Edit of "Battle in Sudan"

Focus

Thesis: My leadership vision is to bring hope, compassion, and Ahimsa to those in a humanitarian crisis; I want to help revive trust between people.
This thesis was much clearer than in your first draft. It still doesn't necessarily set out a list of specific topics that you will spend one body paragraph each on, but since your paper has a more narrative approach to it, I think this ends up working alright. You did a nice job of connecting the paragraphs better to each other, and they flow nicely now. I never really questioned what a paragraph had to do with your leadership vision, so nice job tweaking all of that. The one thing I felt might could have been expanded on was the idea of leadership, which you mention briefly when talking about your role models. Since this is a leadership vision, mentioning more about how your compassion and the idea of reviving hope and trust in people makes you a leader seems appropriate.

I also noticed you deleted the section about FGC. I think this was a good call, because you already had so many details. All of the cuts you made helped improve the readability of your paper, and it sounds a lot more focused and professional now. Nice job of editing.

Organization

You already did a really good job of re-arranging your paragraphs to help them flow smoothly, and you did a nice job with transitions. I only have a couple of issues with this area. The first is in the second paragraph (starting "Before joining MSF I was…). When reading through it, it sounded like the last two sentences did not quite seem to fit at this point, not because of the rest of the paragraph, but because of the beginning of the next paragraph. The sentences "I feel a need to give aid to those who really need it. So now, I find myself in Sudan, working with those in the midst of health crises" are in the present tense, but in the next paragraph you go back to talking about the past tense; also, even if you change 'feel' to 'felt' in the first sentence, it seems like it would contradict what you say in the next paragraph about having lost sight of your reason for becoming a doctor. See what you think about the paragraphs and their flow together if the last two sentences are taken out.

The only other issue has to do with the pictures. Most of them were very beneficial to me as a reader, however I'm not sure that quite so many are needed. For example, I know that you mainly talk about just working in Sudan, but MSF itself isn't only based in Sudan, and I don't think the map picture of Sudan is necessary since you are more talking about MSF in general. Also, I think the Sudanese child picture is very reminiscent of the 'beautiful brown eyes' of Wajma in your last paragraph, so I would consider moving that picture to the last paragraph, and possibly deleting the Sudanese patient picture currently by the last paragraph. All of the pictures have captions, however some of them could be expanded so that they relate more to one or two key words or sentences in the paragraphs they go with. For example, the MSF logo obviously doesn't need explanation, but the Sudanese child picture could say something like "Right now I see fear in the eyes of the children I work with, but someday I desire to see hope" which ties in a lot to your conclusion. Also double-check the placement of your pictures so that they are not in the middle of paragraphs, breaking up the flow (noticed this with pictures 1, 3, 4, 5, 6). Change their formatting so that they are in line with the text, but then move them to the side or something.

Flow

So many of the little grammatical errors and word choice issues were fixed! I could read through this draft much easier. I still have a few more nit-picky things to look at:
-Second paragraph, "I seized this chance, knowing that I may never be able to do something like this in the future." It seems like in order to stay in the right tense 'may' should be changed to 'might'
-Third paragraph, I still don't like the extremity of "…how I was lacking in compassion" because I don't think it's that you were lacking, but rather that you had lost sight of it, as you say later in the paragraph. If there's another phrase that you think would still get the point across (like 'forgot the compassion that drove me to pursue a medical career in the first place') it would read better to me
-Fifth paragraph, "My parents have instilled this spirit of humanism from childhood." If you use the verb 'instill' I think it sounds better to have 'in me' following it somewhere, so in this case "…have instilled this spirit of humanism in me from childhood."
-Fifth paragraph (? Not sure because of picture placement), "Growing compassion can be the most valuable trait we possess." 'Compassion' is a trait, but I don't think the phrase 'growing compassion' is a trait, so I would delete the word 'growing.' I know you use the phrase later, but I don't think you need it right here.
-Sixth paragraph, "But what is really scary, is that…" this phrase just sounds a bit too informal, especially with the tone of the rest of your paper. I would rephrase to something like "Even more terrifying than their physical condition, however, is their mentality that no one will help them."
-Sixth paragraph, "They have been deceived their whole lives so they have no reason…" Just need a comma before 'so' to break up this compound sentence
-Conclusion, "…I am overwhelmed with compassion, sorrow, and love…" It seems like the logical flow of emotions in response to Wajma would be first sorrow, then compassion (a little less sad), then love (even less sad), so I would just switch the two words 'compassion' and 'sorrow' in this list, but you might have a reason for keeping them the way they are
-Conclusion, "My hope is that maybe I am instilling her with some Hope." A few things with this sentence (last one, so it has to be super strong, right?) First, since you already say 'my hope' it implies the 'maybe' so I don't think both are necessary. Second, 'hope' is used twice, which is alright, but if you can find a different word for one of these instances, it would sound less repetitive. Last, again the verb 'instill' seems like it should have 'in' in there somewhere, so possibly change to say 'instilling within her some Hope'

Edit of "Between Now and the End"

Focus - 6

Thesis: "In order to gain that distinction in my life, I aspire to become a silent leader - a quiet influence - develop lasting relationships by sharing in the lives of others, appreciating the beauty of life, valuing overlooked details, and finding balance."
I really like how you edited your thesis, it is concise and clearly sets out the different topics of your paper.
I also really like that you went ahead and expanded on the second paragraph about the painting. I still had a bit of trouble with this paragraph, and I think it could be tweaked a bit to make it even better. The main phrase that bothered me was the following: "…combines them in a unique and disproportional way, mirroring the direction I feel my life heading in right now." After reading the rest of the paragraph, I understand what you mean, but at first it sounds like your future life is going to be disproportional or something, and you have to use a lot more sentences to explain what you actually want to get across. One way that you could possibly clear this up would be to change the phrase to "mirroring the aspects of my personality (or leadership vision, or whatever) as they currently are. (The sentences immediately following I don't think would be necessary here)…Like a real face, in my future these ideas will be equivalent in my life, but like a painting…(to the end of the paragraph). I understand that this would be changing your original idea up a bit, so it's fine if you don't want to go this direction, but at any rate I would try to do some re-phrasing.
I wanted to point out that out of the papers I have read, you do the best job of really integrating the David Copperfield quote at the beginning. I really liked that you even referenced David Copperfield again in another quote later on. All of your quotes fit very well, and you connect them really well within the paragraphs - nice job!
I liked how you edited both the paragraph about laughing and your conclusion. Both of them connect a lot better to the surrounding paragraphs and within the paper as a whole! Very unified paper overall.

Organization - 5

Better transitions (I noticed specifically with the laughter paragraph, for example, that it was much more smooth), and although each section tends to be somewhat isolated, it works fairly well for your paper since going back to the picture kind of serves to connect each one.
Your integration of verbal and visual rhetoric is superb - you definitely went above and beyond! All of your pictures are very relevant, and the interactive nature of the main picture really draws the reader in.
I really don't have any big critiques for this section. The organization was wonderful, especially now that your thesis is so clear, and you wrap it up satisfactorily and succinctly in your conclusion. Wonderful job!

Flow - 6

I was able to read through your paper quite easily. I really like the tone, it strikes a nice balance between formality and informality. There were still a couple of places where I found nit-picky things, so I'll just list those out, but no major issues anywhere.
-First paragraph, in your thesis I felt like "develop" should be "developing" or that a "to" should be put in front of it, depending on what kind of verb you want there because right now it's not really connected to a subject
-Second paragraph, "the eyes, nose, ears, mouth, hair, and even the eyebrows," you have sections for the first five, but not one for eyebrows, so it just seems like you might not need to include eyebrows in this list
-Second paragraph, "The less naturally ingrained…, just like certain feature of the face…" an 's' is needed on the end of 'feature'
-Ears/nose paragraph, "I must create in myself a very perceptive person, observing slight differences…and address people on a one-to-one basis." I think 'address' should be 'addressing' to match 'observing'
-Hair paragraph, "The hair seems like a small aspect of a person." I'm not sure I would always classify someone's hair as 'small,' so maybe substitute a word like 'insignificant' or 'unimportant'
-Eyes paragraph, "…the eyes serve as a metaphor to the balance of concepts…" I still really don't like the 'to' after 'metaphor.' If you used 'analogy' instead of 'metaphor,' it would make more sense to say 'analogy for,' in my opinion, so it seems like the same would go for the original word
-Eyes paragraph, "I am always alert to the sings of the past…" Typo, I'm sure 'sings' should be 'signs'
-Eyes paragraph, The Apology should probably be underlined or italicized (and same goes for Compassion in Medicine in an earlier paragraph, I think)
-Conclusion, "…I hope to have attained dignity in my relationships…" the word 'dignity' stopped me for a little bit, mostly because you spent an entire paragraph on laughter, which doesn't bring the word 'dignity' exactly to mind. Perhaps a different word could fit better here, but it's not a big deal.

Edit of "My Life Vision"

Focus

Thesis: "Both my personal and career goals include a determined effort to building lasting connections with people by appreciating the differences in the human race and offering a helping hand to those in need."

This revised thesis is much stronger than in your first draft! It definitely sets out some clear topics and a logical sequence to follow, but I still had a few issues with the focus. First of all, you spend a lot of time talking about human suffering and its impact on you and the world, but I do not feel that it is very specifically mentioned in your thesis, and so the paragraphs about this subject feel a bit disconnected from the rest (even though I completely understand why you want to include these paragraphs). I would just suggest putting something very concrete in your thesis, so that you can base the rest of your paper's organization and focus specifically off of that, and there will be no doubt as to the focus of the entire paper.

I was surprised that throughout your essay there was only one quote. This quote from Dass worked really well, and it seems like your topics of human suffering and compassion could have linked really well with more Dass quotes or ones from Medicine and Compassion. Another quote or two would definitely help tie the entire essay back to the main topics we covered in class, as well as add even more credibility to the paper.

I like that you made a few deletions, especially in the "When I imagine my ideal world" paragraph, which is now a more reader-friendly size! There were two places where I felt there could be a few more cuts to really get just the meat of what you want to say. The first is in the second paragraph. The second half of the first sentence sounded a bit awkward, but I felt like you restated what you were trying to say in the third sentence ("It has taught me to live…."). Since this other sentence is worded so well, I think you could actually cut the entire first sentence. Obviously this might require a few more tweaks in order to transition smoothly from the introduction and such, but I think this would tighten things up nicely.

The other focus area I had trouble with was in the 5th and 6th paragraphs. I get that both of them are about human suffering, but I am not sure what the difference between them is. It seems like they are both saying close to the same thing, so I would either differentiate them more (ask what the point/topic of each one is, then make sure each sentence fits that exactly) or combine them by deleting some of the less-crucial sentences if their topics are the same. Also as a minor note, there's a typo in the 5th paragraph, that is you have the sentence "As I walked the streets of India…" twice.

Organization

Like I said with flow, the thesis is much stronger and sets out a clear logical sequence to be followed. I'm not sure that this sequence is maintained in your body paragraphs right now. I labeled your thesis with topics that looked like you wanted to cover (1.building lasting connections 2. appreciating differences 3. offering a helping hand) and then put corresponding numbers by each body paragraph. I felt your second paragraph deals with 2, the third with 1, the fourth with 3, not sure about the fifth and sixth ('human suffering' seems the main topic, not necessarily helping the suffering, but see Focus section for more on that), although at least part of the sixth seemed like 3, the seventh with 3, and the last paragraphs seems to just deal with 1. I would try to re-organize these paragraphs so that they go in chronological order, rather than kind of skipping around.

Even more specifically, I think the fourth paragraph should be put after the fifth/sixth paragraphs since it talks about a very specific possible way for you to help. I think it would fit better after you've talked more generally about wanting to help, and it would also go well with the seventh paragraph, which is also more specific.

On a similar note, even though I know that the first topic (building lasting connections) is more of a goal to be obtained by doing topics 2 and 3 (i.e., it's more important and over-arching than 2 and 3), I still feel like the conclusion needs to at least refer back to topics 2 and 3 in discussing the overall theme of connections. It still feels like just another body paragraph at this point.

I guess I also have to ask why you chose not to incorporate any pictures? Obviously, it's better to not include any than to put in a bunch of random pictures that have little to do with the point of your paper, but surely one or two could connect really well and help to break up the lines and lines of text for the reader? Perhaps a picture of the poverty in the streets of India that impacted you so much.

Flow

I noticed the biggest improvement in this area of your paper. I felt like I stopped a lot less this time through, and little mistakes, as well as word choice and sentence structure, were much less of an issue throughout. Just a few sentences to look at:
-Second paragraph, "My culture has also taught me how to appreciate the differences of other cultures…" I would consider adding "go beyond mere acceptance and actually" in between "to" and "appreciate" just to emphasize that appreciating is different from the acceptance you talk about in the previous sentence.
-Fourth paragraph, "The severity of situation that innocent children face…" needs a 'the' in front of 'situation'
-Seventh paragraph, "…and pursue my interest in the medicine." Delete the 'the' before 'medicine'

The only other flow issue I had was I found that a couple of paragraphs seemed to lack some transitions still. I noticed this specifically between the second and third paragraphs, as well as in the middle of the seventh paragraph (the sentence "Helping those who are unable to help themselves…" seemed to branch out on a new topic). Also, the last paragraph just kind of starts into a new topic without drawing on the previous sentence or even the previous topic. Just double check all those flow together as seamlessly as possible.

Edit of "To the New Me"

Focus

Thesis: "In order to walk the path toward my own future and ultimate purpose, I must develop my sympathetic imagination, learn to channel my endless supply of energy, and eliminate fear."

Your thesis was always strong, so nothing new here! Your paper sticks very to the point throughout.

I really liked your quote integration. In this draft, especially, they were very seamless, and they were connected very well. I like the cuts and quotes in the introduction and fourth paragraph, specifically.

In the third paragraph I had a couple of places while reading through that I tripped over, or felt could be compacted. It felt like the two sentences near the beginning, "My mind is composed of an intricate labyrinth…" and "I am always computing…" were almost identical to the first two sentences of the paragraph, just with different metaphors. While the imagery is good, I don't think both pairs of sentences are necessary. Later in the paragraph, starting with "Within the tangle of musings a vision of truth…" it felt like there was some back and forth between the same ideas as well (I have potential, but it lacks focus, have potential, but lacks focus…). This might be confusing, but I'll try to explain how I saw some cuts and re-arranging could possibly be made: Delete from "But right now, my truth is buried…" to "…is also my most powerful demon." Then move the sentence "Within the tangle of musings…" to after the sentence "But I often feel like I am constantly running…" This way, you start out talking about your passionate energy and potential, then say it lacks focus now, then say there is a vision in there somewhere, and that if you can release this it will channel your energy. Hope that made sense.

Organization

The one comment I would make about organization has to do with your thesis. The order you mention your topics is the reverse of how you order your body paragraphs. I would have said re-arrange the body paragraphs, but in your conclusion you talked about how the elimination of fear leads to channeling the energy, leads to sympathetic imagination, so I think the body paragraph order builds correctly, while the thesis could just use a quick switch of phrase order.

Your visual rhetoric works well throughout your paper. The pictures accentuated without getting in the way of the flow of the paper, and the captions were descriptive and helped connect them into specific points in the paragraphs.

Flow

No major flow issues, and a lot of little things fixed. Just found a few more here and there, but overall very nice!
-Second paragraph, "It drives hate, violence, and above all, anger." It seems to me that 'hate' is a much stronger emotion than anger, so I was just wondering as I read why the sentence read 'above all, anger' instead of 'above all, hate'
-Second paragraph, "it is all consuming and once one is shackled…" I think this compound sentence needs a comma after 'consuming'
-Third paragraph, "An internal war…and whether what I want is right for me leading me to question…" I think a comma is needed before 'leading' to help break up this long sentence a bit
-Fourth paragraph, "The first step to tapping into the sympathetic imagination is developing my sense of sympathy as well as empathy." Either change 'sense' to 'sense' or add an 'of' before empathy so that the verb agrees with the object.

Nice job! You gave me very little to do!

Edit of "From Otter to Golden Retriever"

Focus

Thesis: My leadership vision has three parts: as an organization officer at UT, as a manager in the workplace, and as a loving and supportive family man at home. In each of these sectors, I want to practice better compassion and transform myself from otter to golden retriever.

I like your strong thesis, it still sets out a really clear outline. You also included a lot more in your introduction about the personality types, which definitely helped unify your paper more. The one big issue I have with the thesis is that I feel it gets contradicted later on in the paper when you say in the second-to-last paragraph "My personality, shaped by a combination of my genes and my environment, will remain the same forever." This completely disagrees with your thesis, which says that you want to change. I would change the contradictory sentence to say something more about how the otter part of you will never completely go away because that is how you were made.

The only other big focus issue I saw anywhere in the paper had to do with the conclusion. Your thesis talks about compassion and your personality type, specifically, but in your conclusion (last paragraph) you mention neither. Your second-to-last paragraph does go into these areas, and seems like a pseudo- or partial conclusion, but it only focuses on compassion and personality in relation to your role as a family man. Either combine and expand on these, or just expand on the last paragraph to include all the parts of your thesis. We need closure!

The other focus issues I had were just small places where I felt you could cut down on some phrases or sentences just to make the writing tighter. In your introduction, I feel like a little too much time is spent giving examples and just re-stating some of the same stuff, which tends to make it sound like a back-and-forth thing between talking about high school and talking about the future. Cutting a few sentences here and there can reduce this, for example, if you cut both the sentence "I want to believe that I am a good leader" and "Whenever my high school put our grade on the ropes course…" The paragraph would still flow really well without leaving out much information. Another small place to possibly cut is the first part of a sentence in the second paragraph, "I grew up as an only child without any brothers, so…" I think you could start right on the "if" without losing anything, since you were just talking about your fraternity, and the mention of your family is small and isolated. In the third paragraph, the phrase "of my future job" at the end of the first sentence seems a bit unnecessary, too. In the fifth paragraph, the sentence "Mediating conflict and maintaining harmony…" I think could be cut because in the previous two sentences you started talking about the 'two halves' of your goal in this area, and then this sentence doesn't seem to follow along that vein.

Organization

I don't have too much to say, at least about verbal rhetoric, other than I still don't like that the third paragraph seems to jump back in time to your college career when you've already moved onto your workplace section, but you did do a better job of at least smoothing the transition between the two, so it's a bit better integrated. I saved more transition-related stuff for the flow section.

With the visual rhetoric, I like that you have a lot of pictures to break up the page, but I have a few suggestions to make them a little bit more connected with the paper as a whole. First off, about half of them are really well-placed and self-explanatory (like the otter in the first paragraph, for example), however a few of them seem a little just thrown in there: the second picture I'm assuming is your fraternity pin, but as a reader I had no idea; the third picture is a business class, but I would not have known that if I were not in the business school myself, plus it just seems a little generic, rather than very specifically tied to the content of the paragraph; the fourth picture looks just like a random building, and seems unnecessary, unless you have a very specific company that you want to talk about, and then I could see putting a picture of their building (with the company's name very obvious). I think the second and third pictures seem very relevant to your paragraphs, but it would be very helpful to have captions. Also, if there's a way you could kind of streamline the formatting of all the pictures (like clearly alternate sides or put every picture in between paragraphs, or put them all in about the same position of every paragraph such as right in the middle, which your dad-and-kids picture does not adhere to right now) that would make it look more professional.

Flow

You fixed a lot of stuff from your first draft, and your paper definitely read more smoothly as a whole! After reading through it with all the changes, I found a few more places, or new places, that could use a little tweaking, so here we go:
-First sentence "During high school, when I was a peer leader," just sounds so repetitive/monotonous, so I would combine to say simply "As a peer leader in high school" or something like that
-First paragraph you put a period at the end of "The lion is the aggressive, traditional leader" but then list out the other three personality types in one sentence. I would try to keep them consistent, so either combine all four into one sentence (which I think would sound fine, if you were worried about it sounding like a run-on) or separate them all, either with periods or semi-colons
-First paragraph, I would add in a 'would' in between "I" and "consider" in the sentence "Throughout high school, and even now…" just so that the verb agrees more with both the past and present tense you've got going there.
-Second paragraph, 'rowdy' is used twice in one sentence after another, I would just try to substitute another word for variety's sake.
-Second paragraph, "Managing a successful project will be good experience for my future workplace…" the word 'workplace' sounds a bit strange, possibly substitute 'career'
-Third paragraph, "…I will demonstrate leadership in the workplace of my future job." The phrase 'of my future job' is unnecessary, since you wouldn't be working at a place other than your job, right?
-Third paragraph, "…holding an upper-level management position by twenty years form now" I would change 'by twenty years from now' to 'within twenty years'
-Third paragraph, "…will allow me to supervise the various employees…" I would change 'supervise' to a different word like 'interact with' since you were talking about how you like to work with people, not oversee or order them.
-Third paragraph, "…executives have endured forty years of service in that company or one like it." Simplify "in that company or one like it" to 'in their industry'
-Third paragraph, "Because I set a plan and time frame laid out in front of me…" I would change 'set' to 'have' so that it is present, not past, tense; also in that sentence, consider adding 'by starting now' at the end of the sentence to bring it back to the present
-Third paragraph, "My plans may seem extravagant, but they have order to them." The phrase 'they have order to them' doesn't seem to fit, and it's very vague. A possible substitute is 'are well-founded,' but you can play around with that and find what works
-Fourth paragraph, "But human resource managers must also…" Not sure why there is a 'but' at the beginning since you're not really contradicting a previous sentence, so I would just take it out
-Fourth paragraph, "What distinguishes excellent human resource managers, however, are…" similar to above, not sure why 'however' is in there and would delete.
-Fourth paragraph, "…I will need to practice compassion and better understand of those around me." Just a typo, I think. Either change to 'understanding' or delete 'of'
-Fourth paragraph, "This practice with my employees will follow me home from work and act upon my family as well." Couple things, first the word 'practice' is just not usually used in this context, I would consider changing to 'habit'; you could also delete 'with my employees' because we know you were talking about your employees at this point; maybe add an '…,especially,…' after 'practice' (or whatever word ends up there) just for emphasis; last, 'act upon' sounds kind of weird, maybe say 'be useful in dealing with' instead
-Last paragraph, "…when I first starting accepting officer positions…" little typo, just change 'starting' to 'started'

Along with these nit-picky things, I wanted to draw your attention to some areas that the transitions could still use a little improving in. In the second paragraph, the sentence "A group of…boys…will inevitably contain…otters" my reaction was kind of 'so what? What does that have to do with you?' I would just tack on a phrase that ties back in to you, like '…and it will take the traits of a retriever to keep them on a leash' or something. At the beginning of the next (third) paragraph, I feel like the transition's a little bumpy. Maybe add a sentence like "Many of the same skills I plan to hone in college will be used and improved upon during my career." Lastly, the beginning of the fourth paragraph seems a bit sudden since you're starting a new, very specific topic. Changing your beginning sentence like, "When looking at the specifics of what type of job I want, I know I want a career that allows me to use the compassionate qualities of the golden retriever, so I am considering…" Overall, though, much better transitions in many areas!