Sample Critiques

These are examples of the kind of in-depth critique students will receive on their final workshop essay. For the sake of privacy, essays are not reprinted, but these examples demonstrate the kind of analysis each essay will receive. Essays are scored on a scale of 1 (poor) to 6 (excellent).

essay #1

Basic question: Should a student be required to maintain a C average in order to qualify for a driver's license?

Your essay has a lot of good aspects, but the score in the critical reasoning area rules the overall score. I admire the structure and overall organization of your essay; be sure to hang on to that.

The problem with the reasoning and critical thinking is that you don't adequately set up the correlation between grades and driving. Your thesis says that it's only 'reasonable' to make a student prove his responsibility in the classroom before allowing him to drive. But you fail to prove the relationship between the two. Your only concrete example is of how you learned patience and perseverance by working for your Dad and how you think this translated into increased study skills. This does not come anywhere near to proving that getting good grades is an indication of responsibility. It just says that you learned perseverance in one task and applied it to another.

Your second body paragraph is dedicated to a long chit-chat about how you think a student would react to having to get good grades before getting a license. This is your opinion of what could happen. It doesn't mean that it would happen and it does not constitute proof of your idea. It's all theoretical. Can you give us an example of someone you know whose parents wouldn't let them drive unless they got good grades? That person's experience could constitute a concrete example of what you're trying to say here. Theory must be accompanied by proof.

Nowhere do you address the student we've all known who gets excellent grades very easily with very little studying. These individuals have a natural academic gift, but that doesn't mean that they're responsible. What about the ungifted student who works really hard for their grades and still has trouble reaching a 'C' for personal or family situation reasons?

I'm very glad to see that you've put some effort into creating an outline. You definitely want to keep doing that. But to the general reasons that constitute your outline points you need to add supporting examples. And they need to be very specific to the question. It's nice to know of a situation where you learned a skill in one area and applied it to another, but to prove your thesis you need to tell us about a specific example where studying hard created a responsible individual who then was a responsible driver.

Grammatically there are a few things to watch out for, though overall I liked the style of your prose. Be careful in your word selection. "Driving is a privilege that bears an enormous responsibility on the driver." The privilege doesn't "bear" (carry the weight of) responsibility, it "places" it on the driver. Another issue was with the construction of this sentence: "Having the student required to attain a certain grade…" Be more direct: "Requiring the student to attain…" These are the two biggest things, and unfortunately they're at the beginnings of paragraphs, so they really stand out. Otherwise you do pretty well.

In order to improve your score, be sure that you have examples for each of your reasons, and be sure that they are concrete and directly related to the thesis. You can't just say that because X happens at the Plaza, X will happen in the Mall. It might, but we need concrete evidence in order to believe you. Keep on outlining; just be sure that each of your body paragraphs has a corresponding example to prove your point. Stay attentive to your word selection and grammar as you write, though you do pretty well on this point. Try to be sure you've thought around several sides of the issue so that you can acknowledge they exist, even though they might be exceptions to your thesis.

essay #2

Basic question: Should a student be limited to participating in only one extracurricular activity?

Wow, this is a much better essay than your last one and is just a hair away from scoring a 5. What kept me from giving you that higher score is that while you have good supporting evidence for your first reason, your second lacks any evidence. It's well reasoned, but needs a supporting example to be an essay with more than adequate examples.

You begin with a great opening paragraph. You have a nice non-formulaic introduction with a very clear thesis statement towards the end. Nice work.

The first supporting paragraph is also good. You develop the reasoning first and then provide your own experience as a supporting example. You even go that one step further and end the paragraph with a sentence that neatly recaps how the example proves that your reasoning is sound. That's an excellent way to give flow and organization to the essay.

The second supporting paragraph, as I mentioned before, is well reasoned, but it lacks evidence. You need to give us an example of how you or someone you know got better at time management through having a lot to do. In this case, it might be an example of how someone didn't manage everything very well initially, but then got better at it as the particular sports season progressed.

There are a couple language issues in your conclusion. One is a fragment: "So much work and so many activities to choose from." The other is that you say having lots of clubs to join lets a student gain their passion and time management skills. They aren't guaranteed to gain them their passion or time management skills. This is more correctly stated as giving the student the opportunity to find their passion and learn time management skills. Do you see how this more precisely states the case? That may seem like a minor point, but it's exactly that kind of attention to phrasing that will begin putting you in the running for a score of 6.

So, to improve your score, make sure that you have supporting examples for all of your reasoning. Hang on to the clarity of thesis, overall format and structure and transitioning that you've demonstrated here. Be attentive to your sentence structures and word choices so that you are saying exactly what needs to be conveyed.