Please, if you find any mistakes in my essay, can you correct them?

[dilodi83]

Today school is very important and I think it has become more important than it was in the past. That's because, school and education, that every school should give to its students, are fundamental to form well-educated and professional girls and boys. Many people decide to go to school and most of them also make the decision to keep on studying by attending university. This decision is born from the convinction, according to which, who gets a degree or attends school, has greater choices to get a good job. I think it could be right up to nearly fifity years ago. In Italy, the situation has changed and, what everyone can see, is that there are many graduated people, who have studied hard, who have also undertaken to attend school and then university, often attending specialistic courses too, and who do not manage to find any kind of job. Really often they do not want to get a good job, because they already know there is no good job for them because of the European economic crisis, but they would like to get a normale job so that they can start a family, or give to their parents that have paid so much money for their children's education, the satisfaction for all the economic efforts they have done.
The problem is that school no longer assures the possibility to find a good job and it is a big mistake to go on thinking and taking for granted that whoever has an education will be facilitated in finding a job. Of course, it is right to attend school to create well-educated people, or to let boys and girls socialize, but at the same time I think the convinction about a majior range of possibilities to get a good job must be knocked down because it is not concrete in our society any more!

[luschen]

I am not a teacher, but I will be happy to correct some of the mistakes you have made in your essay. I think you did a great job - you have a lot of run-on sentences though, which should be split up. Do they use the term comma splice in your English class?

Today school is very important and I think it has become more important than it was in the past. That's[This is] because, school and [an] education, that [which] every school should give to its students, are [is] fundamental to form[ing] [creating would be a better word choice here] well-educated and professional girls and boys. Many people decide to go to school and most of them also make the decision to keep on [continue] studying by attending university. This decision is born from the convinction[sp], according to which, who[that] gets[getting] a degree or attends[attending] school, has greater choices to get[increases one's chances of getting a good job. I think it could[this was] be right [correct is a better word choice] up to nearly fifity years ago. In Italy, the situation has changed and, what everyone can see, is that there are many graduated people[graduates], who have studied hard, who have also undertaken to attend school and then university, often attending specialistic[specialized] courses too [as well is a better word choice], and who do not manage to find any kind of job. [This is about 3 or 4 sentences worth of information - I would try to split it up] Really[Quite] often they do not want to get a good job, because they already know there is no good job[I would say "are no good jobs"] for them because of the European economic crisis, but they would like to get a normale[sp] job so that they can start a family, or give to their parents that [who] have paid so much money for their children's education, the satisfaction for all the economic efforts they have done. [split up into several sentences]
The problem is that school no longer assures the possibility[it assures the possibility, but not the certainty] to find[of finding] a good job and it is a big mistake to go on [continue would be a better word choice] thinking and taking for granted that whoever has an education will be facilitated in finding a job. Of course, it is right to attend school to create well-educated people, or to let boys and girls socialize, but at the same time I think the convinction[sp] about a majior range of possibilities to get a good job must be knocked down because it is not concrete in our society any more![this sentence is very awkward - maybe "the conviction that school will provide a multitude of possibilities to get a good job must be knocked down because it is not longer a certainty in our society."]

[dilodi83]

Thanks so much!! So do you think that the most important mistakes I have made in the essay are just about the use of commas and similar things?

[luschen]

Once again, I am not a teacher, just a native English speaker and writer, so this is my opinion. I think you have a good vocabulary and use your words correctly. The structure of your essay is also good and very persuasive. The problem I had isn't with your use of commas, it is more that your sentences are too long. You are stringing together several sentences by putting commas between them when they should be split up into separate thoughts. Let me try an example:

[Quite] often they do not want to get a good job, because they already know there is no good job[I would say "are no good jobs"] for them because of the European economic crisis, but they would like to get a normale[sp] job so that they can start a family, or give to their parents that [who] have paid so much money for their children's education, the satisfaction for all the economic efforts they have done. [split up into several sentences]

Quite often they do not want to get a good job, because they already know there are no good jobs available for them because of the European economic crisis. They would like to get a normal job so that they can start a family. In addition, their parents have paid so much money for their children's education but the children have no way of paying them back for all the contributions their parents have made.

I had to change some phrases to convert the passage into separate sentences. Does this make sense? I am not saying that long sentences are necessarily bad, but they must have the proper structure to be correct. The longer the sentence, the harder it is to keep all your phrases and clauses straight so there are no grammatical mistakes.

Here is a website page that seems pretty good at explaining run on sentences and comma splices:
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/runons.htm