Grading Commentary

Here are a few examples of commentary I have given for 1301 Composition:

 

Your thesis statement sounds more like an opinion rather than an analysis of how the Beatles use language in their songs about the Vietnam War.

In the second paragraph, is it about rhythm? or tone? or both? Where is the topic sentence?

In the sixth paragraph, I think you can take out the last two sentences because they don’t really add anything to your point. They only repeat what you said previously.

Your concluding paragraph would make a great intro paragraph. In fact, I think you should use it as your intro paragraph and write a new conclusion. For the new conclusion, don’t worry about including all of the details from the paper. Simply wind down the argument by re-emphasizing your argument and how it relates to the subject material. If you use the conclusion as your introduction, I suggest taking out the last two sentences here as well because they don’t contribute to your argument in a positive way.

This is very effective in “Revolution” because it almost guarantees the audience will pick up on the sarcasm and almost patronizing tone of the song. As a reader, I am not convinced that this is effective because it only “almost guarantees”. I need you to convince me why their use of rhythm helps me, the listener, understand what they are talking about. I suggest rewording this sentence to make it sound more firm in its stance.

Using words like “gonna” allowed The Beatles to come across as humble and modest, a counter to the extremist protesters no doubt. I’m not sure I agree that this comes across as humble and modest. Instead, it is comfortable and incorporates a broader audience.

Richard Rodriguez also used this strategy in the story “Private and Public Language.” When he says, “We lived among gringos and only a block from the biggest, whitest houses.” (Rodriguez 351). Both Rodriguez and the Beatles use slang to make their views and opinions easy to relate to.

In this quote, where does Rodriguez use slang? And how does his use of slang affect his argument? And how does this relate to your argument?

The meaning of revolution is all about destruction and violence where a sudden unmarked change occurs. The meaning of evolution is gradual change or growth through peace. Where did you get these definitons from? I looked them up on dictionary.com and they had totally different definitions than what you have. If you are going off of someone else’s definition, then you need to explain it and cite it. Otherwise, I suggest using an actual dictionary definition in order to give your argument more credibility.

The second introduction is better, but your thesis about language is still lacking. The whole focus of your paper should be how language is used, how it is effective, how it isn’t effective, and how it supports/doesn’t support the analysis you are making. In your paper, you should look at “The Pursuit of Happyness” and how it uses language throughout the story. You could talk about how it reflects the struggles of the main character by doing….(insert whatever it does to convince the reader/viewer). 

You did a great revision that shows improvement, but I suggest rethinking the language aspect of your paper for the second draft. It may help talking to your instructor about how to incorporate language in your paper.

The new strategy for your revised thesis worked pretty well. It focused on the argument more than yourself, which is important, and necessary within an academic paper. One problem within your revised intro are the number of grammatical errors. I know you tried changing the sentence structure, but don’t forget to put in the appropriate punctuation and spelling. A suggestion: you may want to think about combining the Historical review and specific to general concept in your second draft. That may be a nice balance of voice.