Other’s reviews of my P4B

Focus (Overall quality: 4.5 )

Reviewer	Comments
Reviewer 1	The focus of your paper has definitely improved! However, I think there is still a lot of stuff you could work on. For example, I think your thesis is much improved, and you connect back to it often. However, you tend to repeat yourself often, saying something in one sentence and then restating it in the next. I''d go through and make sure each paragraph addresses only one topic to make it less confusing to read as well.
Reviewer 2	Your paper begins with a strong start. Though it is general, it certainly sets up the problem that you plan to remedy without any extraneous ideas or words. In your second paragraph, however, I suggest that you do not give a personal anecdote just yet as you talk about your plan or "roadmap." You want the beginning of your paper to establish strong points that echo throughout the rest of your paper. The personal comment would only seem to throw the reader off in the beginning as you are making your points. Instead of what you currently have, try moving sentences such as the one beginning with "from the time I was small..." to the later paragraphs where you talk about yourself and your personal influences. For this reason, I rated your focus a 6. If this is fixed, I believe that you will have a stronger paper.
Reviewer 3	From what I could gather, you thesis is: "My goals is to serve as a beacon by living a life devoted to empowering citizens of the world with the responsibility to give the world’s poor the basics necessary for life. For me, employing my love for business is the only way I can achieve this goal." First off, fix "goals." Second: your thesis is a little vague,give the reader a sentence-long summary of whats to come. Try saying that you hope to follow in the footsteps of Bill gates, even putting that phrase will make it alot easier for the reader to follow along afterward. Talk about how you want to make money so that you can funnel it into charitable organizations. Make mention of your argument in your thesis. If you give us what you write about in the thesis, it will make your paper alot stronger, because you will be aiming all of your information toward a single goal. Otherwise, I feel that the rest of the paper maintains a solid focus.
Reviewer 4	Merely making notes as I go, this question made me stop and think: “For me, employing my love for business is the only way I can achieve this goal.” I am aware of what you are talking about because I have read your other papers; however, others may wonder how the heck business and compassion are oven somewhat related. As long as your answer the readers questions right away, its okay to hold the suspense for the next paragraph; however, if you do not address the issue in due time, the reader may be confused on a huge chunk of your leadership vision. Maybe you could say that “employing my love for business and causing social change…” or something along the lines, simply so your reader does not have to wait for an explanation until the bottom of the next paragraph. I am assuming that your thesis is somewhere along the lines of “I hope to lead a life of compassion geared to decreasing suffering and encouraging others to make rational choices;” if it is then your have done your part as the writer to set the stage for the reader. Going into your paper, I knew exactly what to expect. Like I mention below, your thesis should most likely be found at the conclusion of your introduction. Throughout the paper I am wondering exactly how your hope to combine the two. Throughout the body paragraphs, I am thinking that you will work in any business and then donate your money to charity, like Gates. Then at the end you clarify, “Whether through grassroots awareness campaigns as an undergraduate to doing consulting for nonprofits such as OxFam or UnitedWay, I hope to play an influential role in moving the course of humanity in the right direction.” This is a very important point on your plan and in my mind should be made earlyier do the reader does not get the wrong impression.
Reviewer 5	To be quite honest and blunt, Eric I don’t think you really worked that hard on this assignment. (I know you don’t need to because you already ).There was not much improvement from the last draft. TheJhave an A focus of the paper was good except for the whole rational choices idea. I was still left confused at the end of the paper, wondering what rational choices had to do with your passion. You need to either explain that more clearly or cut it out entirely because it does not really strengthen your paper as it is right now. I understood your passion a little bit better, but I could not determine if it was from reading it a second time or from your re-writing. The beginning of the second paragraph, “Before I discovered this passion…” is still unclear. You have not yet made it completely clear what passion it is you are talking about because I got the notion that there were many passions from the beginning of the paper. Perhaps you can specify what the specific passion is you are talking about, like this: Before I discovered my passion for… blah blah blah. I felt like the meat of your paper, where you really get going is at the very end of the second paragraph. I don’t feel that your essay was as concise as it could be. There was a lot of repetition strewn throughout the paper, and most of it was along the lines of: I want to make this world a better place by providing healthcare for impoverished people and I will do this through my business connections and job. You still don’t go into detail about how you personally will bring about this change.

Organization (Overall quality: 4.5 )

Reviewer	Comments
Reviewer 1	As far as your integration of visual/verbal rhetoric, I was a little confused. You have a lot of pictures that don''t really apply. I think the ones integrated the best are the one of Bill Gates, and the "uniting to help society one". A lot of the other ones were just confusing, and I think this would really be helped by explaining them in your text. For example, the picture of "rationality" is a painting of a vaguely human shape...so what? Or the "stereotypical businessmen" picture. You could throw in a sentence or two about how you want to be an atypical businessman, changing the mold. Another suggestion I have on improving the organization is making the paragraphs a little more structured. Your tone feels very conversational right now, like you are just explaining yourself rather than drawing on logic and literature to build your future. If the ideas in your sentences all follow from one another, the paper will be easier to read.
Reviewer 2	Great overall organization. There is a strategic placement of your pictures and quotes. The only problem that I found was in your conclusion. When I got to it, it felt as if I have already forgotten what your paper was supposed to be about. Try restating your points and everything that you talked about to remind me of your committment to the leadership vision. Remember, you want your words and thoughts to echo in the reader''s mind.
Reviewer 3	ERIC! what happened to your indentations!? It''s nearly impossible to tell where one paragraph ends and the other begins. Although I was able to figure it out, it makes it difficult in figuring out where your different points were concentrated. Otherwise your paper stayed on the same level of organization as on the last draft. I would still like it better, however, if you outlined it in the intro paragraph. Just say something like "Initially, my interest was in making money -- just like any other businessman. But then I realized that little was being done to relieve those in poverty. Now, I look to Bill Gates as my role model..." and so on. I think something like that would make it perfect.
Reviewer 4	I don’t know exactly where to put this comment in my review, but I think that your first sentence of the introduction could be much stronger. You want to grab the readers attention right from the start and make them want to read. To some extent, the first part of your sentence does this; however, after the comma I get a little lost. I reread the sentence over and over and for some reason in my mind, it doesn’t feel to flow too well. I think that it would be a little bit more precise and clear if you broke the sentence into two separate ones, at the comma. Rereading it again, I think the problem make be that the word “it” is too vague and the reader starts off wondering what it really is. Rationalization can has many synonyms, maybe using one of them would clear up the sentence, that is if that’s the word that it is referring to. In your introduction, you do a good job bringing up both of the main topics of your paper, however, the sentence “This being said, I hope to lead a life of compassion geared to decreasing suffering and encouraging others to make rational choices.” is definitely the thesis sentence. I think that you should tag this onto the end of the first paragraph. This would also her with the flow of the second paragraph because you mention rational choices in the first sentences, but the bulk of the paragraph on discusses suffering and compassion. As far as the entirety of the paper is concerned, your state a thesis and then execute the body paragraphs is that order. This is good and keeps the reader on track throughout the paper. The picture of Bill Gates and the child really makes the reader feel what you are talking about and almost all other pictures are completely relevant.
Reviewer 5	There is so much repetition that I cannot make out a very decisive order of the paper. The third paragraph from the bottom sounded a lot like a conclusion, and I thought then that your paper was over. You start to sum up your ideas nicely, but since it is not the end of your paper, it becomes repetition. A good plan for your paper would be to first discuss the poverty and lack of healthcare available to impoverished citizens, what Bill Gates does and how he inspired you to take action (why he is your hero), and then last of all what your plan of action is to change the world. In the third paragraph, at the beginning, is where the bulk of your repetition is. You should combine these more in depth ideas with the same ideas earlier in the paper to avoid repetition, and begin the third paragraph with “As I explored my career options, I knew…” As far as visual rhetoric goes, the pictures are nicely tied into the text with brief captions. There is a variation of pictures and it is arranged nicely. Good job.

Flow (Overall quality: 4.5 )

Reviewer	Comments
Reviewer 1	Your paper definitely flows a lot better this time around! One thing still bothers me about this sentence: "From the time I was small and heard my mother’s childhood stories about the suffering and poverty she faced in Hong Kong to the time I worked with the less fortunate when I built a Habitat for Humanity house, I hope to dedicate my life to ridding the world of suffering because of the rich-poor gap." It should be "From the time...until I ...., I have always hoped to dedicate..." Since you say "from" in the beginning it makes it a past-tense sort of thing, I think. It''s just not right to say "from this time, I hope..." in that sentence. So one more word would correct this problem and the flow. The other thing that really stopped the flow for me was your quotations. They weren''t very integrated into your arguments. I think if you embedded the quotes into sentences and then added a few sentences analyzing the quote and explaining what you learned from it, the flow of your paper would be rockin. Good improvements!!
Reviewer 2	I don''t what is up with me and your introduction, but here are some suggestions: 1) The majority of your sentences in your beginning paragraph are very "dull" in the sense that they all share the same structure of phrase [comma] phrase. Try playing around with their structures a little. Create short sentences to express strong opinions and make solid points. Take for example your first sentence. Instead of a long, drawn-out, and complex one, split it into two. The sentence "It is the results of our choices that affect the outcome of events." is a lot stronger than what you currently have. As I explored my career options, I knew I found joy in both helping others and dealing with business. This sentence was a little bit awkward. You might want to change the wording a little to sound more natural and fluid. Do this by moving both in front of joy.
Reviewer 3	Excellent work revising the flow! Now your paragraphs flow into each other wonderfully and your sentences are easy to read. Just watch out in the last two paragraphs, you use "I know" alot and it''s throws me off. It might sound strange, but after the first time you use it, it seems like you go into some kind of cycle. Try to find some ways to cut those out. Otherwise, great job!
Reviewer 4	At first I doubted how you were going to successfully flow from compassion to rational, however you executed this flawlessly. Using your role model, Bill Gates, really helped this transition and made your paper flow nicely. However, immediately after this wonderful movement from heart to mind, it seems as if the next two paragraphs are disjointed a bit. (Before the paragraph that begins with “everyone has the ability…”) I honestly am horrible with transitions, but I could see there removing the last sentence in the previous paper and relocating it elsewhere may help. This would draw the two mentions of decision making and rationale closer together and possibly help the transition. Overall, the amazing setup of your paper really allowed the reader to flow through the paper. Besides the first sentence, the punctuation never really made the reader pause and wonder. Good Job!
Reviewer 5	I had a hard time finishing your paper. You still have a lot of spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes that made me pause to fix the mistakes in my head. Also, at the beginning and the end especially, you say “I hope” a lot. This makes it sound as if it is just a wish and not something that you certainly plan to do. I suggest using a verb like “plan” to fix this. Once again, the whole rational choices ideas confused me as to what it had to do with helping people. In the fourth paragraph, you state that “By denying these people the basic human right to life, we are tacitly denying their rationality and in effect, denying their humanity.” I stopped and read and reread and reread that sentence probably 20 times and I still could not figure out what you meant by it. In paragraph three, you state that “As the wealthiest man in the world, Bill Gates has dedicated himself and his fortune to providing healthcare in underdeveloped countries and to increasing literacy and equality globally.” If you move the globally in front of increasing, the whole sentence will flow better and flow better into the next sentence. The first paragraph contains at least two grammar/spelling mistakes the caused me to have to struggle to keep going through your paper. This is the part that you want to be to most refined so that your reader is drawn in and doesn’t lose interest that early on. As far as I could tell, your punctuation was nicely done. You did not rely too heavily on one particularly form of punctuation, but you might want to try to add more dashes or ellipses or semi-colons, but only where they would be beneficial to the thoughts process of your paper.