Hi, M-----. Welcome back to e-tutor. I’m S----, your tutor today. I see that you’re
working on a paper for your W20 class. Great. I’ll do my best to answer your concerns
and provide feedback below.
Thanks for taking the time to provide such thorough information in your submission
form. This is really helpful to us. We also find it extremely useful to read the direct
transcription of part of your assignment guidelines (in your professor’s words).
I think that the last question you asked in the form is the one that resonates most
directly with my sense of your paper. You write, “I am having trouble formulating the
thesis of this paper. I would like my paper to be eventually organized and with a
relatively strong thesis. And once I come up with it, I was thinking it would best fit at
the end. What do you think?”
I agree with you, M-----. I found myself wondering what your *main* argument was
throughout the paper. From the introduction, it seems that you want to claim that
“Muslim Americans’ experience of assimilation is unique” because “America
historically is so different from Islam” as well as being “different on a symbolic level.”
Does that get close to expressing your main claim? If we go with that as a working
thesis, then the rest of your paper takes up a few examples of how different groups of
people and scholars express that difference or distance: as surmountable, as
irreconcilable, etc.
The goal, I think is to articulate your claim explicitly and directly in the first or second
paragraph of your essay. Then, you should aim to craft new topic sentences that relate
somehow to that overall aim. Right now your essay is organized around particular
authors: Bagby, Dana, Takim, Jia, Kilde, … and you go through each of their
arguments one by one. This is a very common approach to synthesizing research, and a
great way to get started on a paper. The goal, however, I think, should be a structure
that flows based on YOUR own ideas and arguments. You may still deal with one
author at a time in this order, but your topic sentences should reflect what you take
away from these authors rather than how they structure their own books and articles.
For example, on pg. 3 your topic sentence reads, “He goes on to…” Can you change
the emphasis on this sentence from “He” to his ideas and how they relate to yours? You
can try this in a few other places throughout the essay.
So, I have a few main revision techniques to share with you. I think that if you use
these, you’ll get closer to being able to express your main claim and devise an overall
structure that supports your ideas.
1)
Brainstorm possible main claims. Read your paper out loud and use a highlighter to
mark the most important ideas that come FROM YOU. Don’t highlight anything that
comes from another author. For more guidelines about main claims see this handout:
http://twp.duke.edu/uploads/assets/developing%20a%20central%20claim.pdf
2)
Create a reverse outline of your essay. A reverse outline can help you figure out
what you’ve written, the order it appears in, and how each paragraph relates to the next.
It’s quick and extremely effective. Learn more here:
http://twp.duke.edu/uploads/assets/reverse_outline.pdf
3)
Finally, work hard on the structure of each paragraph. Make sure that you know how
it relates back to the main claim you’re making. Learn more about how to create strong
paragraphs and transitions here:
http://twp.duke.edu/uploads/assets/meal_plan.pdf
and
http://writingcenter.unc.edu/resources/handouts-demos/writing-the-paper/transitions
Ok, Michael. I hope this information is helpful. Thanks for using the writing studio
today and happy revising!
Best,
S-----
Hi, J-----. Welcome back to the E-Tutor. This is Tutor X again, and I’m so pleased to be
reading another one of your drafts. I see you have concerns about the introduction,
writing style, and any general problems with the writing, as well as sentence structure.
Here are some comments to help as you continue to work on your draft. Please note that,
as with any Writing Studio session, my comments reflect the perspective of only one
person and are not intended to be prescriptive – any choices you make about revision are
of course up to you.
J-----, I enjoyed reading your draft, which I found genuinely interesting and intellectually
engaging.
Introduction
In general, I found your first paragraph easy to read and to follow. There were a few
places where I had some questions, so I’ll point them out. I had a question about the first
sentence: “Historically, newborn babies diagnosed with Down’s syndrome, Spina bifida
or other serious illnesses were left untreated and in most cases, these babies died within a
few days.”
I wondered when this was: when you say “historically,” what time period do you mean?
Surely this isn’t the case now?
I also had a question about the next sentence: “This common practice raises the ethical
issue of what factors should go into consideration when the parents or the physicians
make these decisions.”
My question here was about the verb tense near the beginning: “raises.” Is this a common
practice today? If that’s the case, then the present tense (raises) is appropriate. If it was a
common practice in the past, then the simple past tense (raised) is appropriate.
When I think about these two sentences together, I’m a little confused about how they fit
together. Were impaired newborns left untreated in the past? And then consequently they
died? If that’s the case, then what is it about the current situation that raises ethical
issues?
Style
One thing I noticed that might be helpful for you is the issue of run-on sentences (which
are also sometimes called fused sentences). In this situation, two or more complete
sentences appear together as one sentence, with being separated properly.
Here’s an example from your first paragraph:
“Who ultimately makes the decision does not matter, since a decision has to be made,
what is more important is what guidelines should be followed when such decisions are
made.”
In this run-on sentence, I’m not sure where the sentence break should be. It could be
BEFORE “since a decision has to be made,” like this:
“Who ultimately makes the decision does not matter. Since a decision has to be made,
what is more important is what guidelines should be followed when such decisions are
made.”
Alternatively, the sentence break could go AFTER “since a decision has to be made,” like
this:
“Who ultimately makes the decision does not matter, since a decision has to be made.
What is more important is what guidelines should be followed when such decisions are
made.”
Which one do you think better captures your meaning?
Here’s another run-on sentence I noticed, from the bottom of p. 3-top of p. 4:
“In these situations, Arras believes the best-interest standard has been pushed beyond its
limits and the child is not gaining anything besides simply “being there”, he does not
have the ability to think, to communicate, and more importantly, to give and receive love,
all of these are very important human interests.”
This sentence is longer, but it’s the same kind of situation as the previous one: it
improperly combines 2 complete sentences. Can you identify the two complete
sentences? How could you join them properly?
Here’s a link to a handout about run-on sentences and a related issue, sentence fragments.
It provides fuller explanations and several examples, and it offers strategies for
identifying this kind of problems in your writing.
http://writingcenter.unc.edu/resources/handouts-demos/citation/fragments-and-run-ons
Paper Overall – Places Where I Wanted to Know More
J-----, I know this wasn’t one of your main concerns, but it seemed important, so I wanted
to mention it. When I read your draft, I wanted to know a little more about the
seriousness of these impairments. What limitations are associated with them? How are
the newborns affected? Why would their quality of life be so low? Adding a couple
sentences with this information would provide a little more context for the reader and let
the reader know how extreme the situation is.
Another place where I wanted to know more was on p. 2, where you say, “However, we
do not seem to have a problem with granting competent adults the right to refuse
treatments that would continue a life that is considered burdensome, which in turn
permits the possibility that death may be better than a life of suffering.” I wanted to know
more about the situation in which we grant competent adults the right to refuse treatments
– not a lot of information, just an example.
I also wanted to know more on p. 3, where you talk about the different family
environments having a big impact on the child’s quality of life. In the last sentence of that
paragraph (“Therefore, from a practical standpoint, the family environment has a huge
influence on the child’s quality of life, but instead of coming to a conclusion of letting
these external factors affect the decision for the child, better institutions should be
established to care for these impaired children.”), the idea that better institutions are the
answer is kind of tucked away at the very end. As a reader, I found this idea very
interesting, and I wanted to know more! I suggest developing the idea more and
explaining why better institutions is the solution to this problem.
J-----, I’m at the end of the session, so I need to wrap up. Thanks again for submitting
your draft, and I hope these comments are helpful. If you have a moment to fill out the
anonymous evaluation of the session, I would so appreciate your feedback! Thanks -- X