- Describe your essay’s most notable strength, using at least one direct quote to support your choice.
I think my essay’s most notable strength is the use of quotes. Quote sandwiches have really helped me implement quotes into a personal argumentative paragraph, and put my voice side by side with that of an author. In addition, effective quote implementations really strengthen an argument and give it validity. An example of one of my quote sandwiches is as follows:
“In addition to acknowledging that we must think in order to avoid slipping into our unconscious, dead, default setting, Foster Wallace also submits that a liberal arts education teaches us to choose what to think about. Foster Wallace himself states, “learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience” (Foster Wallace . In other words, we can individually change the way in which we live and view the world by simply choosing what to value and think about.”
With this quote I was able to introduce my argument (that empathy awards us a choice to choose what we think about). Then, I summarized the quote in a way that connects it to my argument. The strength of this quote greatly helps me support my argument and for that reason I believe it is my essay’s most notable strength.
- How has your writing process (from reading/annotating, to turning in a final draft) improved since high school?
In high school I had a tendency to start a paper the night before it was due. In doing so, the paper would be rushed and would not be my best work. Requiring a rough draft a week before the final due date is in my opinion an invaluable benefit to me. Because of this I have automatically given myself the time to do thorough revision after writing the first draft. In addition, the allows me to have the essay sit for a day or two before I go back to it. Also, in high school I would rarely read the full reading prompts. In other words, I wouldn’t read a full book because it was too much work, and would instead rely on online sources that could help me form an essay. Having smaller prompts that we thoroughly discuss in class has really helped me get a better understanding of the pieces, and has in turn really helped me form well informed arguments and claims.
- Describe the differences in your revision process from Essay #1 to Essay #2. How has your revision process improved? Call attention to one place in your 2nd essay where revision helped significantly (and describe the process).
Honestly, I’m not sure if my global revision process has improved at all from my first essay to my second. I feel as though the global revision process in my first essay may have actually of been stronger. However, I think perhaps my local revision has gotten stronger. I think the feedback from my first essay really identified a relative weakness at the sentence level, and so I made sentence level revision more of a priority in my second essay. After getting the ideas out onto the page in my rough draft, I definitely worked more and trying to make sentences sound more readable and logical during my revision process. In doing this I probably read my second essay out loud close to 10 times, compared to my first essay I probably only did that about once or twice.
- Finish this sentence (and explain why): The aspect of essay composition I’d like to spend more class-time on is local revision and sentence structure.
We work a lot on global revision in class and with peers (which I like), but often times we don’t do much revision at the local, sentence level. This suggestion of course comes from a bias in me because the weakest part of my own writing is in my opinion the sentence structure. I think we should spend more time on learning how to make sentences flow nicely and sound easier to read. I think we should really go through a paragraph and really interrogate each sentence, and see how we can re-word, or re-write parts of it to ensure they sound a lot nicer. This also helps with the want to translate my thoughts in my head, into words on a page.
- Copy and paste your final draft’s strongest claim sentence into your post, then analyze it briefly. What makes it your strongest claim?
“Although Bloom argues that empathy distorts our moral judgements the same way prejudice does, Foster Wallace submits the theory that possessing empathy is actually about learning how to dismiss our own prejudices and certainties”.
I think this is my strongest claim because I introduced the viewpoint of both authors. This introduces the idea of prejudice in relation to empathy, and helped focus the second part of the claim about David Foster Wallace and his argument that empathy is about learning how to dismiss our certainties. I think another advantage to introducing both authors is that it demonstrates a clear difference between their perspectives, and which author I stand with.
- Paste then analyze your thesis statements from the first and second essay. How do they compare? Note similarities/differences. Which is stronger and why?
Essay #1 Thesis
Although I agree with Chen up to a point, I cannot accept his overriding assumption that social media creates lasting and meaningful interpersonal connections. Using the concrete psychological and physiological research of Robin Dunbar, Maria Konnikova convinces me that social media and virtual interactions cannot replicate the importance of physical ones.
Essay #2 Thesis
While I understand Bloom’s impulse to characterize empathy as narrow and biased, I cannot accept his overriding conclusion that the negatives of empathy outweigh the positives. By demonstrating the value of knowing how to think and choosing what to think about, David Foster Wallace convinces me that empathy is essential in living a life with more freedom of thought and awareness for others.
One of the similarities between the two thesis statements is their structure. In both thesis statements I introduce the argument/perspective that I am rejecting, and then state the argument that I am making, as well as the author I agree with. Another similarity is my introduction of my specific arguments/paragraphs in the second part of each thesis statement. In my first thesis I state “Using the concrete psychological and physiological research of Robin Dunbar”. This directly relates to my two argumentative paragraphs about touch in forming relationships (physiological), and the development of social skills (psychological). In my second thesis I state “By demonstrating the value of knowing how to think and choosing what to think about”. This also introduces my two argumentative paragraphs that are; having awareness to think; and choosing what to think about. I think the biggest difference between the two thesis statements is my agreeing with Chen (up to a point), compared to my overall rejection of Bloom’s arguments. I think the first thesis statement is stronger because the introduction of my arguments and what they convince me of is clearer and more concise, and thus reads more naturally. I think this is reflective of how I felt about the two essay prompts as well, and how I struggled a bit more with the second essay.
