Battling conscience over one word in SOP

[misappthrope]

My brother read my SOP to give me his opinion of it because I was in desperate need of any opinion. There was one word, ecosystem, that he found odd and he suggested I use a work like macrocosm, which after dressing it up in the necessary syntax fit perfectly into my essay. Was and is it wrong to keep that word in my essay as I didn't actually arrive at it independently? I may have, but didn't at that time. Please let me know.

 

-the misappthrope

[fuzzylogician]

It's perfectly fine. You can get comments from others on your work and you can take their wording suggestions. There is nothing unethical about that. 

[TakeruK]

Yes this is fine. There is a difference between getting a word or phrasing suggestion from a friend/peer/advisor than taking credit for ideas that aren't yours. It's pretty common for ideas to spark from discussion with your colleagues in academia, and it doesn't always mean that it's no longer okay to incorporate it into your work. In my field, suggestions at this level (e.g. "hey wouldn't it sound better / make more sense if you said it like .... instead") aren't recognized in any way. No one expects that 100% of the words that are in any written work to have solely came from the author(s) listed. 

[kaykaykay]

yes. it is ok to get an editor's (or a friend's) help for editing your work  if at the end they help you convey your ideas.