Scholarship Paragraph Revision: Modifiers, Tone, and Concision
A high-school senior is revising a paragraph for a scholarship application that asks students to describe a project and what they learned. The draft reads: 'Having designed a robotic arm that sorts recycling, the regional science fair awarded my team first place. The arm uses a camera and a small motor, and it was built over six months in my garage. Our team was able to demonstrate that the arm could sort 85% of items correctly. In conclusion, the project was very successful and it taught us a lot. Also, the judges said the design was innovative because it was cheap. Some people might think robotics is too hard, but they are wrong. The project shows that students can do engineering if they try.' The application specifies a formal, confident tone and a 150-word limit; the draft is 99 words. The student wants to keep the 85% figure and the judges' comment but is unsure which sentences to cut or revise.
1. Revise the first sentence to fix the dangling modifier and maintain a formal tone. Explain the grammatical problem.
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The original opens with a dangling modifier: 'Having designed a robotic arm' describes 'my team,' but the main clause makes 'the regional science fair' the subject that did the designing. A clean revision is: 'Our team designed a robotic arm that sorts recycling, and the regional science fair awarded us first place.' This keeps the cause-and-effect order, uses active voice, and avoids the ambiguous 'my' in a team context. A second acceptable version is: 'After our team designed a robotic arm that sorts recycling, the regional science fair awarded us first place.' The two-clause version is tighter and keeps the emphasis on the team's action rather than on the fair.
2. Replace the wordy or vague phrases 'was able to demonstrate' and 'very successful' with concise, evidence-based wording. Show a revised sentence.
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'Was able to demonstrate' is wordy and weakens the claim; 'demonstrate' or 'showed' is firmer. 'Very successful' is vague and tells rather than shows. Revised sentence: 'The arm sorted 85% of items correctly in our trials, and the judges called the design innovative because it was inexpensive.' Replace 'cheap' with 'inexpensive' for formal tone, and attach the judges' comment to a specific reason. The sentence now uses the 85% figure as evidence and avoids an empty 'in conclusion' transition. The student can cut 'it taught us a lot' or replace it with one specific lesson, such as 'We learned to test sensors under different lighting.'
3. Evaluate the sentence 'Some people might think robotics is too hard, but they are wrong.' Revise it to fit the application's formal, respectful tone and clarify the pronoun.
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The sentence creates a straw man, uses 'they' ambiguously, and clashes with the formal, confident tone. It also weakens the applicant's credibility by dismissing skeptics rather than answering them. A revision is: 'Robotics is challenging, but this project showed me that careful testing and iteration can make engineering accessible to students.' This acknowledges difficulty without insulting anyone, removes the undefined pronoun, and connects to the application's purpose. The student should also replace 'Also' with a causal or additive transition such as 'Moreover' or 'The judges also noted...' so the paragraph's logic is explicit rather than a list of loosely connected comments.