essays for ol students

• Competition
• Scholorship

Search This Blog

GCE O/L English

Learning Materials for Students

WhatsApp Group (guruwaraya.lk)

Telegram (guruwaraya.lk)

Blog Archive

• February (109)
• January (99)
• December (114)
• November (95)
• October (102)
• September (98)
• August (71)
• February (62)
• January (67)
• December (56)
• November (56)
• October (42)
• September (55)
• August (54)
• February (52)
• January (57)
• December (50)
• November (41)
• October (62)
• September (36)
• August (88)
• February (44)
• January (54)
• December (79)
• November (91)
• October (78)
• September (83)
• August (81)
• February (50)
• January (62)
• December (44)
• November (60)
• October (58)
• September (53)
• August (57)
• February (70)
• January (84)
• December (67)
• November (84)
• October (89)
• September (93)
• August (96)
• February (26)
• January (11)
• October (1)
• September (1)

Total Pageviews

Popular posts.

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Welcome to the Purdue Online Writing Lab

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects. Teachers and trainers may use this material for in-class and out-of-class instruction.

The Purdue On-Campus Writing Lab and Purdue Online Writing Lab assist clients in their development as writers—no matter what their skill level—with on-campus consultations, online participation, and community engagement. The Purdue Writing Lab serves the Purdue, West Lafayette, campus and coordinates with local literacy initiatives. The Purdue OWL offers global support through online reference materials and services.

A Message From the Assistant Director of Content Development 

The Purdue OWL® is committed to supporting  students, instructors, and writers by offering a wide range of resources that are developed and revised with them in mind. To do this, the OWL team is always exploring possibilties for a better design, allowing accessibility and user experience to guide our process. As the OWL undergoes some changes, we welcome your feedback and suggestions by email at any time.

Please don't hesitate to contact us via our contact page  if you have any questions or comments.

All the best,

Social Media

Facebook twitter.

O-LEVEL PAST YEARS COMPOSITION QUESTIONS

In our ‘O’ Level English Enrichment Programme, we ensure that our graduating students are ready to ace the English Language examination. It is a race against time to prepare for the ‘O’ Levels, hence our programme focuses on teaching and reinforcing our students’ essay writing skills, comprehension answer precision, summary writing and oral examination techniques. All W@W secondary teachers spare no effort in coaching our students how to tackle popular examination essay topics.

HALL OF FAME

Janice glanced worriedly at her wrist watch. The time was already ten past seven. She had twenty minutes to make it to school on time. The sky was overcast. A slight drizzle rained down like a mist. It started raining cats and dogs as Janice reached the bus stop. She had ignored her mother’s advice to take an umbrella with her. She wondered how she was going to make itto school in the rain.

Jovan Ang, Primary 2

Rulang Primary School

It was an idyllic Saturday morning. Fluffy white clouds hung in the clear cerulean sky. Granny Lucy was tottering to the market. Her heart was filled with light-hearted cheer and her mouth curled into a smile. She was looking forward to preparing a feast for her grandchildren, who were coming for dinner that night.

Kew Ling Wei, Primary 3

Raffles Girls’ Primary School

TESTIMONIALS

I am amazed at the depth of vocabulary my child has amassed since attending W@W. She has become a much more confident writer and can now write a full story with ease. She loves coming to lessons

Mr Calvin Tang

Parent of our Primary 3 student

OUR CENTRES

320 Clementi Ave 4 #01-15/27 Singapore 120320 (See Map )

OPENING HOURS

Monday – Friday: 11.00am to 7.00pm Saturday – Sunday: 9.00am to 6.00pm

WR!TERS@WORK PROGRAMMES

• O-level English Enrichment Programme (For Sec 3&4)
• Secondary English Enrichment Programme (For Sec 1&2)
• PSLE WRITING Programme
• Primary 6 English Enrichment Programme
• Primary 5 WRITING Programme
• Primary 5 English Enrichment Programme
• Primary 4 WRITING Programme
• Primary 3 WRITING Programme
• Primary 2 WRITING & English Programme
• Primary 1 WRITING & English Programme
• Junior WRITING Programme

Call us: 6774 2618 / 9684 3373 WhatsApp us: 8404 9281

[email protected]

Join the W@W community!

559 Bukit Timah Road #01-02B King’s Arcade Singapore 269695 (See Map )

Monday – Friday: 11.00am to 7.00pm Saturday – Sunday: 9.00am to 6.00pm

Call us: 6463 6718 / 8600 2778 WhatsApp us: 8404 9281

728 Ang Mo Kio Ave 6 #01-4220, Singapore 560728 (See Map )

Monday – Friday: 11.00am to 7.00pm Saturday – Sunday: 9.00am – 6.00pm

Call us: 6250 1906 / 8600 3815 WhatsApp us: 8404 9281

1 Marine Parade Central Parkway Centre #10-08 Singapore 449408 (See Map )

Monday – Tuesday and Thursday – Friday: 11.00am to 7.00pm Saturday – Sunday: 9.00am to 6.00pm Wednesday: CLOSED

Call us: 6243 3236 / 8600 3420 WhatsApp us: 8404 9281

300 Tampines Ave 5 #05-08 Tampines Junction Singapore 529653 (See Map )

Monday – Wednesday and Friday: 11.00am to 7.00pm Saturday – Sunday: 9.00am to 6.00pm Thursday : CLOSED

Call us: 6223 0125 / 8668 1924 WhatsApp us: 8404 9281

Ci Yuan Community Centre 51 Hougang Ave 9 #03-02 Singapore 538776 (See Map )

Monday – Friday : 11.00am to 7.00pm Saturday : 9.00am to 6.00pm Sunday : CLOSED

Call us: 6214 9359 / 8600 0498 WhatsApp us: 8404 9281

298 Tiong Bahru Road #06-02 Central Plaza Singapore 168730 (See Map )

Monday, Wednesday – Friday: 11.00am to 7.00pm Saturday: 9.00am to 6.00pm Tuesday and Sunday: Closed

Call us: 8600 5534 WhatsApp us: 8404 9281

Blk 284 Bishan St 22 #01-207 Singapore 570284 (See Map )

Monday – Friday: 11.00am to 7.00pm Saturday – Sunday: 9.00am to 6.00pm

Call us: 8600 0737 WhatsApp us: 8404 9281

12 Kallang Ave Aperia Mall, #03-02 Singapore 339511 (See Map )

Call us: 8600 9441 WhatsApp us: 8404 9281

+65 6774 2618 / 9684 3373

Monday - Wednesday: 11.00am to 7.00pm Thursday - Friday: 2.00pm to 9.00pm Saturday - Sunday: 9.00am to 6.00pm

559 Bukit Timah Road #01-02B King's Arcade Singapore 269695 (See Map )

+65 6463 2956 / 8600 2778

+65 62501906 / 8600 3815

+65 62433236 / 8600 3420

+65 86681924

Monday - Wednesday: 11.00am to 7.00pm Thursday - Friday: 2.00pm to 7.00pm Saturday - Sunday: 9.00am to 6.00pm

+65 62501906 / +65 8600 3815

Monday - Friday : 11.00am to 7.00pm Saturday : 9.00am to 6.00pm

© Copyright www.writersatwork.com.sg 2024, all rights reserved. By Orfeostory - Web Design & App Developer Singapore

• A/L Past Papers
• O/L Past Papers
• A/L Term Papers
• O/L Term Papers
• A/L Model Papers
• O/L Model Papers

G.C.E O/L 2020/2021 English Essay

We have added some Expected Heading for G.C.E O/L English. You can find O/L English Model Essays in PDF below

O/L Expected Essays

• What is Corona Virus
• The way of spreading and symptoms
• Impact of Corona virus
• How to control it
• A description of the environment
• The ways the environment getting polluted
• Impact of the environmental pollutions
• The ways of control the environmental pollution
• What are public properties.
• The consequences of harming or destroying the public properties
• The reasons of destroying the public properties
• How to protect the public properties.
• How internet helps in our day to day life
• How internet contributes to the studies
• Disadvantages of internet
• Definition of online education
• How it becomes disadvantage to the education
• Your recommendations to make it so affective.

Related Posts

2021 O/L English Model Papers – 1 Download

Here we added some 2021 O/L English Model Papers in PDF Form . You can download O/L 2021 English Model...

G.C.E O/L 2021 Literature Subjects New Model Paper

Department of Examination has changed the structure of the questions papers of Literature papers from 2021 GCE O/L Exam.Exam department...

E-Thaksalawa O/L ICT Model Paper Discussion

E-Thaksalawa - Ministry of Education has released a set of G.C.E O/L ICT ICT Model paper discussion for G.C.E O/L...

G.C.E O/L 2020 Western Province Model Papers

Department of Education, Western Province has released Model Papers for G.C.E O/L 2020(2021 March) Students. You can download Western Province...

G.C.E O/L Second Language(Sinhala) Model Papers

Hi Students, GCE OL Second Language (Sinhala) Model Papers can be download here. You can O/L Second Language (Sinhala) Model...

Moratuwa NDT : No Aptitude Test for Technology Course -2021

School Census Report 2019 PDF Download

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

RECOMMENDED NEWS

Parliament Vacancy-2020 Application Tamil

Grade 1 Application – 2022 Closing Date Extended

Law Graduates Admission for Law College

Official Languages Written Exam Admission Card

Browse by categories.

• A/L Past Papers English Medium
• A/L Past Papers Sinhala Medium
• A/L Past Papers Tamil Medium
• Applications
• BIT Past Papers
• Competitive Exams Past Paper
• Job Vacancy
• Model Papers
• O/L Past Papers English Medium
• O/L Past Papers Sinhala Medium
• O/L Past Papers Tamil Medium
• Result Check
• Uncategorized

POPULAR NEWS

Grama Niladhari Exam Tamil Medium Model Papers

Grama niladhari exam past papers download, open uni llb entrance exam past papers sinhala medium, gce a/l general english past papers download, open university llb/law entrance exam tamil past papers.

© 2023 Alpastpapers.com

Important Links

• Privacy Policy

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, getting college essay help: important do's and don’ts.

College Essays

If you grow up to be a professional writer, everything you write will first go through an editor before being published. This is because the process of writing is really a process of re-writing —of rethinking and reexamining your work, usually with the help of someone else. So what does this mean for your student writing? And in particular, what does it mean for very important, but nonprofessional writing like your college essay? Should you ask your parents to look at your essay? Pay for an essay service?

If you are wondering what kind of help you can, and should, get with your personal statement, you've come to the right place! In this article, I'll talk about what kind of writing help is useful, ethical, and even expected for your college admission essay . I'll also point out who would make a good editor, what the differences between editing and proofreading are, what to expect from a good editor, and how to spot and stay away from a bad one.

Table of Contents

What Kind of Help for Your Essay Can You Get?

What's Good Editing?

What should an editor do for you, what kind of editing should you avoid, proofreading, what's good proofreading, what kind of proofreading should you avoid.

What Do Colleges Think Of You Getting Help With Your Essay?

Who Can/Should Help You?

Advice for editors.

Should You Pay Money For Essay Editing?

The Bottom Line

What's next, what kind of help with your essay can you get.

Rather than talking in general terms about "help," let's first clarify the two different ways that someone else can improve your writing . There is editing, which is the more intensive kind of assistance that you can use throughout the whole process. And then there's proofreading, which is the last step of really polishing your final product.

Let me go into some more detail about editing and proofreading, and then explain how good editors and proofreaders can help you."

Editing is helping the author (in this case, you) go from a rough draft to a finished work . Editing is the process of asking questions about what you're saying, how you're saying it, and how you're organizing your ideas. But not all editing is good editing . In fact, it's very easy for an editor to cross the line from supportive to overbearing and over-involved.

Ability to clarify assignments. A good editor is usually a good writer, and certainly has to be a good reader. For example, in this case, a good editor should make sure you understand the actual essay prompt you're supposed to be answering.

Open-endedness. Good editing is all about asking questions about your ideas and work, but without providing answers. It's about letting you stick to your story and message, and doesn't alter your point of view.

Think of an editor as a great travel guide. It can show you the many different places your trip could take you. It should explain any parts of the trip that could derail your trip or confuse the traveler. But it never dictates your path, never forces you to go somewhere you don't want to go, and never ignores your interests so that the trip no longer seems like it's your own. So what should good editors do?

Help Brainstorm Topics

Sometimes it's easier to bounce thoughts off of someone else. This doesn't mean that your editor gets to come up with ideas, but they can certainly respond to the various topic options you've come up with. This way, you're less likely to write about the most boring of your ideas, or to write about something that isn't actually important to you.

If you're wondering how to come up with options for your editor to consider, check out our guide to brainstorming topics for your college essay .

Help Revise Your Drafts

Here, your editor can't upset the delicate balance of not intervening too much or too little. It's tricky, but a great way to think about it is to remember: editing is about asking questions, not giving answers .

Revision questions should point out:

• Places where more detail or more description would help the reader connect with your essay
• Places where structure and logic don't flow, losing the reader's attention
• Places where there aren't transitions between paragraphs, confusing the reader
• Moments where your narrative or the arguments you're making are unclear

But pointing to potential problems is not the same as actually rewriting—editors let authors fix the problems themselves.

Bad editing is usually very heavy-handed editing. Instead of helping you find your best voice and ideas, a bad editor changes your writing into their own vision.

You may be dealing with a bad editor if they:

• Add material (examples, descriptions) that doesn't come from you
• Use a thesaurus to make your college essay sound "more mature"
• Add meaning or insight to the essay that doesn't come from you
• Tell you what to say and how to say it
• Write sentences, phrases, and paragraphs for you
• Change your voice in the essay so it no longer sounds like it was written by a teenager

Colleges can tell the difference between a 17-year-old's writing and a 50-year-old's writing. Not only that, they have access to your SAT or ACT Writing section, so they can compare your essay to something else you wrote. Writing that's a little more polished is great and expected. But a totally different voice and style will raise questions.

Where's the Line Between Helpful Editing and Unethical Over-Editing?

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether your college essay editor is doing the right thing. Here are some guidelines for staying on the ethical side of the line.

• An editor should say that the opening paragraph is kind of boring, and explain what exactly is making it drag. But it's overstepping for an editor to tell you exactly how to change it.
• An editor should point out where your prose is unclear or vague. But it's completely inappropriate for the editor to rewrite that section of your essay.
• An editor should let you know that a section is light on detail or description. But giving you similes and metaphors to beef up that description is a no-go.

Proofreading (also called copy-editing) is checking for errors in the last draft of a written work. It happens at the end of the process and is meant as the final polishing touch. Proofreading is meticulous and detail-oriented, focusing on small corrections. It sands off all the surface rough spots that could alienate the reader.

Because proofreading is usually concerned with making fixes on the word or sentence level, this is the only process where someone else can actually add to or take away things from your essay . This is because what they are adding or taking away tends to be one or two misplaced letters.

Laser focus. Proofreading is all about the tiny details, so the ability to really concentrate on finding small slip-ups is a must.

Excellent grammar and spelling skills. Proofreaders need to dot every "i" and cross every "t." Good proofreaders should correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. They should put foreign words in italics and surround quotations with quotation marks. They should check that you used the correct college's name, and that you adhered to any formatting requirements (name and date at the top of the page, uniform font and size, uniform spacing).

Limited interference. A proofreader needs to make sure that you followed any word limits. But if cuts need to be made to shorten the essay, that's your job and not the proofreader's.

A bad proofreader either tries to turn into an editor, or just lacks the skills and knowledge necessary to do the job.

Some signs that you're working with a bad proofreader are:

• If they suggest making major changes to the final draft of your essay. Proofreading happens when editing is already finished.
• If they aren't particularly good at spelling, or don't know grammar, or aren't detail-oriented enough to find someone else's small mistakes.
• If they start swapping out your words for fancier-sounding synonyms, or changing the voice and sound of your essay in other ways. A proofreader is there to check for errors, not to take the 17-year-old out of your writing.

What Do Colleges Think of Your Getting Help With Your Essay?

Admissions officers agree: light editing and proofreading are good—even required ! But they also want to make sure you're the one doing the work on your essay. They want essays with stories, voice, and themes that come from you. They want to see work that reflects your actual writing ability, and that focuses on what you find important.

On the Importance of Editing

Get feedback. Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Don't allow someone else to rewrite your essay, but do take advantage of others' edits and opinions when they seem helpful. ( Bates College )

Read your essay aloud to someone. Reading the essay out loud offers a chance to hear how your essay sounds outside your head. This exercise reveals flaws in the essay's flow, highlights grammatical errors and helps you ensure that you are communicating the exact message you intended. ( Dickinson College )

On the Value of Proofreading

Share your essays with at least one or two people who know you well—such as a parent, teacher, counselor, or friend—and ask for feedback. Remember that you ultimately have control over your essays, and your essays should retain your own voice, but others may be able to catch mistakes that you missed and help suggest areas to cut if you are over the word limit. ( Yale University )

Proofread and then ask someone else to proofread for you. Although we want substance, we also want to be able to see that you can write a paper for our professors and avoid careless mistakes that would drive them crazy. ( Oberlin College )

On Watching Out for Too Much Outside Influence

Limit the number of people who review your essay. Too much input usually means your voice is lost in the writing style. ( Carleton College )

Ask for input (but not too much). Your parents, friends, guidance counselors, coaches, and teachers are great people to bounce ideas off of for your essay. They know how unique and spectacular you are, and they can help you decide how to articulate it. Keep in mind, however, that a 45-year-old lawyer writes quite differently from an 18-year-old student, so if your dad ends up writing the bulk of your essay, we're probably going to notice. ( Vanderbilt University )

Now let's talk about some potential people to approach for your college essay editing and proofreading needs. It's best to start close to home and slowly expand outward. Not only are your family and friends more invested in your success than strangers, but they also have a better handle on your interests and personality. This knowledge is key for judging whether your essay is expressing your true self.

Parents or Close Relatives

Your family may be full of potentially excellent editors! Parents are deeply committed to your well-being, and family members know you and your life well enough to offer details or incidents that can be included in your essay. On the other hand, the rewriting process necessarily involves criticism, which is sometimes hard to hear from someone very close to you.

A parent or close family member is a great choice for an editor if you can answer "yes" to the following questions. Is your parent or close relative a good writer or reader? Do you have a relationship where editing your essay won't create conflict? Are you able to constructively listen to criticism and suggestion from the parent?

One suggestion for defusing face-to-face discussions is to try working on the essay over email. Send your parent a draft, have them write you back some comments, and then you can pick which of their suggestions you want to use and which to discard.

Teachers or Tutors

A humanities teacher that you have a good relationship with is a great choice. I am purposefully saying humanities, and not just English, because teachers of Philosophy, History, Anthropology, and any other classes where you do a lot of writing, are all used to reviewing student work.

Moreover, any teacher or tutor that has been working with you for some time, knows you very well and can vet the essay to make sure it "sounds like you."

If your teacher or tutor has some experience with what college essays are supposed to be like, ask them to be your editor. If not, then ask whether they have time to proofread your final draft.

Guidance or College Counselor at Your School

The best thing about asking your counselor to edit your work is that this is their job. This means that they have a very good sense of what colleges are looking for in an application essay.

At the same time, school counselors tend to have relationships with admissions officers in many colleges, which again gives them insight into what works and which college is focused on what aspect of the application.

Unfortunately, in many schools the guidance counselor tends to be way overextended. If your ratio is 300 students to 1 college counselor, you're unlikely to get that person's undivided attention and focus. It is still useful to ask them for general advice about your potential topics, but don't expect them to be able to stay with your essay from first draft to final version.

Friends, Siblings, or Classmates

Although they most likely don't have much experience with what colleges are hoping to see, your peers are excellent sources for checking that your essay is you .

Friends and siblings are perfect for the read-aloud edit. Read your essay to them so they can listen for words and phrases that are stilted, pompous, or phrases that just don't sound like you.

You can even trade essays and give helpful advice on each other's work.

If your editor hasn't worked with college admissions essays very much, no worries! Any astute and attentive reader can still greatly help with your process. But, as in all things, beginners do better with some preparation.

First, your editor should read our advice about how to write a college essay introduction , how to spot and fix a bad college essay , and get a sense of what other students have written by going through some admissions essays that worked .

Then, as they read your essay, they can work through the following series of questions that will help them to guide you.

Introduction Questions

• Is the first sentence a killer opening line? Why or why not?
• Does the introduction hook the reader? Does it have a colorful, detailed, and interesting narrative? Or does it propose a compelling or surprising idea?
• Can you feel the author's voice in the introduction, or is the tone dry, dull, or overly formal? Show the places where the voice comes through.

Essay Body Questions

• Does the essay have a through-line? Is it built around a central argument, thought, idea, or focus? Can you put this idea into your own words?
• How is the essay organized? By logical progression? Chronologically? Do you feel order when you read it, or are there moments where you are confused or lose the thread of the essay?
• Does the essay have both narratives about the author's life and explanations and insight into what these stories reveal about the author's character, personality, goals, or dreams? If not, which is missing?
• Does the essay flow? Are there smooth transitions/clever links between paragraphs? Between the narrative and moments of insight?

Reader Response Questions

• Does the writer's personality come through? Do we know what the speaker cares about? Do we get a sense of "who he or she is"?
• Where did you feel most connected to the essay? Which parts of the essay gave you a "you are there" sensation by invoking your senses? What moments could you picture in your head well?
• Where are the details and examples vague and not specific enough?
• Did you get an "a-ha!" feeling anywhere in the essay? Is there a moment of insight that connected all the dots for you? Is there a good reveal or "twist" anywhere in the essay?
• What are the strengths of this essay? What needs the most improvement?

Should You Pay Money for Essay Editing?

One alternative to asking someone you know to help you with your college essay is the paid editor route. There are two different ways to pay for essay help: a private essay coach or a less personal editing service , like the many proliferating on the internet.

My advice is to think of these options as a last resort rather than your go-to first choice. I'll first go through the reasons why. Then, if you do decide to go with a paid editor, I'll help you decide between a coach and a service.

When to Consider a Paid Editor

In general, I think hiring someone to work on your essay makes a lot of sense if none of the people I discussed above are a possibility for you.

If you can't ask your parents. For example, if your parents aren't good writers, or if English isn't their first language. Or if you think getting your parents to help is going create unnecessary extra conflict in your relationship with them (applying to college is stressful as it is!)

If you can't ask your teacher or tutor. Maybe you don't have a trusted teacher or tutor that has time to look over your essay with focus. Or, for instance, your favorite humanities teacher has very limited experience with college essays and so won't know what admissions officers want to see.

If you can't ask your guidance counselor. This could be because your guidance counselor is way overwhelmed with other students.

If you can't share your essay with those who know you. It might be that your essay is on a very personal topic that you're unwilling to share with parents, teachers, or peers. Just make sure it doesn't fall into one of the bad-idea topics in our article on bad college essays .

If the cost isn't a consideration. Many of these services are quite expensive, and private coaches even more so. If you have finite resources, I'd say that hiring an SAT or ACT tutor (whether it's PrepScholar or someone else) is better way to spend your money . This is because there's no guarantee that a slightly better essay will sufficiently elevate the rest of your application, but a significantly higher SAT score will definitely raise your applicant profile much more.

Should You Hire an Essay Coach?

On the plus side, essay coaches have read dozens or even hundreds of college essays, so they have experience with the format. Also, because you'll be working closely with a specific person, it's more personal than sending your essay to a service, which will know even less about you.

But, on the minus side, you'll still be bouncing ideas off of someone who doesn't know that much about you . In general, if you can adequately get the help from someone you know, there is no advantage to paying someone to help you.

If you do decide to hire a coach, ask your school counselor, or older students that have used the service for recommendations. If you can't afford the coach's fees, ask whether they can work on a sliding scale —many do. And finally, beware those who guarantee admission to your school of choice—essay coaches don't have any special magic that can back up those promises.

Should You Send Your Essay to a Service?

On the plus side, essay editing services provide a similar product to essay coaches, and they cost significantly less . If you have some assurance that you'll be working with a good editor, the lack of face-to-face interaction won't prevent great results.

On the minus side, however, it can be difficult to gauge the quality of the service before working with them . If they are churning through many application essays without getting to know the students they are helping, you could end up with an over-edited essay that sounds just like everyone else's. In the worst case scenario, an unscrupulous service could send you back a plagiarized essay.

Getting recommendations from friends or a school counselor for reputable services is key to avoiding heavy-handed editing that writes essays for you or does too much to change your essay. Including a badly-edited essay like this in your application could cause problems if there are inconsistencies. For example, in interviews it might be clear you didn't write the essay, or the skill of the essay might not be reflected in your schoolwork and test scores.

Should You Buy an Essay Written by Someone Else?

Let me elaborate. There are super sketchy places on the internet where you can simply buy a pre-written essay. Don't do this!

For one thing, you'll be lying on an official, signed document. All college applications make you sign a statement saying something like this:

I certify that all information submitted in the admission process—including the application, the personal essay, any supplements, and any other supporting materials—is my own work, factually true, and honestly presented... I understand that I may be subject to a range of possible disciplinary actions, including admission revocation, expulsion, or revocation of course credit, grades, and degree, should the information I have certified be false. (From the Common Application )

For another thing, if your academic record doesn't match the essay's quality, the admissions officer will start thinking your whole application is riddled with lies.

Admission officers have full access to your writing portion of the SAT or ACT so that they can compare work that was done in proctored conditions with that done at home. They can tell if these were written by different people. Not only that, but there are now a number of search engines that faculty and admission officers can use to see if an essay contains strings of words that have appeared in other essays—you have no guarantee that the essay you bought wasn't also bought by 50 other students.

• You should get college essay help with both editing and proofreading
• A good editor will ask questions about your idea, logic, and structure, and will point out places where clarity is needed
• A good editor will absolutely not answer these questions, give you their own ideas, or write the essay or parts of the essay for you
• A good proofreader will find typos and check your formatting
• All of them agree that getting light editing and proofreading is necessary
• Parents, teachers, guidance or college counselor, and peers or siblings
• If you can't ask any of those, you can pay for college essay help, but watch out for services or coaches who over-edit you work
• Don't buy a pre-written essay! Colleges can tell, and it'll make your whole application sound false.

Ready to start working on your essay? Check out our explanation of the point of the personal essay and the role it plays on your applications and then explore our step-by-step guide to writing a great college essay .

Using the Common Application for your college applications? We have an excellent guide to the Common App essay prompts and useful advice on how to pick the Common App prompt that's right for you . Wondering how other people tackled these prompts? Then work through our roundup of over 130 real college essay examples published by colleges .

Stressed about whether to take the SAT again before submitting your application? Let us help you decide how many times to take this test . If you choose to go for it, we have the ultimate guide to studying for the SAT to give you the ins and outs of the best ways to study.

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.

Ask a Question Below

Have any questions about this article or other topics? Ask below and we'll reply!

Improve With Our Famous Guides

• For All Students

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 160+ SAT Points

How to Get a Perfect 1600, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 800 on Each SAT Section:

Score 800 on SAT Math

Score 800 on SAT Reading

Score 800 on SAT Writing

Series: How to Get to 600 on Each SAT Section:

Score 600 on SAT Math

Score 600 on SAT Reading

Score 600 on SAT Writing

Free Complete Official SAT Practice Tests

What SAT Target Score Should You Be Aiming For?

15 Strategies to Improve Your SAT Essay

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 4+ ACT Points

How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 36 on Each ACT Section:

36 on ACT English

36 on ACT Math

36 on ACT Reading

36 on ACT Science

Series: How to Get to 24 on Each ACT Section:

24 on ACT English

24 on ACT Math

24 on ACT Reading

24 on ACT Science

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 4.0 GPA

How to Write an Amazing College Essay

What Exactly Are Colleges Looking For?

Is the ACT easier than the SAT? A Comprehensive Guide

Should you retake your SAT or ACT?

When should you take the SAT or ACT?

Stay Informed

Get the latest articles and test prep tips!

Looking for Graduate School Test Prep?

Check out our top-rated graduate blogs here:

GRE Online Prep Blog

GMAT Online Prep Blog

TOEFL Online Prep Blog

Holly R. "I am absolutely overjoyed and cannot thank you enough for helping me!”

More From Forbes

Students aren’t writing well anymore. can ai help.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

A group of students begins an in-class writing test. According to new data analysis, half of U.S. ... [+] eighth graders have difficulty with long-form writing on tests and classwork that involves reading.

Fifty percent. That’s the approximate number of students in eighth grade who struggle with long-form writing on tests and classwork that involves reading.

A colleague of mine, L Burleigh, studying reading data collected in 2022 from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) found that fewer than half of eighth graders write “long answers to questions on tests or assignments that involve reading.”

While people may put a premium on the notion of short and sweet when it comes to writing and reading – doing so at formative ages means that young learners will not build the skills they need to convey and explain ideas and information.

Writing Frequency Matters

Frequency of practice is a common theme cited by both researchers and teachers in assessing causes for declining K-12 student writing skills. Middle and high schoolers simply are not engaging in and practicing writing enough. The reasons for this are myriad but overburdened teachers without the time or support to grade more frequent writing assignments is a significant factor.

In a survey I did with some colleagues a few years ago, a key challenge was workload. More than 70 percent of educators say they are overwhelmed with grading, providing feedback, and other administrative tasks. Additionally, according to our report, educators in low-income schools are almost 20 percent more likely than teachers in other schools to report being overburdened by routine duties like grading essays.

In short, kids are not writing as much as frequency in writing education falls victim to staffing, time, and resource shortages.

Highlighting this point is NAEP reading data for eighth graders collected by L that included the following question to students about their writing habits: “How often have you been asked to write long answers to questions on tests or assignments that involved reading?” The results: Never - 2%; Once - 3%; Two or Three Times - 22%; Four or Five Times - 25%; More than Five Times - 48 percent.

Netflix’s New #1 Movie Is An Overlooked, Must-Watch Crime Comedy Thriller

The 33 best memorial day tv sales to shop this weekend, a psychologist reveals 3 ways to master ‘constructive disagreement’, using ai to aid writing gains.

There’s lots that can be done to fix this problem: Improved teacher professional development, greater emphasis on writing across the curriculum, etc. For my part, I’m optimistic that AI will be a deep help to students, given recent advances in the technology, and many are exploring new avenues to support students in boosting their long-form writing ability.

For instance, the team at ThinkCirca is working on a formative assessment and feedback tool to enhance student writing. This tool focuses on argumentative essays and identifies key elements within the text as students write. By highlighting these elements, the tool provides real-time assessment and feedback, creating mini-instructional moments that guide students in improving their arguments during the writing process.

Large language models can help, too. Indeed, just asking ChatGPT provides helpful feedback. But for more targeted support, researchers have found that fine-tuning is necessary. For instance, when researchers looked at holistic scoring using ChatGPT (version 4), they found the technology could provide human-level performance.

However, when asking the chatbot to focus on more granular, discourse-level evaluation, ChatGPT began to struggle. More specifically, it had a hard time identifying the distinct elements of argumentative writing (e.g., claim, counterclaim, rebuttal, supporting evidence). Additionally, ChatGPT was a more generous grader than humans when focused on smaller writing segments, like discourse elements, rating them at a higher effectiveness level than a human would.

This finding makes sense because chatbots are usually trained to create text using thousands of example essays. However, chatbots don't see many examples of labeled essay parts during their training compared to tasks like summarizing a text or analyzing the emotion of an essay. So, while ChatGPT is not as reliable for evaluating the structure of an essay due to its lack of training, it is extensively taught on what forms a strong long-form essay and its ability to generate essays is an area of greater concern for educators.

Some worry certain LLM technologies could help students cheat by doing their long-form writing for them, although recent research from Stanford and others indicates this is not occurring as frequently as initially feared. The potential benefit of incorporating technology to help students strengthen their writing skills may far outweigh any risks posed by introducing AI solutions – especially since researchers point out that declines in student writing can be traced to how often students are engaging in long-form writing.

Even as AI carves out its place in improving student writing, staying true to some hallmark tenets is recommended to help young learners build on the writing skills and abilities deemed indispensable in the workforce.

Whether gains on this front are realized through AI or teacher interaction, the ultimate goal is to make the essential communication and job skill of writing something that students can navigate naturally and with confidence that will carry them successfully through college and the workforce.

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

Join The Conversation

One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts. 

Forbes Community Guidelines

Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.

In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site's  Terms of Service.   We've summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.

Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:

• False or intentionally out-of-context or misleading information
• Insults, profanity, incoherent, obscene or inflammatory language or threats of any kind
• Attacks on the identity of other commenters or the article's author
• Content that otherwise violates our site's  terms.

User accounts will be blocked if we notice or believe that users are engaged in:

• Continuous attempts to re-post comments that have been previously moderated/rejected
• Racist, sexist, homophobic or other discriminatory comments
• Attempts or tactics that put the site security at risk
• Actions that otherwise violate our site's  terms.

So, how can you be a power user?

• Stay on topic and share your insights
• Feel free to be clear and thoughtful to get your point across
• ‘Like’ or ‘Dislike’ to show your point of view.
• Protect your community.
• Use the report tool to alert us when someone breaks the rules.

Thanks for reading our community guidelines. Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site's  Terms of Service.

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience.

Health & Nursing

Courses and certificates.

• Bachelor's Degrees
• View all Business Bachelor's Degrees
• Business Management – B.S. Business Administration
• Healthcare Administration – B.S.
• Human Resource Management – B.S. Business Administration
• Information Technology Management – B.S. Business Administration
• Marketing – B.S. Business Administration
• Accounting – B.S. Business Administration
• Finance – B.S.
• Supply Chain and Operations Management – B.S.
• Accelerated Information Technology Bachelor's and Master's Degree (from the School of Technology)
• Health Information Management – B.S. (from the Leavitt School of Health)

Master's Degrees

• View all Business Master's Degrees
• Master of Business Administration (MBA)
• MBA Information Technology Management
• MBA Healthcare Management
• Management and Leadership – M.S.
• Accounting – M.S.
• Marketing – M.S.
• Human Resource Management – M.S.
• Master of Healthcare Administration (from the Leavitt School of Health)
• Data Analytics – M.S. (from the School of Technology)
• Information Technology Management – M.S. (from the School of Technology)
• Education Technology and Instructional Design – M.Ed. (from the School of Education)

Certificates

• Supply Chain
• Accounting Fundamentals
• View all Business Degrees

Bachelor's Preparing For Licensure

• View all Education Bachelor's Degrees
• Elementary Education – B.A.
• Special Education and Elementary Education (Dual Licensure) – B.A.
• Special Education (Mild-to-Moderate) – B.A.
• Mathematics Education (Middle Grades) – B.S.
• Mathematics Education (Secondary)– B.S.
• Science Education (Middle Grades) – B.S.
• Science Education (Secondary Chemistry) – B.S.
• Science Education (Secondary Physics) – B.S.
• Science Education (Secondary Biological Sciences) – B.S.
• Science Education (Secondary Earth Science)– B.S.
• View all Education Degrees

Bachelor of Arts in Education Degrees

• Educational Studies – B.A.

Master of Science in Education Degrees

• View all Education Master's Degrees
• Curriculum and Instruction – M.S.
• Educational Leadership – M.S.
• Education Technology and Instructional Design – M.Ed.

Master's Preparing for Licensure

• Teaching, Elementary Education – M.A.
• Teaching, English Education (Secondary) – M.A.
• Teaching, Mathematics Education (Middle Grades) – M.A.
• Teaching, Mathematics Education (Secondary) – M.A.
• Teaching, Science Education (Secondary) – M.A.
• Teaching, Special Education (K-12) – M.A.

Licensure Information

• State Teaching Licensure Information

Master's Degrees for Teachers

• Mathematics Education (K-6) – M.A.
• Mathematics Education (Middle Grade) – M.A.
• Mathematics Education (Secondary) – M.A.
• English Language Learning (PreK-12) – M.A.
• Endorsement Preparation Program, English Language Learning (PreK-12)
• Science Education (Middle Grades) – M.A.
• Science Education (Secondary Chemistry) – M.A.
• Science Education (Secondary Physics) – M.A.
• Science Education (Secondary Biological Sciences) – M.A.
• Science Education (Secondary Earth Science)– M.A.
• View all Technology Bachelor's Degrees
• Cloud Computing – B.S.
• Computer Science – B.S.
• Cybersecurity and Information Assurance – B.S.
• Data Analytics – B.S.
• Information Technology – B.S.
• Network Engineering and Security – B.S.
• Software Engineering – B.S.
• Accelerated Information Technology Bachelor's and Master's Degree
• Information Technology Management – B.S. Business Administration (from the School of Business)
• View all Technology Master's Degrees
• Cybersecurity and Information Assurance – M.S.
• Data Analytics – M.S.
• Information Technology Management – M.S.
• MBA Information Technology Management (from the School of Business)
• Full Stack Engineering
• Web Application Deployment and Support
• Front End Web Development
• Back End Web Development

3rd Party Certifications

• IT Certifications Included in WGU Degrees
• View all Technology Degrees
• View all Health & Nursing Bachelor's Degrees
• Nursing (RN-to-BSN online) – B.S.
• Nursing (Prelicensure) – B.S. (Available in select states)
• Health Information Management – B.S.
• Health and Human Services – B.S.
• Psychology – B.S.
• Health Science – B.S.
• Healthcare Administration – B.S. (from the School of Business)
• View all Nursing Post-Master's Certificates
• Nursing Education—Post-Master's Certificate
• Nursing Leadership and Management—Post-Master's Certificate
• Family Nurse Practitioner—Post-Master's Certificate
• Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner —Post-Master's Certificate
• View all Health & Nursing Degrees
• View all Nursing & Health Master's Degrees
• Nursing – Education (BSN-to-MSN Program) – M.S.
• Nursing – Leadership and Management (BSN-to-MSN Program) – M.S.
• Nursing – Nursing Informatics (BSN-to-MSN Program) – M.S.
• Nursing – Family Nurse Practitioner (BSN-to-MSN Program) – M.S. (Available in select states)
• Nursing – Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (BSN-to-MSN Program) – M.S. (Available in select states)
• Nursing – Education (RN-to-MSN Program) – M.S.
• Nursing – Leadership and Management (RN-to-MSN Program) – M.S.
• Nursing – Nursing Informatics (RN-to-MSN Program) – M.S.
• Master of Healthcare Administration
• MBA Healthcare Management (from the School of Business)
• Business Leadership (with the School of Business)
• Supply Chain (with the School of Business)
• Accounting Fundamentals (with the School of Business)
• Back End Web Development (with the School of Technology)
• Front End Web Development (with the School of Technology)
• Web Application Deployment and Support (with the School of Technology)
• Full Stack Engineering (with the School of Technology)
• Single Courses
• Course Bundles

Apply for Admission

Admission requirements.

• New Students
• WGU Returning Graduates
• WGU Readmission
• Enrollment Checklist
• Accessibility
• Accommodation Request
• School of Education Admission Requirements
• School of Business Admission Requirements
• School of Technology Admission Requirements
• Leavitt School of Health Admission Requirements

Additional Requirements

• Computer Requirements
• No Standardized Testing
• Clinical and Student Teaching Information

Transferring

• FAQs about Transferring
• Transfer to WGU
• Transferrable Certifications
• Request WGU Transcripts
• International Transfer Credit
• Tuition and Fees
• Financial Aid
• Scholarships

Other Ways to Pay for School

• Tuition—School of Business
• Tuition—School of Education
• Tuition—School of Technology
• Tuition—Leavitt School of Health
• Your Financial Obligations
• Tuition Comparison
• Applying for Financial Aid
• State Grants
• Consumer Information Guide
• Responsible Borrowing Initiative
• Higher Education Relief Fund

FAFSA Support

• Net Price Calculator
• FAFSA Simplification
• See All Scholarships
• Military Scholarships
• State Scholarships
• Scholarship FAQs

Payment Options

• Payment Plans
• Corporate Reimbursement
• Current Student Hardship Assistance
• Military Tuition Assistance

WGU Experience

• How You'll Learn
• Scheduling/Assessments
• Accreditation
• Student Support/Faculty
• Military Students
• Part-Time Options
• Virtual Military Education Resource Center
• Student Outcomes
• Return on Investment
• Students and Gradutes
• Career Growth
• Student Resources
• Communities
• Testimonials
• Career Guides
• Skills Guides
• Online Degrees
• All Degrees
• Explore Your Options

Admissions & Transfers

• Admissions Overview

Tuition & Financial Aid

Student Success

• Prospective Students
• Current Students
• Military and Veterans
• Commencement
• Careers at WGU
• Advancement & Giving
• Partnering with WGU

Western Governors University Selects Grammarly as AI Writing Assistance Provider

This joint effort includes the launch of grammarly’s writing score api, enabling wgu students to build critical communication skills to succeed in the modern workforce.

• Innovation and AI
• See More Tags

SAN FRANCISCO—May 21, 2024— Grammarly , the company empowering smarter work for over 30 million people, 70,000 teams, and 3,000 educational institutions, today announced a partnership with nonprofit Western Governors University (WGU), one of the country’s largest providers of online higher education. The partnership addresses the needs of the school’s population of working adult and remote students by providing all students and faculty access to Grammarly’s real-time writing support and Grammarly’s new Writing Score API.

The Writing Score API is Grammarly’s proprietary technology that provides a real-time quality check on any document to support students in submitting their most correct, clear, and engaging writing. The Writing Score API will be available to WGU students later this summer and to the broader education market later this year.

Grammarly has been committed to strengthening everyday writing skills through the productive and responsible use of AI since its founding in 2009. By providing its best-in-class AI writing assistance to all WGU students, Grammarly will help students improve their writing while becoming AI literate, preparing them to communicate effectively and efficiently in their future careers.

“Even in the generative AI–connected workforce, writing is as essential as ever, with knowledge workers spending 19 hours per week on written communication,” said Jenny Maxwell, Head of Grammarly for Education. “To ensure students are prepared to succeed in today’s workplace, they must learn effective writing and editing skills. Grammarly’s partnership with WGU will empower students to improve their writing skills, increase the likelihood of earning a degree, and ultimately maximize their career opportunities.”

With Grammarly’s Writing Score API integrated into WGU’s learning management system, students can upload any written assignment of more than 30 words and get a writing score on a scale of 1–100. This score indicates opportunities to improve spelling, grammar, and syntax, giving students valuable insight to determine whether to make additional revisions with Grammarly or submit as is. The score is based on elements including spelling and grammar correctness, clarity of sentences, variety of word choices, and the tone of the writing.

The feature uses Grammarly’s existing writing score technology—currently only available to customers using the Grammarly Editor—and makes it available in any application. When deployed at scale in higher education, the Writing Score API can serve as a measure of baseline quality for students’ writing, ultimately giving faculty more time to engage with students’ ideas on a deeper level.

“WGU is thrilled to partner with Grammarly and pilot the Writing Score API at scale,” said Debbie Fowler, WGU Senior Vice President, Academic Delivery. “WGU makes higher education

and professional career advancement attainable for everyone by identifying system-wide barriers and investing in solutions to eliminate them. We are excited to embed this in-the-moment feedback into how we teach while our instructors remain student-centric. By incorporating this AI technology, we can provide truly personalized learning and meet students where they are.”

The strategic partnership reinforces the importance of effective communication skills in higher education and beyond. With Grammarly’s AI-powered assistance, WGU students will be better equipped to deliver clear and polished communication in their academic and professional endeavors.

Learn more about Grammarly for Education at grammarly.com/edu.

About Grammarly

Grammarly is the world’s leading AI writing assistance company, trusted by over 30 million people, 70,000 professional teams, and 3,000 educational institutions. From instantly creating a first draft to perfecting every message, Grammarly helps people at 96% of the Fortune 500 and teams at companies like Atlassian, Databricks, and Zoom get their point across—and get results—without compromising security or privacy. Grammarly’s product offerings— Grammarly for Business , Grammarly Premium , Grammarly Free , and Grammarly for Education —work where you do, delivering contextually relevant writing support across over 500,000 apps and websites. Founded in 2009, Grammarly is No. 7 on the Forbes Cloud 100, one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies, one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in AI, and one of Inc.’s Best Workplaces. Learn more at grammarly.com/about .

Ready to Start Your Journey?

HEALTH & NURSING

Recommended Articles

Take a look at other articles from WGU. Our articles feature information on a wide variety of subjects, written with the help of subject matter experts and researchers who are well-versed in their industries. This allows us to provide articles with interesting, relevant, and accurate information. 

WGU Webinar on Thursday to Focus on Assisting Instructors with Transitioning Courses Online

Western Governors University Appoints Stacey Ludwig Johnson as Senior Vice President and Executive Dean of School of Education

Linda Garza Battles Named Regional Vice President, Chancellor of WGU Texas

Western Governors University Receives $4.9 Million Grant to Help Close Educational Gaps for Underserved Populations

Western Governors University Leads Nation in Awarding Bachelor’s Degrees in Teaching

The university, for students.

• Student Portal
• Alumni Services

Most Visited Links

• Business Programs
• Student Experience
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Student Communities

Your Best College Essay

Maybe you love to write, or maybe you don’t. Either way, there’s a chance that the thought of writing your college essay is making you sweat. No need for nerves! We’re here to give you the important details on how to make the process as anxiety-free as possible.

What's the College Essay?

When we say “The College Essay” (capitalization for emphasis – say it out loud with the capitals and you’ll know what we mean) we’re talking about the 550-650 word essay required by most colleges and universities. Prompts for this essay can be found on the college’s website, the Common Application, or the Coalition Application. We’re not talking about the many smaller supplemental essays you might need to write in order to apply to college. Not all institutions require the essay, but most colleges and universities that are at least semi-selective do.

How do I get started?

Look for the prompts on whatever application you’re using to apply to schools (almost all of the time – with a few notable exceptions – this is the Common Application). If one of them calls out to you, awesome! You can jump right in and start to brainstorm. If none of them are giving you the right vibes, don’t worry. They’re so broad that almost anything you write can fit into one of the prompts after you’re done. Working backwards like this is totally fine and can be really useful!

What if I have writer's block?

You aren’t alone. Staring at a blank Google Doc and thinking about how this is the one chance to tell an admissions officer your story can make you freeze. Thinking about some of these questions might help you find the right topic:

• What is something about you that people have pointed out as distinctive?
• If you had to pick three words to describe yourself, what would they be? What are things you’ve done that demonstrate these qualities?
• What’s something about you that has changed over your years in high school? How or why did it change?
• What’s something you like most about yourself?
• What’s something you love so much that you lose track of the rest of the world while you do it?

If you’re still stuck on a topic, ask your family members, friends, or other trusted adults: what’s something they always think about when they think about you? What’s something they think you should be proud of? They might help you find something about yourself that you wouldn’t have surfaced on your own.  

How do I grab my reader's attention?

It’s no secret that admissions officers are reading dozens – and sometimes hundreds – of essays every day. That can feel like a lot of pressure to stand out. But if you try to write the most unique essay in the world, it might end up seeming forced if it’s not genuinely you. So, what’s there to do? Our advice: start your essay with a story. Tell the reader about something you’ve done, complete with sensory details, and maybe even dialogue. Then, in the second paragraph, back up and tell us why this story is important and what it tells them about you and the theme of the essay.

THE WORD LIMIT IS SO LIMITING. HOW DO I TELL A COLLEGE MY WHOLE LIFE STORY IN 650 WORDS?

Don’t! Don’t try to tell an admissions officer about everything you’ve loved and done since you were a child. Instead, pick one or two things about yourself that you’re hoping to get across and stick to those. They’ll see the rest on the activities section of your application.

I'M STUCK ON THE CONCLUSION. HELP?

If you can’t think of another way to end the essay, talk about how the qualities you’ve discussed in your essays have prepared you for college. Try to wrap up with a sentence that refers back to the story you told in your first paragraph, if you took that route.

SHOULD I PROOFREAD MY ESSAY?

YES, proofread the essay, and have a trusted adult proofread it as well. Know that any suggestions they give you are coming from a good place, but make sure they aren’t writing your essay for you or putting it into their own voice. Admissions officers want to hear the voice of you, the applicant. Before you submit your essay anywhere, our number one advice is to read it out loud to yourself. When you read out loud you’ll catch small errors you may not have noticed before, and hear sentences that aren’t quite right.

ANY OTHER ADVICE?

Be yourself. If you’re not a naturally serious person, don’t force formality. If you’re the comedian in your friend group, go ahead and be funny. But ultimately, write as your authentic (and grammatically correct) self and trust the process.

And remember, thousands of other students your age are faced with this same essay writing task, right now. You can do it!

• Grade 5 Scholarship |
• O/L Past papers |
• 2024 O/L Model Papers |
• Royal College |
• Western Province |
• Online Book Shop
• Combined Maths
• Agricultural Science
• Business Studies
• Business Statistics
• Christianity
• Buddhist Civilization
• Drama and Theatre
• Political Science
• General English
• Agriculture
• Home Economics
• Indian History
• Sri Lankan History
• Grade 11 Papers
• Grade 10 Papers
• Grade 09 Papers
• Grade 08 Papers
• Grade 07 Papers
• Civic Education
• English Language
• Mathematics
• Second Language
• Sinhala Language
• Tamil Language
• Western Music
• Scholarship Exam Past Papers
• Scholarship Model Papers
• Environment
• Catholicism
• Grade 11 English Medium
• Grade 10 English Medium
• Grade 09 English Medium
• Grade 08 English Medium
• Grade 07 English Medium
• Grade 06 English Medium
• Sinhala Medium
• Sinhala Medium Answers
• English Medium
• English Medium Answers
• Tamil Medium
• Sinhala Medim Papers
• English Medium Papers
• Tamil Medium Papers
• Sinhala Medium Marking
• English Medium Marking
• Tamil Medium Marking
• Western Province
• North Western Province
• Southern Province
• North Central Province
• Central Province
• Sabaragamuwa Province
• Royal College
• Ananda College
• D.S.Senanayake
• Devi Balika
• Nalanda College
• Rathnavali Balika
• Visakha College
• Grade 11 Textbooks
• Grade 10 Textbooks
• Grade 9 Textbooks
• Grade 8 Textbooks
• Grade 7 Textbooks
• Grade 6 Textbooks
• WIKI Forum! Join

Second Language Tamil Model Essays for GCE O/L Exam

Second Language Tamil Essays for GCE O/L Examination

Here we listed a collection of Second Language Tamil Model Essays for the GCE O/L Exam. All model essays can be downloaded as a PDF file. Download using the Link Below. It’s free to download.

Sample Tamil Model Essays

Download Preview

The past paper wiki provides O/L Past Papers, O/L study Materials, and Resources that include syllabus, question papers, Teacher’s resources, Notes, and a lot more. All the content offered here is absolutely free and is provided in the most convenient way to not face any issues.

Western Province Grade 10 Christianity Past Papers – English Medium

Devi balika vidyalaya economics 3rd term test paper 2021 – grade 13.

Pastpapers WIKI

Pastpapers wiki is a free resource site for O/L and A/L Students In Sri Lanka. Pastpapers wiki was founded in October 2019 by Education Resources.lk. The main goal of this site is to provide Past Papers, Marking Schemes, Notes, and other resources that allow students to improve their knowledge.

Devi Balika vidyalaya Economics 3rd Term Test paper 2021 - Grade 13

Extra curricular activities

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Buy Books Online

Pastpapers wiki is a free resource site for O/L and A/L Students In Sri Lanka. Past Papers WiKi was founded in October 2019 by Education Resources.lk. The main goal of this site is to provide Past Papers, Marking Schemes, Notes, and other resources that allow students to improve their knowledge.

https://forum.pastpapers.wiki/ Email:  [email protected]

Become a Volunteer – Help Others 🙋‍♂️

We are currently looking for volunteers who are willing to share their expertise and contribute to our community by sharing educational materials in our forum. We’re looking for individuals who can help us create and share educational materials such as articles, videos, and social media posts that will inspire and educate others.

Share Past Papers 📝 | Help Others 🤝 Join With: https://forum.pastpapers.wiki/

Disclaimer of Past Papers WiKi

This website is continued for your personal appreciation or educational purposes only . All Content of this website is published by extracting the information from online sources such as official government websites, social media, other websites, etc. The copyrights of these contents belong to the responsible owners . If a modification will happen in this information, our website does not assume any responsibility. If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us.

 – Mobile No:  071-8540371 –  Email:  [email protected]  

• Science stream
• Commerce stream
• Technology stream
• Arts Stream
• Common Subjects
• WIKI Forum!

Copyright 2019 -2021 © All rights reserved.

English Model Activities For O/ L And Other

English activities for teachers and learners around the world. The activities and worksheets available on this site are absolutely free.

Search This Blog

Sunday, may 19, 2024, english term test papers and model papers for ol and other.

Saturday, May 18, 2024

Describing graphs.

Wednesday, May 15, 2024

The red rose: a short story ( based on a true college incident),   the red rose: a (true) short story.

     "Sir, I found this rose on my desk", the little girl chirped as I took my eyes off the Grade 9 attendance register. 

     Susima was the prettiest in my class. Her gleaming eyes could easily steal the young heart. Her jet black hair which she wore in one plait was often decorated with a red ribbon put into a butterfly knot. 

    It was about 7.20 a.m. As it was Monday, I had to take the children to the playground for the morning assembly. 

   "Put it in the vase, dear. Go, hurry up, help them arrange the class before the bell goes.", I said. The girl deposited the little red rose among the bunches of marigolds and joined the girls busy arranging the desks and chairs. 

  The little red rose did not catch anyone's attention. It remained in the vase even when I returned in the last period.

    The following morning a sudden rain delayed me to school than usual. As I was walking towards the class I saw Susima  standing at the entrance with her hands behind. It appeared that she was waiting for my arrival. 

Good morning Susima," I greeted the girl as I walked straight to my table since my bag was too heavy with books and files. I felt Susima following me. No sooner than I sat down at the table, I found Susima standing in front of me with a red rose in her hand. 

  "You've found another red rose on your desk Susie. This is interesting", I said. 

  "Yes, sir. I came a little early, and I found this on my desk", replied Susima placing it in my hand and walked away. 

 I turned the red rose round holding it with the stem and gently ran my fingertips on its soft petals which were still afresh. 

 Apparently some hand had picked it early that morning. It was not difficult for my fingertips to catch its raw wetness. 

 Roses! I do love them, too, as much as the hand that picked it for Susie or perhaps even more. Several varieties of them decorate my home garden under the good care and attention of my wife. They need proper attention for healthy growth. The velvet bunch of petals huddled together has a mesmerizing effect on anyone. It is as soft as the budding love deep in the heart of a lover. The scarlet hue at the bosom of the rose rightly mingles with the innocent romantic feelings of a lover. 

 The morning bell woke me up from the reverie. There was the usual din in the class until the second bell went for the religious observances. I kept the rose next to the vase as it was already stuffed with an assortment of flowers, and rose from the chair.

 A brief pin drop silence reigned the college followed by the recital of the five precepts. Quite unknowingly my eyes were cast on little Susima who was engrossed in reciting the gathas devdevotedly with her palms nicely pressed together akin to a rose bud hanging from a twig.

  Susima's mysterious rose started haunting my mind. However much I tried to supress it and get about my work it surfaced like a rubber ball pressed into the water. 

 I am a teacher with twenty years of teaching experience. I have spent nearly half of my life with children. I have faced a multitude of experiences involving children throughout my career. Susima was just one among the hundreds of pretty little damsels in the long list of pupils I have taught so far.

 Yet for the first time this apparently petty incident was encroaching my heart and mind. If it was really Susima or the mysterious red roses which found their  way on to her desk that attracted me so much, I couldn't understand. 

 The following morning , I left home to school a little early. There was Susima again at the entrance to the class. My eyes first fell on her hands and then on her face. I was correct ; the stranger had kept the third too on her desk. She silently kept the rose in my hand. 

 Yet this time it was not the Susima who brought me the first and the second rose. She was on the verge of tears. Her lips were quivering as if to supress a loud cry. 

  I walked to my table and kept the flower on my books. Susima followed and stood in front of me. By then, tears were trickling down her cheeks.

 "Sir, the girls are laughing at me. They are calling me 'Rosy Susie'. Please! Stop it sir!". She emptied her heart sobbing. I almost heard her palpitations as she was breathing so fast. Her hanky was wet with tears. 

  There were some girls in the class on this occasion. They were giggling , pushing each other , looking slyly at Susima while sweeping the class. The boys were out in the playground. Girls envied Susima because of her attractive appearence. Hene this incident was more than what they needed to tease the girl. They were all out to derive some wild pleasure out of this small incident. 

  With just a frown I showed them my disapproval and the giggling came to an abrupt end. The girls were seen engaged in their classroom duties as if nothing happened. I nodded to Susima to go back to her desk. Susima ran to her desk and burried her head in her arms. However , later she was seen chatting with some girls in front of the class. Yet there was a shroud of gloom hanging over her face. 

 The term tests being over , I spent most part of the day marking papers in my class. My presence in the class would probably have served in guarding her from any unwanted remarks from girls. 

   That day I thoroughly determined to find the architect of this whole drama. I also was twitching with curiosity till I found the culprit. 

 After much thoughts, I determined not to reveal this incident to any of my collegues. I did not want to make this matter a cause for amusement and embarrass little Susima and her secret , yet unkown , admirer. 

  I hate to see elders deriving pleasure by getting hold of innocent teenage romantic expressions.  

When such incidents fall into their ears, especially the ladies , they cling to them , perhaps , for couple of weeks or even more. They have a knack for making mountains out of molehills and modify small incidents to suit their desired tastes. 

  I did not talk with my family on that day. I avoided company as much as possible. Though I sat in front of the TV as uusual to watch news, I did not really remember what she read so loud and clear. 

 That night I saw Susima in my dream. She was standing at her desk with a red rose pressed to her bosom. On seeing me entering the class she flicked it under the desk. When I demanded her what  she hid under the desk she broke down and cried aloud. Just then I woke up to hear the alarm hammering into my ears. 

 I left home earlier than usual on that day. I wanted to be in the class before anyone of my students turned up. First, I made sure that there was no one in the class. Then I walked up to Susima's desk and observed every inch of it. 

 Thus after completing the initial step of my operation I left for the staff room, as planned , which was located well within the sight of my classroom. I moved a chair and sat down focusing my eyes on the entrance to the classroom. 

 A few nail biting moments ticked away. I heard some footsteps falling on the gravel. That was my class monitor Bevan. 

 Bevan was an obedient boy from a well-to-do family. He was tall for age and usually came to class smartly dressed. He performed his duties to the letter. He had never been in the bad books of teachers.

  After a few minutes, I dashed into the classroom. The little thief was caught red handed. 

 Bevan my class monitor was sitting at Susima's desk. A red rose with a leaf on its stem was already lying on the Susima's desk. He was taken aback by my surprise appearance. He stood transfixed gazing at me for a while. Then, slowly, he picked up the rose with shivering fingers. 

 "Bevan! Then you are the one, Susie's secret lover", I said. The boy proceeded a few steps towards me with the red rose in his hand. He reminded me of little Oliver Twist who walked up to the official with his empty bowl to ask for more. 

 Bevan's eyes pleaded guilty. He was standing in front me with his eyes glued to the ground. 

 "What's the meaning of this, my boy?", I asked.

"Sorry sir!, That's all because I LOVE Susima. Please, don't let her know it. It'll not happen again," muttered the little boy in one breath and dropped the flower at my feet. Then, he looked guiltily at me with tears in eyes and bolted out of the class. 

  I picked up the rose, kept it in my vase and waited for Susima to come to class. But Susima did not come to school on that day. 

 I took that 'precious red rose' home and placed it on my reading table. 

Sajendra Kumara

( Published in The Daily News (Sri Lanka ) ARTSCOPE magazine on Wednesday, the 3rd August, 2011 )

The names of the two children in the subject incident are imaginary. 

👦👧Note : 

There are many young boys and girls like Bevan and Susima in our colleges. You need to handle their feelings quite gently and with much maturity. 

I faced this experience when I was serving at a school in Gampaha Education Zone. The incident left an indelible impression on me. The girl is a teacher today. I do not know anything about the boy. Later, I decided to turn this beautiful incident into a story and a poem. The poem was also carried in the Daily News. 

Wednesday, May 8, 2024

English grammar lessons for o l.

MODEL ENGLISH ACTIVITIES FOR O L

Best Cloze Passages for OL

Monday, May 6, 2024

Best poems for comprehension.

The poems published here could be used for your language teaching and learning process. They have been carefully selected to suit the young reader. The teacher can turn these short poems on to a platform where the young learner is motivated towards poetry. 

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Model english essays for o l.

(now updated with 60+ essays)

Video lessons all in one page now, friday, march 29, 2024, ol english activities videos (ol and other college videos).

The SK Video (Sajendra Kumara)  Channel contains short video clips which I hope would be useful for both teachers and students. They could be used in your classroom teachings. Probably your students may like a break from the stereotype classroom teaching for a few minutes. 

The Channel also contains other video clips related to history , nature , college life and people. The blog page here brings all the clips to one platform.

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Grade 10 english past papers and worksheets.

  The page contains past papers and worksheets for Grade 10 . 

Blogger Sajendra Kumara

WharsApp ( details and materials)

English Term Test Paper Bank For all Users of This Blog Page It may take several hours or sometimes even a few days for granting access...

Search this site

Office of the president menu, office of the president, agreement reached to end encampment.

To the University of Oregon community,

I am writing to inform you that we have reached an agreement with student demonstrators. As a result, the students have announced that they will voluntarily remove the encampment by 9:00 p.m. this evening.

This has been a challenging process, requiring patience and good faith on the part of all parties. I would like to thank the University Senate leadership and partnering faculty for their efforts to achieve an agreement over the last week. I would also like to thank our teams in Safety and Risk Services and Student Life for continually working to safeguard and provide support to all our students through this challenging time. 

Our agreement includes commitments on the following: 

• Presidential Statement . I have expressed in the past that it is not appropriate for university presidents to comment on issues of international or national interest. However, given the recent statement in support of a ceasefire by President Biden at Morehouse College, I believe it is now appropriate to express my heartfelt anguish at events in Israel and Gaza, and my support for a ceasefire, return of the hostages, and humanitarian aid that reaches civilians affected by the violence.
• Investments, Policies, and Purchasing . The University Senate will create a task force composed of students, staff, and faculty to meet in a respectful environment with the head of the University of Oregon Foundation and our chief procurement officer to discuss how the university makes decisions regarding product purchasing, sourcing, and investments. Details can be found in the University Senate task force document. 
• Educational Offerings . As a university, our educational offerings are the reason we exist. We have long intended to build our offerings in contemporary Middle Eastern studies at the UO. Our College of Arts and Sciences has taken steps to address that gap by hiring two outstanding scholars in this field who will arrive in the fall. As resources are available, we look forward to continuing to build additional strength in this area as part of our institutional hiring plan, working with deans, the provost, and others.
• Scholarships . The university participates in two key programs—Scholars at Risk and Welcome Campus—that   provide support for scholars and students affected by conflict. This is part of our commitment to contribute to and fulfill our educational mission for scholars and students affected by crises around the world. As we have done in other cases of global tragedy, we will seek opportunities to support scholars and students whose universities are affected by the conflict in Gaza.
• Space Request . We have well-established existing processes through which recognized student groups can request campus space. 
• Student Conduct . We are deeply grateful that we were able to reach a peaceful resolution. Like many institutions, we will view student cooperation and goodwill in reaching a settlement as a mitigating factor in adjudicating student conduct violations. 

While our agreement is substantially similar to the proposal we had originally submitted on May 9, we recognize that all parties have benefitted from additional dialogue, trust-building, and the continued exploration of the reasonable and helpful actions now reflected in this agreement. 

As we look forward, I am heartened by the resilience and restraint of our faculty, students, staff, and others. Our ability to navigate through the last few weeks without the scenes of violence seen elsewhere speaks volumes about our ability to accommodate differing viewpoints while advocating for what we believe is important. I would also like to acknowledge the University of Oregon students, many of whom have made known their perspectives and strong convictions across multiple viewpoints. We also acknowledge that this period has been especially painful to many in our Jewish community. 

We commit to continuing to use our educational mission to advance discussion, debate, and scholarship that can add insight to our understanding of the current conflict and of the Middle East. The last few weeks have tested us in many ways. I encourage everyone to find ways to rest, to reset, and to celebrate our extraordinary community. I look forward to doing this with you in a few weeks when we honor our students and their families at graduation.

Until then, I am again reminded of why this university is such an exceptional place, and how grateful I am to be here. 

Sincerely, 

Karl Scholz President

The full text of the UO-Gaza Encampment Agreement is available on freespeech.uoregon.edu .

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Your Health

• Treatments & Tests
• Health Inc.
• Public Health

Why writing by hand beats typing for thinking and learning

Jonathan Lambert

If you're like many digitally savvy Americans, it has likely been a while since you've spent much time writing by hand.

The laborious process of tracing out our thoughts, letter by letter, on the page is becoming a relic of the past in our screen-dominated world, where text messages and thumb-typed grocery lists have replaced handwritten letters and sticky notes. Electronic keyboards offer obvious efficiency benefits that have undoubtedly boosted our productivity — imagine having to write all your emails longhand.

To keep up, many schools are introducing computers as early as preschool, meaning some kids may learn the basics of typing before writing by hand.

But giving up this slower, more tactile way of expressing ourselves may come at a significant cost, according to a growing body of research that's uncovering the surprising cognitive benefits of taking pen to paper, or even stylus to iPad — for both children and adults.

Is this some kind of joke? A school facing shortages starts teaching standup comedy

In kids, studies show that tracing out ABCs, as opposed to typing them, leads to better and longer-lasting recognition and understanding of letters. Writing by hand also improves memory and recall of words, laying down the foundations of literacy and learning. In adults, taking notes by hand during a lecture, instead of typing, can lead to better conceptual understanding of material.

"There's actually some very important things going on during the embodied experience of writing by hand," says Ramesh Balasubramaniam , a neuroscientist at the University of California, Merced. "It has important cognitive benefits."

While those benefits have long been recognized by some (for instance, many authors, including Jennifer Egan and Neil Gaiman , draft their stories by hand to stoke creativity), scientists have only recently started investigating why writing by hand has these effects.

A slew of recent brain imaging research suggests handwriting's power stems from the relative complexity of the process and how it forces different brain systems to work together to reproduce the shapes of letters in our heads onto the page.

Your brain on handwriting

Both handwriting and typing involve moving our hands and fingers to create words on a page. But handwriting, it turns out, requires a lot more fine-tuned coordination between the motor and visual systems. This seems to more deeply engage the brain in ways that support learning.

Shots - Health News

Feeling artsy here's how making art helps your brain.

"Handwriting is probably among the most complex motor skills that the brain is capable of," says Marieke Longcamp , a cognitive neuroscientist at Aix-Marseille Université.

Gripping a pen nimbly enough to write is a complicated task, as it requires your brain to continuously monitor the pressure that each finger exerts on the pen. Then, your motor system has to delicately modify that pressure to re-create each letter of the words in your head on the page.

"Your fingers have to each do something different to produce a recognizable letter," says Sophia Vinci-Booher , an educational neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University. Adding to the complexity, your visual system must continuously process that letter as it's formed. With each stroke, your brain compares the unfolding script with mental models of the letters and words, making adjustments to fingers in real time to create the letters' shapes, says Vinci-Booher.

That's not true for typing.

To type "tap" your fingers don't have to trace out the form of the letters — they just make three relatively simple and uniform movements. In comparison, it takes a lot more brainpower, as well as cross-talk between brain areas, to write than type.

Recent brain imaging studies bolster this idea. A study published in January found that when students write by hand, brain areas involved in motor and visual information processing " sync up " with areas crucial to memory formation, firing at frequencies associated with learning.

"We don't see that [synchronized activity] in typewriting at all," says Audrey van der Meer , a psychologist and study co-author at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She suggests that writing by hand is a neurobiologically richer process and that this richness may confer some cognitive benefits.

Other experts agree. "There seems to be something fundamental about engaging your body to produce these shapes," says Robert Wiley , a cognitive psychologist at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. "It lets you make associations between your body and what you're seeing and hearing," he says, which might give the mind more footholds for accessing a given concept or idea.

Those extra footholds are especially important for learning in kids, but they may give adults a leg up too. Wiley and others worry that ditching handwriting for typing could have serious consequences for how we all learn and think.

What might be lost as handwriting wanes

The clearest consequence of screens and keyboards replacing pen and paper might be on kids' ability to learn the building blocks of literacy — letters.

"Letter recognition in early childhood is actually one of the best predictors of later reading and math attainment," says Vinci-Booher. Her work suggests the process of learning to write letters by hand is crucial for learning to read them.

"When kids write letters, they're just messy," she says. As kids practice writing "A," each iteration is different, and that variability helps solidify their conceptual understanding of the letter.

Research suggests kids learn to recognize letters better when seeing variable handwritten examples, compared with uniform typed examples.

This helps develop areas of the brain used during reading in older children and adults, Vinci-Booher found.

"This could be one of the ways that early experiences actually translate to long-term life outcomes," she says. "These visually demanding, fine motor actions bake in neural communication patterns that are really important for learning later on."

Ditching handwriting instruction could mean that those skills don't get developed as well, which could impair kids' ability to learn down the road.

"If young children are not receiving any handwriting training, which is very good brain stimulation, then their brains simply won't reach their full potential," says van der Meer. "It's scary to think of the potential consequences."

Many states are trying to avoid these risks by mandating cursive instruction. This year, California started requiring elementary school students to learn cursive , and similar bills are moving through state legislatures in several states, including Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina and Wisconsin. (So far, evidence suggests that it's the writing by hand that matters, not whether it's print or cursive.)

Slowing down and processing information

For adults, one of the main benefits of writing by hand is that it simply forces us to slow down.

During a meeting or lecture, it's possible to type what you're hearing verbatim. But often, "you're not actually processing that information — you're just typing in the blind," says van der Meer. "If you take notes by hand, you can't write everything down," she says.

The relative slowness of the medium forces you to process the information, writing key words or phrases and using drawing or arrows to work through ideas, she says. "You make the information your own," she says, which helps it stick in the brain.

Such connections and integration are still possible when typing, but they need to be made more intentionally. And sometimes, efficiency wins out. "When you're writing a long essay, it's obviously much more practical to use a keyboard," says van der Meer.

Still, given our long history of using our hands to mark meaning in the world, some scientists worry about the more diffuse consequences of offloading our thinking to computers.

"We're foisting a lot of our knowledge, extending our cognition, to other devices, so it's only natural that we've started using these other agents to do our writing for us," says Balasubramaniam.

It's possible that this might free up our minds to do other kinds of hard thinking, he says. Or we might be sacrificing a fundamental process that's crucial for the kinds of immersive cognitive experiences that enable us to learn and think at our full potential.

Balasubramaniam stresses, however, that we don't have to ditch digital tools to harness the power of handwriting. So far, research suggests that scribbling with a stylus on a screen activates the same brain pathways as etching ink on paper. It's the movement that counts, he says, not its final form.

Jonathan Lambert is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance journalist who covers science, health and policy.

• handwriting