My
Suggestions to Others for Project 1:
"She encouraged me and took me back to the
teacherÀs lounge where our fellow researchers were sitting."
Here's
an opportunity for expansion. Maybe you could add a bit of "reassurring
dialogue" as to how she encouraged you? Maybe some more about her role?
"During his lifetime, he achieved recognition
for many reasons such as his second book, CoronadoÀs Children.[2]"
This is not a sentence that makes sense to me.
There
are a lot of tense issues throughout, and also I think some more complex
sentence structures would help out a lot.
I liked this one a whole lot, but there's one thing I
noticed. You comment to Matthew Arnold that current social doctrines have
changed considerably since his time, which leads me to believe that his ghost
hasn't appeared since he died. Maybe you could add some reason for why he
appeared to you in particular?
Sorry, I forgot to critique a specific sentence.
"I
nodded, still amazed at the site of having moved backward in time."
I don't understand this one at all, so maybe you need to rephrase it.
Alright, I have a couple comments.
First of all, watch what tense you're in. You seem to
accidentally switch to past tense occasionally when the rest is in present.
Second,
I really enjoyed reading the way you brought these ghosts alive, particularly
Mrs. Carothers.
Sorry, once again I forgot to pinpoint a specific
sentence.
"With
a little imagination, ghosts of students past could still be seen to wander,
their footsteps creaking the wooden floors and resounding in the
stairwell." "Could still be seen to wander" has too many
verbs, making it rather difficult to read, and really interrupts the flow of
the piece.
Wow. First of
all, I was amazed by the creativity in this one. One thing I really
recommend, however, is to mind the use of passive voice. When the
majority of the piece is so strong, it really sticks out like a sore
thumb. Also, I have a general sense that there might be too many
settings. I think it would be interesting to cut a couple and expand on
the others, so as to provide a stronger sense of some of the buildings/locations
Ha. I realize I forgot to include a specific
quote.
"Her
education is sporadic at best, due to LyraÀs own reticence at attending her
lessons and the varying line-up of her teachers." I think reticence
is misused in this sentence. Maybe you mean disinclination?
"I hop out of bed as I have been unable to sleep
all night because of my anxiety." The tenses are all over the place
in this sentence.
Overall, I think a lot of your internal monologue
needs to be edited, because a lot of it is just unrealistic. For example,
her thoughts were too coherent for a girl who's out of breath chasing after the
bus.
"Before I go to far, I suppose this might be the
proper time for me to explain how I obtained the resources to be totally
unproductive for such a period of time". The first to needs to be a too.
"Everyone in the country knew that the Democrat
Samuel J. Tilden, was going to run away with the election over poor Rutherford
B. Hayes." The comma is unnecessary.
Overall, I like it, but there are a whole bunch of
grammatical errors. You're going to really need to go through and fix
punctuation and that sort of thing.