Hi Stellar, Buranko here with what may be the most serious review I have ever given. This is my second time reviewing an essay and third reviewing something other than poetry. Still, let's go!
I don't want to start this review with what could use a little work to improve so I will start with what you did good. You managed to use the theme of the essay across pretty nicely. It is a great thing you included what was the essay about, that made understanding it a whole lot easier and better for me to see where you might have strayed away from the main course. I love the fact that you made a succinct presentation of what you did in general then developed on the idea that suited most of the themes pretty well: the homeless issue. Good job.
However, while your essay doesn't lack a clear meaning and direction, it lacks basic stuff any good essay has. First of all you didn't make a good introduction. Your first paragraph feels more like the main body than it feels like introduction. A proper introduction will summarise what your essay is about but in a somewhat subjective way. What I mean by subjective is not related to you but a more overall view. You should have started by making the reader more familiar with the act of volunteering by making a short definition. Something like:"Volunteering is the act of a person or groups of people engaging in certain activities, usually charity or environment related, out of genuine concern for these issues, without a material gain as the main driving force". Then your first paragraph can fit in quite nicely.
I don't know what type of essay this might be but you seem to have trouble expressing yourself in a fancier way. There are some portions that feel really playfull and not suited to the theme of this essay. 1234 did a good job developing some portions of your essay. I suggest re reading it out loud and modifying wherever you hear it feels off. Like when you wrote "help others who don’t have it so good". See the sequence others who don't have it good is a little too eh and too long. But when you write those in need not only you made it shorter and easier to read you also wrote it nicely in a more fitting way.
One other issue is how you expressed yourself here: "Every year we go on a SERVE trip, that year it was hosted by Victoria CRC". Every year and that year in a single phrase makes it really confusing on what you really mean. I, as a reader, have no idea what year you talk about when simply saying that year.
And finally we get to the conclusion. It is nicely done but your issue on how you express yourself in an unfitting way comes forward again. Try replacing that though with apart. It should look something like this :"I haven't had as many volunteering options, apart from picking up garbage in my free time or removing blackberry bushes".
I hope I wasn't rude and that I might have helped you. Good luck on getting that award!
Points: 58
Reviews: 52
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