Wiley Jennings

P2 Reviews of others

Danielle Review P2

FOCUS

The paper is very cohesive and consistent. The content is all very relevant. I like the way you begin the introduction with a quote from Harper Lee, but I think you could declare a clearer thesis. It is mostly good, but mention your father because your paper is specifically about the way you were able to embody your father's traits, not just about how people in general embodied their various role models.

Your use of quotes is excellent. I especially liked "my father never told "me how to live; he lived and let me watch him do it.""

My main criticism of the paper is that it is often not very believable. When you talk about how second life enhanced your understand of and bond with your father. P.4: "I never completely understood him until..." Did Second Life really enable you to "completely understand" your father. In (what I think is) Par. 8: "I instantly was able to connect to my father's outlook on life and understand how his experiences have formed his views and beliefs. I found a new respect and love for him and finally appreciated him for who he was." Sorry to be cynical, but this is hard to believe because surely your life experiences with your father over the past eighteen years gave you a clearer understanding of him than did an hour online chat. But I think that if you tweak these claims a bit, make them less absolute, (maybe: "it was an interesting perspective that allowed me insight...") so that the program doesn't seem like it radically improved your love for your father.

You also provide some nice insight: "People try to become and emulate those that they admire because they see some unique part of themselves within their role models..." YES

ORGANIZATION

You are very good at maintaining a clear structure. The pictures clearly relate to the text and are usually specifically mentioned in the text. You have captions, though you could improve the visual rhetoric by adding more the captions. A sentence or two adding some specifics to several of the pictures would deepen their worth in the paper. Especially in the photo between Par. 5 and 6 in which you are sitting at the computer. This would be interesting to have a little description of the atmosphere and experience in the classroom.

Though I like the large centered images, it could add interest to the paper if their format, size, relation to the text were varied some. Some vertical images, some inlayed in the text. This would just be bonus graphic appeal.

The paragraphs funnel nicely, and you have a good hook for the intro. I wish, however, that you had not spent so long merely summarizing the content of SL discussions. I think it's great to talk about them, but I want to know more than just what was said. Why do you think the conversation went this way? How do you feel about the points that were made? are they valid? what would you add to the points made? How would a different context have affected the conversation?

FLOW

You Paragraphs link nicely to each other. I would change the way you introduce P8 and P9 ("Additionally" and "in conclusion") because I don't like such explicit transition words. Because the paper is relatively short (these words are affective in longer expositions) these words have a wooden, sort of trite, feel. Not a big problem though really.

There are a few careless errors and issues with sentence structure, especially when dealing with difficult ideas like representing role models in second life. Mostly very good and clear.

In P3 you say: "we unanimously molded each other" - you must mean "simultaneously." Sentence structure in P4: "linked my father and me even further together." Try: "Since my father and I have both been students at UT, the island linked us together even more closely." In P6: "therefore no preconceived judgments were formed" is clunky and a little illogical. Try "so no one arrived with preconceptions (or misconceptions or just preconceived judgments)". The last sentence of the paragraph is a convoluted idea difficult to represent. Do you fuse Danielle's thoughts with Danielle's father's thoughts when you are the father? Maybe this takes place afterward? Maybe you could do the idea justive in multiple sentences.

In P5 "a stronger bond formin amongst us" amongst who? were you bonding with classmates? In last par: What relationship is "reciprocal and unique"?

Doa Review

FOCUS

You had clear thesis that I think carried through the paper: Although SL seems silly, creating virtual role models was actually effective.

It would help the paper if you split up the paragraphs. The way it is reads like rambling even though most of the information is relevant. Split up paragraph at “However, although I understand the importance…” and also split again at “Also, my motivation to write had increased…” This will make your focus clearer.

ORGANIZATION

Nice large images, especially the first one. But it is awkward the way you placed the second image directly beneath the first. You could integrate them better into the text. You captions are sufficient, but the images would be improved with more in dept description, even on just one image. Explain how you feel as you are looking at the computer screen or what Depp is doing here that might be a leadership quality.

Shorten your paragraphs to improve the over all structure. It’s hard to read a paragraph that just keeps going and going.

FLOW

“It didn’t matter whether or not I followed every little rule before me- the idea was to back up, find a set of ideas I wished to convey in order to summarize my experiences, and let the writing flow.” I think that’s true, but I think that this style also leads to some problems. Let the words flow, but then go back and edit them because when you JUST flow, you end up with much unnecessary verbiage. The sentences come out inefficiently and often jumbled.

“Regardless of the depth of one’s reverence, there are a minimal amount of individuals who parade around dressed up as their heroes, attempting to become them.” What? I don’t understand the relationship between the two clauses.

“My Second Life experience as Johnny Depp led to multiple epiphanies on the subject of leadership and I’ve learned that I can be a leader in my life, right now.” Here is an example of the unnecessary prepositions throughout your paper that impede understanding. Try: “my second life experience as Johnny Depp lead to leadership epiphanies” or some more efficient construction.

Also, use semicolons instead of dashes. The dashes are not used properly.

Good insight: ‘It is interesting to see how the individuals behind the avatars felt about what was discussed” and again more good insight in the conclusion.

Avni Review

FOCUS

I did not find a clear thesis in your paper. The first paragraph does more than introduce the topic and doesn’t introduce it clearly. Don’t use too many quotes at the beginning and try to create a funnel structure that culminates in a thesis, some declaration about what you want to show with the rest of the paper.

Your attempt to use so many quotes and from such disparate sources is admirable, but I don’t think it quite worked. The quote in the third paragraph about extrinsic motivation should be integrated into the text better; it is awkward. In the same paragraph, you have a quote about intrinsic motivation. Contrasting these two ideas is good, but you need to split up the second quote. There are too many “ors” and not enough periods/commas.

You focus also could improve if you went more into depth on some of the topics you discuss. I think quotes again lead to part of the problem. You have many different ideas and the quotes are from so many different sources that you never really get very far with most of them. In the third paragraph, “I feel as if I have a greater connection with Gandhi because I had the opportunity to be him in Second Life.” I want to know more. What is this connection and what is it about SL that fostered it? Explain, keep going with your assertion.

ORGANIZATION

Just as with the quotes, you really collected an impressive pastiche of images. The images, though, are more effective than the quotes. At first I didn’t like the clip art and web images, but they grew on me a little. You certainly have the best captions of any I’ve read – GOOD JOB! I found it odd, however, when you showed images of Nelson Mandela, Woodrow Wilson, and John Lennon, but you didn’t give a picture of Gandhi. I think you need one if you want to show all these other role models as well. (Delete the one of Wilson.) I think the A+ image is too cheesy as well.

The textual organization would be improved by shortening the paragraphs and making clearer topic sentences. Because each paragraph is not formed around a single central idea, it makes transitioning between them difficult as well. More concentrated paragraphs will enable you to create smoother transitions between them.

FLOW

“Learnt” is the British past tense of “learn,” which I guess is OK, but it comes off funny to my ear. Your writing is nice because it is easy to read – it comes off like speech. But that is also a weakness. There are several instances in which you need to cut out excess verbiage, remove unnecessary “I” phrases, and generally restructure your sentences for greater clarity. Don’t end sentences with prepositions, such as in the first paragraph: “I have no idea how to get to the place where I want to go to.” Change to: “I have no idea how to get to the place I want to go.” In PAR 3, after number 6, cut out “I felt like.” There are several other instances in which you should remove this type of phrase because it weakens the rest of the sentence. After footnote 10: “I was able to create Gandhi’s…” this sentence is very awkward, as is the final sentence in the PAR after #13: “There are differences in doing…” change to “…Mahatma Gandhi, this project two essay is [use a more precise word than different] because of my experience in SL.” Also there is a section after the cat in the hat image that needs explaining. “I feel like the writing thought… imitating his mannerisms.” Explain this in depth. Reorganize it because it’s clunky.

Hannah Review P2

FOCUS

The strength of your introduction paragraph really strengthens the paper as a whole. Your commentary is given credibility by your clear focus in the intro. The thesis is very clear and strong, but I think that the ideas you late out in the thesis may not be the ones you emphasize most in your paper. You do “explore the personality” and “expand upon my understanding,” but the “inspired writing” isn’t so important. The interaction you had with others seems much more important than new motivations for writing. You have some very nice insights into the relationships between people and their role models (P5: “Similarity suggests that we choose our role models…” and “the more familiarity we have with subjects, the greater the empathy we have for them.”) Even when you are ostensibly writing about writing P2 (I know we had to address this because of assignment), you are writing more about students entering into their role models than you are about motivation.

The conclusion is good, but I wish that somewhere in the paper you had expanded a bit more on what the sympathetic imagination is – How are you using the term? The way it is, it is a little confusing because the term doesn’t connect to anything memorable in the paper, yet you introduce in the first sentence of your conclusion. This would help tie things together.

ORGANIZATION

The variation of images is very nice. It integrates the paper well to have different size graphics that are set into the text. Well done. I wish you had one more image toward the end though. It’s a little unbalanced. The captions inside the images are nice, and I especially like the two images of Mary Kay – good reference to the twinkle in the text. You could possibly flesh out the images by adding one more in depth caption (on the fourth image, of SL, add some description of the setting, how it felt…).

Your transitions between P2 and P3 and again between P4 and P5 are very nice. They allow the paragraphs to flow nicely into one another. You need a better transition between P5 and 6. You introduce P6 with “At the same time” which intimates that there is a direct opposition to what was just mentioned in the fifth paragraph. The two paragraphs don’t seem to have a strong connection however.

The topic sentence of the second paragraph has a minor error: “Mary Kay Ash’s embodied the…” which was actually quite distracting because it was in the first few words of the first body paragraph.

Good paragraph length though and really, really nice insights and style. So clear.

FLOW

Your writing is very strong; I really enjoy reading it. You give substantial evidence for most of your claims (P2: it is very clear that you have reason not to like SL), which makes me want to agree with you. Your punctuation and grammar is nearly perfect. Two distracting sentences: P6 “Both conversations discussed respect…” This sentence is convoluted, split the sentence into two, or at least punctuate it. Then the final sentence of your last body paragraph has a couple mistakes: Change to: “My motivation for Project One was fear of a bad grade while my motivation for P2 is more a desire to share how myself and others can become leaders.”

Your few mistakes seem like rushing and are easy fixes. Because your writing is so strong, the mistakes are a little extra frustrating. Oh yes, and you made the SAME MISTAKE you made in P1: IT’S NOT “GOLEMANATAL” (you actually spelled it differently than you did in P1) it’s Goleman et al. (haha).

There’s also a run-on in P4: “and leadership yet, at first, I encountered…” Stick a period in there!

Really your flow is excellent.

Will Review

FOCUS

I was pretty clear about what you intent was when I finished reading the first paragraph. I thought that you disliked SL because a digital conversation could never replace a real one. But then when I read the rest of your paper, it was almost entirely in opposition to this stance. So once I flipped myself around it was pretty cleat, but the intro is misleading. You said that an SL chat with avatars dressed as our selves would be most effective (interesting suggestion), and you said that you didn’t like the way people were pretending to be others. But then you also say that SL is “probably the best form of intellectual discussion.” Your messages seem mixed. At the end of PAR 2, are you suggesting that SL is not good for our role model conversation, but good in general?

I also think that you can strengthen your thesis by shortening the intro paragraph. Not all of that information needs to be there.

In PAR 3: What relation does sentence: “there is a reason that tyrants…” have to the rest of the paragraph? It seems unrelated. Topic sentence of 4^th PAR further confused me because I still thought that you were not in favor of our role model SL discussions.

ORGANIZATION

You have decent images and I really like the way you incorporated the captions into the images on SL. Very clever. You could definitely add more pictures and the second one is pretty weak (blurry). Also, resize your images. The first and third images are either too big or too small because the text gets squished by their side and it is very difficult to read. I do like the fact that you have a vertical image though.

Paragraphs 2 and 3 fit well together. Your topic sentences give pretty good statements about what that paragraph is going to cover.

FLOW

The main thing I have to say about flow is that yours could be improved by shortening some sentences and adding commas. Watch out for the run-on. “It can be difficult to keep up with the conversation, as people may unintentionally try to take the discussion into two entirely separate directions at the same time, [add period here] but I don’t think this is too much of a problem as the discussion should continue into the direction that the group feels that they are more ready or willing to pursue. Looking back over the transcript of our talks, [add period here] it can be a little difficult to see what we are talking about at every single moment but with some effort and concentration it can certainly be done.”

There is some good commentary in the fourth paragraph.

At the end of the fifth paragraph, add a comma: “leadership, and I think”. Add commas between independent clauses.

Your language is pretty smooth and easy to read for the most part. You use it well as a vehicle to convey your message (just clarify a bit what that is).