(Your marked-up essay is below this form.)
HOW THIS WORKS: Your e-structor has written overview comments about your essay in the form below. Your e-structor has also embedded comments [in bold and in brackets] throughout your essay. Thank you for choosing Smarthinking's OWL; best wishes with revising your paper!
Hi Malia, I’m Leah W. and I’ll be helping you with your essay today!
*Strengths of the essay:
Main Idea/Thesis: The thesis statement should tell the reader exactly what your essay will cover. Here’s the thesis statement from your essay:
“Here are a few examples on why High School and College are different there is the commute and the building and money spent on how you get to college.”
It appears that you’re doing a compare/contrast essay between high school and college. That would be your topic. Then you give your reasons, the commute, the building, and money. What I want you to do is clean your thesis statement up a bit, in order to make it more direct and clear to the reader.
Here’s an example thesis statement to help you understand the kind of format it should follow: “Soccer is a better sport than American football because there is constant action, it takes more athleticism to play, and is beloved around the world.”
Instead of starting off your thesis with “Here are a few examples,” start it off with the topic, followed by the examples. This will make it more direct.
For more info: Thesis Development *MALIA 7171060 has requested that you respond to the Content Development:
Since you’re writing an essay comparing high school to college, it’s important that you cover both sides equally. For example, in the paragraph on commuting, the majority of the paragraph is spent on discussing your high school commute. Here’s the only discussion of college:
“In Tallahassee Florida the commute was a long one as well depending on how much traffic there was and if it was raining as well.”
How does the commute compare to high school? Is it longer? Are the type of roads (highway, street, interstate) different? How is the weather different? How does that affect your commute? What about people who live on campus at colleges and don’t have a commute? There are so many questions you can ask yourself to develop more content. Most importantly, make sure you’re comparing the two items, high and college.
For more info: Developing Ideas
*MALIA 7171060 has requested that you respond to the Grammar & Mechanics:
It’s important to follow proper grammar and not use run-on sentences. For example, you write:
“When I came to live in Florida I decide to further my education by going to a local college and doing so I knew I was going to have to either have a student loan or pay out of pocket by finding a job or asking parents for help.”
This is a run-on sentence, which happens when you squish two or more sentences into one. This can be fixed by breaking up the sentence into two sentences or using the proper punctuation: either a semicolon (;) or a comma plus a conjunction (think FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so).
For more info: Run-ons and Comma Splices
Summary of Next Steps:
· Make your thesis statement more direct.
· Try to provide an even amount of content for both high school and college.
· Avoid run-on sentences.
Malia, good luck in your revision process! – Leah W.
Find additional resources in Smarthinking's online library:
You can find more information about writing, grammar, and usage in Smarthinking's student handbooks. You can visit the Smarthinking Writer's Handbook or the Smarthinking ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) Writer's Handbook.
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Please look for more comments in your essay below. Thank you for visiting Smarthinking. We encourage you to submit future essays.
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Malia Beermann
Professor Surrency
