My Essay--Critique?

bettina
Fri, 05 Nov 2004 04:43:00 +0000

I guess it’s too late…brave of you to post it. Overall I liked it pretty much. Now the bad news:

All over, you introduce a number of interesting ideas, but don’t develop them too much. Since you did have interesting thoughts I thought it served the prompt, but I also thought you could have developed them more and left out a few other things that left you in a more unflattering light. Some of what was not flattering was to try to poise yourself as precocious.

Also–lexicon used where jargon is more apt? But I liked you thought of it. Stuff like that.

I hated the last paragraph. It reminds me of the #1 problem with essays on CC (was it your original 1st para?) in that it lectures the reader in broad sweeping generalizations. Edit out this drivel: “Language is the fingerprint of the mind, revealing the true nature of individuals. The village idiot could conceal himself as an intellectual by donning a lab coat, thick-rimmed glasses, and by sticking a calculator in his pocket—but as soon as he opens his mouth, he’ll be exposed.”

I admire your taking on this topic and you have some good ideas going, but this is a first draft. Take heart, most are. I have to say I was shocked that my dd wrote crap for a month then finally got her essay into shape in the last couple of days and worked to the final hour, I think, at least the final hours. It turned out simple and true, but perhaps not her finest hours in showing the thinking your are trying to show here.