📝 A glimpse of my "Writing with New Scientist" class: a paragraph makeover 📝

Have a look at a paragraph written by a student and try to guess what I asked the student to change.

🗒 Topic: "Curiosity can be a boon or a bane. Do you think the advantages of curiosity outweigh the disadvantages?"

🗒 Original:

"The benefits of curiosity are by far greater than its drawbacks as it pushes people to explore the world and is, therefore, the driving force behind development. It is curiosity that makes babies scan their immediate environment and try to reach the objects they are interested in, thus helping them to learn to crawl and walk. It is the same powerful desire to know more about the world that makes children ask numerous questions and develop their minds. In adulthood it is the same force that makes people seek answers to yet more profound questions about how the world functions and, as a result, enables them to contribute to the development of medicine, sciences and arts. All in all, it is curiosity that lies at the heart of all discoveries and stimulates progress at both individual and society level, thus determining the sheer existence of mankind."

🗒 My comment: I would appreciate the parallel “it is” in more creative genres, but not in an IELTS essay. Such repetitions are a valid stylistic device (one of my favorite), but they have no place in essays.

🗒 Student's rewrite:

"The benefits of curiosity are by far greater than its drawbacks as it pushes people to explore the world and is, therefore, the driving force behind development. It's the same powerful desire to know more about the world that makes babies learn to crawl, encourages children to develop their minds by asking questions and pushes adults to contribute to the development of science and arts. All in all, curiosity lies at the heart of all discoveries and stimulates progress at both individual and society level, thus determining the sheer existence of humankind. "

The paragraph is now more academic and more concise. 💛