To mmd496:

Focus very good (6)
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.

7
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 Good (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..

6
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 Good (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.”.

7
Good specific advice about sentences/transistions

To Ilovemooseboy:

Focus very good (6)
I interpreted your thesis statement as being summarized by this sentence: “… I dream of learning continually, being the most genuine person I can be, and becoming a warm, more naturally helpful person.”

I thought that you had a clear thesis with a paper that is clearly all related to that thesis. Great Job.

I did not know what you meant by “feeling of flow.” If you could rephrase this or explain.

I would suggest that you expand “Goethe’s productive life.” If you could provide an example or something to illustrate how this inspires you.

Is the word “bumps” in “the bumps and chalanges” a pun? If so, you are amazing!
4
Supportive, but I would have appreciated some advice about the focus of the paper as a whole instead of specific sentences to fix.

Organization Excellent (7)
I thought your organization was fine.

In your last paragraph: “No, the most …” I don’t like the no. Too conversational.

Also, expand on “those truths.” 4
I would have appreciated some advice on organization!
Flow Excellent (7)
“In a sense, Harold serves as a role model for me. Although he is, of course, a fictional character, his transformation is believable.” I thought that this inturupted the flow. If you could rework this statement. And you should expand on his transformation—give detail.

I really thought that your amazing flow (OOOOOHHHH! Cant argue with that) was exemplified by the transition between these two paragraphs: “… significant amount of the meaning in my life (new paragraph) As humans, we seek and require meaning to life…” I thought that this really made a good transition of thoughts! Very nice.

“This is one quest… train for this…” DON’T SAY THIS. explain what this is. expand!

“that I have not discussed before is being…” This is a flow block. And i don’t think it is particularly necessary.
6
The specific examples were really helpful in this case.

To Cadence:

Focus very good (6)
I believe your thesis is summarized by: “I seek meaning in everything I do and am: …”

I thought that your focus was well summarized by the thesis and relevant to the topic. I have no advise on how to improve it.

I would say that you could work on your conclusion to make it address the thesis more.

“… I find Frank Warren’s work inspiring.” Just thought you might want to expand on this. Give how his work inspires you in the first sentence.
2
This was vague and essentially useless.
Organization Excellent (7)
I thought that your organization was appropriate. Your transitions were appropriate. I particularly liked the GPS metaphor. 1
This review was essentially pointless. Reassuring, but pointless.
Flow Excellent (7)
Your flow was more or less excellent. You move from one thought to the next with a logical progression of thoughts. Excellent. 1

To lynn87:

Focus very good (6)
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.
6
This reviewer gave good details as to how to improve things, they helped me unify my writing.
Organization very good (6)
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.
6
Great specifics, this reviewer took time to really look at my paper. I noted many of his remarks and made the necessary changes.
Flow Excellent (7)
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.
4
There is no real criticism on the actual flow of the paper, this is more of a question concerning content.

To Serenity:

ocus Good (5)
What I saw as your thesis is that you currently do not know who you are and your first year at college has not been an enlightening journey of self-discovery, but you do know that you have grown in character.

While this thesis does lead well into the subsequent paragraphs, it does not cover all of the topics you lead to. Specifically, it fails to introduce your discussion of your future job and the roll of leadership, etc. If you could just add or rework a clear statement containing all you discus in your paper.

There is a good unity of the focus of your paper: the various parts of the papers do coordinate and relate to each other and there is a relation between the body and thesis idea, although this relation could be made clearer.

The topic fits very well in with the prompt and the content is great. I would suggest that in your penultimate paragraph you discuss how you are not defined by a job, but rather your job should be an extension of your true nature. Finding your future career is not the goal; the goal is to figure out who you are and find a career that expresses that. Too many people relate finding a field of study with figuring out who you are. These two aspects are related but who you are is not derived from what your job is.

4
This told me that it was not obvious which sentence was my thesis, but because this review did not get my thesis correct, some of the comments I couldn''''t really use. Also, I did talk about not being defined by a job in the end of my paper already, so I was a little confused as to whether I should just expand on that more, or not. I did end up adding some more to my conclusion, so hopefully that idea is more filled out now.
Organization very good (6)
The organization seems fine. The only thing I can comment on is that the second paragraph is centered which makes it hard to distinguish indents, but this is more of a formatting issue. Good Job! ;) 2
I hadn''''''''t noticed this formatting issue before, so good to know.

I''''ve changed the organization up quite a bit this time around, so I would like to know if it all connects as well as you thought it did in the first draft.
Flow Excellent (7)
Overall, I would say that the paper flows very nicely. There is a clear and intelligible progressive and easy to follow flow from the intro to the end. I especially liked how you ended paragraphs introducing the idea you would expand on in the next. For example: “I will naturally become a leader in every are of my life. (next paragraph) We have tossed around words like ‘leader and hero’…” I think that this does a good thing for the overall progression of thoughts throughout the paper.

Despite the excellent flow through the body of the paper, I would suggest you add conclusive paragraph at the end that really brings the paper back to the beginning and combines and recaps everything. Right now I feel that the paper has a too abrupt ending.

5
I appreciated the specific example here, and even though I disagreed with a part of this critique, it definitely helped me to see how my paper was coming across on the reader''''''''s side, and I tried to make edits with this in mind.
I actually felt that my conclusion was re-capping already, but I did try to flesh it out a bit more, and bring in some more of the phrases i had used earlier in the paper.