Writing Fellow Journal #2

David Colon

Writing Fellows

Professor Miller

9/14/18

One of the particular strengths about this author is that they were able to articulate and discuss the claims of the articles they were using to support their thesis. Throughout this essay, the author was able to use multiple quotes from three different sources in a manner that made each idea flow into one another. Each paragraph seemed to discuss a particular source’s point of view, which the author then used to support his or her thesis.

What I found to be the biggest weaknesses of this essay was that the author used broad, general, and personal claims that almost refuted their thesis. Although the author stated and supported their thesis, I found that to be more of an objective strength. When reading the thesis and supporting arguments, I felt as if the personal claims the author made seemed out of place. For example, the author’s thesis stated “American ethics and values fuel the view of death of other organisms differently from that of humans based on the relationship between people and that of organisms. In addition, based on perceived American values and ethics, Americans can be considered ignorant, speaking before they educate themselves” (1). The first half of this thesis is a well thought argument. However, when the author introduces the idea of American ignorance, that’s where I feel this essay weakens due to the fact that it’s a broad, general claim. As the author continues their argument, they come back to the second half of this thesis statement and prioritize this ignorance over how the viewpoints on death are shaped.

The tutoring techniques that the author would benefit from would probably for us to sit down and create an outline of the paper. What would be a great start would be to refine and support the thesis. Through this process, we could get rid of the broad and personal statements throughout. One of the downfalls of this paper is that the author strays away from supporting their thesis at times. The author knows how to connect these three sources together. I believe that if we were to sit down and just outline the essay, we could fine tune it to the point where we could let the author truly shine and show just how well they can articulate the articles’ points of view.