Published August 19, 2011
So I had to write a short essay about my future plans but it needs to be fools proof. I know it has mistakes and could be way better but we got a day to do it. If you have any ideas please comment!
There are many things I plan to accomplish this year: graduate high school, improve my writing, and enroll in college to major in journalism. I will complete these engagements to develop a stable life situation as either a writer or editor for the New York Times. This will also give me opportunities to write creatively, to the point of writing a novel.
Because my aim is journalism writing improvement will take priority. In order to live up to former writers, I feel I must enlarge my vocabulary and improve my descriptive writing. Provoking the reader, regarding even the monotonous subjects, is something I will learn to do. When I augment my writing abilities, I will fullfil my other goals.
My second venture is to be accepted into Columbia University, and to enroll for a journalism course later on in this year. I hope to meet the requirements of a scholarship for this school to help me pay for my tuition. Also, I hope to complete a four-year degree with an A, B, average. During this time I will further improve my writing, and obtain the skills I need to write and edit papers.
The last thing on my list of goals, but will be the first to happen, is to graduate from Clements High School. I want to do well in English in order to help me with my other plans, but I also want to advance in all my classes this year. I want to see the Colts football team do well my final year here at Clements. I also want to develop some good memories with the senior class
of 2012.
Accomplishing these goals will help me on my road to independence. Once I graduate and finish college, I hope to attain a state of financial security. I also desire to live a happy and successful life in the career path I have chosen. By accomplishing these goals, I will achieve the financial and emotional security I have outlined here.
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Hey Flower.
Introduce a list with a semicolon for readability. Also added high school to qualify where you are graduating from.
I'd also make all the verbs active. Ie- "Graduate", "improve" and "enrol". This gives the introductory sentence more punch.
What I mostly did here was cut extra words that aren't needed and just choke up the sentence. This becomes clear and focused.
Passive sentence structure here, which makes it feel long and rambley. Try putting journalism first in the sentence; I'd start it like: "Because I plan on taking journalism in college..." and mentioning the writing improvement after.
Missing an introductory comma.
Make your sentences certain. There is no being wishy-washy in these kinds of essays.
Which course? Yes, it might sound repetitive to you, but remember what I said above about certainty and clarity. Make everything as clear as possible and don't leave us guessing.
Either put "to earn" or just "of"
Enough "I hope"s, here. Since you have used it in the past three sentences, and are now talking about something that is pretty much guaranteed to happen if you get into the program, switch your language to something certain.
Again, certainty. If you'll know about college application results before graduation, then you can most likely keep "probably", but I still don't like it that much. It sounds weak. Also, since you're more talking about attending college instead of just applying for it, then graduating high school will, indeed, be the first to happen.
Not sure about "I feel" here. It's rather certain, in mine and probably a lot of people's minds, that going to college will help with independence.
This feels like a weak ending, in my mind. You need some sort of ending, but it'd be nice to make it stronger. Lengthen it a bit, and don't just settle for a super quick summary.
I would actually make your first sentence of that paragraph your final sentence. Tweak it slightly so it reads more like "By accomplishing these goals, I will achieve the financial and emotional security I have outlined here."
Hope this helps. Drop me a line if you need clarification.
~Rosey
So! First of all, you are going to want to use spell check on this. There are a lot of spelling errors that can be easily found with spell check. Formslipper pointed most of the spelling errors out, so that is good. He did miss a couple (excell is not a word) so spell check is your friend! There's also several "comma splice" errors (look that up if you have no idea what that is) so you'll need to watch out for them. I think Formslipper went a little bit too comma-crazy and I don't agree with most of the commas he put in, but generally he gave you a good review, so I don't want to repeat him too much, lol.
Next of all, for the sake of this essay, I think that it would be good to introduce this first. You kind of just plunge into the middle of it without developing an introduction, so I think it would be better to make some sort of thesis. And yeah.
Also, this kind of essay is actually really good for college applications, so be aware of this. As it stands, this isn't a really good college application essay, since you have to sound like you're going to change the world and not just going through life. So be aware of that when you start up your college applications. And don't just apply to Columbia, lol. That would be bad!
Hope you get a good grade for this!
OVERALL: This is a bit too concise for my taste, even though I am a very concise person. That'll probably help you as a journalist! Anyway, I thought that though this essay's precision deprived it of flair, it was still good.
Rewrite it so as to enact my edits, but also to improve the boorish structure/pace of the whole thing. Take out superfluous phrases and words. Combine sentences. Imply some pieces of information. Avoid redundancy.
Other than that, it's better than I could've said it