SMARTHINKING's E-structor Response Form

(Your marked-up essay is below this form.)

*Strengths of the essay: Hi, Joe! I'm Jen and I'll be working with you today. I think that your specific details are great. The examples you provided about problems students have if they aren't punctual really help to explain why being on time is important. I also liked your concluding statement. It really helped to close your paragraph.

Content Development : The beginning of this paper tells us about punctuality in business meetings, social engagements and military activities. That covers a lot of ground! However, you don't develop any of these options. Instead, you give a specific example about a student beginning late for an exam. That's a good example, too. I wondered if you could add specific details about the other areas you mentioned, too. That is, give us specific details about why you should be on time for business engagements and so forth.

Or you could focus just on one aspect (importance of punctuality as it relates to military activities, for example) and really explain how you feel about being punctual there. For example, how do you feel if someone is late for a date? Are there any good excuses? What should they do? Will you forgive them? Why or why not?

There are a lot of options for this paragraph, Joe! Whatever you decided to do, please make sure you support it with specific details. Keep in mind: a paragraph usually uses details and examples to develop one central idea. If your central idea is the importance of punctuality to many events, you'll need specific examples to demonstrate how being on time to many events is important. If you'd rather focus on one kind of event, then you will provide many details to explain why it's important to be on time to that kind of event.

Main Idea/Thesis : Joe, your submission form said that your topic sentence was important, so I wanted to deal with it specifically. Let's talk a look at it:

In my opinion punctuality in any bodies life is most important in North America and Europe people believe in punctuality for professional activities and social engagement.

This sentence really can be divided into two sentences:

In my opinion punctuality in any bodies life is most important.

In North America and Europe people believe in punctuality for professional activities and social engagement.

When you wrote both sentences together, you created a run-on. You also made it seem as if being punctual for professional and social engagements was part of your topic sentence. That meant your whole paper would be about just those two areas. Is that what you wanted to do? If not, you could just use the first part of your sentence as your topic sentence. What do you think?

*Joe dehal has requested that you respond to the Grammar & Mechanics: Please watch for subject/verb agreement, Joe. If you use “you” as the subject of a sentence, you don't need to use the –s on the end of the present tense verb. Can you find the places where you've made that mistake? I'll include a link below that will take you to the “agreement” section of our student handbook. You'll find more information there.

*Joe dehal has requested that you respond to the Sentence Structure : Joe, some of the sentences you've written are actually run-ons. Run-ons are sentences in which two independent clauses (complete sentences with their own subject and verb) are joined together without the proper connections. Let me show you some ways to fix run-ons.

• You could separate them into two sentences.
  • My daughter hates spinach. I make her eat it every night.
• Some can be joined either with a coordinating conjunction and comma or with just a semicolon. (Coordinating conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so). A corrected sentence with a coordinating conjunction could be
  • My daughter hates spinach, but I still make her eat it.
  • Or: My daughter hates spinach; I make her eat it every night.

**** Another helpful way to join 2 independent clauses is to use a semicolon and a transitional word, followed by a comma. (Transitional words or phrases include: however, for example, nevertheless, furthermore, on the other hand……). I could say,

My daughter hates spinach; however, I make her eat it at every meal.

Now, let's look at one of your run-ons:

The person who is not punctual in his life is always a looser, think of a student reaches late for its examination , first he will have less time to attempt, also if there is strict examiner and he does not allow him to sit in the exam he will loose his whole semester due to his habit of being late.

The changing colors show where each new sentence is. Can you use the information above to join these sentences correctly?

Summary of Next Steps: Joe, as you revise please consider:

• Correcting your topic sentence
• Developing your content. You'll want to spend most of your revising time here.
• Watching for run-ons and subject-verb agreement errors (see links to our library below)

Joe, thanks for submitting your work. We look forward to reviewing your future writing projects! Jen

Suggested Resources from our library:

Lesson 3: Avoiding Run-ons and Comma Splices : http://www.smarthinking.com/static/Document_Library/docs/ESOLman/3_03.cfm

Chapter 5: Lesson 3: Subject-Predicate Agreement: http://www.smarthinking.com/static/Document_Library/docs/writeman/5_03.cfm

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Time Management: Punctuality

“Time is a precious gem that can not be wasted at any cost.” [This is a great opening quote, Joe!] In my opinion punctuality in any bodies life is most important in North America and Europe people believe in punctuality for professional activities and social engagement. [When you write “any bodies,” are you referring to more than one person's life? There is not a plural form of “Anybody'; rather, it's like saying “in any person's life.” Check usage for “Anybody” in order to be sure you understand how to use the word in a setence. I think you mean to use the possessive form here.] Furthermore, for military or diplomatic personnel, arriving late to any event is completely unacceptable. The person who is not punctual in his life is z always a looser, think of a student reaches late for its examination, first he will have less time to attempt, also if there is strict examiner and he does not allow him to sit in the exam he will loose his whole semester due to his habit of being late . [I don't think you want the words “loose” and “looser” here. “Loose” refers to something that isn't tight or secure. Perhaps “lose” and “loser” would be better? Check a dictionary to be sure.[ You may be late for some reason at one time but never make it a habit. In my native country in India there is a relaxed attitude towards time which I never like. In my view for success in life you should always be punctual and knows the value of time.