worldlit2ndsemester - Reviews P4B

My Reviews of Others

Chetna:

Focus	very good (6) Great intro. Has the broad statements everyone can relate to and the specific application to yourself. Quotes well integrated. I think your essay is very cohesive/focused because of your strong thesis. You stay on topic as far as I could tell. Some of your analogies are quite dramatic, but they further your points. Good job.	4 Thanks for the positive feedback, but some criticism would have been helpful too!
Organization	Excellent (7) Your thesis sentence sets up your organization nicely. The only suggestion I have in this sense is to shorten the length of your paragraphs. You can effectively have multiple paragraphs for each topic outlined in your thesis. I would suggest breaking apart your generalizations and your personal application. For instance, in the first body paragraph you could make a break between these sentences: �Such men and women may have lived in accordance with the doctrines of ahimsa, for �The practice of ahimsa will make you fearless. He who practices ahimsa with real faith can move the whole world�� which is exactly what leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. have accomplished.[4] My anger and frustration in life are driven by my fear for the future and what legacy, if any, I will leave in the world.� Your pictures are relevant, though we�ve all seen some of them before. I don�t think this is a problem, though.	5 Helpful to know how to make the paper more clear by breaking up the monotony; specific examples of where and how were great
Flow	very good (6) �Leaders who have accentuated the pages of history challenged their boundaries without fear of the outcome� -- Something about this sentence seemed long or I felt like it needed either a transition word or a coma (though that might change your grammar for the rest of the sentence) between �history� and �challenged.� Right before footnote 15 you need to add a quotation mark, Wow, your writing is really eloquent throughout! I know you mentioned you were having some difficulties formulating cohesive ideas and then getting them down, but your writing doesn�t show it at all in my opinion.	5 Specifics and the minor stuff is always much appreciated!

Prianka:

Focus	Average (4) I do think that your focus has improved. Everything flows together well, which means that it is all focused on one main idea. I especially like your conclusion. The only thing that I could see which would help me understand your point more clearly revolves around your parents. Maybe providing a more specific example of one time when they showed compassion rather than making the general statement would tie that section more closely to your paper and be more vivid to a reader. I remember the part about your parents encouraging you to donate your Christmas presents much more vividly than your general statements about how giving they were in their volunteer work.	4 Pretty helpful. Focused on a very specific part of the paper. Showed me how I can improve the part about my parents.
Organization	very good (6) I understood the link between your visual and verbal rhetoric quite well. I thought your pictures were well placed and informative (especially pictures like the map). The pictures of the Sudanese are all very poignant. I saw no issues with this element of your paper. I�m not entirely sure that I thought the pictures were �essential,� but they did add to the experience of reading the paper.	4 Helpful in that they told me I didn''''''''t need to tweak much in this area of the paper
Flow	Good (5) There is something wrong with your first sentence. I like the words you use, but I think I lost in them or something. It�s really descriptive, but maybe too much so for an opening sentence. �I want to help revive trust between people� � I�m not sure exactly what you mean by this. Trust between all people? Between doctors and patients? Between Americans and Sudanese? And what exactly do you mean by trust? Trust in unselfishness or in keeping secrets or being honorable? I think I understand this sentence more when considering your whole paper, but it definitely slowed me down. �The Business Honors Program was probably the most distinguished program.� � If you are just comparing two things I thought you used �more� instead of �most.� Also, using words like �probably� weakened your argument. When you start talking about how for 8 years of medical school you thought only of yourself I got confused because of the earlier clause: �Before joining MSF I was an undergraduate student at the University of Texas�� To me, this sentence made it seem like you went straight into MSF after undergraduate school. �they simply see people in need and go there� � This second part of a sentence confused me since the �they� came right after the phrase �a group of people.� I didn�t at first see that the �they� referred back to MSF. Maybe saying something like �the doctors and volunteers of MSF simply see�� would help the flow. �Because of my parents, �an essential quality of [my] being� is caring for others. Because of the way I watched my parents dedicate their time to volunteering�� These two sentences are split up by a picture, but they begin in the same way. I�m not sure if this was intentional, but it made me stop and reread. Paragraph beginning �In Sudan�� the first and second sentence both end with �help them� which is repetitive.	4 Helpful in a few specific places.

Pallavi:

Focus	Average (4) You have definitely improved your focus. I feel like your essay is much more cohesive and polished. This is kind of vague: �Although the specifics of my future are still unknown to me,� because no one�s future is known to them. The main problem I had with your paper overall, though, was the focus. You are focused on certain ideas, but as a reader I have a hard time grasping those ideas because you use very few specifics. For instance, �I hope to raise awareness of unaddressed issues so people can come together to fight for a common cause.� What unaddressed issues? What cause? Even if it isn�t necessarily something you will fight for, an example would help me remember your main idea more. You go on to give an example (Invisible Children) which was much more prominent, but if you could possibly even integrate the idea of Invisible Children into this sentence, I think your paper would be more consice.	7 Thanks for pointing out specific questions you had
Organization	Good (5) You don�t have any pictures in yet, so I can�t comment on their integration. Also, you need another quote I think. Overall, your paragraphs are a little meandering. Sometimes I think you are going to talk about one thing, but instead you bring up a whole bunch of broad ideas which are connected, though not in a really obvious way. You do have transitions, though sometimes they are not very fluid to me. I especially didn''t see strong transitions between the first 3 paragraphs. It wasn''t horrible or anything, but just not as good as I know you could do.	6 Advice about transitions is beneficial
Flow	Good (5) You have a comma after specifically that I think is unnecessary: �the Indian culture specifically, has played�� Also, several of your sentences end in the preposition �in.� I�ve always been taught that this is incorrect, so I�d suggest changing it around. For instance, �Experiencing and appreciating different cultures has allowed me to keep an open mind of different situations people have been placed in.� Becomes Experiencing and appreciating different cultures has allowed me to keep an open mind of different situations in which people have been placed. Also, the �of� in the above sentence throws me off. In the second paragraph you use �different� or some form of it 4 times. It was repetitive because the paragraph is so short. Also, you use a form of �experience� several times in subsequent sentences in that paragraph. In this sentence, you use commas in a series differently in two different lists: �involvement, enthusiasm, and passion people had for issues such as racism, sexism and the environment,�� (you have a comma between �enthusiasm� and �and� but none between �sexism� and �and� so it seems inconsistent. Just choose one and go with it) There�s a typo in the verbs in this sentence: �and this cycle is can continue on and on to�	7 thanks for pointing out specific grammatical errors

Garrison:

Focus	very good (6) Your focus is impeccable. Everything contributes to your overall message. I�m not sure exactly where your deletions were, but if you did delete anything it seems like you kept the flow in those parts. Your future plan is very specific, though, which makes me wonder what you will do if something doesn�t go according to your plan, but that is more of a content concern. The family section seemed repetitive towards the end. You say over and over how you want to be a family man and loving towards your wife and children which is very noble, but I got the impression that your essay began to drag a little in the last paragraphs. Overall, though, your focus was one of the best I�ve seen and you stuck to the thesis very well.	5 Good observation, but where especially did the paragraph seem to drag on. Any particular sentences?
Organization	Excellent (7) Your images, though not all captioned, are directly related to the text that is beside or around them. Your thesis sentence is very clear and sets up your paper effectively. Since all of your main topics are very clearly indicated by your thesis, I felt like you really should have a balance in the number of paragraphs. You have 3 paragraphs for the family section, 2 for your management and just one for your time at UT. This might be in order to emphasize each element in terms of its importance, but when reading it, I felt like it wasn�t as balanced as your thesis made it seem your paper would be. Or you could consider possibly using some sort of headings/subheadings since SWoRD recommends that.	6 Good observation. I might just do the headings idea.
Flow	very good (6) I really like your first paragraph a lot better now. I know what you are talking about in terms of the animals and now that analogy adds something to your paper. The only thing that seemed a little unnecessary was your use of �our� to refer to your experiences in high school as a peer leader and a your grade. I think that it would still be effective if you referred to the things in your past as �my� and �mine.� Just a minor preference, though. Also, you repeat certain words like �goals� and �leadership� over and over. I know it is hard not to, but it started to really hammer your points in by the time I got all the way through. I didn�t catch any punctuation mistakes. Just so you are aware, this sentence ends with a preposition, but I don�t think that Bump ever counts off for stuff like that: �Additionally, I want to be a parent that my children will never be ashamed of.� Finally, this sentence stopped me and made me reread it a couple of times: �Having an upper-level position is not an easy task to accomplish by the time I�m forty years old� I�m not entirely sure why, but it seemed awkward to me.	7 Really good specifics, and you talk about how I can improve the paper as a whole.

Brad:

Focus	Excellent (7) Everything in your essay ties back to your main idea of letting go clearly. I think your rewriting did improve in some areas. The only problem I had this time was the presence of some really short paragraphs. This should not affect my view of the focus, but somehow with the layout you chose, it did affect my focus. Specifically, the paragraph: �I want to be on the front row when God displays his miracles; I want to be the first to see people coming together; I want to be the closest when beauty breaks through the everyday. These marvels are what elevate the individual soul to a plane of enlightenment.� threw me off. I love what you say here and how you say it, but it seemed like these ideas had been slowly built up to in the previous paragraph (hinted at, though not totally specified), then suddenly you scream them out really quickly in this paragraph, then move on. Everything, though, ties into your thesis and seems realistic and is interestingly portrayed.	7 Thanks for the stuff about short paragraphs. I tried to combine some of the shorter ones.
Organization	very good (6) I like how you used subheadings, beneath which you followed a set pattern. Under each subheading you had a broad paragraph, then a paragraph about how the specific topic applied to your life, then sometimes a paragraph kind of elaborating on or discussing another point related to that idea. The images you use are all really cool pictures, but they many of them seem like something you could find on an inspirational or motivational poster. They could represent anything and are not necessarily specific to your writing. That, and they were kind of small.	6 The images always get really small when I convert to .html, but I''''ll work on fixing that. Holla.
Flow	very good (6) I found your flow to be perfectly fine. You did a great job of varying sentence length and paragraph length. The paragraph length distracted me once or twice, which I mentioned in Focus. Other than that, though, I found your paper to flow very well. I didn�t catch any punctuation errors, but there was a repetition (below) and a sentence which ends in a preposition (also below, though I�m not sure if this falls under punctuation or is even wrong). This is really minor, but �we are so attached to the things around us. Today�s culture is so materialistic and competitive� uses �so� twice close together. I think the first sentence would be fine without the �so.� Preposition sentence: �In this way, we will not only be connected to our own spirit, but the spirit of the entire world, the �soul force� that Gandhi and King spoke of.� Like I said, I�m not sure if this is even considered wrong, but it could easily be reworded just in case as: �In this way, we will not only be connected to our own spirit, but the spirit of the entire world, the �soul force� of which Gandhi and King spoke.�	7 Thanks for the specific examples you are the best 4 eva.