My Peer Review on Cassie Kuplast’s Project #1:

Marginal Comments:

  • Indent beginning of paragraph.
  • I cannot find and obvious thesis statement. Remember that this is your own essay and you should state your opinion and your mission for the paper. I think that you also could reduce the length of your intro if you wanted, you go into extreme detail in your summary.
  • I would recommend not ending a body paragraph with a question, it does not leave the reader with a feeling that you made a concrete point in your paragraph.
  • What is your viewpoint on Soylent? In your first body paragraph you appear to agree with the idea of Soylent but now you seem to value the idea of food more.

Feedback Letter:

Cassie-

I noticed that you have many mistakes with MLA format within your essay, I would review the sources that Professor Miller gave us last class in order to format your essay correctly. I specifically noticed that you didn’t indent paragraphs, you put blank lines between paragraphs, and you did not format your works cited page correctly. Other than that, I mostly noticed that you didn’t make a clear stance right off the bat on how you view Soylent. You leave readers a bit confused on how you really feel about the topic at hand by showing the different points of views before stating your opinion. I will also advise that you review your conclusion again, you left readers off with a feeling that you are finished, and while this is good, you also want your conclusion to be thought provoking and memorable for readers, not something they won’t think of in the future. Overall I would say just be more confident in your viewpoint and make sure readers will know exactly how you feel, don’t do as much reporting, do more of interacting with your essay and putting personality and personal experiences (life as text) into your paper.

-Sarah

My Peer Review on Erianna James’s Project #1

Marginal Comments:

  • I agree with Chris, for readers who have never heard of Soylent, this statement would be very confusing for them since it comes before the fact that he created it. Instead I think you should start with the fact that he created Soylent, then describe what it is, and finally go into why he invented it.
  • Great comparison and relation to your life but some parts sound a bit informal such as “I have kind of done that too”. Instead try replacing it with something like “I too have replaced my meals with a substitute, but in a less extreme way”.
  • I agree with the contradicting comment, try elaborating more on their similarities and their differences and separate them. (They are different because… yet they are also similar because…)
  • Informal statement, try saying “one drawback of this concept”.
  • I would explain the quote a little more and go in more depth about what Widdicombe noticed, then make a smooth transition into your feelings and thoughts.
  • Make this more of a topic sentence, why does Soylent save time, and why do you need more time in your day?
  • I would avoid using the word “like”. I makes you sound unsure in your statement.
  • Use however or on the other hand.
  • I would recommend that you explain and analyze this quote more, it feels a lot like those quotation hit-and-runs that we read about. I just needs a bit more detail and then maybe add a conclusion sentence to summarize to wrap up the paragraph so it doesn’t feel like it was quickly ended.
  • This paragraph feels very quickly written and not that thoroughly thought out. It feels rushed and not explained as well as the other paragraphs so I would suggest you spend some time just focusing on this paragraph and improving it.
  • Your essay lacks a conclusion paragraph which is necessary in order to wrap up your paper and leave readers with both satisfaction that the paper is over as well are further questions that they could look in to.

Feedback Letter:

Erianna-

Your paper had all the right ideas but it wasn’t written as if you spent a lot of time on it. Parts seem rushed and unfinished. You had a great introduction and with some minor tweaking I think you could make it perfect. Your body paragraphs all seem to lack real, well thought out topic sentences and conclusion sentences, remember you don’t want to leave the reader with questions until the end and when you get to that point make them thought-provoking and well placed. I feel like the major problem your paper has is flow. In places it feels choppy and lacks proper transitions to the next topic. Something else I saw was that you often used very informal grammar, you want to sound as mature and educated as possible (which you are) so use what you know! Also make sure your statements have confidence in them, it will make readers trust you more and believe your point of view. I also noticed a few punctuation and formatting errors so just remember to do a local revision. I would also recommend having someone else read your paper right before you turn it in just to double check in case you don’t notice something. Other than that I would say well done!

-Sarah