Essay from Int'l Student!!! Need lots of help!!!

dchow08
Sat, 01 Sep 2007 13:42:14 +0000

“People change because of their outside effects.” What do you mean? The sentence could be clearer.

“Yeah, this is what really made me change.” This is too informal. So, you were inspired by your friends to become better. The inspiration was what motivated you to change. You could have said that for your topic sentence instead of “People change because of their outside effects.” See what I mean? Your topic sentence could be “People change when they are inspired to become better” or something like that. This sentence is more specific.

“Whereas everyone was taking good grades on exams, only I did bad.” This is not correct. “Everyone did well on exams except me.” It’s shorter and better. “This outside effect motivated me to change.” This is also a bad sentence. What is the outside effect? You tried to change your study habits because you were jealous of other people’s test scores. That’s what came across in your essay. So, work on that paragraph.

Your essay says that inspiration from friends motivates people to change.

“Outside effects” is bad because there are so many outside effects, but your essay only talked about one: inspiration. So your thesis and body paragraphs and conclusion all have to revolve around inspiration, because that is what motivates people to change, according to you.