Jeff Welch
UNIV 112
Spring 2015
SEMANTICS and SYNTAX REVISION
Semantics in yellow with labels in [bold italics]
Syntax in blue with original sentence in italics and explanations in grey
Did you know Marie Curie killed herself? Well not exactly in a suicidal manner
however over many years of handling radioactive particles, Marie Curie actually brought
her death upon herself a lot faster then it probably should have. Her death came a lot
faster than she had hoped because of something pushing her to reach her goals. A large
motivational push is what was pointing her to her grave. Because of her obvious
motivations in life, she passed away much earlier than anyone had ever expected. I
pretty much changed this whole sentence around because the other one just was good in
my opinion. With every goal we set our minds to, negatives will step [1. verb] in the
way, however it is up to us to prove to ourselves what kind of person we really are and
how we are going to handle the negatives on our way to our goal. Through experience of
pursuits throughout college, I realize that we will always come across negatives. I have
come to realize through personal experience that negatives are bound to happen and only
the best will make it through. The original sentence was repetitive and bland. It was kind
of stupid to even have it in the essay. Marie Curie shows us a perfect example of
integrity and dedication [2. Adjective] to make it through different struggles and we can
all find comparison in that.
Marie Curie had absolutely been one of the most influential people in the science
world over the past few centuries. Most of her scientific discoveries were conducted
through hard work and dedication in the lab. With such an incredibly “passionate
pursuit”, Marie Curie found [3. verb] many positives in her life that are still well
recognized to this day. One of the most obvious positive consequences resulting from
her hard work was the discovery of radium. In the book Radioactive, Marie Curie is
quoted speaking about the day she finally achieved her goals. “I shall never be able to
express the joy of the untroubled quietness of this atmosphere of research and the
excitement of actual progress.”(Page 57) She also came across many other positive
consequences in her life like receiving two Noble Peace Prize’s as well as becoming the
first woman to win a Noble Peace Prize (page 73). Throughout her life, Marie found
many other positives such as receiving two separate Noble Prize awards as well as
becoming the first woman to win the Noble Prize. Even though I didn’t shorten up the
sentence I made a few slight changes that I think helped the flow of the sentence.
However, the ultimate positive consequence resulting [4. verb] from her passion for
science was something that she never got the chance to see before she passed away.
Because of her discoveries through radium, now large amounts of people are cancer
survivors every year. Mammograms are very popular procedures in which it looks into
the breast in order to find cancerous tumors. Mammograms, a procedure created in
order to find tumors in the breast, are now possible because of Marie Curie and her work
she had done in the lab. The original sentence was very random and didn’t have much
meaning to it so I tried to make changes to that. Without the help of Marie Curie, there
would be an enormous [5. Adjective] increase in deaths from breast cancer. Also because
of Marie Curie’s dedication, x-rays are available to our world and they end up saving
lives every year. Marie Curie has created the ultimate positive consequence based on her
actions: happiness for the rest of our world to come. Our medical world would be on a
completely different scale without the dedication and sacrifices that Marie Curie went
through in her lifetime.
Marie Curie was a brilliant [6. Adjective] lady, however her dedication in the lab
brought a few negative consequences, specifically to her health. After spending decades
in the lab with radium, as well as other highly radioactive elements, her body began to
wear out on her. (Page 74) Due to such a large amount of exposure to radioactive
elements, her body quickly began to wither. I shortened down the sentence and took out
wasteful words. Ultimately, her death was resulted as an overdose of unhealthy levels of
radioactivity in which she had handled throughout her life. Ultimately, her cause of
death was declared to be the unhealthy levels of radioactivity in which she was exposed
to throughout her life. I shortened the sentence slightly and changed a few key words to
make it more interesting. “Years of radiation exposure had ravaged Marie’s Health. Her
fingers were barnacled with fibrous lesions from handling radium.”(Page 169) Even
towards the beginning of her research, she was seeing her body change and become more
and more affected by the radioactivity. “…were steadily corroding their bones, straining
their breathing, burning their skin. Their entire lab was toxic. ‘Dust, the air of the room,
and one’s clothes, all became radioactive…’ Radioactivity had made the Curie’s
immortal, now it was killing them.” (Page 74) She made the ultimate sacrifice by putting
herself through this danger to discover something that would save people’s lives for
centuries ahead. The death of Marie Curie doesn’t compare to many of the negatives
faced in specific pursuits, a lot of negatives can be very small, but can still play a huge
effect on your health or your life. Not many people will face such a harsh negative
consequence throughout their pursuit. However at any point a negative can turn from
small to big or vice-versa, you always have to be prepared. I didn’t really like this
sentence to begin with so I rewrote it to change the repetitive feeling.
As a freshman student-athlete here at VCU, I have faced many positive and
negative consequences in only 5 months here on campus. With the schedule in which I
endure every day of the week, there are many negatives that I come across. From injuries
and sickness, to just pure exhaustion every day there are many days where I am falling
asleep on five-minute car rides down the street. On top of baseball and class every day, I
spend extra time working out or studying calculus at the Cabell [7. Noun] library. Many
of my nights don’t end until 12 or 1 and most of my mornings begin around 7. On top of
that, at least once a week I am up at 5 a.m. for weightlifting. One of my first months
here, I was up until 3:30 a.m. one morning working on Engineering homework and then
had to be up an hour and a half later for morning weightlifting. By the end of the day, I
was falling asleep in my Physics [8. noun]class and woke up the next morning with a
runny nose and sore throat that took over a week to go away. Not to mention the achy
pain in my legs from practicing 5 hours a day. Even though my life is passionately
directed towards baseball, there have been plenty of negative consequences towards my
health.
Through all of the small nagging injuries and sickness I go through, I would go
through it over and over again because of how much the positive consequences override
it. Because of the hard work and dedication I have put into my schoolwork and baseball
practice, I was blessed with reaching my goal of playing baseball [9. Noun] for a
Division I University. So far in my first semester, I have reached many of my small
goals such as academic honors, as well as excelling on the baseball field in my fall
season. Because of the time I have spent working hard [10. Adjective] in the classroom, I
have the opportunity to be commemorated [11.verb] with a group of other VCU athletes
[12. Noun] at one of the men’s basketball games at the Siegal center [13. Noun] this
year. I am very blessed and thankful for my ability to devote time and hard work towards
my grades. Another positive consequence, in which I have just recently realized about
myself, is that due to the chaotic lifestyle in which I live, I have learned to manage my
time a lot better. I have also matured dramatically [14. Adjective] as a person, which has
led to stronger relationships with my friends and my family, and I am most grateful for
that. Because of my most important passionate pursuit, my life has been changing day by
day and I could not be more thankful for it. As I become more and more mature, I start to
notice how important the little things have become in my life. Marie Curie was a very
caring lady herself, which is one of few things that we personally have in common.
The comparison between Marie Currie and myself can be debated over and over
as to how closely we come in common. With the work that she went through, I
personally don’t think our work ethic can compare, but I think our passionate pursuit can.
Marie Curie spent all of her passion focused on what actually brought in money and what
made a living for her family. However my passionate pursuit is based simply on a hobby
that I choose to do every day. Marie has also spent much more time passionately pursuing
her science career in relation to the time I have spent pursuing my baseball career.
Beginning around the age of 18, she spent every year leading up to the day that she died,
studying different fields of science (page 21, 169). Leading up to the day of her death,
she spent almost every waking minutes studying different fields of science. The original
sentence was not attractive and didn’t have much strength. I switched around the
sentence and changed a few words to help that. Her commitment for her pursuit sent her
almost straight to her deathbed, however it changed the life for generations ahead.
Unlike myself, her commitment has helped change the lives of so many other people and
my commitment has helped changed the life of one person, and that is myself.
Even in the midst of complete opposites, I still believe there are many subtle [15.
Adjective] similarities between Marie and I. The passion in which we both present was
displayed at an early age and continued on throughout both of our lives. Because of
death, Marie’s passion fell short and just like her, I will continue my passion until I
physically cannot. Our focus was improved and became more and more impressive
throughout our years of pursuing and we can both give credit from our positive
consequences to many other people. I can give unbelievable amounts [16. pronoun] of
credit to my parents who have provided transportation and money for years and years and
Marie can give credit to her husband Pierre for helping her in the lab over the years. “For
his wife’s work, Pierre provided Marie with tools and a technique he had developed with
his brother years earlier.” (Page 44) The commitment shown by our family is equally
impressive as the commitment shown by us through our years of pursuit.
Commitment itself can give you a complete example as to why most passionate
pursuits are very similar to each other. Giving the example, we can make the educated
assumption that passionate pursuits do have a strong [17. Adjective] nature of their own
and negativity is a huge part of it. Not very often do you come across someone who puts
in work and dedication and takes a smooth road all the way to success. Most of the time
they will cross bumps in the road that may begin to affect the outcome. However in order
to prove your passion, you must find ways to get across those bumps. Luckily, most of
these bumps can show relation to positive consequences. Marie Currie went through tons
of these bumps herself. “It was exhausting work to move the containers about, transfer
the liquids, and to stir for hours at a time…” “After 4 years of steady labor, they
managed to extract one tenth of a gram of radium chloride.” (Page 56-57) By showing
hard work in tough negative times, you will realize the positives that will come out in the
end.
As a person who has gone through and set many high goals and pursuits, if people
were to focus on the little things more during their pursuit they would come to realize
how many more positives you come across compared to negatives. Passionate pursuits
are completely [18.adverb] directed to bring out positives for one however it is an
opinion on what those positives are. If we can change our views and be grateful
[19.pronoun] and focused on the positives, we will realize how often the positives will
come out. By fully committing ourselves to something we are passionate about, we can
change our lives, our families lives and even someone you don’t knows life. Pursuits can
change you into an incredible [20. Adjective] person you never thought you could
become.