Responses to Others

GARRISON Interesting topic and so forth...I'd love to chat but I have other papers to read so I'll just go for it:

If you were to cut down your paper, I'd go through and make sure every paragraph is focused towards showing why dave is your role model or why he should be admired. The paragraph that begins "Matthews incorporates his views on humankind, life, and love with his amazing gift of composition " starts off really well, but then turns into a mostly boring discography that doesn't really say much about him, it just lists dates and skims the surface of the meaning of each album. Either go further into describing each of the works and his use of eloquent expression to display emotional themes in each, or just let it go because knowing what year he released a certain album really doesn't matter to the reader. =) As for the diction in your paper, the sentence that struck me the most was your final one. Though the feeling behind it is right, the structure is a little awkward.
"After all ¿ besides for love, what more is there?"
I would suggest: (commas and dashes interchangeable)
"After all, what is more important than love?"
or
"After all, what more is there besides love?"

RACHEL I'm going to agree with a lot of my classmates when I say that I was a little confused. The comic is really cool and makes it easy to read what would otherwise be boring, but I think it could be improved by adding a pane that explains WHY exactly he was in trouble/how does "to every book belongs its copy" mean that he should be punished? I'm not really clear on ancient Irish law, so I didn't really understand why making a copy was bad, or how that would spark a war causing 3,000 deaths. Maybe that's just me =). I love the comic as intro though, super creative! From there, I think it's also a bit hard to understand why Columba is your hero exactly. I agree with Eric's advice to talk about your passion and why it connects, because bringing in how he relates to your personally would make the paper more interesting and direct. So my advice for cutting your paper is cut more of the biography type stuff that isn't as interesting as YOU! =)
Sentence:
"Saint Columba exhibited many heroic elements that are strongly reflected in the readings and teachers with whom he was familiar. "
This doesn't connect as well to your previous paragraph, and isn't as clear as it could be.
"Many of the heroic traits exhibited by Saint Columba were reflections of the readings and teachers that influenced him."
This makes it clearer that you are saying he got many of his traits from his surroundings, teachers, etc.

LAW Well, the sentence I revised for you earlier has been revised by like two other people, so I have to find another one. (I still think mine is better, so I'm going to post it...."It still floats to the front of my mind whenever I'm faced with a difficult situation, but until my junior year of high school I knew next to nothing about the man behind the adage.") So here's my other sentence:
"Although Roosevelt worked on preserving nature and the environment, he also did not neglect the important human aspect of compassion.
"I'd suggest: "Roosevelt did much to preserve nature and the environment, but his chief compassionate acts were towards mankind."
This puts the emphasis on his compassion for others, which is probably good for your paper.

 I really like the word "compassionaries"...we should call ourselves that in class! =)

 Go through the paper looking for typos and things like that. For example, the sentence "In a letter that he wrote while he staying in Oyster Bay..." is missing the word "was", if I'm not mistaken. Other than that, it seems like everything in your paragraph is productive. The way I'd advise cutting it is to go through and eliminate all repetitive sentences, or sentences that don't relate to the sentence before and after.

MEGAN S Haha, I hate to start off a review with the first sentence, but the first sentence is your big chance to make a strong statement to pull the reader in. Yours:

"I am fairly certain that I have been obsessed with perfection for most of my life."

fails to really pull me in! The words "fairly" and "certain" seem to get in the way of your statement, and "most of" my life weakens in. A much more bold way of starting your paper would be to simply say

"I have been obsessed with perfection my whole life." or "I am obsessed with perfection."

These aren't wordy, and they definitely grab the attention. Another sentence that I'd work on is

"In the course of his life he produced many of the most important pieces, most notably Faust, of German literature, explored the world of science, and even worked in theatre and the visual arts. "

You repeat 'most' twice, and it gets kind of convoluted. Maybe you could work out some sort of parallel structure thing, like this:

"In the course of his life, he produced important works of German literature, most notably Faust; explored the world of science, discovering (insert something here); and even working in theatre and the visual arts by (blah blah blah)."

That might be crazy though, so I don't know! The way you could cut your paper to the best effect would be to go through all your sentences that say "I" and make sure they flow well and aren't complicated. I think once you start trying to tie in your own ideas and feelings, you get a little carried away with the clauses and commas and so forth. (Example: "Another of the characteristics that I admire most in Goethe, and that I wish I had more of myself, is his constant supply of creativity.")

The whole time I was reading your paper I kept thinking of this random Bukowski poem because you kept talking about having time and energy to explore your passions, so I'm going to share just in the interest of making your peer reviews more fun to read!

"you do it while you're killing flies"
by Charles Bukowski

Bach, I said, he had 20 children.
he played the horses during the day.
he fucked at night
and drank in the mornings.
he wrote music in between.

at least that's what I told her
when she asked me,
when do you do your
writing?

CHETNA Ok, I'm just going to point out a lot of things as I go through the paper! For starters, Your two opening lines say the same thing, so you should combine them. I'm going to revise your opening four sentences:

"She inpires me to act. She inspires me to do. She is my inspiration to leave my mark in this world. She is my role model."

becomes:

"She inspires me to act. She inspires me to care. She inspires me to leave my mark on the world. She is my role model."

The biggest thing I'd change about your paper, cutting-down and revising wise, is that every sentence seems to have the same structure. They're mostly blunt, to the point, and periodic. You feel like every sentence is an object falling to the ground - as time passses, the tone and meaning gets heavier and then it ends. Does that make sense? Explaining this would work better if I could use gestures or voice tone...the best I can do is to advise that you vary your sentence structure a bit more, mix in longer sentences with the short, maybe throw in a few rhetorical questions to spice up the tone! As for the second paragraph, I'm going to revise that opener too.

"On her resume, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Dutch politician and a feminist, a prominent and often controversial author, film maker, self-proclaimed atheist, and heretic. But unlike many politicians and supposed activists, Ayaan Hirsi Ali knows the risks of standing up for one¿s beliefs. "

change to:

"If you were to read her resume, you would discover that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Dutch politican and feminist, a prominent and often controversial author, film maker, and a self-proclaimed atheist and heretic. But what you might not discover on paper is that, unlike many other politicians and supposed activists, Ali knows the risks of standing up for one's beliefs."

This just seems to be more interesting to me. You sound a little confusing when you talk about why exactly she is your role model. I understand that you don't want to follow her footsteps exactly and that you just want to emulate her spirit, but I think you could improve the paper by discussing that more clearly in one spot, like the beginning, and then refer back to that, instead of discuss it at the end. If you want to print out your paper and have me actually revise it, I think it would be a lot easier to do it that way instead of writing shit on blackboard, so anytime you'd like I'll do that later.

ASHLEY

Wow, awesome paper! I really enjoyed reading it =). It's hard for me to find something for you to cut, since I enjoyed reading every part. I'm going to suggest instead ways you can expand. I'd try to experiment with adding music to your site - I think it would be great to be able to start out with an early Beatles song, then hear Norwegian Wood, then hear one of George's solo songs, so your reader can listen to the progression as they read about it. I think it would be great for you to discuss the Concert For George that happened after his death, which went into his life and spirituality and donated all proceeds to the charity he founded. It's a great example of how loved and respected he was by many. If you had to cut anything, maybe a few of the quotes on Ahimsa or something, because a lot of them say the same thing - a sort of description of Ahimsa. But I don't think you should cut much!

Sentence revision:

"George Harrison is a hero for reasons beyond his iconic place in the history of pop culture, but rather for his continued, unwavering efforts to spread compassion and love to all corners of the world."

The diction and flow could  be improved:

"George Harrison is a hero not only for his iconic place in the history of popular culture, but for his persistent and unwavering efforts to spread compassion and love to all corners of the world."

AMANDA I love your intro! It completely grabs my attention and makes me want to read more. One sentence I saw that should be revised is

"Two of the most valuable skills that have supported Kenneth in achieving his goals have been basic reading and writing. "

There's not that much wrong with it as a sentence, but it doesn't function well as a topic sentence because it doesn't connect to the idea before it and doesn't stand as the main idea of your paragraph. I'd change it to something like

"Kenneth's conviction served him well, but it is his ability to take ideas from what he reads and translate them into meaningful lyrics has been instrumental in achieving his goals."

Or something to that effect. As far as cutting your paper, I can only recommend to go through and make sure none of your sentences repeats another. I'd also eliminate all the line breaks in your paper and utilize some indentions instead, because the spaces between each paragraph breaks up the flow a lot. Good work!

MEGAN G The discussion on our fear of compassion in your first two paragraphs is interesting, but its a little alarming that it takes two full paragraphs to get to Mother Theresa herself. I think you could cut those down a bit by melding them into one paragraph, and I think it would be more direct to mention your role model in the first few sentences and then continue your discussion while relating it back to / contrasting with her. On the visual side, all your pictures seem to be of the exact same thing - maybe vary it a little with pictures of yourself helping people or something? They all seem to have that misty, hazy effect around her and come off as kind of trite.

Sentence - in the interest of diction, the word "large" in this sense is kind of comical and rather takes away from the spirit of your message.

"I want to follow in the large footsteps of Mother Theresa and make a difference in this world, one life at a time."

change it to:

"I want to follow in the impressive footsteps that Mother Theresa has left to make a difference in this world, one life at a time."

Feel free to replace 'impressive' with daunting, exalted... really anything other than large. Because large just makes me think that Mother Theresa has big feet. =D

TREVOR Yay for Ellen, she's so funny =). Ok dear - great paper on how Ellen is proud of herself and so forth. I really think you should connect it to yourself more, and talk about why she really appeals to you or inspires you. To cut your paper, I suggest you combine the paragraphs that talk about her coming out / being gay, because you talk about it and then come back to it later. Also, the randomly short 1-sentence-paragraph-conclusion at the end is really weird, you should tie it in to the previous paragraph.

"The ideal role model for any individual ¿ regardless of gender, age, race, or sexual orientation ¿ is someone who is true to his or herself despite any and all obstacles in life; Ellen DeGeneres is as true to this ideal as anyone can be."

This sentence has a good point, but isn't very clear or effective as your opener. Try:

"No matter what gender, age, race or sexual orientation, we all strive to be true to ourselves. Though faced with many obstacles in her life, one woman who truly exemplifies this ideal is Ellen DeGeneres."