5 Steps to a Successful Personal Statement

The college application consists of many pieces, but the one that ties it all together is the personal statement. With so much pressure to produce your best piece of writing, where do you begin? We asked Marcella Manoharan, co-founder of Cambridge Coaching, to show us the way: Your personal statement. Maybe you’ve thought about it, or maybe you haven’t. Maybe you have images, or an anecdote, or an argument floating through your imagination – or maybe you don’t. Either way, my first piece of advice is: stay cool, this will get done. My next piece of advice? Pretend your personal statement is something you have to build from the ground up. Like a lego set, or a piece of furniture, or a house. Then: follow the steps. I know what you’re thinking: what are the steps? That’s what this blog post is for. Follow these steps and I promise you will have a personal statement. These steps are fail-safe. Step #1: Brainstorm The idea is to loosen your mind and imagination, and to let the stories just sorta flow. But this is much, much easier said than done. The vast majority of our clients at Cambridge Coaching find this sort of looseness very difficult to achieve. This is a little like going to yoga class and being told to think about nothing, to let your mind relax, and then, obviously, thinking about EVERYTHING, including that quesadilla you’re going to get right after class. The point is it’s hard to get loose about the most important things in your life at the most important moment in your life. So, what can you do? Brainstorm within a structure. I recommend a simple grid. On one axis, list your most important resume experiences (soccer, soup kitchen, the school play, etc.). On the other axis, list themes: leadership, adversity, community, impact, team, etc. Now: rather than brainstorming about your whole life, you can brainstorm about pairs of experiences and themes. So, the time you mobilized your class to volunteer at the soup kitchen could be an example of leadership, for instance. Do this for at least 3 – 5 experiences. Step #2: Outline You’ve heard it from your teachers in English: outline, outline. Believe in the power of the outline. Even for the personal statement. Actually scratch that: especially for the statement. Embarking on the personal statement without an outline is a little like trying to build a house without a blueprint: bad idea. I recommend two or more rounds of outlining. In the first round, or the sketch outline, you’ll articulate your thesis and make a rough plan for where your ideas and narratives will go. In the next round, you’ll sharpen the plan, which means you’ll create topic sentences and firm up what evidence goes where. At this point, it should be possible to understand the logic of the essay by looking just at the topic sentences. Don’t move on until you have distilled the topic sentences into clear, logical points in your argument. Step #3: Draft The moment you’ve been waiting for: the actual writing. You have music going, herbal tea, scented candles. It’s like a trance, except you’re staring at the blank screen and you realize you have no idea what you’re doing. What do you do now? Open the outline and write directly into it. This is why you went through the trouble of creating it! So that when you reached this awful moment, there would be something for you to do. Remember: the outline is your roadmap, your Google maps. Don’t know where you’re going? Follow the outline. And the converse is also true: deviate from the outline at your peril. Step #4: Edit Finally, you have a real, live draft. Nope, you’re not done. Now, lay it aside – minimum of 24 hours – and come back to the draft after you’ve taken space. Here are the questions to ask yourself: Is the point of each paragraph clear? Do you have topic sentences, either implicit or explicit? Does your evidence line up with your topic sentences? Are you using the simplest language to express your ideas? Editing is iterative. You need at least 2 – 3 rounds of this process. Don’t rush it; keep rereading. Now is the time to be a little harsh, too. Cut words, reframe ideas, push yourself to be as clear as possible. Step #5: Polish This is the fun part! The window-dressing. Polishing and proofreading are about making the best possible impression on your readers. I am fond of two strategies in particular, both of which start with printing the document. Then, first strategy is to read the essay aloud. You will catch anything clunky or awkward this way. Second strategy is to hold a piece of paper up to the document and read it line by line slowly. Hey, you’ve come this far! Just use both strategies and call it perfect. Okay, so I said 5 steps, but I lied a little. There’s a sixth step for those of you who want some support in this process. If you would like a guide, a mentor, a reader, and an editor to keep you on the right track, contact Cambridge Coaching! This is what we do, and we have been getting awesome students like you into the best colleges, including all Ivies, since 2005. How crazy would it be if the college process could actually be just a teensy bit fun? And, you got into the school of your choice? #anythingispossible

Sex and Violence on Television essays

Sex and Violence on Television essays This movie is about Jamal Wallace. Jamal meets William Forrester, who is a Pulitzer Prize winner. Jamals friends dare him to go into Forresters apartment because Forrester was always watching them through binoculars. When Jamal gets caught, he runs out, but forgets his notebook and belongings. William Forrester gives him his belongings back with comments of his own. After that, they develop a good friendship. One teaching aspect I found was mentoring. Jamal would get Cs for his schoolwork, which was average, but in reality he was a straight A student. Forresters mentoring brought out the best out of Jamal. Jamal was a gifted student, but he didnt realize that until he got that little push from his mentor Forrester. I found, from watching this movie, that talents should not be hidden. I liked this movie a lot because it was hopeful and encouraging. This movie is about a math teacher named Jaime Escalante. He went to Garfield High School to teach computer science. This movie takes place in 1982 in East Los Angeles, CA. He was expecting to teach computer science, but instead he teaches calculus. The class is told that they are going to be taught AP calculus. The students dont like the idea when they realize the amount of work it will take to pass calculus. One teaching aspect I found in this movie is that instead of Mr. Escalante focusing on his students limitations, he chose to focus in their potential. Mr. Escalante was able to relate to any type of student and motivate them by raising their self-expectations. Overall, this movie is inspirational and great! This movie is about Mark Thackeray. He is an engineer but then is out of work. Since Mark Thackeray is out of work, he then decides to take on a job as a teacher in London. The story takes place in the rough east end. Since hes teaching the kids from the dock workers, Mr. ...

Deforestation In the amazon Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Deforestation In the amazon - Essay Example Agriculture is major factor influencing deforestation in the Amazon as individuals consider it a necessity for life to prosper on the planet. Before, age the Amazon rainforest was protected because individuals were hunters and gatherers hence did not venture into farming. However, changing times has forced individuals and the government to make unwise concession to allow the food growth into the region is a main source of rainfall. Allowing food growth to sustain life does not mean that major sites like the Amazon rain forest should be destroyed. Unfortunately that has been reason behind the deforestation activities going on around the Amazon. The rainforest is slowly being lost as the land in which it is based is being cleared by individuals to enable them practice agriculture in the region. Different land clearing techniques which care harmful to the environment and to the rainforest like slush and burn have been adopted by individuals and are used in clearing the Amazon forest (Ca mpari 2). The slash and burn technique is a cheap way of clearing land in preparation for agricultural activities. Individuals living around the Amazon use it to cut down trees and clear bushes before setting fire on the area to get rid of the cut and cleared trees and bushes. It is also an efficient way which has been proved to be cause of the deforestation in the Amazon as very little costs is associated with accomplishing the tasks. In addition, the situation is further aggravated by the lack proper techniques for farming leading to a speedy desert formation in the Amazon area which for centuries has been considered to be full of fauna and flora life (Campari 83). Moreover, over the last year, the Amazon rainforest experienced an increased rate of forest fires caused by the slush and burn used by the locals in the region. Additionally, individuals keeping cattle have also

Should Police Murderers Receive Whole-Life Jail Sentences Essay

Should Police Murderers Receive Whole-Life Jail Sentences - Essay Example The murder of a police officer is not just a normal crime considering that it is an impeachment of law enforcement institution. A police murderer is a threat not only to the society but also to the government in place in a state. A police officer has no exceptional life as that of a regular citizen. However, the punishment that should be imposed to a police murderer should be of higher legislation levels following the impact the murder of a police officer has to the face of citizens. Consequently, it is genuine for judges to impose a whole-life jail sentence to police murderers to send a clear signal for the criminals determined to evade the laws set in a state. Police officers have an important role in protecting citizens from criminals and law-breakers. Considerably, most of the police murder crimes happen because of the identity and role of the police officer in preventing criminal activities, which threatens the criminals’ life and their freedom to break law. The death of one police officer, especially by police murders, leaves a substantial number of citizens in the hands of criminals. This possess abundant problem to state security, which is protected by the police (Travis 2013).

Demographics of Democrats vs. Republicans Research Paper

Demographics of Democrats vs. Republicans - Research Paper Example However, now that we are a month away from the presidential elections November 6th and the political arena seems to be on fire as Obama and Romney try to garner votes for their campaigns especially after their debate the last week, this made me curious and made me decide to conduct a research on the demographics of Democrats and Republicans. I know it’s not that important to many of us, but have you ever wondered which party has the highest number of highly educated members? Which is the dominant religion in the Senate? Or which party has the highest number of military men in the house? The tectonic plates of the American politics are shifting, and the demographic forces are reshaping the electorate and the major political parties. I have done some research on these parties and compiled the population characteristics of the 1) wealth (economic status), 2) education and intellect, 3) religion. A large number of Americans consider the Republican Party to be the party of the rich (Osterman, 28). Surprisingly the majority of the banks in America are in support of Romney based on their generous contributions to the Republicans. The investment bank is on the forefront having contributed $637,000, and JP Chase Bank, JP Morgan and Bank of America follow closely and as we all know banks are the hearts of our economic system. On the other hand, Democrats are supported by companies led by Microsoft, which has donated $419,000 for the elections campaign than Google and Harvard University. The wealthiest Americans are Republicans while the largest number of poor and middle-class Americans favors Democrats. Republicans are economically conservative, and their policies seem to favor the rich people and institutions such as the Wall Street (Levine, 27). The ideological centers of gravity towards the finance industry between the two parties are the causes of the wealth alignment.  

Teenage Smoking in Canada Essay -- essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In a society where it is not unusual to see a ten year old child smoking a cigarette in public, where large tobacco companies sponsor all big sporting events and where smoking advertisements are everywhere you look, how can it be understood that what is going on is a form of suicide. Smoking is comparable to a serial killer; a cigarette acts as the weapon used by tobacco companies and its victims subjecting themselves by their own free will to participate in the crime.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The governments of the United States and many other countries have chosen to regulate addictive substances, like cigarettes, via taxation; minimum-age purchase laws; restrictions on consumption in schools, the workplace, and public places; and stiff fines for driving under the influence of alcohol. The prices of these substances will rise because of taxation; other forms of regulation, and bans. Thus, measuring their responsiveness to price is important in determining the optimal level of taxation and the impacts of legalization. Contrary to conventional wisdom, studies find that the consumption of addictive substances is quite sensitive to price.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Teen smoking has been increasing since 1991. There are economic, psychological and sociological factors that play an important role in this increase.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Economically, cigarettes are highly advertised, extremely affordable and accessible to practically anyone. As for the advertisement aspect in the sale of cigarettes, tobacco companies spend billions of dollars per year to advertise their brands. This money is spent on the actual advertisement, and also on manipulating the subconscious minds of teenagers. (Reynolds, 1999) Billboards and magazines lure teenagers to smoke, by using teen idols and appealing photos in their ads. The Canadian Government has been attempting to put a stop to tobacco industries using teen idols in selling their products, by passing Bill C-71, a legislation that forbids tobacco companies from putting up signs for events in which they sponsor. The car racer and teen idol, Jacques Villeneuve can no longer be advertised in his car racing suit as Rothman's cigarettes advertisements are highly visible on it, as this would give off a negative message to teens who look up to him. The only exceptio n to this law however, is that the signs may be put up at the site of the event, in bars or in newspaper... ...by the behavior of their parents is central to many considerations of health and social behavior. Many teenagers begin smoking to feel grow-up. However, if they are still smoking when they reach 30, the reason is no longer to feel like an adult; at this point, they are smoking from habit. Goodwin, D. W., Guze, S. B. (1984).Young children who see older children or family members smoking cigarettes are going to equate smoking with being grown up. Patterns of both drinking and smoking, which are closely associated, are strongly influenced by the lifestyles of family members peers and by the environments in which they live. Minimal, moderate, and heavy levels of drinking, smoking, and drug use, among family members are strongly associated with very similar patterns of use among adolescents.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  To conclude, one can look economically at the cost of cigarettes, the accessibility of cigarettes, and the amount of money put into advertisements for tobacco. Also psychologically at the effects and real meaning of ads and at females ideas and misconceptions about smoking. And, finally sociologically, peer and family influence play a huge role in the increase of teen smokers.

Robot Operating System

ROS (Robot Operating System) is a framework for robot software development, providing operating system-like functionality on top of a heterogenous computer cluster. ROS was originally developed in 2007 under the name switchyard by the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in support of the Stanford AI Robot (STAIR[1]) project. As of 2008, development continues primarily at Willow Garage, a robotics research institute/incubator, with more than twenty institutions collaborating in a federated development model [1][2].ROS provides standard operating system services such as hardware abstraction, low-level device control, implementation of commonly-used functionality, message-passing between processes, and package management. It is based on a graph architecture where processing takes place in nodes that may receive, post and multiplex sensor, control, state, planning, actuator and other messages. The library is geared towards a Unix-like system (Ubuntu Linux is listed as ‘supp orted' while other variants such as Fedora and Mac OS X are considered ‘experimental') but is intended to be cross-platform.At present Windows is listed as having ‘partial functionality' [3]. ROS has two basic â€Å"sides†: The operating system side ros as described above and ros-pkg, a suite of user contributed packages (organized into sets called stacks) that implement functionality such as simultaneous localization and mapping, planning, perception, simulation etc. ROS is released under the terms of the BSD license, and is open source software. It is free for commercial and research use. The ros-pkg contributed packages are licensed under a variety of open source licenses.

Life in the Chiaroscuro Essays

Life in the Chiaroscuro Essays Life in the Chiaroscuro Paper Life in the Chiaroscuro Paper The novel depicts the political situation in Milwaukee in 1904 to be very corrupt and dishonest in every way. Police officers would not put people in jail because â€Å"there was no evidence† when there was clearly evidence that they would just ignore. The government was corrupt in the sense that the elected officials would do things to benefit themselves and their friends who help them. Everyone in the police force would look out for those people who the mayor told them to look out for. This is why those who were supposed to be in jail, are not. The high up officials who were part of the corruption had the means to destroy anyone who went against them. They had the power to do whatever they wanted and never suffer any type of consequence. I think that this is an accurate portrayal of corruption and politics in Milwaukee in this time period because there are very many similarities in the book and what actually happened. David Stuart Rose served five terms as mayor in Milwaukee. His corrupt mindset was held in office for 10 years. â€Å"He was elected in 1898 until 1906 and again in 1908-1910. He suggested improving the port by building docks off of Jones Island. He said that the rivers were becoming inadequate to meet the demands of trade. He was rumored to have accepted $50,000 from an electric utility but he was never found guilty in court. He was known for his corrupt administrative. He allowed brothels and casinos to operate even though it was against Milwaukee rules. While he was mayor, police were asked to turn â€Å" blind eye† upon the request of City Hall. After people started to realize what was going on, he was eventually elected out of office and a Socialist was elected in. Emil Seidel was the first Socialist mayor of Milwaukee in 1910. The book also depicts politics in 1904 in Milwaukee accurately because in the book, it says that Theodore Roosevelt makes a speech and is shot in the middle of it. Without leaving to seek medical help, he stood there and finished his 90 minutes speech. Theodore Roosevelt really did give that speech in Milwaukee. John Schrank also, in fact, shot him because he thought that a president should not serve more that two terms. Schrank was caught and spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital. After Roosevelt was shot, he went on with his speech and said, â€Å"Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I dont know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. But fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet there is where the bullet went through and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best. Some of the goals of American Socialist reformers in the early 1900’s were â€Å"low-cost housing, workers compensation, old-age pensions, public ownership of municipal services, and labor reform. † These goals compare to the goals of the American Socialist reformers in the novel because the reformers in the novel want to take care of corruption and get the mayor out of office. They want things to be better for everyone living in Milwaukee, not ju st the mayor and his friends. The American Socialist reformers wanted better pay, better jobs, and better benefits for workers. They wanted to prove to the people of Milwaukee that they do not need David Rose to be in power. They wanted to show that a socialist can do just fine in office, if not better than Rose. The American Socialist reformers were still not very popular so they wanted to gain popularity with the people. â€Å"While the Socialist Party was on the rise in America, it was still fairly limited in strength. Eugene Debs would never be president. As for the mayor, I was not so sure. † The role that ethnicity and race play into the novel is that people were segregated and treated differently by society as a whole. On Jones Island, it was mostly Polish and German people known as Kashubes. They were far away from the city life, living on technically a peninsula all by themselves with almost no visitors going there. They were not wealthy at all and lived in houses â€Å"so close together that you could, if you so chose, stand on one rickety porch while shaking hands with someone standing on the porch next door. † Another way ethnicity and race play into the novel is when Benjamin’s father told him when he was a boy that â€Å"you’d best avoid the wrong sort of people. Gamblers, politicians, and negroes. His father thought that in order to succeed and to stay out of trouble, he must avoid those types of people. When Benjamin walked into Slaughter’s Turf Cafe, he noticed that the people in there are the exact people who his father told him to avoid. This book is very valuable to Milwaukee because people who actually live there everyday should know what happened in their own backyard. The way basically the entire government in the city of Milwaukee was corrupt is a bit disturbing. The way things used to be politically was completely corrupt and there is no doubting that. I found the book to be extremely interesting and I loved learning about what happened in a city that is so well known in today’s society. I’m sure that the people of Milwaukee who read this book are very shocked to know what happened in the city they live in. I would expect that even the people who are not very interested in history, found it to be very fascinating to learn about what happened before their time. This book is also very valuable as a supplement to the study of American history in general because we, as Americans, should know and understand the way things used to be. It is important to learn about corruption in the government because corruption was part of the reason why some of the movements were started. It is also important because through corruption, people started to realize that the people they were voting in were only helping themselves. This made people start thinking more on whom they wanted in office and what issues they wanted changed. Putting the supernatural aspects aside, A Life in Chiaroscuro is a believable and compelling story depicting life in a typical American city. I think it is like a typical American city because back in the 1900’s, corruption was not an uncommon thing. Corruption was everywhere in many cities especially big, major cities. The government did not necessarily want to take over everything in a city. They wanted to do things to benefit themselves. There is a part in the book that shows that elected government officials link themselves to important businessmen to help themselves out and their friends. â€Å"In the midst of it all, the mayor lines his pockets with bribes from the industrial sector, particularly from John Beggs. In big cities during the 1900’s, there were many people involved in corruption. There were elected officials, police officers, businessmen, and even just wealthy people who wanted to become wealthier. This is a perfect example of the people in the book and what they did to become more powerful and wealthier than they already were. [ 1 ]. Ferguson, Paul-Thomas. A Life in Chiaroscuro. Rock Isla nd, Illinois: Paul-Thomas Ferguson, 2008. Print. [ 2 ]. mule (Civil War). Wisconsin Historical Society. Wisconsin Historical Society, 1996. Web. . [ 3 ]. Kestenbaum, Lawrence. Index to Politicians: Rose. The Political Graveyard. Lawrence Kestenbaum, 1996. Web. . [ 4 ]. Ferguson, Paul-Thomas. A Life in Chiaroscuro. Rock Island, Illinois: Paul-Thomas Ferguson, 2008. Print. 30. [ 5 ]. Rogina, Jeffries L. It Takes More Than That to Kill a Bull Moose: The Leader and The Cause. About Theodore Roosevelt: President and More, from The Theodore Roosevelt Association. The Theodore Roosevelt Association, June 1998. Web. . [ 6 ]. Norton, Mary Beth, David M. Katzman, David W. Blight, Howard Chudacoff, and Fredrik Logevall. A People and a Nation: A History of Mary Beth Norton, Carol Sheriff, David M Katzman, David W. Blight, Howard Chudacoff. Google Books. Suzanne Jeans, 2008. Web. . [ 7 ]. Ferguson, Paul-Thomas. A Life in Chiaroscuro. Rock Island, Illinois: Paul-Thomas Ferguson, 2008. Print. 149. [ 8 ]. Ferguson, Paul-Thomas. A Life in Chiaroscuro. Rock Island, Illinois: Paul-Thomas Ferguson, 2008. Print. 32. [ 9 ]. Ferguson, Paul-Thomas. A Lif e in Chiaroscuro. Rock Island, Illinois: Paul-Thomas Ferguson, 2008. Print. 65. [ 10 ]. Ferguson, Paul-Thomas. A Life in Chiaroscuro. Rock Island, Illinois: Paul-Thomas Ferguson, 2008. Print. 155.

Comparing crime myths and facts

Comparing crime myths and facts There is little consensus about the definition of "crime". The media advertises crime by what acts are reacted to by the police and courts whereas a lawyer sees crime as acts that have been defined as crimes by the written law. A myth can be defined as a belief or story that has been associated with an occurrence, so, crime myths are beliefs about crime not supported by appropriate statistics or research. Therefore, crime facts are what criminal acts are actually happening revealed by evidence. Juvenile crime myths are to be used in this essay to compare and contrast crime myths and facts in four discussions by focusing particularly on juvenile crime.This report begins by examining the developments and motivations of myths produced by the media and the government and then secondly contrasting this with the developments and motivations of crime facts produced from various measures to show resemblances in accuracy.Map of violent crimes in 2006 in Chicago community...Next, as a result f rom the above analysis, it will be argued that majority of juvenile crime is non-violent, dispelling the media created myth that all juvenile crime is violent. Lastly, drawing on statistics, it will be proven that juvenile crime is not on the rise regardless of the sudden focus in juvenile crime today by the media. It is concluded that juvenile crime rates are relatively stable and the best way to get a comprehensive outlook on crime is through statistical research rather than succumbing to the medias 'representations' of crime.The first point of discussion is that the media is a huge perpetuator of crime myths and fallacies creating trend stories because sensationalism sells. The media and other contributing factors such as the government select our crime problems for us and focus our attention on social issues (Kappeler, 2003). Newspapers, television, radio and the Internet together...

ANALYSE THE WIDER IMPACT(S) UPON THE WORLD ECONOMY OF THE RISE OF THE Essay

ANALYSE THE WIDER IMPACT(S) UPON THE WORLD ECONOMY OF THE RISE OF THE IMPORTANCE OF CHINA - Essay Example On the other hand, economic growth is always accompanied with military power advancement (Perkins 2009). China invests highly in military power and therefore makes future security levels unpredictable since no one is sure of how the nation will use its power if by any chance it happens to be the world’s most powerful nations. Therefore, since China’s growth is progressive and promising, the rest of the world ought to be ready for the expected advanced impact. Export of both products and labour as well as foreign direct investments makes the greatest percentage of Chinese GDP growth. The implication is that China’s economy greatly depends on its relation with other economies. To China, the overdependence on exports pose minimal threat if any, given that China does not only enjoy competitive advantage over other economies but also has a government policy that supports foreign relations. Notably, China’s initial economic bump up recorded in early 1970’s was attributed to internal factors with negligible dependence on exports. As matter o fact, this initial economic growth resulted from increase in domestic consumption and government expenditure (Zhu & Kotz 2010). China is densely populated and thus provides a reliable market for its manufacturing products. Notably, the increased domestic consumption resulted from a transformation of Chinese economy from agricultural nation to an industrial economy, but maintained a some how closed economy. By then, China’s growth had little or no economic impact on the global economy. The rapid growth in GDP provoked an urge for extra market and hence led to the incorporation of ‘market reform’ policy in 1978 (Zhu & Kotz 2010). This policy saw China enter the global market in search for market of their excess production. China might not be well endowed with capital, as

Critique of a research paper qualitative in nature Assignment

Critique of a research paper qualitative in nature - Assignment Example The sample sizes of GPs and care home professionals were 3 and 8 respectively. Sample sizes of care home residents and family members were 23 and 2 respectively. On introspection from an academic researchers’ point of view, these sample sizes leave some ambiguity regarding the procedure adopted in selecting the sample. The researcher has not clarified which scientific method of sampling was adopted in selecting this sample. This raises a doubt about the authenticity and validity of this study. One definition of validity in research is that â€Å"we have reached the goal of validity when our statements or conclusions about empirical reality are correct† (Engel and Schutt, 2005, p.18). This research exercise is ambivalent, when considered from the angle of â€Å"measurement validity, generalizability, and causal validity,† which are the three aspects of validity as far as social science research is concerned (Engel and Schutt, 2005, p.19). This is so because no pro per measurement has been made by this research exercise, it has very limited generalizability because of the erratic sampling and also the cause of change has not been properly identified in terms of dependent variables other than the adoption of LES. There could be locally specific and institution-specific causal factors. Another matter of concern is that the sample size seems to be too small to be in agreement with the existing social science research norms. It has been observed, â€Å"you would need a very large sample in order to have a chance of finding an impact of social work† (Gorard, 2003, p.61). Though this notion has been somewhat changed after approval for qualitative research with smaller sample sizes grew, the extremely small sample size (with no consistency while selecting respondents from each category) in this research limits its scope of application to the narrow geographical area in which it is conducted. And it has to be reminded, â€Å"by convention, [â € ¦] thirty comprises the magic number for the allowable minimum sample size† (Seidman, Seidman and Abeyesekere, 2001, p.174). In this research, it can be seen that no sample from any of the categories of respondents chosen by the researcher meets this criteria. The researcher has said that, the â€Å"interviews were [†¦] open-ended and required participants to reflect on their general experiences of GPs and the ease of accessing support, and comment on any improvements to the service† (Briggs, 2011, p.6). Though open-ended questions are more suitable for small sample sizes, it has to be remembered, â€Å"open-ended questions are far more difficult to code† (McNabb, 2010, p.118). The researcher in this particular study has not given any information on the data collection procedure and also the coding of the data thus collected. This has badly affected the credibility of this study. At the same time, the research has fulfilled the ethical conditions require d in such a venture, by following the â€Å"established procedures† as prescribed by the British Sociological Association (Briggs, 2011, p.6). The researcher has maintained transparency by admitting that the â€Å"review [that was carried out] was not commissioned as research and therefore ethical approval was not required† (Briggs, 2011, p