15 Examples of Bad Thesis Statements,Good and Evil Essay Examples
WebJun 15, · Weider in his presentation gave an example; if your glasses are red then everything around you will be red. (Weider & Gotierrez, ) This is the same for WebSample bad essay: An Analysis of Propertius Propertius' opening poem is a programmatic introduction to his oeuvre. It focuses on the poet's delight in his mistress, WebExample 1. “Trees provide oxygen.”. This thesis statement is ultimately too broad and therefore fails to present a unique argument. It does not provide adequate focus for the WebApr 29, · The essay is virtually error-free and reflects the writer’s command of the conventions of incorporating the words and ideas of others into the writer’s response to ... read more
The beauty of writing is that you get to rewrite. So if you think of your essay as a draft waiting to be revised into a better version rather than as a precious jewel that can't bear being touched, you'll be in far better shape to correct the issues that always crop up! Now let's take a look at some actual college essay drafts to see where the writer is going wrong and how the issue could be fixed. Was your childhood home destroyed by a landspout tornado? Yeah, neither was mine. I know that intro might have given the impression that this college essay will be about withstanding disasters, but the truth is that it isn't about that at all. In my junior year, I always had in mind an image of myself finishing the college essay months before the deadline.
But as the weeks dragged on and the deadline drew near, it soon became clear that at the rate things are going I would probably have to make new plans for my October, November and December. Falling into my personal wormhole, I sat down with my mom to talk about colleges. Unique hobbies make good topics, right? You'll sound creative! Earl Grey. And then an Essay. Instead, I sat quietly in my room wrote the old-fashioned way. Days later I emerged from my room disheveled, but to my dismay, this college essay made me sound like just a guy who can't get over the fact that he'll never take the Starfleet Academy entrance exam. So, I tossed my essay away without even getting to disintegrate it with a phaser set on stun. I fell into a state of panic. My college essay.
My image of myself in senior year. Almost out of nowhere, Robert Jameson Smith offered his words of advice. He suggested students begin their college essay by listing their achievements and letting their essay materialize from there. My heart lifted, I took his advice and listed three of my greatest achievements - mastering my backgammon strategy, being a part of TREE in my sophomore year, and performing "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" from The Pirates of Penzance in public. And sure enough, I felt inspiration hit me and began to type away furiously into the keyboard about my experience in TREE, or Trees Require Engaged Environmentalists. I reflected on the current state of deforestation, and described the dichotomy of it being both understandable why farmers cut down forests for farmland, and how dangerous this is to our planet.
Finally, I added my personal epiphany to the end of my college essay as the cherry on the vanilla sundae, as the overused saying goes. After 3 weeks of figuring myself out, I have converted myself into a piece of writing. As far as achievements go, this was definitely an amazing one. The ability to transform a human being into words surely deserves a gold medal. Yet in this essay, I was still being nagged by a voice that couldn't be ignored. Eventually, I submitted to that yelling inner voice and decided that this was not the right essay either.
In the middle of a hike through Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, I realized that the college essay was nothing more than an embodiment of my character. The two essays I have written were not right because they have failed to become more than just words on recycled paper. The subject failed to come alive. Certainly my keen interest in Star Trek and my enthusiasm for TREE are a great part of who I am, but there were other qualities essential in my character that did not come across in the essays. With this realization, I turned around as quickly as I could without crashing into a tree.
Speaking of tornadoes, how awesome was the Wizard of Oz? I played with the thought in my mind, tapping my imaginary communicator pin and whispering "Computer. The author has his cake and eats it too here: both making fun of himself for being super into the Star Trek mythos, but also showing himself being committed enough to try whispering a command to the Enterprise computer alone in his room. You know, just in case. The meat of the essay is that the two versions of himself that the author thought about portraying each fails in some way to describe the real him.
Neither an essay focusing on his off-beat interests, nor an essay devoted to his serious activism could capture everything about a well-rounded person in words. Image: fir via Wikimedia Commons. Look at how long and draggy these paragraphs are, especially after that zippy opening. Is it at all interesting to read about how someone else found the process of writing hard? Not really, because this is a very common experience. In the rewrite, I'd advise condensing all of this to maybe a sentence to get to the meat of the actual essay. I sat down with my mom to talk about colleges.
Twice in the essay, the author lets someone else tell him what to do. Not only that, but it sounds like both of the "incomplete" essays were dictated by the thoughts of other people and had little to do with his own ideas, experiences, or initiative. In the rewrite, it would be better to recast both the Star Trek and the TREE versions of the essay as the author's own thoughts rather than someone else's suggestions. This way, the point of the essay—taking apart the idea that a college essay could summarize life experience—is earned by the author's two failed attempts to write that other kind of essay.
Don't be a passive panda. Be an active antelope. Both the Star Trek fandom and the TREE activism were obviously important life experiences for this author—important enough to be potential college essay topic candidates. But there is no description of what the author did with either one, nor any explanation of why these were so meaningful to his life. It's fine to say that none of your achievements individually define you, but in order for that to work, you have to really sell the achievements themselves. In the rewrite, it would be good to explore what he learned about himself and the world by pursuing these interests.
How did they change him or seen him into the person he is today? In both of these passages, there is the perfect opportunity to point out what exactly these failed versions of the essay didn't capture about the author. In the next essay draft, I would suggest subtly making a point about his other qualities. For example, after the Star Trek paragraph, he could talk about other culture he likes to consume, especially if he can discuss art forms he is interested in that would not be expected from someone who loves Star Trek.
Or, after the TREE paragraph, the author could explain why this second essay was no better at capturing him than the first. What was missing? Why is the self in the essay shouting—is it because this version paints him as an overly aggressive activist? Star Trek fans are a dime a dozen. But a Trekkie who is also a graffiti aficionado? Now that's a novel intersection of cultural tastes. We can help. PrepScholar Admissions is the world's best admissions consulting service. We combine world-class admissions counselors with our data-driven, proprietary admissions strategies.
We've overseen thousands of students get into their top choice schools , from state colleges to the Ivy League. We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit. We want to get you admitted to your dream schools. Learn more about PrepScholar Admissions to maximize your chance of getting in. Unlike other teenagers, I'm not concerned about money, or partying, or what others think of me. Unlike other eighteen year-olds, I think about my future, and haven't become totally materialistic and acquisitive. My whole outlook on life changed after I realized that my life was just being handed to me on a silver spoon, and yet there were those in the world who didn't have enough food to eat or place to live.
I realized that the one thing that this world needed more than anything was compassion; compassion for those less fortunate than us. During the summer of , I went on a community service trip to rural Peru to help build an elementary school for kids there. I expected harsh conditions, but what I encountered was far worse. It was one thing to watch commercials asking for donations to help the unfortunate people in less developed countries, yet it was a whole different story to actually live it. Even after all this time, I can still hear babies crying from hunger; I can still see the filthy rags that they wore; I can still smell the stench of misery and hopelessness.
But my most vivid memory was the moment I first got to the farming town. The conditions of it hit me by surprise; it looked much worse in real life than compared to the what our group leader had told us. Poverty to me and everyone else I knew was a foreign concept that people hear about on the news or see in documentaries. But this abject poverty was their life, their reality. And for the brief ten days I was there, it would be mine too. As all of this realization came at once, I felt overwhelmed by the weight of what was to come.
Would I be able to live in the same conditions as these people? Would I catch a disease that no longer existed in the first world, or maybe die from drinking contaminated water? As these questions rolled around my already dazed mind, I heard a soft voice asking me in Spanish, "Are you okay? Is there anything I can do to make you feel better? These people who have so little were able to forget their own needs, and put those much more fortunate ahead of themselves. It was at that moment that I saw how selfish I had been. How many people suffered like this in the world, while I went about life concerned about nothing at all?
Thinking back on the trip, maybe I made a difference, maybe not. But I gained something much more important. I gained the desire to make the world a better place for others. It was in a small, poverty-stricken village in Peru that I finally realized that there was more to life than just being alive. This is an essay that tries to explain a shift in perspective. There are different ways to structure this overarching idea, but a chronological approach that starts with an earlier opinion, describes a mind changing event, and ends with the transformed point of view is an easy and clear way to lay this potentially complex subject out.
Arranging your narrative in order of what happened when is a simple and surefire strategy. Image: User:Lite via Wikimedia Commons. This is a very broad generalization, which doesn't tend to be the best way to formulate an argument—or to start an essay. It just makes this author sound dismissive of a huge swath of the population. In the rewrite, this author would be way better off just concentrate on what she want to say about herself, not pass judgment on "other teenagers," most of whom she doesn't know and will never meet. Coming from someone who hasn't earned her place in the world through anything but the luck of being born, the word "compassion" sounds really condescending. Calling others "less fortunate" when you're a senior in high school has a dehumanizing quality to it. These people who have so little were able to forget their own needs, and put those much more fortunate in front of themselves.
Again, this comes across as very patronizing. Not only that, but to this little boy the author was clearly not looking all that "fortunate"—instead, she looked pathetic enough to need comforting. In the next draft, a better hook could be making the essay about the many different kinds of shifting perspectives the author encountered on that trip. A more meaningful essay would compare and contrast the points of view of the TV commercials, to what the group leader said, to the author's own expectations, and finally to this child's point of view. It may help to imagine you have the compound eyes of an insect. How many different perspectives can you see and describe?
Phrases like "cries of the small children from not having enough to eat" and "dirt stained rags" seem like descriptions, but they're really closer to incurious and completely hackneyed generalizations. Why were the kids were crying? How many kids? All the kids? One specific really loud kid? The same goes for "filthy rags," which is both an incredibly insensitive way to talk about the clothing of these villagers, and again shows a total lack of interest in their life. Why were their clothes dirty? Were they workers or farmers so their clothes showing marks of labor? Did they have Sunday clothes? Traditional clothes they would put on for special occasions? Did they make their own clothes? That would be a good reason to keep wearing clothing even if it had "stains" on it.
The rewrite should either make this section more specific and less reliant on cliches, or should discard it altogether. If this is the "most vivid memory," then I would expect to read all the details that have been seared into the author's brain. What did their leader tell them? What was different in real life? What was the light like? What time of day was it? Did they get there by bus, train, or plane? A city center? A marketplace? Reading vague generalizations is like trying to make sense of this blurry picture. Is it flowers? Holiday lights? Who knows. And after a while, who cares? Without a framing device explaining that this initial panic was an overreaction, this section just makes the author sound whiny, entitled, melodramatic, and immature.
After all, this isn't a a solo wilderness trek—the author is there with a paid guided program. Just how much mortality is typically associated with these very standard college-application-boosting service trips? In a rewrite, I would suggest including more perspective on the author's outsized and overprivileged response here. This would fit well with a new focus on the different points of view on this village the author encountered. Is it really believable that this is what the author learned? There is maybe some evidence to suggest that the author was shaken somewhat out of a comfortable, materialistic existence.
But what does "there is more to life than just being alive" even really mean? This conclusion is rather vague, and seems mostly a non sequitur. In a rewrite, the essay should be completely reoriented to discuss how differently others see us than we see ourselves, pivoting on the experience of being pitied by someone who you thought was pitiable. Then, the new version can end by on a note of being better able to understand different points of view and other people's perspectives. It's important to include deep thoughts and insights into your essay - just make sure your narrative supports your conclusions!
Want to read some excellent college essays now that you've seen some examples of flawed one? Take a look through our roundup of college essay examples published by colleges and then get help with brainstorming your perfect college essay topic. Need some guidance on other parts of the application process? Check out our detailed, step-by-step guide to college applications for advice. Are you considering taking the SAT or ACT again before you submit your application? Read about our famous test prep guides for hints and strategies for a better score. Want to improve your SAT score by points or your ACT score by 4 points? We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score.
Download it for free now:. 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. Our new student and parent forum, at ExpertHub. com , allow you to interact with your peers and the PrepScholar staff. See how other students and parents are navigating high school, college, and the college admissions process. Ask questions; get answers. How to Get a Perfect , by a Perfect Scorer. Score on SAT Math. Score on SAT Reading.
Score on SAT Writing. Free Complete Official SAT Practice Tests. What SAT Target Score Should You Be Aiming For? How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer. What ACT target score should you be aiming for? ACT Vocabulary You Must Know. ACT Writing: 15 Tips to Raise Your Essay Score. How to Get Into Harvard and the Ivy League. How to Get a Perfect 4. How to Write an Amazing College Essay. What Exactly Are Colleges Looking For? Is the ACT easier than the SAT? Just because it is not illegal does not mean that it should be done. The internet often has news before television, radio, and the newspapers. It will also help you find and fix the clunky parts that need help Bierer is an independent college adviser based in Charlotte.
In order to save our society and its morals, we should ban discrimination, or as some would call it hiring based on looks. For others undoubtedly, he miscalculated, because he may be perceived as being cocky and overconfident. The Things That Make Good And Evil In People 6. There are colleges that actively seek students like that young man: He stepped outside the box and to some, and he hit a home run. No, there is not a specific law saying that businesses cannot. When the average girl sees a super model or Britney Spears wearing Abercrombie and Fitch they think the key to being beautiful and popular is to match their wardrobes.
Examples where decision analysis can help me include which classes to take, which job offer I should accept, and where I should live. The essay has an accumulation of errors, especially in spelling and punctuation. Imagine a world where everyone was hired based on merit. By specifying which artificial sweetener and which people, the question is easier to answer with facts. As you write your question, think about the answer you want to receive. The essay maintains a clear focus on the point. There are the unfashionable, who think they are fashionable but do not run with the trend. Don't forget that your reason for asking this question is to come up with a really great answer - one on which you'll be able to build a paper or project.
It is important to reflect often on your worldview, because it effects every decision we make and how we learn. In fact, Stephen J. While Columbus was not a desperate man who could do anything, he was intensely focused on his ambitions and he had the stubbornness to see them through Weatherford, In conclusion, hiring based on looks solely to raise profits is ethically and morally wrong. Brush Up on Academic Writing Skills. Cohen is a senior industry analyst with the NPD Group, a market research firm. In the end using beautiful people to advertise your product translates to one thing: money.
That is why I disagree with Mr. With this "bad" question, the answer is a simple "yes" or "no. Health rates will drop and human sanity will continue to be taken away. Not only do companies spend a majority of their money on advertising, they also use their employees as portable posters. Some beliefs such as religion, supriority of the sexes and what you think is your social status. The writer demonstrates a strong command of language and syntactic variety, alternating fluent, longer sentences with short sentences to make a point. He was accepted at that college and several other colleges. Being a guy, I know the power women have over us as a gender; especially the good looking ones. In the movie Thierry perspective on art changed his perception of art forever. These issues may mean that you have a bias viewpoint if for example you believe that it is against your religion for genetic engineering to occur so you might taylor an essay on that particualar viewpoint while others mean References: Samovar L.
It is a known fact that one cannot sell everything by appearance alone. The body paragraphs are series of assertions that lack effective transitions.
TKG clients often come to us with essays that they want to rework and refine, but when the topic itself is problematic, we have no choice but to start over. We like sports. But a vast majority of sports essays fall into one of two categories: they aim to speak about your leadership abilities and dedication to improvement, or they aim to explain how a sport helped you with social skills. More on this later, but the first issue with writing about sports is that you probably read: definitely included the sports in your activity section. This is no-no number one. The student, who has good grades and stand-out activities, chose to write about sports.
The sports bucket is not the place for you. Your common app essay should be about you. We love secondary characters, but only when they act as mirrors. They exist only to play up the quality that you are trying to show about yourself. Tons of colleges ask questions about community, and community service has become a hot topic for common app essays because of the long-standing and untrue line of thinking that community service is the best way to get into college. The common thread between all of these examples is that they show a desire to improve the human condition that exists around you. We know how hard all of our blog readers and clients work to get good grades and remain engaged with their extracurricular activities. But a college admissions team member has a very short amount of time to read your essays, and you only have a few opportunities to add depth to your application.
Your dream school is going to read through your activities section and look at your transcript immediately before they read your essay. This is why we preach the importance of your common app essay being about your personality, and something that has not been explained elsewhere in your application. For reasons that will likely always remain unclear, people come to us and write to us, asking for help about an essay about their partner. This cannot be stressed enough: there is not a single adult on earth that wants to read about a messy teenage relationship. Please, avoid this topic at all costs. Contact us here if you could use some extra help. College Essay Bootcamp.
Sample Admission Essays. College Specific Supplements. The sports essay: We like sports. The cringe-worthy relationship essay: For reasons that will likely always remain unclear, people come to us and write to us, asking for help about an essay about their partner. Newer Post Regular Decision Strategies for College Essays. Older Post Best College Essay of All Time.
Really Bad Writing,What Makes Bad College Essays Bad
WebSample bad essay: An Analysis of Propertius Propertius' opening poem is a programmatic introduction to his oeuvre. It focuses on the poet's delight in his mistress, WebExample 1. “Trees provide oxygen.”. This thesis statement is ultimately too broad and therefore fails to present a unique argument. It does not provide adequate focus for the WebApr 29, · The essay is virtually error-free and reflects the writer’s command of the conventions of incorporating the words and ideas of others into the writer’s response to WebJun 15, · Weider in his presentation gave an example; if your glasses are red then everything around you will be red. (Weider & Gotierrez, ) This is the same for ... read more
A worldview allows us to make conclusions, which are based on presuppositions pertaining to our viewpoint, about the things that surround us. The fundamental deficiencies of this essay clearly indicate that the writer needs much additional practice to be ready to succeed at college-level reading and writing. Essay On Biblical Worldview Words 3 Pages. Apol Worldview. Is it really believable that this is what the author learned? The prevalence of cell phones in American culture shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone.
Pages: 1 2. Our worldview can effect our opinions on, politics, education, ethics, bad essay examples, the economy, human life, morality, war, science, and ultimately our purpose for living. Essays that don't show these qualities are usually suffering from tone-deafness. The conditions of it hit me by surprise; it looked much worse in real life than compared to the what our group leader had told us. A long, one-sided essay bad essay examples a hot-button issue will suggest that you are exactly that. But my most vivid memory was the moment I first got to the farming town.
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