<p>How would you put in one sentence two facts: a) i did not have a plan at the moment, and b) i had five hours to arrive at one.
The idea of the sentence is that a) means that what i did was purely emotional, and that b) was the reason for hope. </p>
<p>I’d very much like it to be in one sentence - it will be the last sentence of the essay.</p>
<p>With no idea of which path would serve me best, I knew that the next 5 hours gave me at least a modicum of hope to carve out one. </p>
<p>Utterly bewildered, I knew at least that the next 5 hours afforded me the luxury of enough time to find a sparkling ray of hope in the midst of all the confusion.</p>
<p>I was so high enough to know that 5 hours were ample enough time to come down from my trip and take that one final drag.</p>
<p>Wow. That’s a wow. The ‘modicum’ was impressive <em>_</em> Wow. Wow. At four in the morning I could barely comprehend what you wrote xD That’s a wow!</p>
<p>Any chance it could be done with less pomp? It should be really simple - cause=>effect. I cannot combine the two parts properly - something is either obscure or repeating.</p>
<p>How about this sentence? Any good?
I didn’t have a plan yet, but hoped that five hours is enough to arrive at one.</p>
<p>I like simple version much better, a bit of punch at the end is more effective than wordiness - no “modicum” ; but you have tense agreement issues with didn’t - hoped - is</p>
<p>Could you please fix it? I have a feeling that it’s… well, it’s like the sentence is a puzzle, but i just can’t see the picture clearly :(</p>
<p>How about this:
I didn’t have a plan, yet hoped that five hours would be enough to arrive at one.
No, this is somehow worse. Too many words! I feel like ‘at one’ is too far away from ‘a plan’ and the connection is thus weak.</p>
<p>No. No the revisd sentence does not work in the context. It must be the last sentence, yet it doesn’t really sound like one. It introduces a new idea, not closes the paragraph.
No. No, no good. It’s just no good.</p>
<p>Well, if brevity is what you’re looking for, then why didn’t you just say so?</p>
<p>Even without a plan, I had hoped that 5 hours would suffice.</p>
<p>I had hoped that five hours would be enough to find a plan that I didn’t have yet.</p>
<p>With only 5 hours left, I knew that I would still find a solution.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I asked for wordiness either… Although, on the second thought, I just missed this requirement. I come from the birthplace of the phrase ‘brevity is the sister of talent’. It just didn’t occur to me. Apolog… apolog… oh, shoot. I can’t spell it xDDD I apologize. For god’s sake, how do you spell it? XDDD </p>
<p>“I should.” I agreed and boarded the train. I didn’t have a plan yet - just a hope that five hours would be enough to arrive at one.</p>
<p>How’s this one? Along with context. Mayb it’ll help. Yet it still feels like I’m introducing a new thought into the last sentence. And here comes second-guessing - if I did it here, I did it in every paragraph of my essay. Oh, horror.</p>
<p>@Lakemom, that’s the closest I’ve seen so far!
I’m implying that I wasn’t sure. That the decision to board that train was an emotional one, no resoning envolved.
But thank you - thank you so much! I believe you’ve set me on the right track.</p>
<p>donnykim’s sentences are horrible.
They are choppy and replete with grammatical errors. Take any of the others first.</p>
<p>Does it really do you any justice to label my sentences as horrible? Geez. I was just trying to help the dude. Talk about misdirected angst!</p>
<p>I’m a girl, lol</p>
<p>Would this sentence be correct?</p>
<p>I had no plan, yet five hours to arrive at one.</p>
<p>I agreed and boarded the train. I didn’t have a plan yet - just a hope that five hours would be enough to arrive at one.</p>
<p>I like this! You have created a nice parallelism between ‘plan’ and ‘hope’. I actually like the imagery created by boarding a train and arriving at a plan - good. My sister the English major was proofreading D’s essay (because I obviously can’t spell ;D) Her input was that as long as you use correct, Strunk and White punctuation, S/V agreement, no comma splices etc. through the bulk of your essay, one or two intentional sentence fragment and/or puntuation style choices are fine. That means that a dash (formerly very commonly used for special emphasis before texting and e-mail ruined the dash) is acceptable as a one-off style choice.
I am willing to be corrected, though, if an editor or essay reader had better information.</p>
<p>p.s. - nothing wrong with the idea that you’re leaving possibilities open at the end of your essay. A compelling story can end with a little uncertainty or room to continue. Most teenage lives and experiences are not neatly tied off into handy packages of “what I learned”. Your ending leaves the idea open that whatever you write about is a process.</p>
<p>oh, thank you! Thank you!</p>
<p>I’m actually concentrating on inner conflicts and what they resulted in. Though, that result is implied although obvious. I love my essay <3 Thought of the topic last year, wrote it, and came back to it a week before. </p>
<p>Btw, how do you feel about an occasional colloquialism?</p>
<p>I would follow the same rule that I outlined for creative punctuation. Use very sparingly, in good taste, and to make a point that pops and can’t be made another way. If you sprinkle it all over it will look like you don’t know any better. Also, nothing vulgar embarrassing, be sure that it’s not too teenager-y " . . . like . . . um . . . cool . . . awesome . . . etc."</p>
<p>how about ‘monkey’ as an euphemism of copying your mother’s reading? i have a strong feeling it does not really exist in English, and I took it from Russian. For in Russian is does exist :)</p>
<p>Actually, D has used the phrase not being a “copy monkey” when speaking about students who grind out notes and problem sets but don’t show originality of thought. I know she didn’t make it up, so it must be commonly used. I think that would be fine for you to use in context above because you are referring to yourself so there is no implication of name calling or stereotyping a group. If you are referring to when you learned to read by copying it would be completely appropriate.</p>