Management

＊＊＊ 1st ＊＊＊

In formal English writing, you should never use contractions.
Contractions are shortened forms of two individual words separated by an
apostrophe. Words like "don’t" or "won’t" or "I’d" or "I’ll" should
ALWAYS be spelled completely in a formal document. If you use a contraction,
it implies to the reader that you are either too lazy to spell out the words
or you do not realize that contractions are informal. Therefore, always fully
spell out any contractions such as "do not" or "will not" or "I would" or
"I will" in your formal essays. This is a skill of a good English writer,
so making sure that you avoid contractions will improve the quality and
professionalism of your essay.

＊＊＊ 2nd ＊＊＊

In formal English writing, you should never start the first word of a sentence
with a conjunction. Conjunctions are words typically used to combine two
shorter parts of sentences together, so they will always only be found inside
a sentence. Words such as "because, or, however, and" are the most common
examples of conjunctions, which many people use informally as the first word
in a sentence, but should never begin a sentence in formal writing. Therefore,
your sentences are not academically correct if you say "Because I worked so
hard, I received a promotion. And I did it with great care." These phrases
should be written correctly by either replacing the conjunction or by
rearranging the sentence structure so that the conjunction is within the
sentence. For example, a corrected sentence might be rewritten as: "Since I
worked so hard and did it carefully, I received a promotion." Alternatively it
can also be rewritten as "I received a promotion because I worked so hard and
did it with great care." There are many different ways to say the same idea
without starting the sentence with a conjunction. In reality, many native
English speakers do not know all the proper grammar rules and often write
and speak poorly, but school officials expect perfect essays, so you must do
your best job to impress them with your English writing ability.

＊＊＊ 3rd ＊＊＊

Ending a sentence in a preposition is never grammatically correct.
Prepositions are words that are placed before a substantive and refer to the
relation of that substantive with regards to a verb, an adjective, or another
substantive. To explain it more simply, a proposition refers to another word,
so if you place it at the end of the sentence, then there is no other word as
its reference. I know that sounds confusing, so some examples of prepositions
are words like "up, down, to, for, from, at, by" which should never be the last
word in your sentence. Therefore some examples of grammatically incorrect
sentences are: "I studied hard so my scores went up" or "We traveled for three
kilometers, so it showed the teacher how far we came from" or "There is no
other class which it compares to." All of those sentences are grammatically
incorrect because they end in a proposition. There are various ways to
correctly revise those same sentences, so they may be rewritten as: "I studied
hard so my scores increased" or "We traveled for three kilometers, so it showed
the teacher from how far we came" or "There is no other class to which it
compares."

＊＊＊ 4th ＊＊＊

One major complication in English is homophones. Homophones are words that
sound the same when spoken but are written differently and have different
meanings. Very often when I revise essays, I notice misuse of certain words.
The best advice is to check an English dictionary if you are unsure if there
are alternate meanings and spellings for a word that you want to use. When you
use a word incorrectly, the entire meaning of the sentence is wrong. Even
worse, the reader who is usually an admissions official with excellent English
skill will see the mistake and distract their attention from the content of
your paper and draw his attention to the obvious spelling mistake. Examples of
homophones are "c, sea, see" or "which, witch" or "there, their" or "weather,
whether." Be very aware that although these words sound the same, they have
different meanings. For instance, if you write "I went to sea" this means that
you went to travel in the ocean. If you write "I went to see" then this means
you went to look at something.

＊＊＊ 5th ＊＊＊

You need to have parallel sentence structure. Parallel sentence structure refers
to using the same verb tense if you state several related sentences or several
related issues within the same sentence. For example, it would be incorrect to
write "I moved into my house yesterday and the floor is dirty." This is because
the word "moved" refers to something that happened in the past, so you must
also match that tense to any other verb in the same sentence. To correct this
sentence, you must change the entire sentence to past tense because your action
happened yesterday. A corrected version would be "I moved into my house
yesterday and the floor was dirty." Another incorrect example would be "I often
helped my boss arrange books, running errands, contacted customers, and taking
phone calls." You must choose a verb tense so that all verbs in that sentence
must have the same parallel structure. A corrected version would be "I often
helped my boss arrange books, run errands, contact customers, and take phone
calls."


＊＊＊ 6th ＊＊＊

Another common problem is noun/verb agreement. That is actually a simple issue
but people who are not careful often do not realize their mistakes. A noun
that refers to one item/person must have a verb that is singular. A noun that
refers to several items/persons must have a verb that is plural. Therefore it
would be incorrect to write "Stray dogs and cats is a problem in my
neighborhood." Since the words "dog and cat" are plural referring to more than
one item, then your verb must also be plural. A corrected version would be
"Stray dogs and cats are a problem in my neighborhood."

＊＊＊ 7th ＊＊＊

Even if you have no page or word limits for your essay, it is always better to
be concise. Being concise means that unnecessarily long sentences can be
shortened using a different combination of words without changing the meaning
or effect of the sentence. For instance, an unnecessarily long sentence might
be "Today, after working hard to study all day without stopping my progress, my
scores went up a lot." This can be written more professionally and more concise
by rewording it as "After continuously studying hard today, my scores increased
significantly." By being more concise, you effectively change a sentence from
18 words into a sentence with only 9 words without losing the meaning or effect
of the sentence. In this example, you have a 50% reduction in words, which is
VERY important if you have a lot of information to say but you have a strict
word limit in the essay.

＊＊＊ 8th ＊＊＊

To promote your confidence, it is better to state sentences in absolute terms
rather than conditional terms. For instance, instead of saying "I believe I can
be the best at your school…" you should say "I can be the best at your
school…" The first phrase expresses doubt, but the second one expresses
confidence. If you are writing an essay for a school application, you want the
admissions committee to think that you WILL succeed rather than only THINK you
will succeed. People who write confidently are usually more upbeat, ambitious,
and successful students, so the admissions committee will look for your
confidence to show up in your essay.

＊＊＊ 9th ＊＊＊

In formal writing, you should avoid using "passive voice" which are verbs
preceded by words such as "have, had…" They indicate an ongoing action, but
are not as concise and do not denote as much intent as when you use "active
voice." For instance, instead of saying "I have aroused my interests…" you
can say "I aroused my interests…" By using "active voice" then it shows
intent and active participation which appears more confident rather than
passive action that simply happened on its own. In formal business and law
documents written in English, "passive voice" is always eliminated as much as
possible.


＊＊＊ 10th ＊＊＊

Finally when writing essays, especially for those related to your statement of
purpose, always try to describe your experiences and what you learned from
them. Quite often, I see people write what they did in their school or job, but
neglect to mention why that was important. If you only tell the reader what you
did but say nothing else about the experience, then that implies you are a
follower with no ambition and no ability to improve yourself. For instance,
suppose you write "I worked in the bank, collected accounts and worked with
customers even though I was quite busy." If this is the only thing you state,
then it tells the reader very little about your experience. It appears that you
only performed these actions because they were your duties. If you are applying
for a school, then the admissions officials will want to know that you have the
ability to do something and gain something out of it. That is the reason for
education, so that you can experience something in the classroom and learn to
apply it. Therefore to improve the essay, you should continue writing something
to enhance it, like "Through that experience, I improved my interpersonal skills
and learned how to plan and execute projects efficiently."