hi, i am new in this forum. i am malagasy (from Madagascar), i got my high school diploma and i want to study in the States. please correct my essay (style, grammar, ... ). it's based on my personal statement
"Growing up in a quite traditional family, Malagasy culture has greatly shaped my behaviours and my personality. My parents taught me all the virtues of our culture.
Apart from playing "valiha", a Malagasy instrument, I acquired a certain sense of kindness in trying to keep the best possible relationship with people, as I have seen my mother being friendly with all the merchants at the market, ranging from the green seller to the shopkeeper, getting everything she wanted even if she did not have enough money. This showed me how important a good relation is, whoever the person is, whatever his social conditions or culture are. I even got used to smiling and joking, which turns into teasing sometimes. In addition, I became helpful. I remember, one day, a friend of mine asked me to burn some CDs ïfor his personal use of course; I stayed up very late just to finish them on time.
Likewise, my father is a very ordinary person but he is the most persistent and hard-working man I have ever seen, staying all night long to finish his works, often sacrificing his Sundays. All of his life experiences passed on some tough determination and perseverance to me, encouraging me to take advantage of every opportunity.
Besides, these inheritances forged parts of my personality but I learnt from experiences as well. Before going to Mauritius for the CJSOI in July and August 2006, I had been too naïve and confident to be mature. A Tuesday, August 29, 2006, with three friends, led by our love for cars, we used one without the permission of its owner -one of my friend's father. We were too excited to realize what we had done until the worst thing happened: we had a terrible accident. We came out unharmed but the car was completely wrecked. This terrifying experience shaped my personality completely. Since that day, I have become wiser, mature, paying attention to everything and thinking of the consequences of all my acts.
Moreover, what convinced me about my major is a book. Recently, I received a book entitled "MBA" from a friend of my father's. Its thickness of five hundred and three pages might have discouraged me from reading it but I thought it was worth doing the sacrifice to see if it contained something interesting. In fact, it was a compendium of course materials about management and business from famous US universities such as Harvard, Stanford, Columbia... . As soon as I had read it through, I caught the fever of all these leaders whose success stories are told in that book. Sometimes dreaming of being a manager, in my childhood, I would like to make it real now.
If I could be a fruit, I would like to be an apple, not to strangle whoever eats me as Adam experienced but to prevent people from seeing a doctor, as the proverb says."
don't be surprised if there are a lot of mistakes.
looking forward for your help
Greetings!
I think you've written a good essay, and one with very few mistakes! I just have a few editing suggestions for you:
The part where you mention burning CDs for your friend might not be considered a plus. Universities have to be very conscious these days of copyright laws, and even burning CDs for personal use, if the CDs you are copying are protected, can be a violation of law. Perhaps you could change the wording a bit, so there can be no suggestion that you might have been doing something you shouldn't. For example, you could say you stayed up late helping a friend with a project, without specifying what the project was! :-)
staying all night long to finish his work,
Besides, these inheritances forged parts of my personality but I learnt from experiences as well. - Americans don't really use "Besides" in quite this way. You could leave it out and just begin the sentence with "These."
A Tuesday, August 29, 2006, with three friends, led by our love for cars, we used one without the permission of its owner -one of my friend's father. - This sentence is constructed rather awkwardly. Better would be "One summer evening in 2006, three friends and I, led by our love of cars, 'borrowed' the car of one friend's father--without his permission."
but I thought it was worth making the sacrifice
Sometimes dreaming of being a manager, in my childhood, I would like to make it real now. - This would be better written as "As a child, I sometimes dreamed of being a manager; now, I would like to make that dream a reality."
Best of luck in your studies!
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
