daily tasks.

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Job Augmentation: Job augmentation is a job design technique in which the number of tasks associated with a particular job is increased. Job enlargement is a method of horizontal restructuring that aims to increase the flexibility of the workforce while reducing the monotony that can occur over time. By combining tasks, employers increase the interest and involvement of employees in work. Using the job enlargement model increases the number of responsibilities assigned to an individual and this method gradually redefines the job by also increasing the responsibilities and expectations of employees. MGT503 Assignment 1 Solution Spring 2022

Job Rotation: Job Rotation is a management approach where employees rotate between two or more tasks or assignments at regular intervals to gain exposure to all verticals of the organization. Job rotation is a pre-planned approach to testing an employee’s skills and competencies in order to place them in the right position. Job rotation reduces the monotony of work and gives them wider experience and helps them gain more insights. Job rotation is a well-planned practice to reduce the boredom of doing the same type of work every day and explore the hidden potential of an employee. The process serves the purpose of both management and employees. It helps the management to discover the talent of the employees and determine what they are best at. MGT503 Assignment 1 Solution Spring 2022

Job Enrichment: Job enrichment means improving individual jobs to make them more rewarding and inspiring. Job enrichment expands the range of tasks you perform and the skills you can develop. This makes work more stimulating and interesting, adding variety, challenge and depth to your daily routine. Job enrichment increases job satisfaction. Employees should be satisfied with their work. When assigned challenging tasks, employees have the opportunity to improve their skills. Qualified and experienced employees are likely to be promoted.

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how to fix a really bad essay

6 Tips To Fix Bad Writing

by Kellie McGann | 41 comments

Free Book Planning Course!  Sign up for our 3-part book planning course and make your book writing easy . It expires soon, though, so don’t wait.  Sign up here before the deadline!

Some of the most common feedback I get, besides my ridiculous comma usage, is that much of the writing sounds awkward. It can be a few words, a sentence, or even a whole paragraph. This bad writing is confusing to read and the sentences “just don't sound quite right.” How can I fix it to make my writing better? Let's take a look.

Writing skill sometimes comes naturally, but far more often, it is the product of hard work, feedback, and revision. Beginner writers who avoid revision or feedback are destined to be stuck in poor sentence structure, unclear paragraphs, or grammar errors until they commit to change. 

The first thing to realize is that you aren't alone. bad writing does not mean you are a bad writer—it means you are still in revision. Awkward writing is common, and I believe that it's actually a good sign. Awkward writing means that you are writing and have begun to silence your inner critic.

6 Tips to Fix Bad Writing

As I've worked to develop a working writing style , it's taken me a lot of awkward sentences, phrases, and words, but after editing (and many writing lectures from Joe), I've developed a few tips to avoid the bad writing. Here are six tips that helped make my writing better (hopefully they help you, too!). 

1. Read Out Loud

This is the first step to checking your piece for awkward writing: read it out loud . I wrote a post about this a while back, and it's still your best bet to check for awkward writing.

When you read something out loud, you catch common errors. When you read silently, your brain skips over errors, repeated words, and odd phrasing. Reading aloud reveals confusing word order that might cause your reader trouble.

How do you know if something is awkward? When you have to stop to reread. Don't make the mistake of thinking, “Oh, I just misread that…” no. If you have to stop and restart a sentence, it means something disrupted the flow of the grammar that your brain expected. 

If you have to re-read your writing, your reader will have to, too. It interrupts the flow and distracts your reader.

Bonus tip: if you need help developing an ear for language that will translate into stronger writing skills, practice reading all kinds of writing aloud. Your favorite authors in your genre, short stories , and the most overlooked ear training: poetry. 

2. Shorten Your Sentences

The next way to avoid awkward writing is to take out every unnecessary word , phrase, and sentence. As writers, we like to use words. But when we're trying to explain something, less really is more.

Which sentence is clearer?

When we make up reasons and explanations to avoid doing hard things, we are creating obstacles in the way of our success.

Excuses are enemies to our success.

The first sentence is awkward and confusing, while the second sentence is clear, straight to the point, and less than half the length.

You can also use a writing app like Hemingway to increase readability and identify places where your sentences might be too long and rambling.

And while Jane Austen may have written grammatically correct, beautiful sentences that stretched for entire pages, you'll likely find that readers today don't have much patience for it. Know what your genre's audience expects and deliver. 

3. Be Specific

Often when our writing is awkward, it's because we are being vague.

Here's a recent example from a book I'm working on:

We can never know the things that hold us back if we do not receive input from other people.

The sentence doesn't tell us what is holding us back or whom we need input from. It is awkward and leaves the reader confused. My editor commented on the sentence, “ What does that even mean?”

So let's be specific. How's this:

We are unable to see what past circumstances hold us back unless we allow input from trusted mentors or friends.

The second example is more specific and easier for readers to understand.

Fixing awkward sentences involves a lot of re-wording. Almost every sentence can be worded a hundred different ways, but as writers, our job is to find the best, yet simplest, wording.

When re-wording, avoid the passive voice and any repetitive words or themes. For example:

He was passed by the green car with a driver who held a cell phone in one hand, a sandwich in the other, and screamed as he flew by.

That sentence has a lot of information, is repetitive, and is written in the passive voice .

Let's re-word it:

The driver of the green car had his cell phone in one hand and a sandwich in the other as he flew by screaming.

This second sentence is now in active voice and less awkward after some re-wording. 

The way you build your sentences will depend largely on your writing style and genre, but make sure they remain clear and effective for the pace and tone of the piece of writing . 

5. Tighten Bad Writing

Awkward writing meanders without purpose. Sometimes it's plagued with strings of verbs stacked on top of each other, other times it's repetitious. This isn't something you can do well in a first draft: you tighten and polish in the second or third pass. 

It is the difference between having a bunch of mediocre sentences and sentences that build upon each other to illustrate exactly what the author intends.

A great example of a tight writer is Stephen King. He does this by creating a build-up and flow in each sentence he writes. As he says in On Writing:

I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote my fiction once and forever. Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor was this mot: ‘Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck.’

For example, here's a sentence that's stacking verb phrases unnecessarily:

In order to find out the suspects who might have committed the crime, Detective Harriday was planning on going to try to find and to search the town hall records for buyers interested in the property.

To tighten, ask yourself WHO is DOING what? And get that subject verb combo together.

Revised: Detective Harriday searched the town hall records for interested buyers.

 Notice how the long verb strong, “ was planning on going to try to find and to search” could really be one word: searched. That's tightening your writing, and verbs are a great place to begin.

Check out our new post on strong verbs here to help! 

Although I'm an optimist, sometimes, there's just no hope for an awkward phrase. When you've stared at it for hours and tried re-writing it twelve times, it's time to ask yourself, “ Is this necessary? ” If it's not necessary, you don't need it. 

There is freedom in the delete button. Hemingway famously took out sentences in his drafts. He wanted his readers to feel the space, and he trusted them to fill in the blanks. It kept him from overwriting. 

Make your writing better with these tips

Over the last few weeks, these tips have helped me fix my own bad writing, and I'm able to share it with clients now too.

Do you have any tips to fix bad writing?  Let us know your most helpful tip in the comments below.

Take fifteen minutes and look at an old piece and search for any awkward writing. Try fixing it with one of the tips above and share it in the Pro Practice Workshop here!

Kellie McGann

Kellie McGann is the founder of Write a Better Book . She partners with leaders to help tell their stories in book form.

On the weekends, she writes poetry and prose.

She contributes to The Write Practice every other Wednesday.

41 Comments

Ha! I agree with every word, yet every time I rewrite, I seem to add about 20%! It’s not that your tips are not valid: every one is important and useful, however, not every rewritten story will end up 10% less…

Not that my writing doesn’t need pruning, it’s just that when I get the story down, I tend to write a lot of the action and dialog and omit a lot of details (setting, description, etc). When I rewrite, I go over awkward wording, tighten sentences, add sentences to improve the flow AND fill in the missing settings and description. It always ends up clearer, richer, and longer.

Bottom line: we each write differently and should make the effort to learn our own writing style and how to work with it in rewrites.

Oh, and one more point that I look for in rewrites: filtering phrases. e.g. “I saw him walk the dog every evening” would be stronger as “He walked the dog every evening.” If you want to make a point of the character seeing him do it can add, something like “drawing me to the window to watch him as he passed.” Loads of words/phrases like that that I’m constantly pruning.

I like that advice! It makes our writing a lot stronger! Thanks for sharing!

Reading out loud has really improved my writing. nice post.

Reading out loud is the greatest! Glad you liked the post!

Good tips, Kellie!

Thanks Seth! You’ve definitely helped me figure out some of these tips! 🙂

An excellent article, Kellie. I believe that reading out loud will catch mistakes and awkard writing. I have learned to cut out useless words, and shorten sentences, which definitely improve my manuscript. At times I feel as if my writing is too simple. Any tips on how to make it more sophisticated or classy without using ‘flowery’ adjectives? Thanks so much.

Reading out loud can definitely help you identify if something doesn’t sound quite right.

Sometimes writing simple is a good thing, because it isn’t bogged down by flowery adjectives, like you mentioned. I really admire writers who are direct and clear with their words. But if you do want to make it more sophisticated or classy, maybe try reading some of your favorite authors and see how they do it, and if you like it, you could take bits and pieces of their styles to create your own. I’d love to read some of your work some time. : )

I totally agree that reading out loud helps. I am also an avid users of flowery adjectives and it is a hamper to the telling of a story. I get too caught up in description, making sure the readers sees, that I am causing the reader to oversee one scene, but not really see the big picture. How can I stop this?

I often find myself changing/tweaking words when I read my work aloud; that is my first clue. Most of the bestsellers I’ve read don’t use challenging language (words you have to go look up in the dictionary). Sophisticated prose is overrated, just keep the story moving. One of my instructors told us you can’t overuse the word “said” in dialogue, apparently other more colorful verbs distract the reader.

I have heard the word ‘said’ being described as an ‘invisible word’ in that it is completely unobtrusive yet helps a story along.

Great tips! And I’m glad I’m not the only writer out there with “ridiculous comma usage” 🙂

I might want to check with a doctor for breathing problems, cuz I have commas in everything. hehe

Debra, yeah, might want to get that checked. What would we do without our beloved commas though?

huff and puff and have a lot of run on sentences and and and and *bends over gasping for breath*

Haha, you are not alone. It can get out of control. I just love commas! 🙂

All of these are excellent advice! Thank you! 😉 <3

It's very important to delete any writing that is not necessary to the story! If you hate "killing your babies," as I believe Hemingway called it, save them in a file for a future piece. Peace, Sherrie Sherrie Miranda's historically based, coming of age, Adventure novel “Secrets & Lies in El Salvador” is about an American girl in war-torn El Salvador: http://tinyurl.com/klxbt4y Her husband made a video for her novel. He wrote the song too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P11Ch5chkAc

My kids get confused because of all the grammar rules. Me, too! I try to teach us that simple sentences are best. I like commas. I hope I am using them correctly.

I love commas. Commas, commas, and more commas. My editor loves it too 😉 Keeps them in business.

Great post! These tips are really helpful as I continue to refine my writing for my new blog and my ongoing novel writing. Thanks for sharing!

Glad the post helped! I still have to remind myself of these every day! 🙂

‘The Elements of Style’ by Will Strunk appeared in 1935. Regrettably, every computer owner appears determined to re-invent the wheel.

Omit needless words. Make every word tell. Obey the rules. Simple!

That’s great. I’ll have to check that out! It seems so simple, but I find I need to be reminded constantly in order to remember!

Looking at your title, I first wondered which “six tips to avoid”?

Good point! I can see how you could read it that way. Ahh, always so much to learn 🙂

Thanks, Kellie! I needed this today, as I am the Queen of the run-on, never ending sentence! LOL!

Felicia, I hear you. I am learning this lesson the hard way! I like my words and often want to keep them all! My editor keeps yelling at me though. 😉

I do a lot of rewording and especially eliminating passive voice. But I must be wordy because in Point #2 I find the first sentence says something the shorter second one doesn’t. I find it an interesting thought that excuses actually put obstacles in the way of success. Or how about a colloquial version: When we wriggle out of doing hard things, we’re actually piling rocks on our path to success.

When it comes to being specific, and for the sake of clarity, avoid It-itis. For example: If it’s not necessary and plain confusing, it’s okay to delete it. In your little quote we’re all on the same page as to what you’re referring to, but in some books I’ve seen a lot of its wreaking havoc with clarity.

Shorten sentences, tighten, re-word…all great advice. I try to replace adjectives with a more descriptive verbs on the first round of edits as well.

Jason, that’s good advice! I’ll try that next time! Glad the advice resonated with you!

I try and avoid awkward writing, by continuously correcting (read fixing) as I go along. The real danger there is the breaks in the flow of thoughts. Your 6 tips are a far better alternative. Thanks

I too am constantly rewriting and rewriting. I am never satisfied with a sentence. I am constantly asking myself, “Did I tell too much and not leave enough to the reader’s imagination?” So in comes the overwhelming flowery adjectives and with the constant rewriting, I lose my flow and it gets harder to connect scene to scene until finally, I have to start all over and then basically almost end up with what I started it. Sometimes I feel like a hamster traveling on his wheel. Do you think another pair of eyes would help me get off this viscous cycle and help advance my writing?

Parker, that’s the bane of a perfectionist…a tendency to overthink things. If you keep questioning your thoughts as you write, they will hold you to an answer, thus creating breaks in your writing. The fact that you commenced writing shows that you are convinced about what you want to write. So, believe in your self and let the thoughts flow.

Thanks, words of encouragement are always needed and much appreciated.

All my writings, old or new, are made to go through an axe. They are filtered & re-filtered often with the way you write it too. The struggle with words, phrases, commas, length is a never ending end. This is something, even if ever, claim yourself to be the best, will end up perfecting through. Reading your article, was a check up list, If following the same pattern though. Each one of us, bestowed with weak spots. I find myself often stuck in the rut of long sentences & similar words. That does not mean, I’m a scorer on other fronts.

A regular submitter on your site, offers everyday the privilege of De-Awkwardifying. The momentum has to go on, even if you know, you are far from being right….

All very true….especially about 2nd draft = 1st draft – 10%

Dan, yes! I’m working on a second draft now and it’s partially painful cutting it down, but so necessary.

This is brilliant, especially: there is freedom in the delete button! I hunt out redundant modifiers such as ‘final outcome’ or ‘important essentials’. This always improves my writing.

Thanks for the article, Kellie – sharing.

I’m focusing on finishing a short story that surrounds around a young teenage girl who trying to cope with being diagnosed as depressed. After some more rewriting here it is.

I had just turned sixteen, the year of driver license, college campus tours, and the peak of teenage angst, but the typical path to that was halted when my school’s guidance counselor requested for my mom and dad to to be brought in for what she described as a “heart to heart” confrontation. She wanted to discuss about my lack of socializing in school and the dark “troubling” poetry I had turned in for English class, previous weeks before. So as we all sat in the cramped off white office, crowded with cheap knick knacks and positivity posters you only ever see hanging up on a cubicle wall, she discussed that my best option for mental improvement would be enlisting the knowledge of a professional therapist since she feared I was at risk for being diagnosed as depressed, which would explain my anti-social behavior and troubling writing, because Lord knows you have to have an explanation to everything in life.

That’s how I found myself sitting, in the crappy conference room of the local library, on a cheap metal folding chair, listening half heartedly, to the supposedly uplifting speech spewing out of the leader of this so called group. Tom. We had all heard the speech at least a dozen times from Tom. After discovering in a pamphlet, while waiting in his local Wallgreens physician’s office for his annual flu shot, that 30.7 percent of Americans lived with a mental illness. I’m sure he also learned from the pamphlet almost half of Americans don’t get the needed amount of Vitamin D.

Sprinkle in some courageous words and throw in a couple overused quotes from a Hallmark card and you basically got the whole speech. Tom stated many, many, many times before, that he wanted to be a “guidance angel” for those diagnosed and thus Youth Mental Awareness or Y.M.A was formed. Y.M.A is for people thirteen to nineteen to talk about their illness.

I mainly showed up for the food.

This is how it went every Thursday night for the past six months, I would make up some weak excuses like a stomach ache, which would never work and then I would reluctantly drive to the Library and for the next hour and a half, listen to depressing stories from people I don’t know. Thus letting me let go of any frustration about my illness and letting the positivity engulf me.

It’s a real lifesaver.

The meeting goes like this, We introduce ourselves by stating our names, age, and illness. I usually go first since we start youngest to oldest, so I stand up, fiddling with my sleeves and start talking “Spencer, sixteen, depression.” Tom would try to coax me into talking a little bit more which I will answer with “I’ll pass” and then sit down again which by now, I’m greeted by a feeble round of applause and we continue going around till everyone has introduced themselves.

So in our group we have twelve people, that means if you do the math correctly, four depressions (one of those being me) four anxiety, three bipolar, and finally, four OCD. That probably sounds harsh, but it’s true, and the truth hurts, like a mother. Then after listening to someone’s story about their trials they passed or struggles they overcame, we all grip each others hand to recite the Y.M.A motto which is “United through others, we are stronger than those who are not.” Long, stupid, and cliche. Very fitting. It’s also very hard to focus on reciting it when a stranger’s sweaty hands are clutching yours. After that, I’m finally granted my rightly given freedom and the meeting disperses.

I walk through the double sided exit doors and strolled out to my car. I fumbled for my car keys while I called mom, finally starting the engine when she picks up on the third ring. “Hey mom” “Hey Honey, how was your meeting?” I buckled my seat belt and switch on the radio. “Same old same old, I just wanted to let you know I’m leaving now so I’ll be home in ten.” “Alright drive safe.”

She clicked off and I turned onto the road to home. After a few minutes I turned onto my street and drove pass a manicured lawn after manicured lawn until I pulled into the driveway, greeted by red shutters and lawn gnomes, everything about the house screamed “upper class suburban white family” but it was home. I locked my car and walked onto the porch. Opening the front door, the tangy smell of Chinese take out wafted through the air, I closed the door and tossed my purse in the hall closet before walking into the kitchen where I found mom setting takeout cartons on the kitchen table. ‘Hey mom.” “Hey Spence.” She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.” “Wash your hands and then sit down to eat.” I turned on the kitchen faucet and scrubbed my hands. “Where’s dad?” “Speak of the devil.” He walked in and popped a sweet and sour chicken in his mouth. “Sit and eat.” Mom firmly instructed. I took a seat as mom passed plates, loading up our plates as we discussed our day, just like we always have done, ever since I can remember.

“You have your appointment with Mrs. Lark tomorrow at 10:00.” She gingerly included in the conversation, like she was defusing a bomb. I still don’t think she’s entirely comfortable with knowing I have Depression, but who can blame her, what’s the first thing that pops into your mind when you hear the word Depression? “I know” I swallowed a bite of food. “I can go with you if you want.” “I’ll be fine.” I grabbed the empty plates and took them over to the sink to wash them. “Are you sure?” “Yes, I’m sixteen, I got to spread my wings a little, learn to fly.” She still seemed slightly unsure so I tried to put her at ease. “I’ll be fine, I promise.” She hesitated for a moment before finally agreeing. “Okay.”

After dinner we sat in the living room to watch a stupid 80‘s movie, filled with cheesy one liners and cheap special effects. “Alright troops.” Mom got up to stretch. “I’m headed to bed.” Dad got up as well before saying “I think I’ll join you. “ I kissed them both Goodnight before they trudging upstairs, and I dug out a pint of Ben and Jerry, switching the TV channel onto a Real Housewives of Beverly Hills marathon. Nothing boosts my self esteem like watching plastic surgery induced women fight over overpriced shoes, which I watched till their diamond started to blur together.

I turned off the TV and walked upstairs to my bedroom. I pulled my pajamas and slid into bed, snuggling into my blanket. I tried to fall asleep, but it seemed it was going to be one of those nights where all you can do is think. About your future, your past, and your present. The gears just start turning and you can’t stop them no matter what, which usually leads to some sort of life crisis at One o’clock in the morning, but for now all you can do is think. Everything you put off thinking about comes back to haunt you at night, when the air is still and the only thing keeping your company is the rhythm of your breathing.

I guess I finally fell asleep because the next thing I knew I was goggling reaching to turn off the annoying beeping of my alarm clock. I stumbled downstairs after trudging out of bed and jumping in the shower. I found mom eating breakfast and reading the newspaper. I grabbed the orange juice out of the fridge and poured myself a glass.

“Morning honey.” “Hey mom.” I took a swig of OJ. “I’ve got to swing by the office today for a few hours so I won’t be back before you.” “Okay.” She picked up her paperwork and stuck it in her briefcase, quickly kissing the top of my forehead before grabbing her car keys. “I love you kiddo.” “I love you too.” She swept out the front door, but not before saying “If there’s any issues just call me.” then she left. After breakfast, I worked on catching up on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills till I had to leave . I grabbed my car keys, left for my appointment and drove to the building lot where Mrs.Larks therapist office was located.

I walked in and signed in, I took a seat in the waiting room before Mrs. Lark walked out of her office, comforting a hysterical woman and a grim faced face man who I assumed was her husband. “Hey Spencer.”

She motioned for me to walk into her office. I sat down on the familiar lumpy beige couch and examined the plain colored walls framed with cheap knockoff artwork of the Italian riverside, facing wall to wall bookshelves that housed degrees and diplomas.

Mrs.Lark tucked a piece of blonde hair behind her ear before grabbing her notebook and pen off of the side table. “How have you been?” She asked. “Alright.” “Any issues with your medicine?” “None so far.” She scribbled on her clipboard. “Okay well, I thought we could try something new this session.” “And that would be?” “Let’s discuss your fears, what’s the first thing that pops into your mind when you then ask yourself what you fear?” I thought or a moment. “I really don’t know.” “Just anything heights, snakes, storms?” “I don’t really fear those things, I mean that’s just common sense.” “What do you mean?” “I don’t fear skyscrapers but I’m not going to jump off of one.” “So you are saying you don’t fear anything?” “I wouldn’t say that, I just don’t know what I fear.” “Interesting.” She scribbled on her clipboard.

We talked some more about the typical shrink stuff like my feelings and crap like that, then the session was over. I thanked her and walked out to my car and drove to the nearest Starbucks. After ordering my latte I walked over to Williams Deans Park, which was basically just a plot of land with a ratty playground and ran rusty bench. If I had a park named after me when I bit the dust I would like something a little nicer than a run down playground. I took a sip of coffee and started to think about the fear exercise. I wanted to know what I feared, not just some stupid life metaphor that sound like it should be plastered on a daytime drama.

I don’t even fear death, I’ve pretty much just accepted death as just something we all have to face in order to make room for others in life. I thought harder. What about how I felt last night, the terrifying feeling of knowing that there are going to be times where I will not know what to do in my life, or feel that sadness in the very bottom of my bones that creeps like a forgotten nightmare. The undeniable fact that I will, I’ll let myself down, or the unforgivable pressure to carry on even if it’s the last thing I want to do. Then it it me. I fear life.

Outstanding advice! Thanks for sharing, Kellie!

The power of re-wording is incredible! Sometimes it helps to change the whole reader’s perception and attitude to your writing. Besides, it’s reasonable to use a plagiarism checker to make sure that your writing has no similarities with already published works.

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What Bad Writing Looks Like … and How to Fix It [With Detailed Examples]

29 Mar 2021 | Craft

A  lot of writers worry that they may not be good enough to be successful .

The truth is that however “good” or “bad” your writing is, you can improve with practice and with careful self-editing .

But how do you know if a particular piece of writing is any good? What exactly does “bad” writing look like … and how do you fix it?

That’s what we’re going to tackle today.

Is There Even Such a Thing As “Good” Writing?

Over many years of reading and writing, I’ve heard two different schools of thought about “good” writing.

“Lots of Popular Books Are Really Badly Written”

Some people, particularly journalists and literary critics, can be incredibly judgemental about popular books. The Twilight series, Dan Brown’s books, or Fifty Shades of Grey are ones that have come in for particular criticism.

These books might not be “good” in a literary sense – they’re unlikely to go down in history as great works of art – but they certainly do well commercially. Plenty of people enjoy them as entertainment or escapism.

There is nothing wrong with this.

Personally, I enjoy a lot of books that are considered literary fiction or classics – I studied English Literature as an undergraduate. But I also enjoy plenty of genre and commercial fiction, and I’ve read my share of fanfiction too. I’ve enjoyed all of it, in different ways.

Please don’t think that your writing is bad because it’s not literary, even if the people around you (in your family, your friendship group, or at school or university) only prize literary fiction.

“There’s No Such Thing as Good or Bad Writing”

At the opposite end of the spectrum, some people think there’s really no such thing as good or bad writing, only writing that’s inappropriate for its context.

For instance, a very clear, straightforward style might be right for a software tutorial but not for a literary novel. Rhyming verse might be perfect for a children’s book but not a romance novella.

However, some writing simply is bad, because it wouldn’t work well in any context.

Of course, this doesn’t mean it’s irredeemably bad. A poorly written first draft could, after some editing, become a really strong finished piece.

This type of “bad writing” is what we’re going to be looking at today: first or early draft writing that still needs quite a bit of work before a reader can enjoy it.

Here’s What Bad Writing Looks Like

Here’s a passage of bad writing that I’ve created, based on a lot of common drafting mistakes. I’ll split it into three parts, and go through the mistakes (and how to fix them) after each.

Bad Writing Example #1

“Hi James,” announced Jason, spotting him in the street.  “It’s a while since I’ve seen you.” “Hi Jason,” exclaimed James with surprise. “You’re right. I haven’t seen you since Dave’s party. How are you?” “I’m fine, thank you,” smiled Jason. “How about you?” “I’m great, thanks,” James laughed. “In fact, I was just about to go and get a coffee. Do you want to come with me?” “That sounds good, thanks James. I’d love to catch up.” Jason looked around the street where lots of people were walking back and forth. He wasn’t sure where the nearest coffee shop was but perhaps his friend knew. His old confidence had lived here for years. Jason was just visiting the town because he had been picking up his new glasses from the opticians. “Where should we go for coffee?” Jason queried, waving his hand around to indicate that he was uncertain of the direction in which to go. “I know a great place,” James explained. “Just follow me.”

Let’s look at some of the positives of this short piece first. There’s always something good in any piece of writing.

For instance, the dialogue is correctly punctuated. Getting dialogue punctuation right can trip up newer writers, so if you need to brush up your skills in this area, check out this guide .

Theres’s also a fairly good mix of dialogue and action. There are rather a lot of dialogue tags though there is an action beat used in one instance (“Jason looked around the street”) as a good alternative to a dialogue tag.

Unfortunately, there are quite a few things that aren’t working well here. Let’s go through them one by one.

Overly Similar Names

Are you getting confused between Jason, the newcomer to town, and James, the friend who lives in the town? It’s a good idea to avoid having two characters with names starting with the same letter, especially if those names are (a) roughly the same length and/or (b) the same gender. A Jason and a Jennifer wouldn’t be nearly so confusing. I’m going to rename James as Dave in the next extract, because I’m getting so muddled myself!

Poor Dialogue Tags

Words like announced, exclaimed, smiled, laughed, queried, and explained draw attention to themselves – rather than to the actual dialogue. They sound like the author is trying too hard. The words “said” and “asked” would work fine instead. In particular, I’d avoid tags that are particularly unusual (like “queried”) and ones that are an action rather than a way of saying something (like “smiled” and “laughed”).

Using the Wrong Word

The word “confidence” (in “his old confidence”) should be confidant (someone trusted and confided in) . This sort of mistake is really easy to make, especially as sometimes auto-correct may change a correct but unusual word into an incorrect but more familiar one. It’s an easy thing to fix, but definitely something to watch out for when editing.

Potentially Confusing Phrasing

We’re told that “lots of people were walking back and forth” in the street. This seems to imply that the same people are walking one way then back the other, which is unlikely to be the case.

Irrelevant Details

The information about people walking in the street is hardly worth mentioning: we’d expect it (unless the scene is set very early or late in the day, when a crowded street would be more unusual and worth mentioning).

Over-Explaining by the Author

Jason asks where the coffee shop is, waves his hand around, then the author explains why he waves his hand around (“to indicate that he was uncertain of the direction in which to go”). The reader likely doesn’t need the gesture explained. Even if they didn’t understand it, they’d get it from the dialogue.

Bad Writing Example #2

(I’ve now renamed James, who lives in the town, as Dave. That way, the character names aren’t so easy to muddle up.)

Dave and Jason quickly walked down the street. Dave was wearing a black coat and a blue hat that he thought looked warm. It was a windy day and Jason was feeling a little bit cold. The tall man led him down the road and past some shops and then they crossed over the street at some traffic lights where the cars stopped obediently for them to cross at their leisure though Dave quickly strode across with long steps. Jason remembered how his former comrade had always won the 100 meter sprint at school, over 30 years ago. He wondered whether he too had happy memories of their days at school. For Jason, they had truly been some of the best days of his life. He could have gone to the reunion a few months ago but he had decided not to in the end because he was going on holiday with his sister and her kids, his niece and nephew, who were aged three and five years.

Again, there are some positive things here. There’s a growing sense of the relationship between the characters, with a sense that Jason admires Dave (with his recollection about the school days). We also get a bit more of Jason’s backstory, with a mention of holidaying with his sister and her kids – though this does seem like it’s been forced in a bit.

Here’s what’s not working:

Confusing Use of Pronouns

If you have two (or more) characters of the same gender in the same scene, you need to pay careful attention to pronouns. Here, the sentence “Dave was wearing a black coat and a blue hat that he thought looked warm” is confusing because the “he” seems like it would refer to Dave – but it’s actually referring to Jason, who’s looking at Dave.

Using Phrases Instead of Character Names

Like coming up with lots of alternatives for the perfectly good word “said”, using phrases instead of character names is a common mistake. Again, it’s a problem because it draws attention to the wrong thing: the strange phrase, rather than the action or dialogue taking place. Here, Dave is referred to as the tall man and [Jason’s] former comrade . It would be better to simply use his name.

Overly Long Paragraph

The second paragraph in this section is quite long. Its length might be normal and unexceptional in some types of fiction (e.g. literary or historical fiction). But compared with the other paragraphs in this passage, it seems a bit on the long side.

Too Much Irrelevant Information

As well as being rather long, that paragraph seems to contain a lot of information that isn’t particularly relevant. Some of this is stating the obvious (the cars “stopped obediently” at the traffic lights – which is exactly what you’d expect them to do) and some seems like a tangent from the scene (Jason’s memories about school and the fact that he didn’t go to the reunion). It’s possible that this information is important to the plot, but if so, it could be woven into the story more naturally.

Redundant Phrasing

We’re told that “Jason quickly strode across with long steps.” Just “Jason strode across” would convey the same meaning, without bogging down the action with unnecessary words.

Bad Writing Example #3

At long last Dave shouted “Here we are!” and they went into the coffee shop. There was a display of cakes and biscuits behind a glass panel at the counter. Jason thought about getting one of these rich tempting delights. But he was trying to cut back on sugar so he decided to give it a miss. “Shall I buy the coffees, Jason?” enquired his friend. “Thank you, Dave. That’s very kind of you. But I insist that I buy them,” Jason insisted. “Definitely not,” exclaimed Dave, wanting to pay as Jason was visiting his town. “It’s my treat.” After a short period of deliberation, they decided to each have a latte. They stood and waited patiently for the barista making the coffees and to bring them over. Dave paid with a ten pound note, as he wanted some change, and put his change in his right trouser pocket. Once the coffees were ready, Jason and his former schoolmate went to find an unoccupied table at the back of the cafe.

Again, the dialogue is well punctuated and laid out, albeit with some rather attention-seeking dialogue tags.

But once again, there’s quite a bit of editing needed.

Here are some of the most obvious problems:

Blow by Blow Description of Mundane Event

Dave and Jason go into what we can only assume is a fairly conventional coffee shop, order lattes, and sit down. None of this is especially interesting. It certainly doesn’t need to be described in minute detail (with a fairly pointless back-and-forth conversation, the details about Dave paying and where he puts the change, and so on).

Detailed Description of What a Character DOESN’T Do

Jason looks at the cakes and biscuits but decides not to get one. Unless him cutting back on sugar is particularly important to the plot or his character arc, we could skip this entirely. Otherwise, something like “Jason resisted the temptation of the cake display” would tell us all we need to know. One of the great things about the novel form is the ability to dig into a character’s thoughts … but only when those thoughts are actually interesting.

Chit-Chat Dialogue

This has been a problem throughout the whole passage. Dave and Jason chat but without saying anything of meaning. This happens a lot in life – but it shouldn’t happen in your story! Unless the characters are about to have a row over who pays for the coffees, we don’t need the back-and-forth that happens here.

Stilted Dialogue

As well as being a bit chit-chatty, the dialogue is oddly stilted. The characters use one another’s names (which people don’t tend to do when there’s only two of them, as it’s obvious who they’re addressing) and the language like “that’s very kind of you” seems strangely formal.

Wavering Point of View

We’re told that Dave wanted to pay because Jason is visiting his town, and that he paid with a £10 note because he “wanted some change”. The rest of the passage has been from Jason’s point of view. Dipping into what Dave wants comes across as head-hopping.

In the whole passage, almost nothing has happened. Two old friends meet unexpectedly and decide to go for a coffee.

Turning Bad Writing Into Good Writing

As I said earlier, no writing is irredeemably bad … and everything you write can be (and probably should be!) redrafted.

As part of the rewrite, I’m going to assume that there are some key details we need to keep because they’ll become relevant to the plot later:

• Dave is wearing a hat
• Dave regularly won the 100 meter sprint at school
• Jason is in an area where he doesn’t live
• Jason didn’t attend the school reunion

I’m also going to keep the key plot events: the characters meet and they go to a coffee shop to talk further.

“Hi Jason!” It was Dave – Jason hadn’t seen him in years, and had forgotten he even lived around here. “Dave! It’s been a while.” Dave smiled. “Got time for a coffee? I know a place just up the road.” They strode down the street, Jason regretting that he hadn’t dressed more warmly, and feeling a little envious of Dave’s woolly hat. He had to half-run to keep up with Dave – but then, Dave had always been fast, winning the 100 meter sprint every year at school. “Did you go to the reunion?” Jason asked. “Nah, mate, did you?” “Nope,” Jason said. “I was on holiday with my sister and her kids.” They walked into the shop, Linda’s Coffee . Dave said, “What do you want? My treat.” “Oh, thanks. A latte, please.” It was a small cafe, without the glossy sheen of the chain coffee shops. It was deserted, too. The only other person there – presumably, Linda – handed them two generous lattes. Dave and Jason settled in battered leather armchairs. “So what brings you to this part of town?” Dave asked.

I wouldn’t claim this is the best piece of fiction I’ve ever written … but hopefully you can see it’s a huge improvement on the original.

If you’ve written a whole draft, whether that’s of a short story or a novel, then that’s a great achievement! Please don’t worry about your writing being “good enough” at that stage. You’ve got plenty of time to rewrite, to keep what’s working, and to cut out writing that was essentially you warming up to get into a scene.

In your own work, look out for any issues like the ones we’ve gone through here. You might also want to check out these lists of common mistakes (plus examples) for some more help:

• Ten Book-Level Mistakes to Watch Out for When Redrafting Your Fiction
• Ten Sentence-Level Mistakes to Watch Out for When Editing Your Fiction

For weekly blog posts and exclusive short articles about writing, make sure you join the Aliventures newsletter . You’ll get a free copy of my short ebook Time to Write: How to Fit More Writing Into Your Busy Life as soon as you sign up.

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I’m Ali Luke, and I live in Leeds in the UK with my husband and two children.

Aliventures is where I help you master the art, craft and business of writing.

If you're new, welcome! These posts are good ones to start with:

Can You Call Yourself a “Writer” if You’re Not Currently Writing?  

The Three Stages of Editing (and Nine Handy Do-it-Yourself Tips)

What to Do When Your Writing Goals Seem a Long Way Off

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I guess this article is meant for me…

im absolutely RATTLED over reading this and realizing why i dont like so much of my writing is because i do the whole ‘blow-by-blow of a mundane event’ section. this…this is gonna change me

It’s a really easy trap to fall into as a writer! I’m really glad this was helpful. Keep writing (and don’t forget to pay attention to the bits you DO like in your own writing … see what they have in common and how you can do more of that stuff). 🙂

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Write Better Essays: 7 Mistakes to Avoid

Cari Bennette

Academic essays are an unavoidable part of the educational journey. Learning to write well may be one of the greatest skills you gain during your college years. Most students, however, will commit many errors before learning the art of academic essay writing.

While you can't avoid writing essays, you can avoid making some of these common mistakes:

Writing a Synopsis, Not An Analytical Essay

Not having a strong thesis statement, using too many quotes in an essay, making grammar, spelling and pronoun mistakes, not having a good bibliography, using resources that aren't credible, want to improve your essay writing skills.

The point of an essay is to create an argument and defend a thesis. If you're writing about a work of literature, some background to clarify the topic can be helpful. But the majority of your essay should involve your analysis based on credible research. Don't simply restate what happened in the book.

Coming up with a strong thesis statement is essential to writing a good essay. The thesis statement is the hook on which the rest of your essay hangs. It should state an opinion and be as specific as possible. Example weak thesis statement: The Great Gatsby is a great example of American Literature. Example strong thesis statement: The Great Gatsby captures the essence of America's Jazz Age in its decadence, materialism and ultimately, its tragic emptiness.

The essay is supposed to reflect your understanding of the topic and the research you've done to back up your argument. Overuse of quotes either from the work you're analyzing or from the research you've done undermines your authority on the topic. Quotes should be used sparingly and only when they drive home a point with an eloquence you can't match with your own words.

Defined as “the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own,” plagiarism is a serious offense. Colleges and universities have strict policies against plagiarism and use various tools to check your work for plagiarised content. You won't get away with it, and sometimes it can even get you suspended. Professors can recognize if something sounds like a student wrote it or if it came from another source, so don't try to fool them.

There are two kinds of plagiarism:

• The first kind is directly taking the words from a source and using them in your paper without quoting or giving credit.
• The second kind is trickier and you should take special care to make sure you're not committing this kind of plagiarism. It consists of rewording an entire article or section of an article. In this case, instead of coming up with your own original ideas and analysis, you're just rewording someone else's ideas including the order in which they present those ideas.

Your essay should contain your own original thesis, analysis and ideas backed up by credible research from academic authorities.

Worried about plagiarism? ProWritingAid's plagiarism checker checks your work against over a billion web-pages, published works, and academic papers so you can be sure of its originality. Did you know that many of the free plagiarism checkers online sell your writing to other sources? With ProWritingAid, you can be certain that your original work is secure. Paying for this kind of service might feel like a lot, but trust me, it's worth it.

Okay, let's break these down:

• Get your contractions right. You're = you are. Your = second person possessive. It's = it is. Its = third person possessive. They're = they are. Their =third person plural possessive.
• Make sure your subjects and verbs agree.
• Beware of incomplete sentences (there must be both a subject and a verb to be complete).
• Use your spell check.
• Essays should be written in the third person (he/she/it/they). Don't use the first or second person (I, you or we) in an essay.
• Follow proper formatting ( MLA formatting is a common example.

You can check for all of these errors using ProWritingAid. The Homonym report will highlight all of the words in your essay that sound the same as others but are spelled differently. This will help you avoid any 'its/it's or 'their/they're/there' mistakes.

The bibliography format for academic essays is usually the MLA style unless your professor specifically requests a different format. For a complete list of how to cite resources in MLA style, check out this site . Don't lose points over your bibliography. The hard part of your essay should be coming up with an original analysis of your topic. The bibliography is formulaic and easy to get right if you give it a little effort.

In the age of the Internet, it's easy to type in a keyword and find dozens of articles on it. But that doesn't mean all of those articles are credible. Make sure that the resources you use come from academic experts. For tips on how to find credible academic resources online, check out this site .

Avoiding these mistakes will improve your essay writing, so you can achieve higher quality and confidence in your academic writing. And it will make your professors happy, too.

Use ProWritingAid!

Are your teachers always pulling you up on the same errors? Maybe your sentences are too long and your meaning is getting lost or you're using the same sentence starter over and over again.

ProWritingAid helps you catch these issues in your essay before you submit it.

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

Cari Bennette is an avid blogger and writer. She covers different aspects of writing and blogging in her articles and plans to try her hand in fiction writing.

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, getting college essay help: important do's and don’ts.

College Essays

If you grow up to be a professional writer, everything you write will first go through an editor before being published. This is because the process of writing is really a process of re-writing —of rethinking and reexamining your work, usually with the help of someone else. So what does this mean for your student writing? And in particular, what does it mean for very important, but nonprofessional writing like your college essay? Should you ask your parents to look at your essay? Pay for an essay service?

If you are wondering what kind of help you can, and should, get with your personal statement, you've come to the right place! In this article, I'll talk about what kind of writing help is useful, ethical, and even expected for your college admission essay . I'll also point out who would make a good editor, what the differences between editing and proofreading are, what to expect from a good editor, and how to spot and stay away from a bad one.

Table of Contents

What Kind of Help for Your Essay Can You Get?

What's Good Editing?

What should an editor do for you, what kind of editing should you avoid, proofreading, what's good proofreading, what kind of proofreading should you avoid.

What Do Colleges Think Of You Getting Help With Your Essay?

Who Can/Should Help You?

Advice for editors.

Should You Pay Money For Essay Editing?

The Bottom Line

What's next, what kind of help with your essay can you get.

Rather than talking in general terms about "help," let's first clarify the two different ways that someone else can improve your writing . There is editing, which is the more intensive kind of assistance that you can use throughout the whole process. And then there's proofreading, which is the last step of really polishing your final product.

Let me go into some more detail about editing and proofreading, and then explain how good editors and proofreaders can help you."

Editing is helping the author (in this case, you) go from a rough draft to a finished work . Editing is the process of asking questions about what you're saying, how you're saying it, and how you're organizing your ideas. But not all editing is good editing . In fact, it's very easy for an editor to cross the line from supportive to overbearing and over-involved.

Ability to clarify assignments. A good editor is usually a good writer, and certainly has to be a good reader. For example, in this case, a good editor should make sure you understand the actual essay prompt you're supposed to be answering.

Open-endedness. Good editing is all about asking questions about your ideas and work, but without providing answers. It's about letting you stick to your story and message, and doesn't alter your point of view.

Think of an editor as a great travel guide. It can show you the many different places your trip could take you. It should explain any parts of the trip that could derail your trip or confuse the traveler. But it never dictates your path, never forces you to go somewhere you don't want to go, and never ignores your interests so that the trip no longer seems like it's your own. So what should good editors do?

Help Brainstorm Topics

Sometimes it's easier to bounce thoughts off of someone else. This doesn't mean that your editor gets to come up with ideas, but they can certainly respond to the various topic options you've come up with. This way, you're less likely to write about the most boring of your ideas, or to write about something that isn't actually important to you.

If you're wondering how to come up with options for your editor to consider, check out our guide to brainstorming topics for your college essay .

Help Revise Your Drafts

Here, your editor can't upset the delicate balance of not intervening too much or too little. It's tricky, but a great way to think about it is to remember: editing is about asking questions, not giving answers .

Revision questions should point out:

• Places where more detail or more description would help the reader connect with your essay
• Places where structure and logic don't flow, losing the reader's attention
• Places where there aren't transitions between paragraphs, confusing the reader
• Moments where your narrative or the arguments you're making are unclear

But pointing to potential problems is not the same as actually rewriting—editors let authors fix the problems themselves.

Bad editing is usually very heavy-handed editing. Instead of helping you find your best voice and ideas, a bad editor changes your writing into their own vision.

You may be dealing with a bad editor if they:

• Add material (examples, descriptions) that doesn't come from you
• Use a thesaurus to make your college essay sound "more mature"
• Add meaning or insight to the essay that doesn't come from you
• Tell you what to say and how to say it
• Write sentences, phrases, and paragraphs for you
• Change your voice in the essay so it no longer sounds like it was written by a teenager

Colleges can tell the difference between a 17-year-old's writing and a 50-year-old's writing. Not only that, they have access to your SAT or ACT Writing section, so they can compare your essay to something else you wrote. Writing that's a little more polished is great and expected. But a totally different voice and style will raise questions.

Where's the Line Between Helpful Editing and Unethical Over-Editing?

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether your college essay editor is doing the right thing. Here are some guidelines for staying on the ethical side of the line.

• An editor should say that the opening paragraph is kind of boring, and explain what exactly is making it drag. But it's overstepping for an editor to tell you exactly how to change it.
• An editor should point out where your prose is unclear or vague. But it's completely inappropriate for the editor to rewrite that section of your essay.
• An editor should let you know that a section is light on detail or description. But giving you similes and metaphors to beef up that description is a no-go.

Proofreading (also called copy-editing) is checking for errors in the last draft of a written work. It happens at the end of the process and is meant as the final polishing touch. Proofreading is meticulous and detail-oriented, focusing on small corrections. It sands off all the surface rough spots that could alienate the reader.

Because proofreading is usually concerned with making fixes on the word or sentence level, this is the only process where someone else can actually add to or take away things from your essay . This is because what they are adding or taking away tends to be one or two misplaced letters.

Laser focus. Proofreading is all about the tiny details, so the ability to really concentrate on finding small slip-ups is a must.

Excellent grammar and spelling skills. Proofreaders need to dot every "i" and cross every "t." Good proofreaders should correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. They should put foreign words in italics and surround quotations with quotation marks. They should check that you used the correct college's name, and that you adhered to any formatting requirements (name and date at the top of the page, uniform font and size, uniform spacing).

Limited interference. A proofreader needs to make sure that you followed any word limits. But if cuts need to be made to shorten the essay, that's your job and not the proofreader's.

A bad proofreader either tries to turn into an editor, or just lacks the skills and knowledge necessary to do the job.

Some signs that you're working with a bad proofreader are:

• If they suggest making major changes to the final draft of your essay. Proofreading happens when editing is already finished.
• If they aren't particularly good at spelling, or don't know grammar, or aren't detail-oriented enough to find someone else's small mistakes.
• If they start swapping out your words for fancier-sounding synonyms, or changing the voice and sound of your essay in other ways. A proofreader is there to check for errors, not to take the 17-year-old out of your writing.

What Do Colleges Think of Your Getting Help With Your Essay?

Admissions officers agree: light editing and proofreading are good—even required ! But they also want to make sure you're the one doing the work on your essay. They want essays with stories, voice, and themes that come from you. They want to see work that reflects your actual writing ability, and that focuses on what you find important.

On the Importance of Editing

Get feedback. Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Don't allow someone else to rewrite your essay, but do take advantage of others' edits and opinions when they seem helpful. ( Bates College )

Read your essay aloud to someone. Reading the essay out loud offers a chance to hear how your essay sounds outside your head. This exercise reveals flaws in the essay's flow, highlights grammatical errors and helps you ensure that you are communicating the exact message you intended. ( Dickinson College )

On the Value of Proofreading

Share your essays with at least one or two people who know you well—such as a parent, teacher, counselor, or friend—and ask for feedback. Remember that you ultimately have control over your essays, and your essays should retain your own voice, but others may be able to catch mistakes that you missed and help suggest areas to cut if you are over the word limit. ( Yale University )

Proofread and then ask someone else to proofread for you. Although we want substance, we also want to be able to see that you can write a paper for our professors and avoid careless mistakes that would drive them crazy. ( Oberlin College )

On Watching Out for Too Much Outside Influence

Limit the number of people who review your essay. Too much input usually means your voice is lost in the writing style. ( Carleton College )

Ask for input (but not too much). Your parents, friends, guidance counselors, coaches, and teachers are great people to bounce ideas off of for your essay. They know how unique and spectacular you are, and they can help you decide how to articulate it. Keep in mind, however, that a 45-year-old lawyer writes quite differently from an 18-year-old student, so if your dad ends up writing the bulk of your essay, we're probably going to notice. ( Vanderbilt University )

Now let's talk about some potential people to approach for your college essay editing and proofreading needs. It's best to start close to home and slowly expand outward. Not only are your family and friends more invested in your success than strangers, but they also have a better handle on your interests and personality. This knowledge is key for judging whether your essay is expressing your true self.

Parents or Close Relatives

Your family may be full of potentially excellent editors! Parents are deeply committed to your well-being, and family members know you and your life well enough to offer details or incidents that can be included in your essay. On the other hand, the rewriting process necessarily involves criticism, which is sometimes hard to hear from someone very close to you.

A parent or close family member is a great choice for an editor if you can answer "yes" to the following questions. Is your parent or close relative a good writer or reader? Do you have a relationship where editing your essay won't create conflict? Are you able to constructively listen to criticism and suggestion from the parent?

One suggestion for defusing face-to-face discussions is to try working on the essay over email. Send your parent a draft, have them write you back some comments, and then you can pick which of their suggestions you want to use and which to discard.

Teachers or Tutors

A humanities teacher that you have a good relationship with is a great choice. I am purposefully saying humanities, and not just English, because teachers of Philosophy, History, Anthropology, and any other classes where you do a lot of writing, are all used to reviewing student work.

Moreover, any teacher or tutor that has been working with you for some time, knows you very well and can vet the essay to make sure it "sounds like you."

If your teacher or tutor has some experience with what college essays are supposed to be like, ask them to be your editor. If not, then ask whether they have time to proofread your final draft.

Guidance or College Counselor at Your School

The best thing about asking your counselor to edit your work is that this is their job. This means that they have a very good sense of what colleges are looking for in an application essay.

At the same time, school counselors tend to have relationships with admissions officers in many colleges, which again gives them insight into what works and which college is focused on what aspect of the application.

Unfortunately, in many schools the guidance counselor tends to be way overextended. If your ratio is 300 students to 1 college counselor, you're unlikely to get that person's undivided attention and focus. It is still useful to ask them for general advice about your potential topics, but don't expect them to be able to stay with your essay from first draft to final version.

Friends, Siblings, or Classmates

Although they most likely don't have much experience with what colleges are hoping to see, your peers are excellent sources for checking that your essay is you .

Friends and siblings are perfect for the read-aloud edit. Read your essay to them so they can listen for words and phrases that are stilted, pompous, or phrases that just don't sound like you.

You can even trade essays and give helpful advice on each other's work.

If your editor hasn't worked with college admissions essays very much, no worries! Any astute and attentive reader can still greatly help with your process. But, as in all things, beginners do better with some preparation.

First, your editor should read our advice about how to write a college essay introduction , how to spot and fix a bad college essay , and get a sense of what other students have written by going through some admissions essays that worked .

Then, as they read your essay, they can work through the following series of questions that will help them to guide you.

Introduction Questions

• Is the first sentence a killer opening line? Why or why not?
• Does the introduction hook the reader? Does it have a colorful, detailed, and interesting narrative? Or does it propose a compelling or surprising idea?
• Can you feel the author's voice in the introduction, or is the tone dry, dull, or overly formal? Show the places where the voice comes through.

Essay Body Questions

• Does the essay have a through-line? Is it built around a central argument, thought, idea, or focus? Can you put this idea into your own words?
• How is the essay organized? By logical progression? Chronologically? Do you feel order when you read it, or are there moments where you are confused or lose the thread of the essay?
• Does the essay have both narratives about the author's life and explanations and insight into what these stories reveal about the author's character, personality, goals, or dreams? If not, which is missing?
• Does the essay flow? Are there smooth transitions/clever links between paragraphs? Between the narrative and moments of insight?

Reader Response Questions

• Does the writer's personality come through? Do we know what the speaker cares about? Do we get a sense of "who he or she is"?
• Where did you feel most connected to the essay? Which parts of the essay gave you a "you are there" sensation by invoking your senses? What moments could you picture in your head well?
• Where are the details and examples vague and not specific enough?
• Did you get an "a-ha!" feeling anywhere in the essay? Is there a moment of insight that connected all the dots for you? Is there a good reveal or "twist" anywhere in the essay?
• What are the strengths of this essay? What needs the most improvement?

Should You Pay Money for Essay Editing?

One alternative to asking someone you know to help you with your college essay is the paid editor route. There are two different ways to pay for essay help: a private essay coach or a less personal editing service , like the many proliferating on the internet.

My advice is to think of these options as a last resort rather than your go-to first choice. I'll first go through the reasons why. Then, if you do decide to go with a paid editor, I'll help you decide between a coach and a service.

When to Consider a Paid Editor

In general, I think hiring someone to work on your essay makes a lot of sense if none of the people I discussed above are a possibility for you.

If you can't ask your parents. For example, if your parents aren't good writers, or if English isn't their first language. Or if you think getting your parents to help is going create unnecessary extra conflict in your relationship with them (applying to college is stressful as it is!)

If you can't ask your teacher or tutor. Maybe you don't have a trusted teacher or tutor that has time to look over your essay with focus. Or, for instance, your favorite humanities teacher has very limited experience with college essays and so won't know what admissions officers want to see.

If you can't ask your guidance counselor. This could be because your guidance counselor is way overwhelmed with other students.

If you can't share your essay with those who know you. It might be that your essay is on a very personal topic that you're unwilling to share with parents, teachers, or peers. Just make sure it doesn't fall into one of the bad-idea topics in our article on bad college essays .

If the cost isn't a consideration. Many of these services are quite expensive, and private coaches even more so. If you have finite resources, I'd say that hiring an SAT or ACT tutor (whether it's PrepScholar or someone else) is better way to spend your money . This is because there's no guarantee that a slightly better essay will sufficiently elevate the rest of your application, but a significantly higher SAT score will definitely raise your applicant profile much more.

Should You Hire an Essay Coach?

On the plus side, essay coaches have read dozens or even hundreds of college essays, so they have experience with the format. Also, because you'll be working closely with a specific person, it's more personal than sending your essay to a service, which will know even less about you.

But, on the minus side, you'll still be bouncing ideas off of someone who doesn't know that much about you . In general, if you can adequately get the help from someone you know, there is no advantage to paying someone to help you.

If you do decide to hire a coach, ask your school counselor, or older students that have used the service for recommendations. If you can't afford the coach's fees, ask whether they can work on a sliding scale —many do. And finally, beware those who guarantee admission to your school of choice—essay coaches don't have any special magic that can back up those promises.

Should You Send Your Essay to a Service?

On the plus side, essay editing services provide a similar product to essay coaches, and they cost significantly less . If you have some assurance that you'll be working with a good editor, the lack of face-to-face interaction won't prevent great results.

On the minus side, however, it can be difficult to gauge the quality of the service before working with them . If they are churning through many application essays without getting to know the students they are helping, you could end up with an over-edited essay that sounds just like everyone else's. In the worst case scenario, an unscrupulous service could send you back a plagiarized essay.

Getting recommendations from friends or a school counselor for reputable services is key to avoiding heavy-handed editing that writes essays for you or does too much to change your essay. Including a badly-edited essay like this in your application could cause problems if there are inconsistencies. For example, in interviews it might be clear you didn't write the essay, or the skill of the essay might not be reflected in your schoolwork and test scores.

Should You Buy an Essay Written by Someone Else?

Let me elaborate. There are super sketchy places on the internet where you can simply buy a pre-written essay. Don't do this!

For one thing, you'll be lying on an official, signed document. All college applications make you sign a statement saying something like this:

I certify that all information submitted in the admission process—including the application, the personal essay, any supplements, and any other supporting materials—is my own work, factually true, and honestly presented... I understand that I may be subject to a range of possible disciplinary actions, including admission revocation, expulsion, or revocation of course credit, grades, and degree, should the information I have certified be false. (From the Common Application )

For another thing, if your academic record doesn't match the essay's quality, the admissions officer will start thinking your whole application is riddled with lies.

Admission officers have full access to your writing portion of the SAT or ACT so that they can compare work that was done in proctored conditions with that done at home. They can tell if these were written by different people. Not only that, but there are now a number of search engines that faculty and admission officers can use to see if an essay contains strings of words that have appeared in other essays—you have no guarantee that the essay you bought wasn't also bought by 50 other students.

• You should get college essay help with both editing and proofreading
• A good editor will ask questions about your idea, logic, and structure, and will point out places where clarity is needed
• A good editor will absolutely not answer these questions, give you their own ideas, or write the essay or parts of the essay for you
• A good proofreader will find typos and check your formatting
• All of them agree that getting light editing and proofreading is necessary
• Parents, teachers, guidance or college counselor, and peers or siblings
• If you can't ask any of those, you can pay for college essay help, but watch out for services or coaches who over-edit you work
• Don't buy a pre-written essay! Colleges can tell, and it'll make your whole application sound false.

Ready to start working on your essay? Check out our explanation of the point of the personal essay and the role it plays on your applications and then explore our step-by-step guide to writing a great college essay .

Using the Common Application for your college applications? We have an excellent guide to the Common App essay prompts and useful advice on how to pick the Common App prompt that's right for you . Wondering how other people tackled these prompts? Then work through our roundup of over 130 real college essay examples published by colleges .

Stressed about whether to take the SAT again before submitting your application? Let us help you decide how many times to take this test . If you choose to go for it, we have the ultimate guide to studying for the SAT to give you the ins and outs of the best ways to study.

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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6 Things You Need to Fix Before Handing in Your Essay

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It’s taken weeks (or maybe a rushed few hours), but you’ve finally got a solid draft of your essay. You’ve spent a lot of late nights with this bad boy, trying to fix your essay and make it good enough to hand in. You’ve read it and re-read it, so what could wrong? Well, a […]

It’s taken weeks (or maybe a rushed few hours), but you’ve finally got a solid draft of your essay. You’ve spent a lot of late nights with this bad boy, trying to fix your essay and make it good enough to hand in. You’ve read it and re-read it, so what could wrong?

Well, a lot. Because chances are you have might your “I’m finished” goggles on, which could be making you blind to the mistakes of your work.

It’s hard to rewrite when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. To help with that, here are some common trouble spots you can check to help you fix your essay before you actually hand it in.

1. The Intro

Assuming you’re writing a formal essay, you should have four basic things in your introduction:

• What and who you’re writing on (i.e. “ The Great Gatsby , written by F. Scott Fitzgerald…” or vice versa)
• Key observations about the work that support your argument
• Your thesis, stated clearly and concisely
• To say the above in three sentences or less

Example : “The excerpt from Pat Barker’s Regeneration is riddled with imagery and ambiguous allusion, which the author uses to explain Burns’ predicament without ever having to blandly state it. The excerpt is thus powerful and long-lasting in the mind of the reader.”

If you’ve covered at least this much in your introduction, writing the rest of it should be simple provided that you know what you’re going to argue.

2. The Meat and Potatoes

Get straight to the point. Avoid being “pretty”.

Being “pretty” in your writing is when you’re not adding to the point. You’re simply upping the word length of your essay. This is not good. Make your paragraphs compact and straightforward. Focus on the message you’re trying to deliver and you’ll be golden.

You can allow initial sentences and transitions between paragraphs to contain some “prettiness” so long as it leads into your meat and potatoes. Think of the “pretty” stuff as embellishments to the meal. Like parsley or cilantro.

3. The Set-Up

This format makes it easy to fly through and fix your essay with confidence. It’s only 3 steps and a big part of that whole straightforward thing I was telling you about.

• Lay out your points . More specifically, the points of your arguments. Are they relevant? Are they well-written? Can you group some of them together to avoid repetition? Ask yourself these questions. Your points need to vary, but at the same time, they should correlate and strengthen one another. Divvy up your paragraphs based on the parallels in your points.
• Include quotations! For the love of all that is good, use quotes that complement your points. More on this later. These are the proof that your points are actually valid.
• Your thesis. Enforce it using each point and quotation you include. Again. And again. And again. Don’t include anything that contradicts your thesis. More on this later, too.

Just remember: point-proof-analysis. Take these steps for each paragraph you write. Remember to keep these steps to a simple 1-3 sentences each.

Quotes. They will get you everything you want if you use them properly. Demonstrate to your teacher that you read the book, watched the movie, or whatever your task was, even if you have to paraphrase (sometimes this is just as effective as quoting directly from the source).

Example : “…Achilles was either to live long, quietly, and fruitfully, or die young and brilliantly in battle, remembered for eternity.”

If using a direct quote, never leave it standing on its own. Write transitional text before, after, or on both sides of the quotes. You can even use a semicolon to finish your own idea and lead into a relevant quote.

Show that you know the material! Use your source instead of seeking easy answers online. Use both famous and lesser-known quotes to prove yourself. Show your teacher how smart and resourceful you are (because, well, you are).

5. Repetition

This one has a “do” and a “don’t” attached to it. Do repeat your thesis once in a while, since it’s the opinion that you need to enforce, validate, and solidify in your reader’s mind. State it at the end of your intro, at the end of each of the points in your paragraphs, and in your conclusion. Just remember to phrase it differently each time so that you (and your teacher) won’t get bored. Instructors want to see that you’re confident in your thesis and arguments.

But please don’t repeat arguments. Unlike with thesis statements, your reader only needs to read your point once to fully absorb it. For instance, if you’re trying to argue that Lady MacBeth wasn’t at all responsible for King Duncan’s death, don’t claim that she was possessed by evil spirits in every single paragraph.

6. Symmetry

End your work the way you started it; keep it brief, state the material, mention the writer, use key words of your thesis, and create a good punchline-esque final sentence. This will satisfy the “so what?” question that lingers in your reader’s mind throughout the essay. This final statement should be powerful and grave, not wishy-washy and boring. Make it really stand out.

Okay, so to sum this all up:

• Stick to the point
• Follow the 3-step format of point, quotation, and thesis
• Actually use quotations (creatively)
• Repeat your thesis

Hopefully the pain of essay writing has now been eased for you and the task of having to fix your essay is a bit less daunting.

READ MORE:   How to Write Like Hemingway: 5 Easy Tips to Improve Your Essays

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*Opinions expressed are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Student Life Network or their partners.

McCol D. Iles

McCol D. Iles believes in incense, true love, and cinnamon. She loves being alive, gaining knowledge, and being compassionate towards humankind. She dreams of becoming an accomplished writer, psychologist, and ancient historian living happily ever after in an old stone cottage in the Scottish Highlands.

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Common Writing Mistakes that Could Ruin Your Essay

It’s a common occurrence for anyone to have errors in their writing—we’re all human, right? But wouldn’t it be nice to avoid them altogether?

By being more alert to typical pitfalls, you’ll save a lot of time on revisions and write essays that are clearer and more coherent from the start. Also, readers will find your message more trustworthy; even small errors in your writing can take away from your credibility.

The most commonly made mistakes tend to fall into five categories:

• Format and style

Punctuation

Let’s take a closer look at each of these.

Format and Style

Essay organization and inconsistencies in overall tone and style are an important place to be on the lookout for errors. Here are a few steps to help you format your own writing correctly:

Use paragraphs

This one seems easy, right? But it might surprise you to find how often paragraphs aren’t put together correctly or are left out altogether. Always remember to layout all written work using structured paragraphs.

Include all parts of your essay

Double-check to make sure you have an introduction (with a clear thesis statement ), supporting details, and a conclusion. Without all of these essential parts, your essay won’t be coherent or complete.

Keep the focus on your central purpose

Everything you write should support your main idea. Don’t wander. Always refer back to your thesis statement or essay’s purpose to make sure you are staying on point.

Avoid fragments and run-on sentences

Incomplete thoughts or thoughts that go on and on are poor writing tactics. Be sure you are writing in complete sentences; at a minimum, each sentence should include a noun and a verb.

Don’t be repetitive or lengthy

State what needs to be stated and then move on. Repetitive and lengthy essays are boring for your reader and ineffective in getting your message across on paper.

Keep your tone and point of view consistent

Decide what your tone is and stick with it throughout your essay. If you are serious in your introduction, stay serious throughout. If you are trying to be humorous, keep up the humor throughout.

Also, keep your point of view consistent. Choose to tell your story in the first, second, or third person and avoid switching in between!

When you are writing anything, regardless of what it is for, make sure the grammar is accurate. In writing (as opposed to speaking), there is a permanent record of your words. Improve your grammar usage with these helpful hints:

Make sure subjects and verbs agree

This means that the subject has the correct verb form next to it.

For example, look at “was” vs “were” :

I was at the party. We were at the party.

I was and we were are both in agreement. However, if you flip them, I were and we was , you are using the wrong verb form for each subject.

Take a look at this example:

I seen this girl at the party. She was hot!

The correct verb tense is I saw this girl. Verbs need to agree in the present and past tenses as well.

Identify pronouns

If you are using she, he, it, they, or any other pronoun, make sure these pronouns are identified clearly .

For example:

I saw the dog, the mouse, and the cat. He was the funniest one.

This leaves the reader asking, “ Who was the funniest one?”

To clarify, you need to give the reader more information:

I saw the dog, the mouse, and the cat. The cat was making me laugh so hard. He was the funniest one.

In this case, he is obviously referring to the cat .

All pronouns need to be clear so your reader isn’t left guessing who you are talking about.

Understand “good” and “well”

Good is an adjective that describes a person, place, or thing. Well is an adverb that describes a verb— how someone does something.

For example, we often hear people (incorrectly) state, “I did so good on my English test today!” Actually, it should be “I did well.”

Keep in mind that you can be a good writer when you learn to write well .

While spell check is very helpful, it doesn’t catch everything. Start by being aware of words that are often misspelled and keep track of your own words that seem to stump you.

Learn to spell the most commonly misspelled words

Here are a few words to learn and file away for future use. Write this list on a big piece of paper and keep it nearby when you start an essay:

Make your own list of words you can never remember how to spell

Always wondering if each other is one word or two? Eachother or each other ? (Hint: It’s two words.)

Are you questioning your spelling of whether again? Whether , wether , or weather ?

Add these words to your list of commonly misspelled words and refer to it frequently.

Choosing the correct word to use can sometimes be tricky. Here are a few of the most common words people confuse when writing:

Onto vs. On To

Use onto when you mean on top of :

He lifted the book onto the shelf.

Use on to when the verb needs on in order to function:

He logged on to his computer.

Affect vs. Effect

Affect is a verb . Effect is a noun.

Take a look:

Your grades will affect your chances of getting accepted to the college of your choice.

Poor grades can have a negative effect on your college search.

Former vs. Latter

Former and latter are used to distinguish between two things. Former refers to the first of these two things, and latter refers to the second item.

Milk and cookies are a great snack. The former provides healthy calcium for your bones. The latter is just a yummy, delicious treat.

There vs. Their vs. They’re

There is a pronoun that indicates a location. Their shows possession. They’re is a contracted form of they are.

San Francisco? They have been living there for three years now.

Their tiny apartment in Atlanta was very expensive.

They’re happy they decided to move.

Your vs. You’re

Your shows possession. You’re is the contracted form of you are.

Your children are lovely!

You’re so lucky to have such a beautiful family.

Its vs. It’s

Its shows possession. It’s is the contracted form of it is.

The hamster loves its wheel.

It’s a great form of exercise.

Punctuation mistakes can be the hardest to detect since they are minor details. But keep in mind even the smallest details can have an enormous impact on your writing.

There are way too many comma rules to mention all of them here. However, one of the most basic is to use a comma to address someone or separate a thought.

Check out this common example:

Let’s eat, Grandma.

Let’s eat Grandma.

In the first sentence, you’re suggesting to grandma that it is time to eat. In the second, you’re suggesting that you eat Grandma. That’s a BIG difference made by one little comma.

Possessives

To make a singular noun possessive, you usually add an apostrophe then an s .

This is the little girl’s room.

To make a plural possessive, simply add an apostrophe to the word.

All of the girls’ rooms need to be cleaned.

Capitalization

Wondering what to capitalize? Do you capitalize seasons? Do you capitalize holidays?

Here are a few reminders:

Capitalize: holidays, days, months, planets, religions

DO NOT capitalize: seasons, elements, sun, moon

By avoiding some common writing errors, your writing will be more clear, coherent, and intelligent. If you pay attention to these details, you can write a college essay that stands out for all of the right reasons. Being precise in your word usage, punctuation, and grammar will create an essay that looks polished and is ready to be taken seriously.

How to Write Essay Titles and Headers

Don’t overlook the title and section headers when putting together your next writing assignment. Follow these pointers for keeping your writing organized and effective.

101 Standout Argumentative Essay Topic Ideas

Need a topic for your upcoming argumentative essay? We've got 100 helpful prompts to help you get kickstarted on your next writing assignment.

Writing a Standout College Admissions Essay

Your personal statement is arguably the most important part of your college application. Follow these guidelines for an exceptional admissions essay.

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April 26, 2018, by Helen Lovatt

• How to write a bad essay

Edmund Stewart considers some of the common pitfalls in essay writing in Classics and Archaeology

Here at Nottingham, as at most universities, it is essay season. We await with great hope and some trepidation the arrival of our students’ dissertations. In preparing for this moment, both students and staff may wonder what it is that makes a good, or even a bad essay. Of course, there are the mechanical aspects of academic writing, which are relatively easy to learn (how to best structure a paragraph, how to format references etc.) but more important is how to make a good, or bad, argument. Here I review some of the top mistakes that are certain to irritate even the most serene of supervisors. Feel free to add some more below.

• Absence of evidence is evidence of absence 

A good student knows we always need evidence to support our arguments. So, if there is no evidence for something, then it never happened and the date of our earliest evidence for x or y is also the date at which it first appears. Never mind that we have very little evidence for anything in the ancient world and in general the later the period, the more evidence we are likely to have.

• Add an evolutionary theory or historical moment

Pick a period. This period is the end of a process of evolution. Everything before this period leads inevitably to this one great historical moment and is less advanced and more primitive. Everything after it is decline and decay (unless your period is the present day, in which case we are probably fine: brave new world, people!). Make sure you also pick a momentous period in which everything changes (probably democratic Athens or the reign of Augustus). A new mode of thinking arrives that was completely impossible before and all the hoary old ideas from earlier times are totally abandoned as obsolete. Religious belief, for example, is clearly impossible in a modern world post-Darwin: it is all evolution.

• Apply a theory

If you want an argument that is definitely original, but almost certainly questionable, follow this simple recipe. Take one canonical author (say Euripides or Virgil); add an obscure theory no one has heard of (you can source these in most good sociology departments); mix well and then half-bake; serve lukewarm. Remember, always twist facts to suit theories, not theories to suit facts. Any evidence that falls outside the theory can be ignored: it is obviously impossible for more than one thing to have happened in any given place and time. The best models can be applied to every Greek polis and the whole Roman Empire.

• Develop an unconscious confirmation bias

If, alternatively, you want an argument that is certain to be unoriginal, work on your confirmation biases. If people have been saying the same thing on a subject for a hundred years, why bother to ask questions? Alternatively, if an idea was questioned by a scholar of some authority a hundred years ago (e.g. Wilamowitz or Mommsen), keep well clear. Ideally your life’s work as a scholar should be to defend the views of your supervisor’s supervisor’s supervisor, to whom you owe so much.

• Keep your logic circular

A text can most easily be explained by the historical context when the evidence for that context is itself the text. For example, in the society known to Homer honour was really important, and this is why it is a key theme in the Iliad .

• It’s all Propaganda

Use this word regularly and try to put it into the title of your dissertation. It shows that ancient literary texts (especially Euripides’ Troades or the Aeneid ) have only one message and one purpose and it was all about Augustus or Athenian democracy. Duh.

• Historicize

The easiest way to understand a text (especially if you do not have time to read it) is to understand the original audience. You can of course assume that all audience members always have identical opinions on a text or performance. If those audience members happen not to be available for comment because they are dead (i.e. if they are Greeks and Romans), you can find out what their views were by studying the social context. Look for any important contemporary political events: your text is probably a social commentary on them (clearly Pride and Prejudice is all about Napoleon and Sauron in the Lord of the Rings is basically Hitler).

• And most importantly . . . never define your terms

Everyone knows what discourse, ideology, aristocracy, class, patriarchy, gaze, objectification, propaganda (keep using it) etc. mean, why bother to define them? It simply wastes words.

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Four Examples of Bad Writing and How to Fix Them

Posted on July 30, 2020 August 2, 2020

There are many ways in which your writing could be thought of as bad, but in this week’s blog, I want to unpack just a few:

Sentimental

Melodramatic.

• Overwriting.

As with all writing rules, there is a place for sentimental writing. When used sparingly it can be emotionally evocative, when used in great swathes it becomes heavy handed.

One of the biggest problems that can occur with sentimental writing is when cruel, oppressive, pitiful, or difficult issues/situations are romanticised.

Think of the portrayal of black domestic workers in The Help, the violence these women would have suffered is swept aside in place of a pie joke.

There is nothing sentimental about inspiring compassion in our readers, and writing manipulates its audience one way or another, but when facts, history, or suffering are stuffed into the back of the closet or concealed by an ornate mask … that is a problem.

In terms of writing exercises, melodrama can be fun; however, no one wants to read a 600+ fantasy novel dripping with over the top emotions or purple prose.

Melodrama is exaggeration, extreme emotions, and unbelievable dialogue (“nobody talks like that!”).

Basically, it’s another form of telling instead of showing. Rather than establishing the mood through language, the writer is relying on the melodrama to communicate the seriousness of the situation.

Yes, life can be dramatic, but melodramatic writing can break believability and your reader may struggle to take the story seriously.

This bad habit can be avoided by focussing instead on a few craft basics such as, character development, obstacles, and feelings.

Readers need to care about the characters enough (or at least the MC) to be invested in what happens to them, they need to encounter obstacles, and the reader needs some access to their interior landscape.

Lazy Writing

There’s a huge difference between simple writing and lazy writing. Simple writing is clear, lazy writing is boring and unspecific.

Simple writing: The room was empty when he entered.

Lazy writing: He walked through the garden.

We’re all guilty of slipping into this lazy form of prose, hell, first drafts are usually full of these types of sentences as we’re trying to figure out the story!

Lazy writing relies on overused and unspecific verbs.

Not every sentence will be a work of art, but a bad sentence can be fixed simply by exchanging the dull verbs for lively and surprising ones. (NB: you cannot solve this problem with adverbs!).

Take the above example, what would happen if we exchanged ‘walked’ for another verb?

Edited version: He skipped through the garden.

What if we added some adjective, nouns, or even proper nouns to spice it up further!

Edited version: Larry skipped through the luscious garden.

The sentence is still simple, but now it is clear and specific. We can see Larry, his actions, and the setting, whereas before we could not.

Lazy writing can also be an over reliance on cliché’ or your specific writing ticks – words or phrases that you unconsciously use … a lot!

Weeding these bad boys out and finding new ways to say the same thing will ensure that your sentences remain surprising and delightful.

Overwriting

I’ve previously blogged about how to reduce your word count , but there are several different ways in which we can overwrite.

First there is the inclusion of too many adjectives or adverbs.

For example: The chipped and worn door flew open with a bang to reveal a stately man with quite the pronounced belly and exceptionally large nose.

While this sentence is a bit fun in its’ over the top nature, reading an entire novel in this manner would be … unpleasant.

Edited version: The door opened with a bang to reveal a well-dressed man with a pronounced belly and large nose.

The edited version is tighter (18 words instead of 24) and more specific (well-dressed instead of stately).

The second way you can overwrite is by either saying the same thing two different ways (tautology) or by over explaining things.

The door, which is a large piece of wood that separates two rooms and is secured to a frame by hinges, flew open with a bang.

Emily is Erin’s sister. Emily is Erin’s female sibling.

I don’t think I really need to unpack these …

Look, there are times when bad writing is okay.

Your first draft for instance will be bad, but when we becoming aware of what bad writing looks like, why it is bad, and most importantly how to fix it, we can effectively revise our prose and publish stories that we are truly proud of.

Now, over to you. What are some examples of bad writing that you can think of? What areas in your own writing do you need to work on? Leave a comment below, I’d love to know.

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Bad College Essay Examples: 5 Essay Mistakes To Avoid

Grades, GPA, and transcripts are important components when applying to college. But numbers only tell part of the story. The  college admissions essay  plays a much more powerful role in telling your personal story to college admissions officers. So while university admissions departments may set initial cut-offs based on numbers, they make their final decision based on your college personal statement essay.

At Wordvice, we know college admissions essays. Every year, we receive tens of millions of words to edit from students applying to college. Therefore, we know what good college essays, bad college essays, and great college essays look like–and what students should do in their essays to get the attention of admissions officers.

Here we will cover  how to write a good college personal statement  by looking at some  common college admission essay mistakes to avoid  and discuss ways to improve your college application essays.

What does a good college application essay look like?

Before looking at some essay mistakes to avoid (or “bad college essays” to be a bit more blunt), let’s discuss what a good admissions essay does. Effective college personal statements give broad, comprehensive insights into your personal and academic background, provide college admissions counselors with an overview of your goals, and answer the college prompt directly and clearly. 

One of the best ways to learn how to write a good college application essay is to look at what successful students wrote.  

Check out a few powerful  examples of successful personal statements  so you can recognize what a great college application essay looks like. Reading examples of college essays can help you to understand exactly what college admissions officers are looking for.

Useful Tips on How to Write a College Admissions Essay

Once you take a look at what some successful college essay examples look like, the second step should be looking at some useful tips and checklists. This will help organize your college essay writing process, so look at these tips  before  you start writing and check them off as you go. 

• Quick Tips to Conquer the College Application Essay
• Six Tips for Proofreading your College Admissions Essay

Why it’s Important to Avoid Mistakes in Your College Essay

Even if you include all of the above positive tips in your college application essay, you still need to be aware of and avoid common college application essay mistakes. The importance of this cannot be understated. 

Negativity bias  is the concept in psychology that people will remember, dwell on, and act upon unpleasant thoughts and emotions as compared to positive or correct ones. Therefore, applicants should focus on the positive and productive elements of their personal narrative in the essay, even if this story includes some negative events or circumstances.

What does this mean for your college application essay?

Your personal statement is not only scanned by AI-powered grammar and spell checker apps to weed out simple mistakes outright, they are also read, interpreted, and graded by real human college admissions officers. These are seasoned professionals who will reject your college essay for any reason they deem fit. 

Randi Heathman, an independent education consultant, gives a clear summary of  why application essays are rejected :

Weak essays get skimmed. If a student’s essay isn’t great OR good, the admission officer will probably just skim past the essay and move right on to your transcript and your test scores to evaluate your candidacy for admission. Bad essays don’t get read. Period. A bad essay will prompt an admission officer to assume one of two things: 1) either you don’t care enough about your future at their school to take the time to write a good essay or 2) you aren’t academically up to attending their college or university. Neither of those assumptions will help you get admitted.

Do you see a theme here? Your college admissions essay needs to not only engage in and answer the prompt but also not give admissions officers any reasons to discard it. 

For this reason, students must actively  avoid the following college admissions essay mistakes.

Common College Essay Mistakes To Avoid

Below is a list and analysis of the types of mistakes to avoid on your college personal statement and avoid writing a bad college essay that will likely NOT get you into your program of choice.

Your Application Essay Repeats the Essay Prompt

Many universities have strict word counts that are designed to make the admissions process more efficient but also force you to write concisely. 

For example,  Villanova University has two application essays . The free choice essay is limited to 250 words while its “Why Nova?” essay is limited to just 100 words! 

So if you really want to ruin your chances of admission, repeat the essay prompt. Veteran college admissions officers will instantly trash your essay. It shows laziness and is interpreted as you not respecting their time. You need every opportunity to show who you are, your goals, and how you align with your target university. The best students have plenty to write about, and so should you.

Your Application Essay Uses Cliches

One of the biggest mistakes to avoid in your college admissions essay would be including tired clichés that don’t add interesting points or content. Don’t try to sound profound, exclusive, or postmodern in your writing. This will be obvious to the reader, and you probably will also not be the best writer or candidate on paper they have seen. What’s actually important is to demonstrate your self-awareness, your self-confidence, and your priorities and goals. 

Trying desperately to sound special will make you end up sounding like every other applicant, and admissions officers are experts at spotting fakes. You have plenty of resources to work with. Make sure your ideas are your own.

Example of clichés in an essay

When explaining a personal setback or a difficult decision, instead of writing, “This event was a disparate result antithetical to my character,” show some personal ownership and be straightforward. Here is a better way to phrase this sentiment:  “This is a decision I am not proud of, but it helped me learn a valuable lesson and put me in a better place today. Without this formative experience, I wouldn’t be the kind of person who applies myself in every challenging circumstance.”  

Need extra help improving your essay writing? Check out these  14 tricks to make your writing clearer and more engaging :

Your Admissions Essay Shares Too Much Personal Information

You have probably read everywhere that your personal statement should be, well, personal. Colleges want to get to know not just your academic background but also your personal worldview and interactions with successful people. 

This doesn’t mean you should discuss deeply personal issues at length or in too great of detail. Even controversial topics such as religion and politics are often welcomed if your perspective is well reasoned and fair. However, you must be able to demonstrate you can respect, recognize, and maintain personal boundaries. That is a key life skill that college admissions committees are looking for. 

Examples of sharing too much personal information

• Don’t discuss your sexual experiences.  Your sexual orientation may be a key part of your overall identity. However, limit this by keeping out details of personal activities. Use common sense and understand that most admissions officers are members of the general public who might not respond favorably to explicit details of your personal life. 
• Don’t confess to strange, illegal, or immoral behaviors or beliefs.  If you have a strange obsession, keep it to yourself. Only include unique aspects about your character or preferences if are key parts of how you view the world or your success as a student.
• Don’t insult subgroups of people . You never know who your college admissions officer will be. You want to show you know how to interface with the world, and your college application is a big first step to showing your maturity and inclusive views.

Your Admissions Essay is a Sympathy Essay

This essay mistake is very similar to oversharing personal information. These types of essays are usually a long list of all the terrible things that have happened to you with the hope that the admissions committee will take pity because they feel bad for you. 

Newsflash: the “sympathy approach” likely is not going to work. A lot of prospective students have gone through the divorce of their parents, the death of a friend or family member, medical issues, disabilities, mental health issues, accidents, etc. 

If you do want to include these life-changing or identity-forming events, they must be used to explain how they shaped you as a person, what you learned, and how you handled adversity. Show how you grew as a person or how your worldview and character were altered to make you into the excellent college candidate you are today.

Examples of “sympathy essays”

• “Everyone around me kept me from succeeding.”  Like the lyrics of an early-2000’s rock song, some application essays foreground their experiences on a canvas of pain and oppression by all the people around them. This is just self-defeating. Even if something happened that changed your plans, upset you, or harmed you in some way, reframe your story to show how you were able to shift your priorities and succeed after you learned what you were unable to do.
• “Becoming injured my senior year ruined my plans.”  If you are an athlete and suffered a career or scholarship-ending injury, that is a big deal. But your potential doesn’t just disappear because of a setback. Whatever events and influences made you who you were before are still more important than a single unfortunate occurrence in your past. 

Your Application Essay Gives You All the Credit

While you may have top SAT scores, a high GPA, and lots of awards, don’t forget this one simple truth: there are always bigger fish in the sea. No matter how good of an applicant you are, there will be someone better based on whatever metric you are proud of. 

So what should you write about in your college application essay to stand out from the many overachievers?

Try humility and perspective. Don’t forget to give credit where credit is due. No person is an island, so in your essay you can give recognition to those who helped you along the way. Try not to belittle or minimize the contribution of your high school teachers or mentors. Admissions counselors, as educational professionals, will be looking to see if you are ready to interact with the next level of academic educators. So including friends, family members, and mentors who helped you grow and develop could be a good topic for your college personal statement.

Examples of “giving yourself all the credit” in an essay

• “I was valedictorian and did it all by myself.”  You should be proud of your academic achievements, as they are important for your college application among other goals. However, give credit to someone who helped you learn. You didn’t teach yourself!
• “In the end, I found the only person I could rely on was myself.”  Some students come from very tough backgrounds, and so it can be tempting for these students to stress this in their essay. But remember that college admissions offices want you to add value to the university community as a college student at their school. Even the smartest students cannot do this if they fail to acknowledge the contributions of others. 

Your Personal Statement Has Not Received Proofreading or Editing

A sure way to get your college essay thrown aside is to have it full of grammar and spelling mistakes. The college admissions process is very competitive, and you need every edge you can get. You should spend a substantial portion of your essay preparation editing and proofreading after writing your personal statement.

Start by reviewing and revising the essay yourself. Read it aloud. Run it through a couple of online spelling and grammar checkers. And start early on each college application–at least two weeks before the application deadline. You should also consider giving your admissions essay to a friend, parent, or teacher to review. This can help you improve your essay in many ways because other people can give quite different perspectives. 

Check out the  Benefits of Peer Review vs Self-Editing .

Finally, you should look into using an application essay proofreading and editing service to revise and improve your application essay. Just as peer review is superior to self-editing alone, professional proofreading services and application essay editing services are superior to peer review. The hard truth is that too many other students (your competition) are going above and beyond in preparing these important essays. Being short on time and expertise makes using an editing and proofreading service a good solution.

How Does Wordvice Improve Your College Application Essay?

Wordvice editors  are required to have graduate or postgraduate degrees. This means you are getting guaranteed expertise compared to other services, which typically only require editors to hold a bachelor’s degree. Wordvice is also among the top-rated  essay editing services  and personal statement editing services by Wired.com. We achieved this recognition by following the  Wordvice Customer Promise . That means providing value to every student and every personal statement we edit. 

Additional Admissions Essay Steps to Take

We hope you learned a lot from these examples of successful college personal statements. So what’s next?

I want to learn more about the college admissions process

Interested in learning more tips from experts about the college admissions process, personal statements, or letters of recommendation? Check out the  Wordvice Admissions Resource blog .

I am interested in professional editing for my personal statement

We also got you covered! Check out our  English editing services to get started on improving your college essays. Or jump straight in and use our  editing price calculator to get an editing price quote and start the ordering process.

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Really bad writing.

Welcome to the intriguing world of writing – a tantalizing tapestry of creativity, emotion, and intellectual exploration. Here, words aren’t merely vessels of communication; they’re mirrors, reflecting the vibrant mindscapes of their creators. While we often celebrate the artistry of good writing, we rarely venture into the intriguing shadows of its less glamorous counterpart – bad writing. It’s akin to exploring a secret attic, dusty and daunting, but filled with untold lessons. Let’s bravely pull back the curtain on bad writing, discover its quirks, understand its pitfalls, and learn how it can guide us on our journey to becoming stronger, more skilful writers. Buckle up, for we’re about to embark on a writing adventure like no other!

Examples of Bad Writing

Below are sample excerpts from what I think is a really bad writing. These excerpts are collected from different stories, either written by me (sometimes, when you edit, you find monsters), or by other authors. I won’t disclose their names though. Read the following samples, guess what’s wrong with them, and never write like this.

1. Sunday was a marvelous, uplifting day, perfect for our usual slow and cozy strolls around the picturesque autumn park. It was late glorious October outside, and the whole town was covered with yellow, red, brown, and crimson crispy leaves. The blue sky with fluffy, curly white clouds in it looked light-minded as if all the gruesome and sad miseries of unhappy people living under it were none of its business but its own. I put on my beige warm sweater of large viscous, pushed an old ragged door of my tiny apartment, and went outside and went outside, oh, went outside.

I hope you noticed the enormous quantity of adjectives and epithets and the grammatical errors. Don’t repeat these mistakes.

2. Whenever I was feeling depressed, sad, or just out of place, I would pack my things into a small backpack, write a couple of short letters to my friends—just to prevent them from worrying about my whereabouts—and set off travelling around the state; it really did not matter for me where to go—in youth, I was fascinated with the aesthetics and nomadic romance of the beat generation, so usually I would buy a ticket on a bus (Greyhound Express, just like Jack Kerouac would like it, baby) driving to nowhere, sit, drink from my canteen, and watch the endless miles of the road pass by me outside of the window.

I almost fell asleep while I tried to read to the end of this super-long sentence. And this is not even the longest sentence I’ve encountered.

3. She looked as if she was struck by lightning: her eyes going to fall out of orbits, her mouth wide open, as if she was trying to swallow a train, her skin deadly pale. To me, seeing her in such a condition was heartbreaking, like eggs being cracked upon a stone.

Metaphors and comparisons can be okay if you use them once every few pages. But back to back, they can be annoying—especially poorly-used metaphors.

4. Emotional detachment between us during manifested harmony in relationships was causing a cognitive dissonance within me; my mind was wandering in Kafkian labyrinths of doubt, guilt, and sorrow, while my mouth almost subconsciously produced sparkling words that people usually associate with love.

Don’t try to sound smart. It destroys the magic of your text. If your reader has no idea about Kafkian labyrinths or cognitive dissonance, your effort will be in vain.

5. Electric compulsion of misery flowed through the night megalopolis, filling the veins of pragmatic reality with juices. Magnetic Adam of the new epoch, the innocent function of digital satori, who were you in this entropy?

WHAT?! This is too avant-garde, and in this case, it’s not a compliment.

You seriously don’t want to stumble upon such authors. So, if you were planning on working with some writers, you better check their works beforehand. Consider checking out the best custom writing service reviews – maybe you can find true masters of the words there.

Top Writing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them: A Comprehensive Guide

The art of writing holds immense transformative power. But, as with any craft, it can also be filled with potential pitfalls. This article unveils some common writing mistakes and provides insightful strategies to improve your craft. Let’s dive in.

One common writing faux pas is ‘info-dumping’. Authors can fall into the trap of overloading the reader with a sudden onslaught of information to create context or background. Rather than risking the reader’s interest with a wall of text, try subtly sprinkling details throughout the story . As the old saying goes, a little can go a long way.

Next on our list is the pitfall of excessive descriptive language. While well-chosen adjectives can help transport readers to another world, their overuse can slow down the narrative and disengage readers. Remember, a well-crafted narrative strikes a balance between descriptive language and concise storytelling. To achieve this balance, consider using a free sentence rewriter to refine your prose and eliminate unnecessary verbosity.

Clichés are yet another common writing mistake. Overuse of these familiar phrases can make a story feel stale and predictable, suggesting a lack of original thought. Instead of resorting to clichés, try using fresh, original metaphors and descriptions to make your work truly stand out.

Our exploration into common writing errors would be incomplete without addressing ‘telling’ instead of ‘showing’. Instead of explicitly telling your readers that a character is scared, for example, show them descriptions of the character’s trembling hands, quickened breath, or the chill crawling up their spine. The art of storytelling lies in not just what information you convey, but how you convey it.

Another critical issue arises when dialogue feels unnatural or stilted. If characters speak like robots or philosophers in everyday conversation, it can create a disconnect for the reader. To prevent this, try incorporating authentic, real-world dialogue . Remember, your characters should feel like real people.

Lastly, we address the common writing mistake of overusing passive voice. Passive sentences tend to be wordy and less direct, which can make them feel awkward or weak. To enhance the energy of your writing, be bold, be direct, and let your active voice shine!

Let’s shift gears and explore some insights derived from personal experiences shared by writers.

Many writers initially struggle with ‘purple prose,’ a term for writing that’s overly ornate or flowery. Over time, they realize that simplicity often makes for more compelling reading. In the world of writing, less is indeed often more.

Overuse of adverbs is another pitfall writers often face in their early attempts at crafting a story. Learning to trust nouns and verbs to carry the scene can help writers overcome this habit and produce more impactful prose.

Creating two-dimensional characters is another common issue. Characters should feel like living, breathing beings with depth and motivation, rather than mere cardboard cutouts.

Inconsistent point-of-view is another challenge that writers often need to overcome. Maintaining a consistent narrative perspective can help to create a stronger narrative focus and engage readers more effectively.

Finally, writers new to poetry often struggle with forced rhymes and rhythms. With practice, they learn to let the words flow naturally, focusing on the message rather than the rhymes.

Exploring Examples of Bad Writing and How to Improve Them

Bad writing is something every writer wants to avoid. However, understanding what constitutes poor writing can be a useful tool in improving writing quality. To shed light on this, we’ll explore some examples of bad writing, commonly seen in popular books, both in literary fiction and commercial fiction.

Inappropriate Dialogue and Dialogue Tags

One common example of bad writing can be found in the execution of dialogue. Good writing involves creating conversations that sound natural and real. However, in some bestselling books, character conversations can feel forced or unnatural, leading to poor writing. For instance, using dialogue tags inappropriately can disrupt the flow of speaking parts. Tags like “he exclaimed” or “she bellowed” used excessively can distract the reader and detract from the narrative. Skilled writing involves using dialogue tags sparingly and effectively.

Another example of bad writing in dialogue is the use of unnatural language. Characters should speak like real people, their language reflecting their background, age, and personality. When character names start to spout jargon or use overly complex language without any contextual reasoning, it can feel jarring to the reader.

Ineffective Description

Description is a critical component of both literary novels and genre fiction. However, bad writing often includes detailed descriptions that don’t serve the story. For example, imagine a scene in a coffee shop where the author spends three paragraphs describing the intricate design of the espresso machine. Unless the coffeehouse or the machine plays a significant role in the narrative, such a vivid depiction is unnecessary and can slow down the pace of the story.

Good writing, on the other hand, incorporates descriptive writing that enhances the narrative and deepens the reader’s understanding of the characters or the setting. A quality description in a literary work or a popular novel should be concise, relevant, and evocative, creating a vivid picture in the reader’s mind without overburdening them with unnecessary details.

Confusing Point of View

A clear and consistent point of view is a hallmark of effective writing. However, in some highly read books, the author’s perspective or the narrative perspective can become muddled, leading to bad writing. For instance, if a story is told from a single character’s point of view, but suddenly includes information that this character couldn’t possibly know, it breaks the consistency of the storytelling angle and can confuse the reader.

The Power of Redrafting

Improving writing, particularly in commercial fiction and literary fiction, often involves significant rewriting, editing, or revising. Redrafting is a critical part of the writing process that allows authors to identify and correct instances of bad writing.

For instance, dialogue can be improved by removing unnecessary dialogue markers, making conversations more natural, and ensuring that character names and their speech reflect their personalities and backgrounds. Descriptions can be refined to ensure they serve the story and aren’t overly detailed. The point of view can be clarified and made consistent throughout the story.

Inconsistent Characterization

Characterization is a vital aspect of both literary works and mainstream novels. However, bad writing often manifests as inconsistent characterization, where the traits, actions, or reactions of the protagonist or other characters don’t align with what has been established earlier in the story. For instance, a character portrayed as shy and introverted suddenly becoming outgoing and gregarious without any plausible explanation or character development can confuse readers and weaken the narrative.

In good writing, characters evolve over time, but such changes are gradual and justified by the plot or their experiences. The names of the characters and their actions should align with their personalities, backgrounds, and the story’s overall context.

Misuse of Common Settings

Another area where bad writing can be evident is in the depiction of common settings, such as a coffee shop or a café. For example, if every significant conversation or revelation in the story occurs in an espresso bar without any compelling reason, it can strain the story’s credibility and become repetitive. Effective writing employs a variety of settings and ensures that the location matches the scene’s tone and significance.

Ineffective Use of Language

Poor writing often includes redundant phrases, incorrect word usage, and convoluted sentence structures, which can distract the reader and interrupt the narrative flow. An essential part of improving writing is honing language skills, choosing the right words for clarity and impact, and maintaining grammatical accuracy.

Overcoming Bad Writing through Redrafting

One of the most reliable ways to address bad writing is through redrafting, rewriting, or revising the text. This process involves examining every aspect of the story, from dialogue and description to character consistency and point of view, and making necessary changes to enhance the writing quality.

Redrafting can also involve replacing overused words with synonyms, improving sentence structure, and eliminating unnecessary details or repetitions. For instance, a dialogue tag like “he said” can often be removed entirely if it’s clear who’s speaking, leading to cleaner, more effective writing.

The Transformational Journey from Draft to Masterpiece

Few writers strike gold with their first drafts; the true magic happens during the revision phase. Revision, or redrafting, is a powerful tool that can elevate a good piece to greatness. It’s the process where we refine our thoughts, improve our arguments, and perfect our language to better connect with readers. An essential aspect of writing, revision can transform a raw manuscript into a polished masterpiece.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Organizing Effective Redrafting:

• Embrace the Pause: Once you’ve completed your initial draft, give yourself permission to take a break. This intentional distancing allows your mind to reset, and when you return, you’ll be equipped with fresh eyes, ready to identify any gaps in information, inconsistencies in the plot or argument, or any parts that may be unclear to your reader.
• Read Aloud:: When you read your work aloud, you engage another sense that helps you perceive your writing from a different perspective. You become the audience, able to pick up on awkward phrasing, clunky sentences, or tonal inconsistencies that might be overlooked when reading silently.
• Involve Others: Enlist the help of a trusted friend, mentor, or editor to review your work. They bring an outsider’s perspective, essential for pinpointing areas that might be confusing or lacking in explanation. This feedback provides a road map for your revisions.
• Revise in Stages: : Attempting to revise everything simultaneously can be daunting. Therefore, break your revision down into manageable stages. Start with the macro level by focusing on the overall content and structure. Once you’re satisfied, dive into the micro level, examining sentence structure, language use, and word choice. Lastly, focus on fine-tuning the grammar and punctuation.
• Sacrifice for the Greater Good: Writers often coin the term “kill your darlings” when talking about beloved but unnecessary portions of their work. It’s vital to stay objective and be willing to cut your favourite sentence or paragraph if it doesn’t contribute to the overall piece.
• Final Sweep – Proofreading: After all the conceptual and structural changes, meticulously scour your work for any overlooked typos, grammatical errors, or punctuation mishaps. These seemingly small mistakes can greatly affect the credibility and impact of your work.
• Iterate and Refine: Remember, good writing is the result of continuous refining. Don’t hesitate to undergo multiple rounds of revisions. With each round, your writing will become more refined, clear, and powerful. This process doesn’t necessarily get easier, but the rewards of a well-crafted piece are worth every revision.

The path to becoming a skilled writer is paved with lessons. Embrace the process of continual learning and improvement. Every story you write is a part of your unique narrative as a writer.

Stay updated for more!

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How to Overcome Your Fear of Being a Bad Writer

by Fija Callaghan

Weird, right? Becoming a writer and sharing stories with the world seems like it would be the best thing ever. So why do so many aspiring writers suffer from debilitating panic when they try to put pen to page?

Don’t worry—you’re not alone. Whether it’s fear of being a bad writer, of rejection, judgement, or failure, all writers have experienced this from time to time. We’ll explore some of the totally normal fears writers come up against when they begin their journey, and how to overcome them one day at a time.

Where does creative fear come from?

First of all, why is creative writing such a frightening endeavor? It’s so easy for children to be creative—they can build stories out of anything, and do it all day long. But something happens once we reach adulthood that heightens the stakes and makes us suddenly doubt ourselves.

These doubts stem from not being enough : creative enough, eloquent enough, likeable enough. There’s an idea that by embarking on a creative journey, we’re setting ourselves up to fail.

Because writing is such an intimate and personal art form, this failure can feel like more than a rejection of our words—it’s a rejection of our very being.

Harsh, right? Don’t worry. We’re here to guide you past these fears so that you can start writing and get those ideas into the world.

(And! A fun fact: the fear of writing is actually called “Scriptophobia,” which is a Greek word that comes from script , writing, and phobos , fear.)

Common fears all writers face

Every great writer has faced one—or all—of these fears at some point in their lives when confronted with a blank page. Let’s take a closer look at each one and what they mean for you, so you can find the courage to face it head on.

Fear of being a bad writer

Writing is hard , guys. But when you see shiny, published novels on the shelf that look like they were written effortlessly, it can make you feel like a terrible writer in comparison. After all, shouldn’t your novel just spin out of your pen in a riot of light and colour, fully formed and ready to take the world by storm?

We don’t see all the hard work that goes into these finished products. We don’t see that our favorite authors struggle with exactly the same doubts, inhibitions, and crappy first drafts that we do.

Remember—“bad” writing is rich in raw material for you to work with, and you can’t write your short story or novel without it.

Fear of writers’ block

Here’s the tough truth about writers’ block: it’s self propagating. Once you begin to feel that first hint of creative stagnation, your mind jolts into an irrational fear that it won’t go away… which only makes it that much more stubborn.

It’s a bit like trying to fight your way out of a spider’s web; the more you struggle against it, the stickier and more suffocating it becomes. It’s enough to make you want to throw down your pen and give up for good.

Unfortunately, this is a path backwards, not forwards. There’s no shortcut—the only way to defeat writers’ block is to push through it. You can check out our dedicated lesson on overcoming writers’ block here .

Fear of intimate expression

The best stories, the ones we read long past bedtime and that stay with us for a lifetime, reveal a true experience or feeling on behalf of the writer.

Even if this experience is wrapped up in layers of fantasy or science fiction, we inherently recognize it as something real. But when it’s us on the other side of that page, stripping away a layer of social façade for the purpose of entertainment can be blindly terrifying.

Many writers hesitate when they reach something a little too close to the heart. On some level we understand that we’re placing something very delicate and personal on the page for the world to see.

It’s a difficult, uncomfortable place to be in as a writer—but it’s also where the most powerful stories are born.

If you need a gentle push through these intimate moments, consider this awesome quote by Neil Gaiman (who we’ll talk more about a little further on):

The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.

Fear of rejection

Fear of not being good enough for readers, publishers, or other writers is one of the most debilitating things we face on our writing journey.

No matter how many times we’re told that all writers face rejection, or that it’s a very real part of the writing process, it’s still scary—and it still hurts when it inevitably happens. Wouldn’t it be easier to just not try at all?

Well yes, probably, but then you’d never get to share your beautiful work with the world. Rejection is something professional writers deal with on a day to day basis and, like writers’ block, the only way forward is through.

We’ll look more at how to deal with rejection later on in this article.

Fear of success

Say what ? Yes, success is a real fear that many writers face as they inch towards the top of the publishing roller coaster—the apex that separates writing as a hobby from writing as a real job.

Many writers become afraid that writing won’t be fun anymore, that they’ll suddenly owe their words to someone else, that they’ll be inundated with vicious social media attacks, that they’ll be a one-hit wonder like Richard Madoc in Sandman .

This fear often comes from the impending sense that change is in the air. Publishing a book is a little bit like becoming a parent; once you become a published author, you can never go back to not being one again.

This is a super exciting time, but scary, too.

Ways to overcome fear of writing

So how do we deal with these realities of the writing life? To begin writing professionally, you’ll need perseverance, determination, and a hint of chutzpah to succeed.

The good news is that fear doesn’t derail these writer’s traits; it only slows them down a little.

Let’s look at some tips and tricks to manage fear of your own writing and start putting words down on paper.

1. Set manageable goals

As Margaret Atwood famously said, “You become a writer by writing. There is no other way.”

We know it’s easier said than done, but the only way you’re going to overcome your fears is to start writing. With every word, sentence, paragraph, page, it becomes a little easier and you’ll start sitting down at your desk thinking, I can do this .

Exercising your writing skills is just like exercising a muscle: start small and work your way up. Some writers like to set a time limit for how long they spend writing—for example, ten minutes of uninterrupted silence to simply journal, explore a new character, write a detailed setting, or sketch out a plot summary.

Or, you could measure your progress by word or page counts. Even if all you can manage is one hundred words of your story-in-progress at a time, that’s one hundred words closer than you were before.

Try this every day for a week, then next week broaden your goals a little bit more. If you start with small, manageable objectives, they’ll seem less intimidating and you’ll feel proud of yourself for getting some actual writing done.

2. Write by hand

If you do most of your composing by computer, try writing something by hand in a notebook instead. You might find the tactile sensations of putting words down on paper more calming and less intimidating than staring at a blinking cursor on a blank screen.

Plus, there are endless possibilities for the types of tools you can use. Whether you choose a fancy leather bound journal or a friendly composition book, an elegant fountain pen or an HB pencil with a nerdy literary quote on it, there’s a writing set out there that will feel just right for you.

3. Create a calming writing ritual

If you find those perfect tools to take on your writing journey, another great way to create a mental safe space for your writing is to get into a special routine. Think about what sort of things might make you feel safe, inspired, and judgement free.

This might be a particular area of your home, a certain tea cup you use only for your writing sessions, a special writer’s sweater (or bulletproof vest !). You could light a candle, burn essential oils, or put on a special playlist of literary tracks.

This writing ritual will look different for everybody, but it should say, “This is my writing space, and nobody can take it away.”

4. Join a writing group

Writing groups are great for two things: support and accountability. Your parents or your spouse mean well, but nobody knows what you’re going through better than other writers. They can be the best people to keep you going when times are tough.

Writing groups can share feedback and writing prompts to get you going, cheer you on when your work is accepted, and pick you up when you get a rejection or negative feedback on your work—as you inevitably will from time to time.

They’re also great for helping you stay on track and fulfill your writing goals, no matter how big or how small. If you need some help keeping on top of your goals, why not try this fun magical writing contract with a friend?

5. Write letters (and don’t send them)

If you’re nervous about starting to write, a great warmup exercise is to write a letter—one that you’ll (probably) never send.

This might be to your best friend, a family member (living or otherwise), your favourite author, or even a fictional character. Tell them about the things that are holding you back, and what you think they might tell you if they were there.

This is a fun form of journaling which takes the focus off your own insecurities, helps you become more self aware of your obstacles, and encourages you to look at them in a fresh way. Most importantly, it gets your words flowing. Before long, you’ll forget you were ever feeling uninspired in the first place!

6. Destigmatize rejection

This is a big one. Any published author will tell you that rejection is a reality of the writing life; as a writer, you’ll need to learn to face them head on and take them in stride. It’s all part of the journey.

To get some practice at dealing with inevitable literary rejection, why not try the 100 Rejections challenge ?

The idea is to aim for 100 rejections in a single year by submitting as widely and often as possible. Once you hit this mark, you’ll probably have built up a healthy stack of acceptance letters, too, and found opportunities you wouldn’t have thought of trying otherwise. And each rejection will get a little bit easier, until you start to feel like you can handle anything life can throw at you.

Another way to remind yourself that you’re in good company as a writer is to read up on the rejections other writers have faced, like this list here . From gently encouraging to scathing, these rejections could have stopped aspiring authors in their tracks—but they didn’t, and the literary world is richer for it.

Remember: the greatest writers aren’t the most talented, or the most well-connected, or the luckiest. They’re the ones who kept going.

7. Embrace the compost heap

Not all writing is good writing, and that’s perfectly okay . Some writers refer to the writing they don’t use right away as a “compost heap.”

This means all the writing that didn’t go anywhere, or wasn’t right for the story they were working on at the time, or got scrapped in service to the plot, gets put aside as “fertilizer” for future projects. You might consciously look back through your notes and stumble on an idea for a new story, character, or place; or, you might carry those disused fragments of writing in your subconscious, where they slowly percolate into new inspiration later on.

There is no wasted work. Everything you do as a writer has value, whether it inspires a new idea later on or simply teaches you something new. Which brings us to our final tip for battling your fear of writing:

8. Practice gratitude in your writing life

Every time you put words down on paper, you’re shaping your future as a writer. Whether you’re practicing a new skill, stretching your limitations, exploring an idea, or pushing past the edge of your comfort zone, everything you write has something to teach you.

If you can start looking at your work as an ally and mentor, rather than an enemy, you’ll see there was nothing to be afraid of all along. Honor your writing, and honor yourself.

Fear of writing success story: The Graveyard Book

If you think your favorite authors are immune to the fears of writing, think again. Even the richest, most famous, most successful published authors experience self doubt or fear of being a bad writer from time to time. One great example is Neil Gaiman’s prize-winning novel The Graveyard Book .

As Gaiman has said in numerous interviews , he first planned to write The Graveyard Book when he was in his mid-twenties. But after an uninspiring first attempt, he decided he needed to wait a few years until he was a better writer. He would do this every few years, write a couple pages, and think nah, I’m not good enough yet. I’ll try again when I’m a better writer .

It took him a long time to realize that it wasn’t his limitations of skill that were holding him back—it was his fear of being a bad writer. When he eventually pushed through this fear and wrote the book, he won the British Carnegie Medal and the American Newbery Medal!

The moral? Great literature doesn’t happen by waiting for the fear of writing to go away—it happens when writing becomes more important than the fear.

To start writing is an act of courage

A fear of writing is natural and nothing to be ashamed of—but don’t let it hold you back from sharing your words. Some people spend their whole life waiting to be “ready” to begin writing. The funny thing is that nobody’s ever truly “ready”; the trick is simply to begin.

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• 14 Ways to Improve Your Grades if You’re Underperforming

Even the brightest students can sometimes find themselves academically underperforming, often through no fault of their own. When students find themselves in this situation, it’s often because they’re stuck in a rut and are not sure what to do to improve. If this sounds like you, the first step is to work out the reasons why you may be underperforming, and the next step is to work out how to tackle the problem. If you’re not sure how to go about it, this article shows you what you can do to form an improvement plan to help you achieve the grades you know you’re capable of achieving.

1. Adopt a positive mental attitude

In the face of lower-than-expected grades, it’s only human to react by feeling disappointed with oneself. When you’re frequently receiving lower grades than you’d hoped for, you may start to feel depressed or defeated, and feel like giving up. The first step on the road to improving your grades is to turn this negativity on its head. You need to be positive about the situation if you’re to stand a chance of improving it. Acknowledge that your grades aren’t what you’re aiming for, but believe that you can do something about it. Start by mentally taking control of the situation: instead of thinking “I’m a failure”, think “I can and will do better than this.” Don’t give up – take positive steps towards achieving the improvement you’re more than capable of achieving.

2. Work out where you’re falling short

You need to work out which areas need targeting before you can draw up a plan of action, so the next step is to figure out the areas in which you’re underperforming, and why. Are your grades consistently lower than you’d like them to be across all your subjects, or is there one particular area you’re struggling with that’s bringing down your overall performance in a particular subject? Take a look at your grades over the last few months and look for patterns. Has there been a general decline in academic achievement, or have your grades in certain areas always been lower than you’d hoped? Are your grades always low in the same areas, such as one problem subject? You’ll probably already have a vague idea of the answers to these questions, but seeing your grades written down on paper – perhaps even in graph format – can help you see things more clearly. Next, think about the reasons why you’re not performing to your full academic potential in the areas you’ve identified. Are there external factors that may be negatively affecting your grades, such as a family problem or worrying about a social situation at school? Are you struggling with any particular academic skills that might be dragging you down, such as essay-writing or note-taking? And are you studying in a way that works for you? These are all factors that could be affecting your academic performance, so once you’ve isolated what the problem is – it could be a combination of more than one of these issues – you’ll be able to start tackling it. If the problems are external, you’ll need to take steps towards getting them to a point at which they no longer adversely affect your studies; seeing a counsellor might help, for instance. If they’re academic, read the rest of this article for some suggestions on how you can improve.

3. Talk to your teachers

Your teachers know you best, so it’s worth talking to them when you’re drawing up a plan of action for improving your grades. Ask them where they think you need to improve, and they’ll probably have some advice on how you can go about it. Coupled with the advice in the rest of this article, this should allow you to tailor an action plan to your personal situation.

4. Pay more attention in class – and ask questions

If you’re prone to daydreaming in class, it’s time to start focusing on the here and now. Listen to what the teacher is saying rather than talking with friends or allowing your mind to wander. Don’t simply copy down what’s on the board without thinking about it; make sure you’ve understood it, make neat notes so that you can understand them when you come back to them (more on that later), and don’t be afraid to speak up if there’s something you don’t understand or want clarifying. It’s much easier to ask a teacher to explain something differently than it is to trawl through books trying to find a clearer explanation for yourself, and they won’t think less of you for asking.

5. Start organising your life

Clutter of any kind inhibits our ability to operate efficiently, so another way of improving your academic performance is to get organised. Keep your workspace tidy and all your notes and textbooks organised in such a way that you know where everything is. Start thinking more about your time management, too, as this will allow you to prioritise your time effectively, freeing time for problem subjects. Write yourself a daily timetable that incorporates your school schedule, dividing your day into slots of time and fitting in plenty of time for studying. Allocate extra time to subjects or topics you’ve identified as being ones you’re struggling with; it could be that the reason for your underperformance in these subjects is that you’re simply not devoting enough time to them.

6. Improve your note-taking skills

One of the reasons you may have identified for underperforming is that you’re not taking good enough notes. Hurriedly scrawled notes from class can be difficult to make sense of when you come to revise from them, or even to write an essay based on them. It’s all too easy to misunderstand your own notes and fail to get a strong enough grasp of the topic. It’s imperative, therefore, that you produce good notes from each of your classes and from the books you use – notes that you can read, that are useful, and that are logically organised. If you make notes by hand – in class, for example – try to type them up at the end of the day, while they’re still fresh in your mind.

7. Improve your essay-writing skills

Another common reason for academic underperformance is that the student’s essay-writing skills aren’t sufficient for the level required to achieve top grades. This is fairly easily fixed by improving your essay-writing technique. Good essay technique covers all aspects of essay-writing, from the research phase to the final proofread, and even how you respond to the feedback you get for your essays. Responding in the right way to feedback – and not taking criticism personally – will be particularly useful if you feel you’re underperforming, as this should give you the guidance you need to be able to improve.

8. Find the right learning style for you

If you’re academically underperforming, another possible reason could be that you haven’t found the right learning style for you. We’re all different, and each of us has our own way of studying that yields the best results. Perhaps you just haven’t found your most effective studying style yet. If you’ve been trying to work on your own, for example, you might find it easier to work with a friend or two, so that you have someone else there to motivate you.

9. Improve your memory

Many students struggle to remember all the information they need for exams, and this brings their grades down. With so much to learn across many subjects, remembering facts, figures and arguments is a pretty monumental task, and you need to arm yourself with some effective memory aids to help you. You’ll find more tips on improving your memory in our article on memory techniques for exam preparation.

10. Stop procrastinating

One of the reasons why you’re underperforming could be that you’re spending too much time procrastinating – that is, putting off work by distracting yourself with other things, such as social media. This is a common response to a big workload; when you have so much to do that you don’t know where to start, the temptation is simply not to start. The problem is that in doing so, you’re delaying the inevitable, as well as making your task worse by eating into the time when you could be productive. If you’re guilty of procrastination – and we all are at some point or another – take a look at our article on five reasons we procrastinate and how to stop it.

11. Allow plenty of time for revision

If you’re achieving lower scores than you’d hoped for on timed tests or mock exams, it could be because you’re not allowing enough time for revising for them. This may be because you know it’s not ‘the real thing’, but practice exams are just as important as real ones. They show you which areas you need to spend more time on, and achieving good grades in them will give you a confidence boost. Treat them as seriously as you would a real exam, allowing yourself plenty of time to revising for them. Better still, revise everything you learn as you go along, so that you learn it properly first time round and have less need for revision. Also, be sure to read our articles on effective revision techniques for science students and humanities students.

12. Make learning more fun

Sometimes students underperform because they have simply lost the motivation to learn. It’s not surprising, when the pressure of exams and doing well at school takes away the enjoyment of learning. It’s easy to get so focused on achieving top grades that you forget that learning can actually be fun – and not only that, but it’s much easier to do well when you’re enjoying it. If studying has become a chore for you, it’s time to put the fun back into learning. You could do this by gamifying your studies, or by trying some of the ideas in our article on 15 ways to make studying less stressful.

13. Hire a private tutor

As a last resort, if the ideas in this article haven’t worked for you, you might consider hiring a private tutor to help you improve your grades for a particularly tricky subject. Some extra tuition may be just what you need to help bring your grade up, as you’ll benefit from one-to-one tuition in an environment in which you might feel more able to ask questions without the fear of speaking up in front of your peers. If you think this would help you, speak to your parents and suggest that they place an advert in the local paper if they’re willing to cover the cost of private tuition for you.

14. Go on a summer school

A final option – best taken alongside the other advice in this article, rather than instead of it – is to book yourself onto an academic summer school. Taking part in a summer school would allow you to learn away from the pressures of the classroom and exams, reinvigorating your love of learning and inspiring you to take a more determined approach to your studies. What’s more, summer schools are great for helping you get to grips with trickier subjects, so this could be a good solution to your underperforming subjects as well. Take a look at our Oxford summer school courses to find one to help you start improving your grades. It’s not just an option in the summer – ever-popular Easter revision courses are a great way to get a boost shortly before your exams.

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Fixing a Disorganized Essay in 4 Easy Steps

Even with prewriting and planning, it can be difficult to write a well-organized essay. This is particularly true on the TOEFL Independent Writing task. The time you have for pre-writing is minimal. With only 30 minutes to finish the task, you may need to correct organizational mistakes during and after your writing of the essay.

In my earlier post, “TOEFL Independent Writing: Organizing Your Ideas” , I showed you a four-part process revising essay structure after you write an essay. This revision method is re-posted below:

1) Look at the essay you’ve already written, and make an outline of its structure.

2) Look at the outline you’ve made. Identify ideas that seem out of place or incomplete. Which ideas should you move to a different part of the essay? Which ideas should you remove entirely? Are there any missing ideas that you should add?

3) Make a new outline based on your observations.

4) Re-write your essay based on the new outline.

            To take you through this process, I’m going to revise a badly disorganized essay I wrote when I was a college freshman back in 2000. In this assignment, my English professor asked me to write a short essay using a simile to describe college life. Read it here: My Awful ENG110 Essay

Some organizational problems are pretty obvious, while others are harder to spot. To find all the problems and propose solutions, I’ll do steps 1 and 2 of the 4-step revision process above. Here is an outline of my essay, with notes on things I should change:

Outline for “College is Like a Long Journey on Foot”

Paragraph 1: Walking a lot in college

A) Hard to park car on campus B) Buildings are big, need to be walked through C) Students don’t have car or can’t afford reliable car (This should go next to point A, because both A and C are about cars.) D) Metaphoric similarities (This is about metaphors instead of literal similarities. None of the other paragraphs really focus on metaphors. Get rid of point D.)

Paragraph 2: Time in a long foot-journey/Time in college

A) College and long journey on foot both take all day B) Brushing teeth (Not directly part of college or long journey on foot.) C) Breakfast (Not directly part of college or long journey on foot.) D) Morning and afternoon classes E) Dinner (Not directly part of college or long journey on foot.) F) Homework G) Bed (Not directly part of college or long journey on foot.) H) Feeling tired after a long foot journey or day at school (Being tired is a sensation. Move this point to Paragraph 3, which focuses on sensations, or get rid of this point.)

(Remove points B, C, E, and G)

Paragraph 3: Sensations in long foot journey/college

A) Walking (feeling the ground, smelling the outdoors) B) College (hearing campus clock, friends’ voices, smelling food and spring flowers) (Point A only mentions touch and smell. Point B has touch, smell, and sound. Add sound to A, or remove sound from B.)

(This paragraph focuses on the physical, just like Paragraph 1. Put Paragraph 1 and Paragraph 3 next to each other.)

Paragraph 4: Conclusion

A) Walking B) Senses (Also need to mention time, because one of the paragraphs in the essay focuses on time.) C) Reasons for walking and going to college (This was not one of the main points in the body of the essay.)

(There’s a conclusion but no introduction. Consider adding an introduction.)

Now for step 3, making a new outline:

Revised Outline for “College is Like a Long Journey on Foot”

Paragraph 1: Introduction

A) Physical similarities (both a foot journey and college involve walking, use of the senses) B) Time similarities (both are time consuming)

Paragraph 2: Walking a lot in college

A) Hard to park car on campus B) Students don’t have car or can’t afford reliable car C) Buildings are big, need to be walked through

A) Walking (hearing your own footsteps, feeling the ground, smelling the outdoors) B) College (hearing campus clock, friends’ voices, smelling food and spring flowers)

Paragraph 4: Time in a long foot-journey/Time in college

A) College and a long journey on foot both take all day B) Morning and afternoon classes C) Evening homework

Paragraph 5: Conclusion

A) Walking B) Senses C) Time

As you can see, the new outline puts the ideas in much more logical order. Now for step 4: rewriting the essay. Download my rewrite ( College Essay Rewrite ) to see the improvements.

Revising your essays in this way will help you become more aware of organizational problems in your writing. Practice this process often enough, and you’ll learn to catch your mistakes as you make them. This will allow you to quickly re-organize your ideas in timed TOEFL Writing tasks.

In my next post on essay organization, I’ll give you a few self-study activities so you can really practice these skills.

David is a Test Prep Expert for Magoosh TOEFL and IELTS. Additionally, he’s helped students with TOEIC, PET, FCE, BULATS, Eiken, SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT. David has a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. His work at Magoosh has been cited in many scholarly articles , his Master’s Thesis is featured on the Reading with Pictures website, and he’s presented at the WITESOL (link to PDF) and NAFSA conferences. David has taught K-12 ESL in South Korea as well as undergraduate English and MBA-level business English at American universities. He has also trained English teachers in America, Italy, and Peru. Come join David and the Magoosh team on Youtube , Facebook , and Instagram , or connect with him via LinkedIn !

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2 responses to “Fixing a Disorganized Essay in 4 Easy Steps”

Thanks a lot, the steps, the examples, and the way the information is organized helped me enhance the writing task.

Glad to hear it, Luis! Best of luck as you continue studying 🙂

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Nike Responds to Criticism of Women's Olympic Track and Field Uniforms As Too Revealing

• Author: Patrick Andres

Amid controversy surrounding its uniforms for the United States women's track and field team for this summer's Olympics in Paris, Nike is putting an emphasis on athletes' diversity of options for apparel.

The company told Reuters on Saturday afternoon that all athletes would be able to opt in or out of its brief option—which received criticism for being too revealing—in favor of a short.

"Athlete options and choices were the driving force for USATF in the planning process with Nike," a spokesperson for track and field's American governing body said .

Images of the uniforms were made public Thursday and drew immediate comment from athletes.

A first look at Team USA's track and field kits for the upcoming Olympics in Paris.

Courtesy CITIUS MAG via Instagram

"They are absolutely not made for performance," American steeplechaser Colleen Quigley said. "Our bodies are all different, and it seems silly to expect us to compete at the highest level of our sport without a properly fit uniform."

Nike athlete and Olympic champion pole vaulter Katie Moon called the uniforms "concerning," adding the caveat that she preferred competing in briefs to shorts.

The Olympics are scheduled to open July 26.

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NPR in Turmoil After It Is Accused of Liberal Bias

An essay from an editor at the broadcaster has generated a firestorm of criticism about the network on social media, especially among conservatives.

By Benjamin Mullin and Katie Robertson

NPR is facing both internal tumult and a fusillade of attacks by prominent conservatives this week after a senior editor publicly claimed the broadcaster had allowed liberal bias to affect its coverage, risking its trust with audiences.

Uri Berliner, a senior business editor who has worked at NPR for 25 years, wrote in an essay published Tuesday by The Free Press, a popular Substack publication, that “people at every level of NPR have comfortably coalesced around the progressive worldview.”

Mr. Berliner, a Peabody Award-winning journalist, castigated NPR for what he said was a litany of journalistic missteps around coverage of several major news events, including the origins of Covid-19 and the war in Gaza. He also said the internal culture at NPR had placed race and identity as “paramount in nearly every aspect of the workplace.”

Mr. Berliner’s essay has ignited a firestorm of criticism of NPR on social media, especially among conservatives who have long accused the network of political bias in its reporting. Former President Donald J. Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to argue that NPR’s government funding should be rescinded, an argument he has made in the past.

NPR has forcefully pushed back on Mr. Berliner’s accusations and the criticism.

“We’re proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories,” Edith Chapin, the organization’s editor in chief, said in an email to staff on Tuesday. “We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world.” Some other NPR journalists also criticized the essay publicly, including Eric Deggans, its TV critic, who faulted Mr. Berliner for not giving NPR an opportunity to comment on the piece.

In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Berliner expressed no regrets about publishing the essay, saying he loved NPR and hoped to make it better by airing criticisms that have gone unheeded by leaders for years. He called NPR a “national trust” that people rely on for fair reporting and superb storytelling.

“I decided to go out and publish it in hopes that something would change, and that we get a broader conversation going about how the news is covered,” Mr. Berliner said.

He said he had not been disciplined by managers, though he said he had received a note from his supervisor reminding him that NPR requires employees to clear speaking appearances and media requests with standards and media relations. He said he didn’t run his remarks to The New York Times by network spokespeople.

When the hosts of NPR’s biggest shows, including “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” convened on Wednesday afternoon for a long-scheduled meet-and-greet with the network’s new chief executive, Katherine Maher , conversation soon turned to Mr. Berliner’s essay, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting. During the lunch, Ms. Chapin told the hosts that she didn’t want Mr. Berliner to become a “martyr,” the people said.

Mr. Berliner’s essay also sent critical Slack messages whizzing through some of the same employee affinity groups focused on racial and sexual identity that he cited in his essay. In one group, several staff members disputed Mr. Berliner’s points about a lack of ideological diversity and said efforts to recruit more people of color would make NPR’s journalism better.

On Wednesday, staff members from “Morning Edition” convened to discuss the fallout from Mr. Berliner’s essay. During the meeting, an NPR producer took issue with Mr. Berliner’s argument for why NPR’s listenership has fallen off, describing a variety of factors that have contributed to the change.

Mr. Berliner’s remarks prompted vehement pushback from several news executives. Tony Cavin, NPR’s managing editor of standards and practices, said in an interview that he rejected all of Mr. Berliner’s claims of unfairness, adding that his remarks would probably make it harder for NPR journalists to do their jobs.

“The next time one of our people calls up a Republican congressman or something and tries to get an answer from them, they may well say, ‘Oh, I read these stories, you guys aren’t fair, so I’m not going to talk to you,’” Mr. Cavin said.

Some journalists have defended Mr. Berliner’s essay. Jeffrey A. Dvorkin, NPR’s former ombudsman, said Mr. Berliner was “not wrong” on social media. Chuck Holmes, a former managing editor at NPR, called Mr. Berliner’s essay “brave” on Facebook.

Mr. Berliner’s criticism was the latest salvo within NPR, which is no stranger to internal division. In October, Mr. Berliner took part in a lengthy debate over whether NPR should defer to language proposed by the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association while covering the conflict in Gaza.

“We don’t need to rely on an advocacy group’s guidance,” Mr. Berliner wrote, according to a copy of the email exchange viewed by The Times. “Our job is to seek out the facts and report them.” The debate didn’t change NPR’s language guidance, which is made by editors who weren’t part of the discussion. And in a statement on Thursday, the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association said it is a professional association for journalists, not a political advocacy group.

Mr. Berliner’s public criticism has highlighted broader concerns within NPR about the public broadcaster’s mission amid continued financial struggles. Last year, NPR cut 10 percent of its staff and canceled four podcasts, including the popular “Invisibilia,” as it tried to make up for a $30 million budget shortfall. Listeners have drifted away from traditional radio to podcasts, and the advertising market has been unsteady.

In his essay, Mr. Berliner laid some of the blame at the feet of NPR’s former chief executive, John Lansing, who said he was retiring at the end of last year after four years in the role. He was replaced by Ms. Maher, who started on March 25.

During a meeting with employees in her first week, Ms. Maher was asked what she thought about decisions to give a platform to political figures like Ronna McDaniel, the former Republican Party chair whose position as a political analyst at NBC News became untenable after an on-air revolt from hosts who criticized her efforts to undermine the 2020 election.

“I think that this conversation has been one that does not have an easy answer,” Ms. Maher responded.

Benjamin Mullin reports on the major companies behind news and entertainment. Contact Ben securely on Signal at +1 530-961-3223 or email at [email protected] . More about Benjamin Mullin

Katie Robertson covers the media industry for The Times. Email:  [email protected]   More about Katie Robertson

Here are six tips that helped make my writing better (hopefully they help you, too!). 1. Read Out Loud. This is the first step to checking your piece for awkward writing: read it out loud. I wrote a post about this a while back, and it's still your best bet to check for awkward writing.

Here's What Bad Writing Looks Like. Here's a passage of bad writing that I've created, based on a lot of common drafting mistakes. I'll split it into three parts, and go through the mistakes (and how to fix them) after each. Bad Writing Example #1 "Hi James," announced Jason, spotting him in the street.

Going over the word limit. Part of showing your brilliance is being able to work within arbitrary rules and limitations. Going over the word count points to a lack of self-control, which is not a very attractive feature in a college applicant. Repeating the same word (s) or sentence structure over and over again.

Writing a Synopsis, Not An Analytical Essay. The point of an essay is to create an argument and defend a thesis. If you're writing about a work of literature, some background to clarify the topic can be helpful. But the majority of your essay should involve your analysis based on credible research. Don't simply restate what happened in the book.

The online proofreader. It's really straightforward. Just paste the text into the tool. All your errors will now be underlined in red. You can hover over these mistakes to see how they can be addressed. If you agree, just click on the button "Fix all errors," and your mistakes will be fixed instantly!

Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Don't allow someone else to rewrite your essay, but do take advantage of others' edits and opinions when they seem helpful. ( Bates College) Read your essay aloud to someone. Reading the essay out loud offers a chance to hear how your essay sounds outside your head.

Make sure that by the end of your essay, your reader knows what your opinion is. 3. The polemic. Try not to make your reader think of you shouting at them from a soapbox. The direct opposite of the "weighing scales" approach is the polemic. In this kind of essay, your reader is in no doubt at all about what your point of view is ...

Would you like to upload your entire essay and check it for 100+ academic language issues? Then Scribbr's AI-powered proofreading is perfect for you. With the AI Proofreader, you can correct your text in no time: Upload document. Wait briefly while all errors are corrected directly in your document.

4) Start to fill out your skeleton with information from your notes, and any extra ideas you might have. If you're writing a literature essay, it's CRUCIAL that you include some close analysis of passages to support your argument. Jot down the sentences that link these in to the greater structure. 5) Fill out your skeleton more and more ...

2. The Meat and Potatoes. Get straight to the point. Avoid being "pretty". Being "pretty" in your writing is when you're not adding to the point. You're simply upping the word length of your essay. This is not good. Make your paragraphs compact and straightforward.

The truth it, bad writing typically shows one or more of the following features: 1. Lack of clarity. Bad writing tends to talk a lot, but without getting anywhere. This is why a bad piece of writing work is usually boring and confusing to read. You might find yourself rereading a sentence or a paragraph because you couldn't make sense of it. 2.

Don't wander. Always refer back to your thesis statement or essay's purpose to make sure you are staying on point. Avoid fragments and run-on sentences. Incomplete thoughts or thoughts that go on and on are poor writing tactics. Be sure you are writing in complete sentences; at a minimum, each sentence should include a noun and a verb ...

Apply a theory. If you want an argument that is definitely original, but almost certainly questionable, follow this simple recipe. Take one canonical author (say Euripides or Virgil); add an obscure theory no one has heard of (you can source these in most good sociology departments); mix well and then half-bake; serve lukewarm. Remember, always ...

Simple writing: The room was empty when he entered. Lazy writing: He walked through the garden. We're all guilty of slipping into this lazy form of prose, hell, first drafts are usually full of these types of sentences as we're trying to figure out the story! Lazy writing relies on overused and unspecific verbs.

Period. A bad essay will prompt an admission officer to assume one of two things: 1) either you don't care enough about your future at their school to take the time to write a good essay or 2) you aren't academically up to attending their college or university. Neither of those assumptions will help you get admitted.

Inappropriate Dialogue and Dialogue Tags. One common example of bad writing can be found in the execution of dialogue. Good writing involves creating conversations that sound natural and real. However, in some bestselling books, character conversations can feel forced or unnatural, leading to poor writing.

3. Create a calming writing ritual. If you find those perfect tools to take on your writing journey, another great way to create a mental safe space for your writing is to get into a special routine. Think about what sort of things might make you feel safe, inspired, and judgement free.

Knowing what you want to accomplish in broad terms can help you break bad habits on two levels. 1 Be flexible. First, it's better to have a defined goal that you can work toward in different ways, rather than handcuff yourself to a specific means of achieving it. That way, if one approach fails, you're free to change tactics.

1. Adopt a positive mental attitude. In the face of lower-than-expected grades, it's only human to react by feeling disappointed with oneself. When you're frequently receiving lower grades than you'd hoped for, you may start to feel depressed or defeated, and feel like giving up.

Add sound to A, or remove sound from B.) (This paragraph focuses on the physical, just like Paragraph 1. Put Paragraph 1 and Paragraph 3 next to each other.) Paragraph 4: Conclusion. A) Walking. B) Senses (Also need to mention time, because one of the paragraphs in the essay focuses on time.)

Problem 3: Lack Of Support And Subtlety. Look through your essay and try to find instances where you pontificated or made unsupported claims about yourself. You can't just say "I'm a creative problem solver" any more than a random redditor can just say "I know a lot about admissions essays.".

1. Choose and discuss. Have each group select a recent New York Times article to make verbose. If students have a Times subscription, they can choose their own articles. Encourage them to focus on ...

Grammarly's sentence checker is a tool that can help you improve your writing by detecting and correcting errors in tone, clarity, and correctness. Whether you are writing an email, a blog post, or a text message, you can use Grammarly's sentence checker to polish your sentences and communicate more effectively. Learn more about how Grammarly's sentence checker works and how it can help you ...

The recent nonstop streak of bad news began during the last week of 2023, when an airline discovered a potential problem with a key part on two 737 Max aircraft.

Patrick Andres. Apr 13, 2024. Amid controversy surrounding its uniforms for the United States women's track and field team for this summer's Olympics in Paris, Nike is putting an emphasis on ...

In his essay, Mr. Berliner laid some of the blame at the feet of NPR's former chief executive, John Lansing, who said he was retiring at the end of last year after four years in the role. He was ...

Post-eclipse eye damage symptoms. Symptoms of eye damage after viewing the eclipse without proper protection can take hours or days to manifest. They include loss of central vision, altered color ...

MGT503 GDB No 1 Solution Spring 2022

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IT430 Assignment No 1 Solution Spring 2022

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