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Three Different Approaches:A Look at How Different Tutors Offer Unique Perspectives on One Piece of WritingApproach OneHi, K, Welcome to e-tutor. I’m Tina, your tutor today.? 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 see that you’re working on a paper for your Writing 101 class. Great. I’ll do my best to answer your concerns and provide feedback below. Please keep in mind that my response below represents the views of only one reader; others may express different reactions to your writing.You listed your primary concerns as “organization,” “sentence structure,” and “conclusion.” You also asked a question about your second paragraph and two questions about your conclusion. I will address these concerns in the following order: 1) second paragraph; 2) conclusion 3) organization and sentence structure.First, your question about the second paragraph was: “When describing the technique of sponging in the second paragraph should I be using present tense or past tense?” When reading this paragraph, I did not find the past tense to be confusing. Therefore, I think the paragraph is fine in the tense that you have it. You may want to consider one suggestion. To orient your reader (and indicate that these actions happened in the past), you could add a date to the first sentence in the paragraph. For example, you could say, “In 2005, researchers studied bottlenose dolphins…” I think this would make it clear that the paragraph should be in the past-tense.Regarding your conclusion you asked two questions: “How can I improve my conclusion paragraph?” and; “Does it need to go deeper than just summarizations?” As a reader, I found your conclusion to be a summary (first 2 sentences) that hints at a deeper exploration of the issues involved in the question of animal culture (last 2 sentences). So, in general, the conclusion as-is already partially addresses your second concern. I do, however, have some questions that might help you develop your ideas in the second part of the paragraph and thereby, perhaps, “improve” your conclusion. In what ways would humans have to redefine their description of culture to broaden the restraints of being only an outlet of human perception? Can you be more specific here? In general, why do humans think that “culture” only pertains to humans? What, specifically, can cetaceans teach us about animal culture and human culture? You address some of these questions subtly in your paper, but the conclusion would be a great place to strongly state your claims. Perhaps you could add 2-3 sentences with more specificity about how this research will impact humans. Accordingly, in your last sentence, I would suggest omitting the word “may.” To help you think a little more about conclusions, here is a handout that is available on the Writing Studio website: , I’ll turn to organization and sentence structure. As a reader, I thought that the paper flowed well, especially in the first 2-3 paragraphs. Let’s look at the fourth paragraph. Here, the topic sentences is: “The distinguishing technique of sponging discovered in the small group of bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay not only proves that culture exists within non-human animals but also supports my definition that different cultures make groups unique and diverse.” I think that this topic sentence clearly states the overall argument of the paper. Some of the sentences within this paragraph, however, confused me because there are multiple ideas that you are trying to explicate. For example, the sentence that begins “Animals who create new behaviors are usually slightly secluded…” could start the beginning of a new paragraph. If you chose to go this route, I would consider placing this new paragraph right after your conversation on mitochondrial DNA, since in both places you discuss the differences between male and female dolphins. My general recommendation for this last part of the paper is to separate your ideas and make sure that they relate to the topic sentence. Here are two handouts that may help you revise this part: and . The first one is on paragraphs, and the second one is on reverse-outlining. I would suggest using the second one to reverse outline the paragraph (sentence by sentence instead of paragraph by paragraph).Ok, Keni. I hope this information is helpful. Thanks for using the writing studio today and good luck with the paper.Best, TinaApproach TwoHi, K! Welcome to the E-Tutor! I’m Margaret, and I’ll be your tutor this afternoon. I see you have questions about the verb tense in the second paragraph and about the conclusion, and also about organization and sentence structure. I’ll pay attention to these issues in my comments and hope to address them all! Please note that my comments reflect the perspective of only one reader.?Keni, I enjoyed reading your paper, which was so interesting! I especially liked your description of sponging in paragraph 2, which helped me visualize the dolphins’ behavior.?Verb Tense in Paragraph 2:?Because you’re describing the observation carried out by researchers in the field, you should use past tense. That’s the same verb tense they use when describing their observations, too.?Here’s a link to our handout on writing in the sciences, which is available on our website under Handouts and Resources, then Writing in Different Disciplines: The directly relevant tip is at the top of p. 2, but it has some other information you may find interesting.?Conclusion?You ask whether the conclusion needs to go deeper than just summarizing, but I think your conclusion already goes beyond summarizing the main idea or argument of your paper. It points to the bigger implications, suggesting the concept of culture may need to be broadened to accommodate non-humans, even non-primates. One thing that would have helped me as a reader is to also point back toward the main topic of the rest of the draft a little more, by mentioning the main point you want to get across to the reader.?I also was a little confused by one of the sentences: “Humans will have to redefine their description of culture to broaden the restraints of being only an outlet of human perception and cognizance.” The part that confused me was the second half, “to broaden the restraints of being only an outlet of human perception and cognizance.” Part of my confusion was that it’s not clear what is being restrained. Can you think of another way to express your idea??In case you’re interested, we also have a handout on writing conclusions, which has some useful strategies and tips. Here’s the link: found the organizational structure easy to follow. However, I did notice that the assignment prompt asks you to develop an argument for why the behavior should (or should not) be labeled as a cultural tradition, and I didn’t see a clear statement of that argument in the paper. You talk about Owen’s definition of culture and Perry and Manson’s definition of imitation, but I didn’t see your claim that this behavior is culture.?There was one place where I wanted to know more, on p. 3, in the top paragraph: “Animals who create new behaviors are usually slightly secluded from the remainder of the group so that they can still develop ideas outside of normalcy (Wang 2011).” This is a really interesting statement, but it appears in your paper as a claim, so as a reader, I wanted some evidence to support it. Could you include an example, even a brief one in the same sentence??Sentence Structure?I just noticed a couple of issues related to sentence structure. One is on p. 1, paragraph 2: “The sponge also protects their snouts from the extremely venomous stonefish that act as dangerous obstacles when probing for fish.” The way it’s written now, it’s not clear who/what is probing for fish.?Also the sentence at the end of p. 2-top of p. 3: “With a newfound innovativeness that is required in the development of local traditions, I argue that culture leads to diversity and originality, as shown in these sponging bottlenose dolphins.” The way this sentence is written now, because “I” appears directly after the clause at the beginning , YOU are the one with the newfound innovativeness!?Keni, there were a few places where I, as a reader, was confused, so I’ll point them out and ask questions or explain to help you clarify.?In the first paragraph, here’s one sentence: “However, I further argue that these learned behaviors set a group apart from others and make select organisms unique to animals of the same species.” I was confused by the part about learned behavior making “select organisms unique to animals of the same species.” One question is whether you need that part of the sentence, or if it would be enough to say they set a group apart from others of the same species. What do you think? Does that communicate what you want to say? If not, do you need to say both “animals” and “the same species”? Or could you just say, “unique within the same species”? If you want to keep it closer to what you have now, I recommend revising “select organisms,” because that wasn’t clear to me. What’s another way you could say your idea??Also, in the middle of p. 2, I was a little confused about the middle paragraph, about the behavior being learned or cultural rather than genetic. The first sentence says the mitochondrial DNA is only passed down through the females, but I thought DNA was passed down through both parents. Is there a way to check that information??Keni, I’ve come to the end of the session, so I need to wrap up. Thanks for submitting your draft, and best wishes on your revisions! I hope these comments are helpful for you. If you have a moment to fill out the anonymous evaluation of the session, I would really value your feedback. Thanks! -- Margaret?Approach ThreeHi, K. My name is Joshua, and I'll be your writing tutor today. I hope that these comments will be helpful to you and that your revisions go smoothly. I am impressed by the very clear examples and the good evidence that you use in your essay. I have read your submission form carefully and will try to respond to as many of your concerns as possible. It seems to me that the concerns you list that will most likely affect the overall quality of your essay are how clearly you communicate your ideas and how you can improve your conclusion. I will first address these and, if I have time, address your other concerns, or other things I think may be helpful to you in the time you have to revise this draft. As you read through my comments, please remember that I am only one reader.Why don’t we start with whether or not you clearly communicate your ideas. When I wonder if my ideas flow in a logical and clear way, I find it helpful to do a reverse outline. Working through this process will help you identify problems with your claims, the structure of your paper, and the organization of your paragraphs. We usually think of outlines as something we write before we write a paper—that is, if we write one at all. However, a reverse outline gets its name by being written after the paper it outlines. Whereas a regular outline is a tool to help organize your thoughts before you begin to compose, a reverse outline is a way of revealing how you organized your thoughts while you wrote.As you read through your essay, write the main thought or thoughts of each paragraph in order on aseparate sheet or, alternatively, in the left margin next to the paragraph. In essence, you are trying to turnyour essay into a list of bullet points, listing the point each paragraph is trying to deal with without gettinginto your argument or reasoning. Here is my reverse outline of your paper.Claim: culture is acquired behavior through social learning and observation. Learned behavior makes groups unique within the same species.Paragraph 1: Introduction that lays out the main claimsParagraph 2: Researchers discovered that female dolphins use the sponging technique, which evinces that they have culture.Paragraph 3: DNA testing excludes genetic transmission of the sponging practice.Paragraph 4: The fact that sponging exists among only a small number of dolphins proves uniqueness and diversity. This discovery means that humans are not the only ones who stive for diversity. Females are isolated, but males are not, and that explains why females learned sponging. This relates to human gender roles.Paragraph 5: ConclusionBy looking at the reverse outline, I noticed two things.You make two main claims in the paper. There is nothing wrong with this, but for a paper of this length, you may want to consider sticking to one claim, and develop it very well. If you decide to use both claims, I would find it helpful for you to clarify how your argument (about uniqueness) relates to Owen’s claim about the definition of culture. I have an idea of how they relate, but it would help me if you could spell it out.Paragraph four emerges as the most unclear paragraph. Do you see how many ideas are packed into it? It is usually best to limit paragraphs to one main idea, but that is not always the case. Paragraphs come in a lot of different forms, and no matter what you do in a paragraph, always make sure to give clear signals to your readers. The MEAL plan is a good way to plan the content of your paragraphs.M: Main IdeaE:EvidenceA: AnalysisL: Link it back to the larger claimThe Main Idea The main idea is the paragraph’s central thrust. In academic writing, that thrust is often argumentative—a paragraph makes an assertion that’s part of the writer’s larger claim.Evidence and Analysis Evidence and analysis are a paragraph’s main course; they are what allow you to prove that your paragraph’s main idea is plausible.Link it back to the larger claimA paragraph’s link back to the larger claim is often implicit—it can be awkward to wrap up a paragraph with a really heavy-handed link (“This idea is important to my claim because of X, Y, and Z”). Nevertheless your reader should get a good sense of how your paragraph fits into the larger scheme of your paper’s argument.Here is a link to the full MEAL plan resource: am coming to the end of the time allotted for this tutoring session, but before I end, let me address your question about past or present tense in the second paragraph. You say, in the second sentence, that the dolphins “were observed” which is correct if you are talking about a study that took place in the past. In the next sentence, you switch to the present tense, “they carry sponges.” It would be helpful to include some road sign to let the reader know that you are now talking about what the scientists observed. Also, you use a lot of passive voice, and using active voice might help you clear up some of the verb tense problems. Here is a great handout that will help you change from active to passive voice: hope that these comments are helpful, and I wish you all the best on this paper and the papers that you write in the future.Best,Joshua ................
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