H2Andy
Contributor
Rick Inman:
by George, i think he's got it!
Dive-related essay: please take a took?
- Thread starter mxracer19
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by George, i think he's got it!
hahaha. very true. thanks for the ideas guys. the recomended length is 3-4 pages doublespaced...right now its at 3, so i have room for maybe one more topic(with a source) and my conclusion. i dont want to go over because my my prof has to read quite a few essays and she said shed rather it be short than long, but i could weed out some of the wordiness to expand on certain ideas. does anyone have an idea for the last topic paragraph? its really gotta focus on the movie and how the movie effects the sport, moreso than anything else. thanks alot guys!
-Matt
-Matt
dkktsunami
Contributor
Gander, Great advice but I can't help noticing misuse of "your" for "you're" or "you are". Of course after mentioning this I will never be able to post without proof reading three times. You did provide good advice, and I'm just kidding a little bit.
SeanQ
Contributor
I have a few suggestions.
Some of these sentences are quite long; condensing them makes it easier to read.
For example:
"Open Water is based on the true story of two scuba divers on a dive trip who died after being left behind when the boat crew miscounted the number of divers aboard."
It might be a result of the forum formatting but I would start a new paragraph after "This is where problems arise." The first part of your paragraph talks about movie producers misrepresenting the story while the second section is about diving safety. You want to split up these different topics into different paragraphs.
There are a few things you might want to change in this paragraph to improve readability. The "most likely because she would rather not be attacked" phrase seems have been dropped into the sentence. If you read it out loud a pause after "herself" is natural. You could put and comma before and after it to indicate that it is a minor, secondary thought attached to the first. Be careful of comma splicing two independent thoughts together, however. The quote directly following that sentence is called a dropped quotation. It has the appearance you directly quoting someone but you do not indicate who nor is there an build up to the quote. You could change this to "A commonly held belief is that if you swim in shark-infested waters you will be eaten alive."
If you're writing an academic paper I suggest you avoid parenthesis unless you're doing the citations. Also consider removing the comma in "mask, despite". Read the sentence out loud. What flows better?
Good use of a semi-colon! Both sides of the semicolon have complete sentences; however, you may want to consider changing the second portion to emphasis the connection between the two. Perhaps change it to "however, in the dive industry, dive-masters, as well as boat captains, have highly valued opinions." In this case you would be compairing monetary value to a valued opinion. Also note the useage of a comma after captain. If you put a comma before it to indicate it is secondary you should put a comma after it so the reader can recognize where it ends.
There is a lot of other good advice in this thread. Good luck!
mxracer19:
Some of these sentences are quite long; condensing them makes it easier to read.
For example:
"Open Water is based on the true story of two scuba divers on a dive trip who died after being left behind when the boat crew miscounted the number of divers aboard."
It might be a result of the forum formatting but I would start a new paragraph after "This is where problems arise." The first part of your paragraph talks about movie producers misrepresenting the story while the second section is about diving safety. You want to split up these different topics into different paragraphs.
There are a few things you might want to change in this paragraph to improve readability. The "most likely because she would rather not be attacked" phrase seems have been dropped into the sentence. If you read it out loud a pause after "herself" is natural. You could put and comma before and after it to indicate that it is a minor, secondary thought attached to the first. Be careful of comma splicing two independent thoughts together, however. The quote directly following that sentence is called a dropped quotation. It has the appearance you directly quoting someone but you do not indicate who nor is there an build up to the quote. You could change this to "A commonly held belief is that if you swim in shark-infested waters you will be eaten alive."
If you're writing an academic paper I suggest you avoid parenthesis unless you're doing the citations. Also consider removing the comma in "mask, despite". Read the sentence out loud. What flows better?
Good use of a semi-colon! Both sides of the semicolon have complete sentences; however, you may want to consider changing the second portion to emphasis the connection between the two. Perhaps change it to "however, in the dive industry, dive-masters, as well as boat captains, have highly valued opinions." In this case you would be compairing monetary value to a valued opinion. Also note the useage of a comma after captain. If you put a comma before it to indicate it is secondary you should put a comma after it so the reader can recognize where it ends.
There is a lot of other good advice in this thread. Good luck!
Darnold9999
Contributor
Spent 4 years as a University professor - read and graded way too many papers. All advice so far is very good. Pay close attention to what gander had to say. That is the difference between an A and B paper.
ItsBruce
Contributor
Two comments:
1. Given all the advice everyone else has given and given your short fuse, I won't comment on your essay. However, next time, concentrate on using short declarative sentences.
2. Next time, give us some more time to work it over. I only learned two things of real use in college. One was how to write well. I'd be glad to "pick apart" your essays, but I need a bit of time.
1. Given all the advice everyone else has given and given your short fuse, I won't comment on your essay. However, next time, concentrate on using short declarative sentences.
2. Next time, give us some more time to work it over. I only learned two things of real use in college. One was how to write well. I'd be glad to "pick apart" your essays, but I need a bit of time.
I'm not quite sure of what you mean by "short fuse", as I have greatly appreciated all of the comments everyone has made, regardless of whether I could use them. I feel that I expressed 'thanks' at every given chance. My intent was not to submit my essay for rebuilding. If I had been looking for a complete overhaul, I would have submitted it to an english-organized website, or visited one of the many writing labs my school offers. The above comments that people provided were of definite use; they gave me insight as to how divers view such a topic. If by "short fuse", you mean temper, then I view your post with a flair of arrogance. However, if you are implying that I am short on time, then yes you are correct, this was a last-minute idea, I was provided with more than enough help, and based on the large number of responses, I would not hesitate to post another dive-related essay to this forum in the future.
Thanks again to all who gave me feedback! It was greatly accepted.
-Matt
Thanks again to all who gave me feedback! It was greatly accepted.
-Matt
Matt, I'm certain ItsBruce meant the fact that you were short on time, and yet another post filled with overhaul comments would not help you with your time crunch. The other interpretation is out of character and would represent complete obliviousness to your polite and positive reactions to the posters. I'm confident you can rest assured, it was not an attack.
miketsp
Contributor
I just didn't see the relationship between rust spots on a knife and taking care of other equipment.
The guys are on holiday. When I go on holiday and am diving regularly, my knife is the one piece of gear that gets no maintenance whatsoever. When I leave home it's clean and shiny and then gets a coating of petroleum jelly.
By the time I get back it will have quite a few superficial rust spots and it will then get a good maintenance session, washing, wire wool, resharpening and a new protective coating.
OTOH during a trip my regs will get rinsed as often as possible and careful regular inspections.
This is called establishing priorities.
The guys are on holiday. When I go on holiday and am diving regularly, my knife is the one piece of gear that gets no maintenance whatsoever. When I leave home it's clean and shiny and then gets a coating of petroleum jelly.
By the time I get back it will have quite a few superficial rust spots and it will then get a good maintenance session, washing, wire wool, resharpening and a new protective coating.
OTOH during a trip my regs will get rinsed as often as possible and careful regular inspections.
This is called establishing priorities.
ItsBruce
Contributor
Matt, I meant short on time. (DiverBouy, thanks for pointing that out and coming to my defense.)
Also, Matt, I apparently misunderstood your original post. I thought you were looking for the kind of critique that your professor might do in grading your essay. I offered to do this so that you could preempt issues your professor might have. I would never write someone's school essay for them. That would be an honor violation almost anywhere. However, to my knowledge, it is not a honor violation to provide legitimate critique so that an author can edit an essay.
At the risk of being presumptious, and hoping I have not offended you with my late night post, I remain ready, willing and able to provide a critique should you desire one in the future. I only need some time in which to do so. (You may note that I posted my message at 11:12 p.m. PST. That was only a few minutes after I saw your post. I understood you had to submit your essay in the morning and thus I did not have the time to provide a critique.)
Respectfully
Bruce
Also, Matt, I apparently misunderstood your original post. I thought you were looking for the kind of critique that your professor might do in grading your essay. I offered to do this so that you could preempt issues your professor might have. I would never write someone's school essay for them. That would be an honor violation almost anywhere. However, to my knowledge, it is not a honor violation to provide legitimate critique so that an author can edit an essay.
At the risk of being presumptious, and hoping I have not offended you with my late night post, I remain ready, willing and able to provide a critique should you desire one in the future. I only need some time in which to do so. (You may note that I posted my message at 11:12 p.m. PST. That was only a few minutes after I saw your post. I understood you had to submit your essay in the morning and thus I did not have the time to provide a critique.)
Respectfully
Bruce
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