or with none. again, you needed to determine where the neutral space was before moving forward.

okay, that means you had to become familiar with the major figures, points of view, and debates before knowing where to situate yourself. i gather you took a neutral position. doing so meant you needed to understand the contours of the debate to identify that neutral piece of real estate your ended up inhabiting.

okay, so you've learned that your writing prospers when you make a plan and follow it.

audience oriented?

Lots of talk about structure, none about audience.

and why is this problematic? the points of focus seem arbitrary and could probably be presented in any order without changing much about the piece overall.

yes. even in boarding school. amazing how pervasive this "standard" has become.

structures are contingent on genre conventions. what structures are you talking about?

excellent uses of an example -- showing as opposed to merely telling

take-aways:

--organizing analogy has potential but doesn't quite land (see notes above) --audience consideration (how your concerns about audience factor into recipe creation

how so?

maybe consider diverse recipes, as audiences differ in the tastes.

why? for what purpose?

choice: present progressive or present tense?

Just say first, second, third. These words are ALREADY adjectives; adding -ly is redundant.

how do you determine how much to incorporate? how to determine the kind of humor to use?

word choice. maybe you mean successful, widely read, or celebrated? or maybe ambitious or expansive?

and when you don't it's ... bologna?

I'm not sure the analogy totally holds up for reasons mentioned previously. Maybe you could say that you're uninterested in using the good bread for banal sandwiches? So in the case the papers you're examining, it's Wonder bread all the way?

how? by what means?

why? please elaborate. show don't tell.

what do you mean?

okay, but this structure, you're saying, doesn't work particularly well. so then how is it like bread? or is the point that it isn't but should be?

some key element or ingredient holding them together?

take-aways:

--audience awareness: push yourself to recognize the audience's position. what do they know? what do they assume?

--organization: paragraphs often contain multiple ideas, which leads to underdevelopment

--phrasing: occasionally jumbled (syntax, verb choice)

how? what was your understanding of the context? the conversation you were entering into? How did you position yourself with that conversation?

phrasing. let's edit this together:

My intention with this writing was to not necessarily persuade the reader’s I should be accepted into the program, but rather show them I am passionate about this and genuinely want to learn more about pursuing a marketing career.

Good. Showing as well as telling.

not really a thing. the genre is: personal statement

no comma needed

literature is fiction, poetry, plays, etc.

how are you defining video essay, here? did you improvise? or read prepared remarks?

you leave this matter unresolved. consider excluding info you're unprepared to expand upon

use:

; however,

when following a complete sentence

here's another jarring shift

this is news; readers may find this surprising/jarring

cut

cut

new paragraph?

can you elaborate?

also, consider avoiding the passive construction here.

consider revising this passive construction

not sure i follow your meaning

awkward phrasing:

From essays to press releases and memorandum’s, I was writing for a different purpose than an academic paper

no biggie, but place a space before ellipses start

Transpose:

I have never considered myself a good writer, let alone a great one.

When using this formulation, start with the more modest adjective.

Also, consider moving this sentence elsewhere; it doesn't quite connect with the remainder of the paragraph.

a bit confusing. maybe keep the focus on you in order to clarify where we are in the timeline.

Cut

what kind of stories? how do they fit in to the overall conversation? what are the contours of that conversation? who are the major voices? what are the major arguments? with whom did you align yourself? whose work did you build on?

should i understand this as the start of part 2?

phrasing -- consistent verb tense

This cover letter was an optional submission, however it is strongly encouraged, so I would argue this was more of a requirement than a choice.

cut

new paragraph

new paragraph

... this paper succeeds thanks to thorough research ...

what's the difference between research and purposeful investigation?

new paragraph?

new paragraph

also, phrasing. ease up on your use of the verb "to be"

awkward phrasing. slow down. maybe turn this into more than one sentence. avoid passive constructions.

"You need to drop my class." To say I was surprised by these words coming from my college writing professor would be an understatement.

whose stories? how did you find them?

new paragraph?

new paragraph?

by whom?

too much "to be"

the lower-level course?

wow, really? what criteria were your instructors using?

lol, why not ASK? why not look into the genres (autobiographical reflection and contextual analysis)?

wow. this approach is profoundly disrespectful of educators attempting to work with you in good faith.

Is this supposed to be your Part 2 response?

why did you lack the energy?

all genres have conventions

cut

vague

verging on word salad here

awkward phrasing

what language? why not refer directly to your text to SHOW what you did rather than merely tell?

word choice?

did you talk to your prof about how to balance assignment requirements with your desire to address "average" americans?

lol, how does engaging with the ideas and research of others limit the scope of your writing?

how? according to whom? by what measure?

i hope you defined this term for your audience of "average" Americans

and a lack ...

more lived by whom?

cut

how does this method, which is based solely on your own memory and knowledge of the issues being discussed, providing readers with a more direct take?

phrasing/word economy:

I sought to engage politically apathetic Americans by directly discussing the root causes of America's problems that traditional critiques typically avoid.

what do you mean by "traditional critiques"? can you provide an example? how do such works "deviate" from the root causes (as you see them)?

phrasing.

what failures, specifically, are you talking about?

what do you mean by this?

really? to hold opinions?

op-eds are already pretty mini, are they not?

what's an example of this kind of writing? what genres call for it? when have you produced this kind of writing for an audience?

limiting? i thought you said the prompts were vague. doesn't this just come down to you resenting assignments that ask you to support points of view?

what formula? you mean to school essay formula?

why? you're so fortunate. think of the opportunities this experience affords you.

how did imposter syndrome affect your performance in Writing 150?

tighten. avoid over-reliance on "to be" verbs.

i don't understand the resistance. you're here, you got in. why not trust that the people trying to educate you at USC know what they're doing?

to be clear, it matters a great deal. assignments clearly thrown together at the last minute or that show no engagement with class concepts will earn you lapses in professionalism -- at least in my class.

prevalent? your instructor lamented the lack of opinion in your writing? really?

why would it?

yeah, grading contracts don't accommodate the purely transactional point of view your espousing here.

add space before elipses

how do you know? can you elaborate on the conditions? also, presumably this document was non-fiction. what formula did you use to compose it?

oversimplification. surely last-minute, formulaic essays didn't "get you into" USC, otherwise it would be MUCH easier to gain admittance to this institution.

remove

maintain grammatical consistency: essays (pl.) / it (sing.)

Maybe give your reader a bit more context. Autobiographical Reflection gives you enormous leeway; however, readers unfamiliar with the parameters of WP1 would already be lost.

okay, but what are the contours of the discourse surrounding visual design in TESB? what's the conventional wisdom? what are the prevailing points of view? the debates? the figures animating these debates? where, specifically, do you fit in?

how about as an editor?

wow. so much "to be"; so many passive constructions

another massive paragraph. ACK!

nice save.

can be reflected?

focused on those themes to what end? what do you mean can you elaborate? maybe show and discuss some of what you composed?

These essays, the first example of which being my final research paper in Intro to Cinema in which I analyzed the development of the Thriller genre with the comparison of two films, one classical and one modern -- **where's the rest of the sentence? **

revision (still needing a verb/object): These essays, such as my final research paper for "Intro to Cinema" in which I analyze the development of the Thriller genre by comparing two films, one from the 1960s and another from the 90s, show ...

did you read this piece before you submitted it?

... so much of the issues in other courses regarding a lack of research were not as much of an issue

why? screenwriting is COMPLETELY different.

new paragraph

not really the job of the course, though. these themes comprise discursive contexts within which to write. they're not classes on subjects other than writing.

new paragraph

new paragraph

clearly -- use the adjectival form

this is a ridiculously long paragraph. looks like paragraph composition wasn't part of your training in other writing classes.

word economy:

My time at USC will always be defined by the writing I did there.

the

the grading criteria you just articulated sounds fairly arbitrary to me

couldn't a student of any major say something similar. especially students with majors within the professional schools?

this formulation doesn't work grammatically. you're opening phrase sets up a specific noun phrase:

Unlike a traditional STEM or Liberal Arts education, film studies provides ...

a certain kind of certain. not really the same thing as non-fiction academic or public writing

awkward. maybe just say "part of the greater whole."

why past tense?

who are the voices within this conversation? what are the contours of the discourse? where do you fit in?

can you show rather than merely tell?

phrasing. let's look at this together:

In which gymnastics and women are impacted, and those concerned can relate and use my paper as insight and be able to relate.

how do you know? can you elaborate?

word choice. try: affected

use quotation marks

our?

keep this experience in mind. what you've done here is transform a piece written in one genre (a journal entry) into another (a personal statement).

i don't follow you. you applied for feedback from a tutor?

you're still discussing your final paper for Writing 100, right?

why not? you're here to learn, after all.

needed improvement

I was passionate and went home that day to begin my research and rough draft.

revision: I left class that day excited to begin conducting research on my topic and writing a rough draft.

phrasing. i'm a bit lost.

phrasing. try:

... robbed me (and everyone else) of vital life experiences.

This final paragraph could have provided a unique frame for the whole piece.

Writing was a means to escape when escape was impossible. Now that you've escaped, the purpose of writing seems unfamiliar, questionable. If writing isn't a means of escape, what is it?

ideally, this autobiographical reflection would examine a handful of the pieces briefly mentioned here. what do they contain? what do they reveal?

ironic. like your mini-thesis submission, this piece bears little resemblance to what the assignment called for, lol.

on whom?

word economy. keep it simple!

... one of the best classes I've taken at USC.

A good paragraph to focus on re: word economy

last

phrasing. try:

I dream of becoming a film critic, mainly because I'm a judgemental hater at heart. But that's not to say I'm incapable to praising art that I adore, that speaks to me, that I connect with.

cut

cut

cut

Ha, there's a great Ursula Le Guin piece on this subject called "The Question I Get Asked Most Often"

a bit clunky. maybe clean this up?

cut

do you need to say both?

cut

implied (cut)

you needn't include this information

why not just say "invites"?

is this a thing, policing scholars? do you mean sociologists?

great

great!

do you mean and argumentative essay?

a solid frame. but this piece would hit harder had it addressed some of the aforementioned issues.

why do you feel academic writing demands you abandon your voice? can you provide an example? show evidence of this being demanded of you? have can you show your reader that this is a real thing and not just vibes?

you harp on this a lot. why not give your audience a sense of what you would have done differently had it been up to you?

genres have conventions.

can you say more? perhaps show as well as tell?

all genres have conventions. what makes the conventions of, say, the "college essay" more difficult to navigate than those of some other form of writing?

which is?

why introduce these works devoid of context? put yourself in your reader's shoes: would you understand what was going on in this piece?

a

why draconian? what, specifically, makes them draconian demands?

take-aways:

--show rather than tell; elaborate; clarify --organization (abrupt shifts between and within paragraphs) --phrasing

how did you determine that it was your "job" to position yourself in this way?

phrasing -- what makes this a wordy sentence?

My job in this piece is to convince this person or these persons that I hold these kinds of values, stay true to certain beliefs, and can sufficiently express my passion for the kinds of things they want to bring into their school.

why position yourself in this way? what was it about the application that made this approach seem appropriate?

okay, but you were writing a personal statement, a genre with its own set of conventions that recruiters expect you to know/follow.

you were graded on structure and MLA format? you should have talked about that in the previous section, as those are unusual bases for assessment.

so, is the message here that you've learned to relax about writing?

why? can you talk about one of the assignments? maybe describe what you did? show an example?

how did this happen?

what kind of assignment? what did you write? how did you write it?

to what does "this" refer? abrupt transition from previous sentence.

awkward. why clump these together?

what do you mean by "school" here? USC? the BA major? Marshall generally?

phrasing. try:

Philosophy terrified me, but luckily my professor made the class enjoyable by presenting the ideas of ancient philosophers using funny, more understandable language.

but in what way was it easy? what did you write? what was easy about it? can you elaborate?

why? can you elaborate?

what did you make sure of? how did you make sure of it?

phrasing. try:

... done at Moorpark Community College and at USC.

take-aways:

--organization: the choice to intro each piece, and then discuss each piece using a different category, gets a bit repetitive and tedious.

--tendency to tell rather than show

--phrasing (lessons on word economy will be of interest to you)

lots of telling, very little showing. what was the conversation you were entering into (the one began by Marshall, by the application committee)? how did you position yourself, specifically, in that conversation?

could the real difference here be desire? I mean, you really wanted this scholarship. didn't that desire have an impact on your tolerance for rules, limitations, and so on?

It was an open-ended assignment - I was prompted to choose a topic I was interested in.

Given the nature of the course, research played an important role in writing; however, it acted as supporting evidence rather than the focus of the paper.

this is the view you agree with, right? who's espousing this view?