Poetry / William Blake Poetry Paper [23]

Ah, crap. Yeah, it should be "reflecting" and "contrasting." I has that originally, but then altered it for some reason. The html code can make reading text with strikethrough and red lettering a pain. This is how it should read:

""In his Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, William Blake is not simply ironically contrasting good and evil, but rather reflecting on the nature of Christianity, ultimately arguing that whereas organized religion tends to suppress the power to reason and imagine, true spirituality comes from such qualities.""

For energy, see the Tyger, which is described through a series of furnace metaphors. Spirituality for Blake is all about creative energy, which makes sense, I suppose, for a poet. You might also want to read "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" which, while not a song of innocence or experience, is extremely relevant to your topic.

Essays / Creationism vs. Evolution Debate [25]


Mutation changes the information. This may involve removal, difference, or addition. And the changes are cumulative. It's the cumulative part that matters. Over time, the DNA of an isolated population can become so different from that of another isolated population of members of the same species that their descendants cease to be members of the same species.


i.e. those that have evolved to have a resistance. That is, originally, only a handful of the original bacterial population had resistance, but the addition of the drug to the environment meant that only those survived, so the trait was selected for. This is evolution at its most basic.


Look up any of the scientific articles that explain where it came from.


Evolutionary theory underlies all biology, and is relevant to cultural studies, computing, and a host of other fields. It is unsurprising that I would occasionally reference such a powerful and useful theory in my posts. That doesn't mean that I want to debate its validity, any more than when I reference computers in my posts, that I want to debate whether or not computers exist.


That was my primary intent, as well as to learn a lot myself, which I have done. Some of these threads have forced me to refine and clarify my own views, which is always a good thing.

Writing Feedback / School bus trip - a story [4]

Better yet, write the story so that the theme emerges from it without your protagonist having to reflect on it explicitly. This may sound hard, but it is something that you have seen in almost every story you have ever read, so you have plenty of examples to draw on.

Essays / Creationism vs. Evolution Debate [25]

Oh dear. I really, really, really, don't want to get into a argument with Creationists. I love a good debate, (as this thread and others testify), but this is just going to be like hitting my head against a brick wall.

Still, I will point out your main error:


No, they are not. They are EXACTLY the kinds of changes necessary to turn a finch into a different species of bird. It just requires a whole lot of them, say, the number that might accumulate over a hundred thousand years or so. Two individuals with only two different characteristics are clearly still part of the same species, but what happens when they have different beaks, different feather colors, different talons, different feather shapes, different feather thicknesses, different eye shapes, and so on, until, in short, every aspect of them has changed? At some point, they would become so different that they clearly wouldn't be the same species. In fact, they would be so different no one would even think of grouping them together.


It has been as well proven as any other scientific theory. It predicted the discovery of DNA and genetics. (and predictive power is one of the main criteria by which scientific theories are judged). It also explains how bacteria become resistant to medication, how weeds and insects learn to shrug off pesticides. You can actually evolve bacteria in a lab to create drug resistant strains. Evolution explains the emergence of viruses such as the swine flu. It explains how selective breeding can turn wolves into chihuahuas, too, and while they still aren't separate species yet, pretty much everyone agrees that they are well on their way to it.

Research Papers / Making this the most persuasive research essay [8]

I'd say your essay needs to deal more with the issue of where graffiti is placed. I don't think anyone has a problem with graffiti done as art on sidewalks outside of businesses or on the walls of buildings whose owners have given permission to the artist. Graffiti only becomes vandalism when it is placed on other people's property without their permission. Of course, even then, the person whose property was vandalized might like the graffiti and consider it art, so the same piece could be either art or vandalism, depending upon the point of view of the person who owned the property it was on. You might also look at the intention of the artist. Scrawls meant to convey gang symbols, or insults, or even a desire to deface, are probably always vandalism. Images created to impress and to move, though, are more likely to be art. So, the question isn't really whether graffiti is art or vandalism, but when it is art as opposed to vandalism.

Undergraduate / University of Wisconsin essay help - technically I am transferring [6]

I'd say the essays are pretty important, if only because they show how much a student wants to get in. I mean, if a student can't be bothered to write a couple of pages and polish them into good shape, he obviously doesn't want to be admitted that badly.

So, come up with the best drafts you can, then post them here so that we can help you improve them.

Undergraduate / A time-travel machine to go back in time in your own life and change something [22]

Your verb use is fine, as far as strength goes. I suspect that you have sometimes sacrificed grammatical accuracy to get that, though. For instance,

"Out of all the children there, he talked to me first and that facilitated me the adjustment."

"The remembrance of my behaviour during the first weeks still causes me to laugh and brings a slight blush to my cheeks."

"It meant so much that he showed careless about me sitting on the floor like a silly boy" I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say here, but you need to change the part in red to something else, of that I am certain.

"I handled to stay at the school." "Handled" is the wrong verb here. Perhaps "decided"?

Poetry / William Blake Poetry Paper [23]

Ah, your thesis is looking more like the sort of thing you could argue in a 6 paragraph essay. I'd alter it a bit to make it flow better, though, like this:

"In his Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, William Blake doesis not simply make anironically contrastbetween good and evil, but rather reflects onhis perspectivethe nature of Christianity, ultimately arguing that whereas organized religion tends to suppress the power to reason and imagine, true spirituality comes from such qualities."

As for the topic sentences for the last two paragraphs, you might want to think about how energy and imagination lead to true spirituality, or how the simplistic structure of his poems reflects his beliefs (perhaps they work within a standard metrical framework but sometimes subvert that framework in some way?), or on what explanation Blake might give for the Church, which is supposed to cultivate spirituality, acting in ways that actually suppresses it.

Writing Feedback / Clep essay-Laws should not be rigid or fixed. Instead, they should be flexible. [4]

Simone has already given you comprehensive grammatical advice, so I'll just chime in with a suggestion concerning content. You should prefer the specific to the general in most of your essays. In this case, you talk a lot about law in general, and only briefly touch on specific example, such as murder and bank robbery. Probably, though, you would be better off reversing this. So, you might look at say, murder, and how the law breaks into first and second degree types, with varying degrees of manslaughter as well. Then, you could look at what having so many categories for what is essentially the crime accomplishes. Then, you could use that to make a general point about the usefulness of having flexible laws. Keeping the focus on the specific as much as possible will make your essays much more interesting to read.

Writing Feedback / Toefl: Is this good enough to get 24 score in writing section. [3]

Generally, I try to avoid giving scores, because writing is so subjective as to make doing so unhelpful most of the time. I can give you some pointers on making your writing stronger, though.

One way to improve your essay is to combine sentences that rely on the same main verb. So,

"Yes, I think that earning some money during the student life is a good idea. It helps student to understand the value of money. Working also helps to develop responsiblity and discipline in life."

could become

"Yes, I think that students should earn some money while they are still students. This helps students learn the value of money and develop a sense of personal responsibility and discipline."

Also, work on fixing the small grammatical errors that crop up from time to time in your writing:

"First of all, working will help students to understand the value of money. Most of the student do not understand the value of hard earned money, as they get their pocket money from their parents. Whereas, when they get their pay cheque after their full devotion for a month of hard work , they will value it very much. This money can be used as their pocket money or to support their studies, or to help their parents."

Writing Feedback / "People of MTV generation have no patience. They want instant satisfaction." [84]


Two, actually. First, the world behaves as if matter were primary. That is, we cannot bend reality to our will, as in the Matrix. Second, consciousness is merely a property of a certain type of matter, namely our brains. It seems to me that a property of matter has to come after matter, however it got started.


I would say that it is definitely easier to keep it simple if you first define your key terms in the introduction. I'm not sure how you could agree or disagree with the statement that "People of MTV generation have no patience." without first deciding what was meant by "people of the MTV generation", and "patience." For instance, does the prompt also apply to the millennial generation (1982-2001), which would presumably have been even more influenced by the Internet? Or was there something about those born just before that makes them more likely to suffer from a lack of patience than people born just after them? Notice that this question only arises if you research the term "MTV generation" and find out that it does not mean "kids today" but rather people born around 1980 or so, i.e. people who are now hitting 30.

Poetry / William Blake Poetry Paper [23]

Perhaps you might refine your thesis a bit more to talk about what exactly Blake has to say about religion and spirituality. Perhaps it has something to do with true spirituality being about energy and imagination, whereas organized religion tends to be about the suppression of those things. Consider, for instance, the description of the tyger in the poem of the same name, versus the trusting voice of the speaker in its song of innocence counterpart.

Writing Feedback / "People of MTV generation have no patience. They want instant satisfaction." [84]

I said before that you clearly didn't mean it when you said you believed in magic, because by your own admission you don't act as if you do. Your general spiritual belief that consciousness is more fundamental than matter is a very reassuring one, as it helps you cope psychologically with your awareness of your own mortality. I respect that -- we all have to come up with some way of dealing with it. I would argue, though, that doing so is, and should be, an act that involves cognitive dissonance. That is, it involves believing something in theory that we know in practice isn't true. Or, we believe in it the same way we believe in the story of Icarus, as something whose literal truth is unimportant to its meaning. So, in some sense I do believe the story of Icarus, even though I know it isn't true. When contemplating matters of courage versus arrogant foolishness, the story is meaningful and useful. When contemplating matters of aerodynamics and atmospheric realities, the story is rightfully ignored.

Some people, though, don't believe in the spiritual and religious like this. They *really* believe, and so will let their children die, or blow themselves up, or do any of a thousand other crazy things, because they have chosen to accept the metaphorical and illusory as literal truth.

Writing Feedback / War -- victor or no victor? [45]


Um, I believe in the theory of evolution the same way as I believe in the theory of oxidization. It is valid science in a way pink unicorns are not. Anyone who doesn't understand that is . . . not someone worth debating, if only because the gulf between me and that person is too great ever to bridged by any possible argument.


But perhaps the parameters determine whether or not there can be a victor. In which case, bringing them up is perfectly valid in responding to what you said, and your not mentioning them is in fact a weakness in your essay.


But that changes the context of the debate. In a world in which all people were pacifists and no one ever fought, then wars would have no victors. Of course, there would also be no wars. One can only talk about whether wars have victors in the context of the world as it is, which is to say in world in which some objectives may only be accomplished, or may be most easily accomplished, through war. And, if we did live in an "ideal" world in which everyone was a pacifist, our natures would be very different from what they are, and we might lose the benefits of having that nature, as well as the disadvantages. So, it may be that the world would not be better if nations could always avoid war, if you actually stop to think about what would be necessary to make that condition true. Idealist statements of the sort you made above only ever seem appealing and right if one ignores context, cause and effect, reality.

Writing Feedback / "People of MTV generation have no patience. They want instant satisfaction." [84]

We can certainly agree that it is possible. But is it possible in the way that say, it is possible that more people will post in this forum, or is it possible in the way that it is possible to win the lottery, or is it possible in the way that it is possible for a solid marble statue to wave at you? All three things are possible, but the last item is so improbable that we think of it as being impossible, and are justified in doing so. So, probability matters, because after a certain point, something can become so improbable that it essentially is impossible, given the constraints of time and space.

Also, it is possible that we are all brains in vats.

Writing Feedback / Persuasive essay (Lithium based batteries>Nickel based batteries) [33]

Oh, I didn't realize he had lost marks. I thought you said it hadn't cost him grades. He shouldn't have lost marks, as career is certainly not wrong, given the context.

Writing Feedback / VIETNAM PAPER- Why did we lose? [3]


So, did all of Asia fall under communist rule? Or did the U.S. involvement in Vietnam prevent that? Or would it not have happened even if the U.S. hadn't become involved in Vietnam? It seems as if answering these questions would be vital to making your point, given what you say in your introduction.

Book Reports / Reading Based and Comparsion [4]

Wow, those are great instructions. Three pages detailing what you have to do. You are lucky -- you don't have to worry that you may have misunderstood what the teacher wants. I look forward to reading your first draft.

Essays / students should work in groups [6]

Your case isn't very strong. You need to expand more on your reasons for supporting group work, citing research and providing specific examples of benefits from that type of teaching. So,


That gives you three points. So, go back, and add a paragraph for each point. So, in your first one, you would explain in which subjects test scores increased, by how much, what methodology the studies you are referring to used, etc. Then do something similar for each of the remaining two points.

Essays / Originality means putting old ideas together in new ways [7]

Bear in mind that the examples for these sorts of essay don't have to be true, strictly speaking. You are free to invent obscure examples from various cultures that the reader isn't likely to be familiar with.

If you want some general examples, though, that your reader is likely to be familiar with, try researching the following:

The American Revolution
The Civil War
World War I
World War II
The Cold War
The Vietnam War

And I don't mean that you should only read about the military aspects of the war, but also about the historical context leading up to them. So, in studying the civil war, you might learn about the history of slavery in America, for example. These topics will give you a series of stock examples you can use to demonstrate points on a multitude of topics.

Undergraduate / A time-travel machine to go back in time in your own life and change something [22]

Hmmm . . . I was rereading your essay, and I can't for the life of me remember what it was that made me criticize your tense use. Kevin is quite right -- you don't really have much of a problem with them. Well, here are some more specific improvements you can make:

"Doubtlessly, the first day of school becomes unforgettable. The four-flour building with its faded beige-brown painting and its streaked walls reminded me of the horrifying primary school shown in the movie "Matilda", which inspired, not joy and excitement, but sadness and discouragement."

You should actually change the first line, too. I don't think its just a matter of the tenses, though. Do you mean that the first day of school becomes unforgettable for you? For the reader? For everyone?

Also

"When I entered, my uneasiness could show itself. The week resulted awful to me because I didn't know niether the people nor the setting."

might be better as:

"When I entered, my uneasiness revealed itself, and a truly awful week began, one in which I knew neither the people nor the setting."

Writing Feedback / Essay on advantages of computer games [16]

That's a point -- computer games would seem to imply PC games only. I just sort of assumed that you meant videogames in general, as there really isn't a great deal of difference between PCs and videogame consoles any more.

Research Papers / effective or ineffective decision making and leadership - research question [5]

Well, tell us a bit about what sort of situations you have been in or are currently in that give you an opportunity to observe people engaging in decision making and leadership. It is from that experience that you would derive a hypothesis about what makes for effective leadership. Then, you would turn your hypothesis into a question you could research. So, maybe you have worked for a small business and have noticed that the owner/manager often makes decisions based solely on their direct effect on the bottom line, and so implements policies that lower employee morale and customer satisfaction, indirectly worsening that which he seeks to improve. Then, you might wonder if this is something that affects small businesses more than large ones, and whether there is a point at which a company automatically begins taking the wider view once it hits a certain size.

Again, what you actually go with will depend upon what you are in a position to observe, so you will have to tell us that to get more focused feedback.

Poetry / William Blake Poetry Paper [23]

You are off to a good start. I'd worry a bit about this, though:


These don't seem to fit together particularly well. You might want to focus purely on his conception of spirituality versus his views of organized religion. This guy wrote 160 pages on the topic:

books.google.ca/books?id=hcq6NA6_GJAC&pg=PA111&lpg=PA 111&dq=William+Blake+Innocence+Experience+Spirituality+Churc h&source=bl&ots=MerYVjPI6S&sig=567g3t1tQpel7O8UMOObUQMAhWU&h l=en&ei=Z-QVStKaLcq6mQesnuX5DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result &resnum=2#PPA157,M1

You can probably manage seven paragraphs. Good luck.

Writing Feedback / CLEP English Comp. -- "That Government is Best Which Governs Least" [5]

Good job overall. There are a couple of other points you might have made:

1. Government rewards inefficiency. That is, a company has to be efficient or else it risks bankruptcy. A government can always raise taxes if it needs more money, so it doesn't care. Worse, it allocates its revenue to the most inefficient departments. So, a government department that is under budget for the year will go out and spend all of its remaining money on whatever it has to to get rid of the savings. Otherwise, the government will cut the department's budget next year, on the grounds it clearly didn't need all of the money it was getting. Conversely, a department that is over budget can justify asking for more money next year, on the grounds it clearly needs more resources. So, government isn't just inefficient because it doesn't care about efficiency -- its structure means that it will inherently reward inefficiency more than efficiency.

2. What is the purpose of government? Is it to uphold individual liberty? Or to ensure equal distribution of resources? Or something else entirely? Your position only works if you use "individual liberty" as your purpose, so you might want to spend a bit of time defending that stance.

Writing Feedback / Persuasive essay (Lithium based batteries>Nickel based batteries) [33]

To be fair to your brother's teacher, "careen" would have been the more standard construction. Careen's first definition: "(of a vehicle) to lean, sway, or tip to one side while in motion: The car careened around the corner. " The sentence in question is actually used by the dictionary to demonstrate the meaning of "careen". "Career" can be used as a verb, and is certainly acceptable, but the word does normally imply going at speed headlong or in a straight line. So, since the car is clearly not moving in a straight line, careen is a minor improvement.

Writing Feedback / "People of MTV generation have no patience. They want instant satisfaction." [84]

So, you will not attempt to perform any acts of magic that put you at any risk should you fail, nor do you believe that people should be allowed to rely on magic to save their children when technology is available that could save them instead. Yet you claim to believe in magic? I see you have only been playing devil's advocate, then, as your actions and other beliefs clearly indicate that your claim to believe in magic is some sort of jest. That's a relief. As to the rest of your argument, I'm afraid it isn't very convincing. All you have shown is that, at some point, several billion years ago, the laws of reality as we know them didn't exist yet. This doesn't prove that they somehow don't really exist now. Just because we don't know how something came about doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. If I see a plow rusting in the woods, I don't say to myself, "I don't know how the plow got here -- it must not really exist at all." Nor, when lightning strikes, do I say to myself. "I do not know how clouds could produce lightning, which is nothing at all like the clouds themselves. There are forces at work that I don't understand. Clearly, lightning is a form of magic, or maybe an expression of the anger of gods." Of course, for hundreds of thousands of years, people did think that, and worshiped sky gods, and had their buildings burnt flat by lighting strikes for their troubles. Then, someone thought that maybe lightning could be explained, and studied it. Now, buildings in areas prone to lightning strikes have lightning rods. The sky gods have no followers, but far fewer buildings burn.

Writing Feedback / War -- victor or no victor? [45]

Kevin, I never meant to imply that there would have been no technological progress if the natives had not been displaced -- that's clearly not the case. But, I do believe that America has been good for the world, both culturally and technologically. The American Revolution, for instance, helped speed along the progress of democracy in Europe. The U.S. involvement in the World Wars is the only reason all of Europe isn't now ruled by a tyrannical Germany. And, many of the technological advances that we enjoy today have been driven, in one way or another, by American businesses and by the American military. I therefore suspect that humanity would be far less advanced, both technologically and culturally, if America had never existed. But, if you believe America has been, on balance, good for the world, then this presents a problem for you, because America in its present form only exists because of a genocidal war against the natives.

I picked this example, btw, because it involves an unjust war -- the European settlers had no right to do what they did. If even an unjust war can lead to a better humanity, then how much more beneficial must be the just wars referenced by Tyler?

Also, to say that war hurts humanity by killing humans, you would first have to show that humanity is always lessened in some way by the loss of any of its members. There seem to me to be a great many people whose deaths would greatly improve humanity. Pedophiles, murderers, rapists, etc. There may also be other groups of people, who, by virtue of their political views, would by their demise render the world a much better place. This isn't to say that we have the right to bring about their deaths, but it does make it difficult to argue that humanity is always lessened by the deaths of any of its members. And if that is not true, then to say war harms humanity because it involves some humans dying makes no sense.

Writing Feedback / Persuasive essay (Lithium based batteries>Nickel based batteries) [33]

The problem you get with the grading of English papers is that, once a teacher has become used to you submitting a certain level of work, there is a tendency to "peg" you at that level, and to want to keep you around that range. If your work improves suddenly, then the teacher might be reluctant to acknowledge it, or even conclude that the improvement is a result of cheating. This is sort of unfair, as the whole point of teaching someone is to get them to improve, but at the same time, the Internet has made plagiarism so easy, and cheating has become so common, that you can't really blame teachers for getting a bit cynical and jaded. Hopefully she will increase your mark once you show her your sources. And, on the bright side, you know that you are capable of writing 85% worthy papers in English now, even if you don't get credit for it immediately. If you keep submitting good work, though, eventually even your current teacher will be forced to start giving you the marks you deserve.

Writing Feedback / "People of MTV generation have no patience. They want instant satisfaction." [84]

Oh, I have no objection to spirituality, to believing in something greater, for psychological comfort. As a psychological technique for clearing and focusing the mind, spirituality is very useful. What I object to is genuine belief, the sort that people kill for. A parent who prays for the recovery of a sick child is devout. A parent who refuses to take the child to the hospital because he believes God will magically heal her (or that the power of his prayer will) is criminally negligent and guilty of homicide. In fact, I was just reading about such cases when I read your earlier post, which probably accounts for much of the vehemence in my reply.

There is an old saying -- if you talk to God, you are spiritual; if God talks to you, you are insane.

And really, if I'm wrong, I am at least easy to convince -- just jump off of a fifty story building without a parachute or other technological aid and float safely to the ground using magic, and I'll happily concede that magic exists, and that all of my previous posts were mistaken.

Writing Feedback / War -- victor or no victor? [45]

Put another way, how does war hurt humanity? In fact, to deal in specifics, tell me how the European war of aggression against the North American natives hurt humanity? I firmly believe the war was wrong -- the Europeans had no right to displace the natives, much less to exterminate them, as they did with many tribes. That said, can you really argue convincingly that the great advances in technology and culture for which America is responsible haven't made the world a much better place than it was, or than it would have been if the New World had remained undiscovered? If so, I would be greatly interested in hearing your reasoning.

Undergraduate / A time-travel machine to go back in time in your own life and change something [22]

Much better. You have chosen something you would change, so your essay meets the prompt, and you have some good descriptive details in there. You still leave the reason the two of you drifted apart maddeningly vague, but I guess you aren't ready to go into specifics yet, so there's not much help for that. I'd take Kevin's advice, and combine your paragraphs so they aren't all so brief. Don't go overboard, though -- just get them up to standard length. Also, read through and revise for tenses. You tend to oscillate between the past and present tense when describing past events. You can use either -- the use of the present to describe past actions can be done deliberately, to make the action seem more immediate -- but not both. For this essay, I'd probably put everything in the past tense, but the choice is yours.

Writing Feedback / Machine Learning versus Learning by Humans [51]

Hey, cool poem. I like the division into threes -- the good, the bad, and the sort of in-between everyday stuff. I'm curious, though, as to whether and how the "true knowledge" can be considered knowledge in a modern sense -- that is, as something verifiable through empirical evidence. If it cannot be verified, in what sense can it be classified as knowledge rather than faith? If it can be verified, how would one go about performing the verification?

Writing Feedback / War -- victor or no victor? [45]


This doesn't make much sense. The humans who win may believe that what they have gained outweighs the damage, physical and psychological, that they have suffered, and so view it as a victory. Nor is there any evidence that the loss of some human life necessarily lessens humanity as a whole. In fact, in a world overpopulated by six billion or so people, anything that kills off a few thousand, or even a few million, of us probably is beneficial to humanity. Obviously, which humans you would prefer to the Earth to be rid of depends upon which side you are on, but from the perspective of humanity as a whole, war is no worse for us than it is for, say, ants. As for the objective of humanity being to do no harm, that's just plain silly. The goal of any species is to survive, and within a species, different genetic populations strive to displace each other, to survive a brutal competition for continued existence, and harming ones' competitors is very much a part of that competition.


This made even less sense to me. Your introduction at least summarized a distinct philosophical view of war, even if not a very defensible one. This is . . . almost a non sequitur. One can be many of the things that you list at the same time, and it really doesn't matter which ones, because all have engaged in wars at some point. I assume that you are trying to oppose all of the items in the list except the last to the last. So, if you have an individual sense of self, rooted in ethnicity, class, religion, then you will view wars as having victors, whereas if you view yourself as human first, then you will not. This isn't what you have said -- the sentence isn't structured properly to carry your point, but I'm assuming that it is what you mean. If I am mistaken, I apologize in advance -- just tell me what you actually meant and I'll respond to that, instead. Assuming that you mean what I think you mean, though, it still doesn't make sense, unless you assume that war is somehow foreign to human nature. But, obviously, war isn't, or we wouldn't keep fighting them. I suppose you could mean that a person could see himself as part of a single tribe, called humanity, and that then he would wish to preserve the tribe, rather than tear it apart through war. This might work if there were a single global culture, I suppose. Mostly, though, it is unrealistic. Such a person would soon discover that others didn't share his view, and be forced to defend himself, and how would he view a successful defense, if not as a victory? Moreover, the person would be delusional, because humanity isn't a single tribe -- it is several. Some share enough values to be able to coexist peacefully, but others clearly don't.

After all that, I've concluded that, if you were to rewrite some of your sentences to express your ideas more clearly, you might end up with a fairly strong case for an idealist point of view. If you wanted to, you could get into the interplay of genetics and culture, of how culture in many ways has usurped genetics in human affairs, and how this might affect our view of war. That could allow you to bolster the case against many of the criticisms I have made.

Book Reports / Macbeth Motif essay. How motif develops Lady Macbeth [4]

You might also consider tying back some of the motifs to those in earlier acts. For instance, Lady Macbeth's inability to wash out the imaginary blood is ironic, given her earlier insistence that "a little water cleans us of this blood." It also shows that Lady Macbeth and Macbeth have switched roles. She, who did not understand the full import of her actions at the start of the play, is overwhelmed by guilt afterward. He, who could hardly bear the guilt at the beginning, becomes more callous as the play progresses.

Essays / Is father or mother who play the more important role in building up the children [8]

Kevin already fixed the grammar for you, so I'll just add a comment about your content: you need to work harder at highlighting the causal connection you are trying to imply. There are many reasons a person might become involved in a bank robbery, and it is almost never because of coming from a single-parent family in and of itself. Coming from a single parent family might lead to other conditions that have pertinent effects, certainly. A child raised by a single parent may have a lower family income, or spend more time unsupervised, for instance. Likewise, wealth and education correlate highly with marriage. The people in ivory towers who theorize that marriage is an archaic, sexist institution are not the ones who deny themselves its comforts, or their children its support. As a result, people who are more highly educated and well off are also more likely to provide two-parent homes for their children. Conversely, lower-educated and less well-off parents are more likely to be raising the child alone. So, being raised by a single parent may be predictive of involvement in crime because it is associated with lack of education and poverty, both of which are of course key factors correlated with crime. Just something to think about.

Writing Feedback / "People of MTV generation have no patience. They want instant satisfaction." [84]

I too am a great believer in magic. After all, who among us hasn't cast magic missile at a squirrel just to watch it jump? And how is one supposed to kill trolls without a good fireball spell? In fact, you might want to drop by your local cleric's and see about picking up a "reverse insanity" scroll or two. Mighty useful spell, that.

Normally I would avoid engaging in purely scathing ridicule, but really, what else is one to do in these sorts of situations? There is no way to argue against magic, no rational arguments that can ever convince. Yet, saying nothing seems dangerous, because those who read your post might think you were being serious. Of course, I know that you are really just joking, that you have no intention, say, of jumping off of a fifty story building because you believe magic will allow you to float to the ground, or of drinking cyanide because you believe you can cast "antidote" on yourself, as in an 8-bit video game. But, even the brightest of American teens tend not to recognize that A Modest Proposal is satire. Who knows what insidious corrupting influence your seemingly innocent jest might have such people? Moreover, such "magic" as one finds today generally has its roots in the suggestibility of those who dabble in it, making such glib talk especially risky.

Surely there are enough psychological benefits to meditation, and to the practice of other rituals with their roots in eastern philosophy, that they can be easily defended without recourse to the supernatural?

Writing Feedback / Machine Learning versus Learning by Humans [51]

I'd say that to be truly free, one must cultivate power in the first sense. Without the ability to accomplish one's goals, one has no options, and having options is the very essence of freedom. After all, if you can only engage in one course of action, you cannot be said to have any freedom at all. One might object that one still has the choice of accepting or resenting one's fate, but this only emphasizes that freedom is a matter of having options. Thus, the more options one has, the freer one is. Seeking power in the second sense, though, involves limiting one's options, because the more power one has, the more one must act in accordance with the dictates of power. A hero may decide to stop being a hero, without any great external consequences. A dark lord is obliged to continue acting like a dark lord, though, merely in order to survive, else all of his slaves and victims should surely turn on him and strike him down.

What is it Richard III says in Shakespeare: "I am in so far in blood that sin will pluck on sin"? Having seized power through violence, he is obliged to keep using violence, long past the point where he actually wants to do so.

Book Reports / Did thomas scott commit treason against the Metis? [9]

I would ask your teacher to clarify the prompt for you, since, to the best of my knowledge, its current wording makes no sense, for the reason given in my previous post. It may be that Tom Scott entered into some sort of agreement with the Metis that he later broke, I suppose. Why don't you do some research on him, and post a summary of what you find. Then, it will be much easier to help you fashion a thesis, because we will have some idea of Tom Scott's history upon which to base it.

Book Reports / Thousand Splendid Suns Essay Argument Points; thesis [6]

That about covers it. I was just explaining how a word that combines the prefix "in", meaning "not", with the root word "valuable" ends up meaning "very valuable."