P4B SWORD reviews + back reviews

FOCUS

1.) Great job! I think your rewriting really helped the focus of this paper a lot. Your thesis is improved, and each of the paragraphs is more focused. I think your quotes were all very well used, and this time around your discussion of Gaudi really served to help your argument about yourself rather than the paper serving to admire Gaudi. Good improvements!

Said the focus was improved and I don''''''''t need to fix anything.

2.) Most of the problems that I mentioned in the earlier review were fixed. Your paper is a lot stronger and more focused. I am able to follow along better.

The only complaint that I have is with your introduction. It is good that you build up to it, but somewhere in the 3rd paragraph (My personal potential...), I began to lose you. Perhaps you can find some way to move the paragraph about your points and plans closer to the beginning. Other than that small problem, good paper.

I may need to reorganize my thoughts in the 3rd paragraph. good specific advice.

3.) The focus of this paper is some what better than the last paper. I definitely was better understand the purpose of your paper… “to bring joy to others and inspire compassion between individuals” however, I was still uncertain about where your passion for compassion came from. You really expressed your passion for leaving a legacy through arts and Gaudi’s impact on you, but I didn’t quite get the importance of compassion is for your or why you value compassion.

Also, in the beginning, you talked about the idea of choosing between good and evil. This is an important idea that I feel you can talk about more. I mentioned this in my essay, and you should bring this up when you mention Gauss. Also, explain how/why you choose good over evil. Throughout your paper, you mention this idea of passing compassion on to others and inspiring others, however, I wished you would discuss your journey on how you developed this passion for compassion and for communication.

Specifically:

P2- try to introduce the idea of evil more softly

P3- you are still pretty vague when you discuss your passion

P3- Also, explain how or what it is when you way “utilize my art”

P3- Explain what you mean with “involved with art on a personal level”

P4- “you talk about gaudi’s “deeper messages” what are those msgs and who do they differ from the ordinary

P4- why is relating “back to nature” important

P4- what is your passion to create? What is the importance of the “truths”?

P4- why is religion important and how does it relate to your passion/goal?

P4- what is the sagrada familia project?

P4- relate the idea of Gaudi and his ego to the intro and impact to the rest of your essay.

P4- “better earth” is vague

P5- why is it important to “deepen your faith”?

P6- explain what you mean by “if we are to take little from those we interact with, we must give a little back”

P6- what is an “ethical visionary?”

P7- this P rocks, but I wish you would introduce this point earlier in your paper, what is print media (photos, essays, what?)

P7- what are “sensitive areas” and “falsities”

P8- expand on this idea of potential and how it effects you.

(oops I think I miscounted your paragraphs. Try to follow along. Sorry.)

Overall, I give you a 5-6.

Lots of specifics I can work on. This is very helpful in re-reading/re-writing the final draft.

4.) I think your thesis comes at the top of the second graf: "My personal potential, my leadership path, is inevitably tied to my passion for creativity. And in order to find happiness in my future life, I know I must continue to create, to experience the joy of making something and sharing it with others on a regular basis." Still a little vague, but I think that''s the result of not having a clear leadership vision in mind. But because it''s a broad thesis, your paper''s content still fits into it, for the most part.

This is more a restatement of my thesis. My real thesis is in my intro paragraph.

5.) Focus:

You certainly did a superb job of narrowing the focus of the paper into a more concise and to the point discussion of your vision. I felt that this version is much more clearly centered on your vision than your last version was.

Points of Improvement -

I would suggest that you specifically mention your desire to go into print media in your introductory paragraph. As it stands, you seem to jump into that idea only at the end of your paper which gives impression that you actually didn’t decide that is what you want to do till you were halfway done writing your paper. Your intro should somehow prepare the reader for this major point of your paper.

In addition, add specificity to your intro. You talk using really vague ideas such as “bring joy to others and inspire compassion between individuals.” If you could revise this and provide something that has more meaning to the reader, I think it would strengthen your point and help the reader better understand what you are trying to do.

I think that the paragraph starting “Gaudí was able to find the strength and motivation to create through his faith” breaks from the focus. I would suggest relating it to one of the themes of your paper such as being an inspiration to others or sharing compassion. A suggestion would be to simply work in a mention of how Gaudi inspired others: For example, your first sentence could read: “Gaudí’s faith allowed him to find the strength and motivation to lead and inspire others.” Just make sure to hammer this paragraph so that it fits perfectly with the intended and stated purpose of the paper.

In the next paragraph, don’t only mention how to improve yourself and your own compassion for others but work in how this is crutial towards your goals of inspiring compassion in others. Eg: “Following Gaudí’s example, I must learn to deepen my faith and become a more compassionate being before I can truly introduce compassion into the lives of others.”

What I see as a weakness is when you talk about improving yourself you don’t explain how that works towards your goals mentioned in your intro. All you need to do is make sure you continually repeat and clarify how your self-improvement will go towards your accomplishing your vision of inspiring others.

Do I really need to be that specific in my intro? Glad to know your thoughts on that though.

I need to work on unifying my Gaudi paragraph.

Good suggestions for improving specific sentences.

This is a very thorough review.

ORGANIZATION

1.) The organization is so much better here! I can tell you really thought about the order of your thoughts when you revised, and it really helps in understanding your points. Your visual rhetoric is definitely impressive, but it is especially important in a paper about a print media artist to have visually arresting and relevant images. Trying to integrate your text with the images a little more would help, since now they seem to be examples but not really tied in to your points. For example, with the graffiti pictures, you don''t really relate it to your point. The pictures show that art is everywhere, but your paragraph is talking about how print media is everywhere. Can you reconcile these by mentioning (maybe earlier) how art can help the world because it is so prevalent, and then say the one form you want to focus on is print media? Overall, your organization was very effective. Good job.

I may need to reorganize my images to help the flow.

2.) The only problems with organization were not with the actual substance in your paper. They were with the actual layout of your paper. Some paragraphs seem too scattered and the pictures look awkwardly placed. Nothing a few indents, tabs, or spaces cannot fix though.

Visual layout of my paper needs help.

3.) Your organization was easy to follow. I felt that your organization was your strength. However, you can work on integrating ideas throughout the paper. For example, I felt that P7 is where you started talking about how to achieve your passion. Try to mention this briefly in you intro or earlier in your paper. Also, the conclusion should wrap up the essay better, emphasizing what your passion is and how you want that to dictate your life.

Try to work on your transitions a little better. P6 needs a better topic sentence than “I can learn to grow in compassion, to solidify my values…” Overall, I was able to follow the transition of ideas in your paper.

I give you a 6.

More specifics in my intro? This has been mentioned more than once, but I felt I needed to build up to my specifics...

4.) We go from the general discussion of heroism and passion to the call for creativity and originality to faith (which I still think is a little out of place, but at least it''s justified by your "It was his strong connection with religion..." sentence) to how you intend to apply these principles and the ensuing leadership vision. Better, this time. I like how you''ve signposted that you''re taking the principles of heroism and passion and translating them into some execution. That serves you well.

I had to work on my organization for this draft, so glad to know this draft makes more sense now.

5.) Your organization did not change much from the first version, so I cant really comment on how any changes improved or worsened this version. Your organization is good though.

Points of Improvement:

The idea of print media seems to be a vital part of your future vision, but you don’t mention it till the last part of your paper, effectively compartmentalizing it. You talk about art being a part of your life without mentioning print media. If you could work it into your paper (at least mentions of it) I think it will help to unify it.

A lot of people have told me I need to mention this sooner. I''''''''m still not sure where the best place would be to do this.

FLOW

1.) I never stopped at any egregious punctuation errors or anything like that. The one thing I would recommend is going through your sentences and eliminating the empty intensifiers like "truly" (which you used a bunch!) and so forth. Sometimes I feel like your tone is overly academic. So just proofread aloud again, making sure everything you''re reading sounds normal out loud, and maybe eliminate some of those trulys.

Thanks; I probably could stand to lose a few ''''''''trulys'''''''' haha.

2.) Beautiful and succinct language. There are a few words like "hope" that are mentioned a little too much throughout the paper. Try adding stronger words like "will" to solidify and harden your points.

I need to go through and get rid of repetitive words.

3.) The flow of the paper was a bit choppy for me. First of all, one thing you could work on is your sentence variety. I don’t particularly feel that starting a sentence with And or But helps the flow. Some times, it works, but it takes a while to read. Also, be careful when you do start your sentence with But because sometimes, I seems like it is a fragment.

Also, when you start listing ideas or repeating sentence structure (P3 and P4), I feel you loose the reader in your parallelism. P4- that matters, that shares a storey, that makes a pos. diff.

Additionally, try to avoid vague words. You fixed it up a bit from your last paper, but I still caught some. Also, work on your punctuation- P4- Thus, Gaudi’s buildings do not stand in silence: ….” P5- “fueling the project to this day” is awk.

“better earth” is vague.

That dash in P6 is weird.

Overall, I give your flow a 6.

Good specifics I need to go back and rework.

4.) Between paragraphs, you seem to be linking content through word repetition or concept linking, which works. Your topic sentences are not too intrusive. Again, I think the basic problem here is not really with the writing-qua-writing, but rather that you''re still unclear as to what your leadership vision is, and I don''t know if I can really penalize you for that.

Not really any specific advice, but glad to know my flow works.

5.) Flow:

I found that you significantly improved the flow of your paper. There is a logical movement of one thought to the next and you worked out some of the rougher sections that served to interrupt the smoothness of the paper. You did a fine job of cleaning up your paper and creating one that moves easily from one thought to the next.

Points of Improvement:

This sentence is a bit awkward: “To inspire and to lead, we must find our heroes within, cultivate these features of ourselves, and accept the challenge of bettering the world and bettering ourselves.” If you could reword this, I believe it would improve the overall flow of this section. It is linked well with the previous paragraph (the intro) and provides a smooth transition into the body, but it still is hard to get through as it is currently worded.

I also found this to be a bit of a rough transition from the previous paragraph: “While I hope to leave behind a series of visual statements as my legacy, I hope my life can also serve as a message.” I know it deals with the same subject, but it seems jumpy. Try to make a more subtle movement like: “My life—like my artistic legacy—should serve as a message to humankind.”

Good specific advice about sentences/transitions.