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Writing topic: 
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Reviews and Back-Reviews on Your 1st Draft |
Focus (Overall
quality:
4.8
)
| Reviewer | Comments | Back-Evals |
Reviewer 1
| Your
thesis, I take it, is the long-ish section at the top of page 3, "My
ultimate goal is to consider each new idea in relation to myself and my
place in the world, to continue a spirit of questioning regardless of
whether the idea is a personal epiphany or the borrowed ideology of a
group. In doing so, I will achieve a consistently improving, fulfilling
way of life to satisfy my desire for both individualism and unity."
This implies that you are in the midst of a paper about critical
thinking as a vehicle for individualism and unity, so you must tell us
(1) how critical thinking can achieve individualism, (2) how critical
thinking can achieve unity, and (3) how you intend to use this
technique to become--I suppose--a "unified individual," or a single
mind working for the betterment of a group.
For the most part,
you are discussing this, though I''ll give you some tips on how to make
your line of argument clearer in the "organization" section. One thing
that concerns me is that you really only discuss yourself in two
paragraphs: the one I just mentioned and your conclusion. Since your
thesis, as I take it, promises the reader that we will find out how
you''re considering new ideas and taking them into the world, it would
be helpful to have more discussion of this within the body. | 
This
reviewer was by far the most helpful, giving great insight into how to
improve the paper with specific details. I restructured my thesis and
added more personal insight with their help. |
Reviewer 2
| I
interpreted your thesis to be: for fulfillment one must live a life of
his or her own will, a life not based on the pressures of society and
at one with everything.
You go on to discuss the forces of love
and fear, but don’t connect it to the thesis. You should make sure to
make its relationship with the thesis clear. You could lead into it by
expanding your thesis to include love and fear as part of the oneness
with everything. Just make sure to connect this thought.
Also,
you should make the issue of success connected more directly to the
thesis. Just lead into the subject by explaining how our success driven
life is a component of others influence on us. Others judge us based on
our apparent success, so society stresses the importance of success in
our lives. Beginning with this would help to make its relevance to the
thesis scope of the paper more apparent to the reader.
| 
This reviewer gave good details as to how to improve things, they helped me unify my writing. |
Reviewer 3
| I
think you tried to tackle a lot with this paper. It seems divided into
halves: generalization about the human race, and your own personal
vision for your life. While you definitely relate the two, you don’t
mention this personal life view until halfway through your paper, which
made it hard to pinpoint your thesis or your main idea as I was
reading. I eventually found the thesis I was looking for about halfway
through: your goal in life is to keep questioning and shaping your
personal ideology, taking into account every idea you come across. Your
journey is a search for truth. I think you could integrate this earlier
on in your paper so we can see this and your human nature argument
side-by-side. Great quotes and fantastic conclusion—just make the first
half of your paper more personal. | 
Good tips, more specifics would have been helpful. |
Reviewer 4
| I
felt like your paper was happening somewhere in the stratosphere above
my head – it seemed very grand, abstract, and difficult for me to
really grasp. If you could bring your paper down from the impossible
abstract to believable, realistic actions you yourself might take, I
think your readers would not only understand your position much more
clearly, but they would also be more convinced by it.
Also,
the idea of molding your own self, which I thought was your thesis,
seems to get lost in your paper until the very end, when it resurfaces
in your conclusion. It is that idea especially that I would work to
develop in your paper, because it is the most concrete goal you have
laid out so far. It could also help “ground” your other ideas in
something closer to concrete reality if you directly referenced your
goal of molding your own person as it tangibly relates to those ideas.
|
Again, more specific details would be helpful but good advice was given. |
Reviewer 5
| While
a good argument is made for how we, as humans, have practically been
programmed and need to break away from that, I didn’t see much in terms
of a personal leadership vision or plan until the absolute very end,
which should have constituted the body of the argument rather than the
conclusion. Perhaps all the substance about “we” collectively could be
presented in the introduction, with the thesis leading straight into a
plan, rather than everything criticizing humanity and only talking
about a vision in the conclusion. As for that matter, what I could get
of the thesis was the idea that while we must understand we are a
unified part of something greater, we cannot forget our own
individuality. There were a lot of good quotes that supported this
idea, but my main issue was how much emphasis was on the background
information rather than the personal leadership vision. I couldn’t see
how this drew from the influence of a role model, or some sort of
passion. |
Same general advice as the previous two reviewers. |
|
Organization (Overall
quality:
4.8
)
| Reviewer | Comments | Back-Evals |
|
Reviewer 1
| The
risk you run with not getting to yourself or your thesis until the
third page in a project that is ostensibly about your leadership vision
is that your reader will wander around for too long and eventually walk
into a hornet''s nest or a spike pit. For a (much) longer project,
saving this information for a couple of pages would be harmless, but
for a 1400-word essay, you are obligated to steer your reader in the
right direction from the get go.
So I''d suggest moving your
thesis information closer to the top, then reframing the information
that in this draft comes before it. How would you reframe it? Well, if
this is a paper about becoming an individual and thinking critically,
then when you take your lengthy discussion about the human struggle
between conformity and individualism, can you add some analysis about
how you, personally, intend to effect this kind of change in yourself?
This might be only a sentence or two in each paragraph, but it would go
a long way in connecting what is essentially a theoretical discussion
right now to an actual leadership vision that you posit.
The
best material you have right now for doing this is the paragraph after
your thesis, and your conclusion has some good material too. What I
would do if I were you is go through the beginning of your paper,
asking questions that you would want to know about your personal stake
in the discussion. Write them down. Then see how closely the stuff in
your final few paragraphs answers those questions. You might be able to
transport some of that content, thereby merging the theoretical
discussion with the action plan. |
Again, this reviewer was extremely helpful with many detailed tips on improving my paper. |
|
Reviewer 2
| You
should reorganize the sections where you first discuss societal
influences then move on to love and the universality of all beings.
That would mean moving the part of the paragraph where you talk about
lobe and fear in the first body paragraph (the first three sentences)
to a place later in the paper. As it stands, it is a bit jumpy between
these two topics. Separating them will help with the flow and help
unify the subject of the first paragraph that are a bit divided right
now.
Make sure to draw everything from the paper into the
conclusion. You do not draw the ideas you introduced in the
introduction. Doing so will serve to hit the points home with the
reader and provide a sense of completion of thoughts.
|
Great specifics, this reviewer took time to really look at my paper. I noted many of his remarks and made the necessary changes. |
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Reviewer 3
| Again,
I noticed a definite split in your paper between human nature as a
whole and your personal goals. Your transition between the two was
logical, but I found myself searching for you to mention yourself, or
at least use the words “I” and “my” long before you actually did. You
mention the struggle between love and fear pretty early on in your
paper. Perhaps bring in your personal view/life purpose there and use
your analysis of human nature to back up your personal views as you
walk us through them. I think this would personalize your paper more
and increase the readability. There is nothing particularly wrong with
your organization as it is, but I would like to see you add more
personal views earlier on. |
The "I" and "my" changes helped to personalize my paper, this reviewer was very helpful in that sense. |
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Reviewer 4
| As
I said with focus, use the idea of molding yourself, or whatever main
idea or goal you want to bring across in your thesis, to really tie
your ideas together. At this point they seem a little disjointed.
A few things I noticed:
--
The idea of questioning comes up suddenly at the end of the paragraph
at the top of page 3. I think it would strengthen your paper a great
deal if you were to discuss this earlier on in the paper so we have a
better sense of what it means to you and how it will keep you from the
herd-mentality you described earlier.
-- You address pure love
early on in the second paragraph and then discuss the challenges
without discussion how exactly we are supposed to embrace pure, divine
love. Also, you mention it later in the paragraph beginning “By
dispelling my fear…”, but how exactly does one (realistically) embrace
pure love? I had a hard time following your argument.
| 
This
reviewer seems more interested in the content the organization of what
I have already written down. This seems more of a "focus" critique. |
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Reviewer 5
| The
introduction has a sharp grab, as it appears to be something anyone can
relate to, always using the personal “we,” but it kind of peters out
from there to where overuse of the personal “we” takes away from its
impact, little by little. There doesn’t seem to be any defining
arguments that the paragraphs are formed from; a new paragraph begins
when the last has gone on for too long. While each paragraph does seem
to have a unified topic, they don’t necessarily all cohere as a paper,
due to some questionable transitions and vague arguments. |
The
comments on using "we" were helpful, but the reviewer didn''''t really
give any valid tips on improvement, they only criticized. |
|
Flow (Overall
quality:
5.6
)
| Reviewer | Comments | Back-Evals |
|
Reviewer 1
| You
have a talent for writing long sentences that avoid wordiness, but let
me challenge you to be more direct still with your language. Challenge
yourself to vary the bow-wow language and repetitive structures where
they appear. Look at a section like this:
"As I continue to
learn from my experiences, my ideology grows and morphs into something
I can truly call my own. I will surely dismiss opinions that I once
staunchly upheld, but the universal truths of love and unity will
remain consistent. My mortal life will one day abruptly end, but with
it I trust that the memory of my existence will not be erased."
Three
sentences, roughly the same length, two of which have the exact same
structure. Especially if you''re going to write in a high-flown style,
it''s important not to drone to your reader. Also, remember to cut out
the unnecessary words, such as "surely," or prepackaged phrases, such
as "something I can truly call my own" (which also contains,
incidentally, an unnecessary word--"truly").
The more direct you
can be with your reader, the more they''ll thank you in the end. It''ll
also help you refine your own prose skills--and, believe me, being able
to communicate clearly and directly is a skill that will take you far. |
As
in his other critiques, this reviewer was careful and specific when
helping me. I have a feeling this is Adam. His advice was relevant and
really helped to improve my paper. |
|
Reviewer 2
| Overall, good flow
I
would like to see you explain this idea: “While we aspire to greatness,
we are ultimately doomed to failure.” This thought really intrigues me
but you don’t expand on it. What I think you mean is that what we see
as greatness is a greatness in societies eye which would lead to our
giving up our self which would lead to personal failure and
unhappiness. I just thought you might be able to explain what you mean
by that statement.
|
There is no real criticism on the actual flow of the paper, this is more of a question concerning content. |
|
Reviewer 3
| Your
paper is very logically laid out and I enjoyed your introduction and
conclusion. However, I do think you could use more direct language—at
times, it is difficult to strip down to the base meaning of your
sentences. In terms of idea flow, I can definitely tell everything is
connected with this theme of love. You did a very good job here as this
is mentioned in almost every paragraph. You also did a great job of
relating back to class discussions and integrating quotes. I know I had
a hard time finding quotes for this assignment, but yours all blend in
effortlessly. Overall, nice flow but simplify sentences to make your
ideas easier to digest. |
Good
advice, I like that this reviewer pointed out what made the flow good
so that I knew what not to change, but some more constructive criticism
would be helpful. |
|
Reviewer 4
| The
most important thing at this point I think – specific, concrete,
understandable images! Though I am really interested in what you have
to say, it feels like I have to wade through your words to figure out
what you’re trying to say – your points are often obscured by the words
you use to describe them. I get caught up in each sentence and lose
track of the beginning before I reach the end!
I think it might
be helpful to read back through each sentence individually and decide
which words are important to the idea you are trying to convey and
which ones are not. Also, I think it would help immensely if you went
back through and made some of your descriptions and analogies much more
concrete. |
Good advice but picking out a specific sentence or section would have been more helpful. |
|
Reviewer 5
| While
a lot of the diction is very beautiful and poetic, it often seems to
detract from the message because the reader spends too much time just
trying to interpret what the words say, rather than what the deeper
meaning is. For example, in the introduction, it says “The opinions of
others are forced upon us in a philanthropic attempt to preserve the
supposed virtue and progress of a society characterized by competition
and fear.” That in itself begins rather passively, perhaps it could
read, “Others force their opinions upon us…” A lot of adjectives just
feel extraneous and “fluffy.” I know we have a word count requirement,
but perhaps consider inserting relevant anecdotes or expound on quotes,
rather than unnecessary adjectives? Also, it says, “we must sever these
chords” in the introduction and I’m pretty sure that should be “cords,”
or maybe even chains or bonds for emphasis? |
Good specifics, this advice was helpful in improving my diction. |
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