Title: High Voltage
Date: May 27, 2011
Decision: Resubmit with minor revisions.
Dear Author
First things first I would like to say I really enjoyed reading this piece. Your work was a rather enjoyable for me and I believe you have a good understanding of your topic and the commonplace guidelines. You open the paper with someone’s everyday routine, getting into a vehicle, checking mirrors, radio, and eventually looking at the fuel gage. You then you use this to make an example of nearly everyone who will read this article, just because majority of us own, or drive traditional vehicles. The entirety of the piece focused mainly on advancing prices of oil and equally rising prices of fuel from said oil. The essay is extremely relevant and for the most part timely. The one commonplace benchmark I do believe you fell a little short on was the compelling aspect of the situation.
The argument you are making is a pressing issue on a global scale. The article is timely in the way it creates a rather interesting argument from the ever pressing issue of oil prices. I believe you make a point about how oil usage and prices are problems and agree with the argument you are making. Most college student s do in fact, own a motor vehicle. I also believe that the types of vehicles and fuel those vehicles consume are also important points you make in your argument.
Your choice finds its way into some, but not all of the guidelines posted on commonplace’s call for submission. I found that the only difficult aspect to find in your piece was that of commonplace’s idea of being compelling. I think you did a good job connecting every single member of the audience in the fact we almost all drive or have ridden in cars. You found a common ground between most college student s and drew from that which helps apply your argument. The topic is good addressing a current issue in society. But the only problem was in how it relates to us. I really think it would be beneficial if you could find a way to directly connect the problem in the market, to our already empty college wallets. I think a direct link would appeal to pathos, creating a direct emotional connection with your audience. By directly calling us out on losing money in fuel, I believe it will ultimately support your argument.
Another possible suggestion was in concern with how you approached the audience of common place. In the middle of the 6th paragraph you stated that Americans are creative enough to make the change to the electric vehicle; we will make the switch. This sentence could represent a problem with the intended audience in the simple fact that not all college student s on commonplace are American. I believe this could be reworded and you should take a global approach to still cover the topic but better suit your commonplace audience.
Another idea would be to actually mention some of the sources were you derived the majority of your research from when talking about the major automotive companies. You reference Toyota’s prius sales being up by nearly 200% but you never directly state where this information is derived from. I recommend including the study or article in the paragraph itself and finding a way to incorporate this into your essay. For example, the national department of production and distribution of motor vehicles states, and then lead into statistics backing up the statements. The factual evidence is there just not properly attributed to any credible source.
Finally I recommend that you attempt a different approach at appealing to the compelling aspect of the commonplace guidelines. I believe by possibly including some other negative effects of oil use, you could increase your chances of getting individuals to support your claims. I think that the topic has the ability to be compelling to the college audience, but it needs to be represented in a different fashion.
It is obvious the hard work you have put into this essay and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I find the topic very interesting and very pressing as far as these issues go. You are very knowledgeable about this topic and I believe this essay has the potential to be accepted to commonplace with just some minor revision. I hope you found some of my suggestions’ helpful in the revision of your essay.
Sincerely
Title: High Voltage
Date: 24 May 24, 2011
Decision: Reject
Dear Author,
Thank you for taking the time to write and submit an essay for Commonplace review. I appreciate the effort you have put into this essay and I think your essay brings up some valid points. However, the approach you have utilized in order to convince readers that gas is not the fuel of the future is unconvincing. Your argument is interesting, but it is not well written. I would encourage you to rethink how you have structured this essay, consult my suggestions below and perhaps after thorough revision, attempt at another submission.
You introduction is the first thing that needs to be addressed. One good thing you did here was you clearly stated your argument, “Although we have been successful with our petroleum-powered vehicles since the 1920’s, our future is not one of gasoline powered vehicles; our headlights are shining brightly on the future of electric cars.” After reading this, your audience will have expectations for the rest of the paper, which is good. However, the information given previous to your thesis is not related or compelling. You use too many generalizations. For example, not everyone gets in their car and does the exact checklist of things you listed. Therefore, by saying this you weaken your argument and decrease your validity as an author. This is very off putting, especially in an introduction. It may even make readers uninterested in the rest of your work.
The area where I feel you need the most improvement is in creating a compelling essay. The information used to support your claims is not fact-based evidence. Take this sentence for example, “These were released in order to compete with Toyota; due to the competition in our nation, this is huge because we all know that when one company produces something, the big dog company must come in and create the same product, ultimately making the new product develop faster than expected.” The argument you are making here is not necessarily always true. Competitive companies might always watch what the other is making, but you cannot generalize that the more powerful, or wealthy of the two, is always guaranteed to make the same products as the other. If you want to suggest this then you need to provide evidence that this is a predictable pattern. Perhaps use an actual example of how Toyota and Honda have many similar products and and then provide the dates of when each company released these products.
You work has the potential to be timely because the topic of non-gasoline powered cars is currently a huge topic of discussion. However, the structure of this essay is causing the thesis to be lost and forgotten along the way. I believe that this delusion of your argument could be corrected if you removed some distracting extraneous information. For example, you begin the fourth paragraph with a long run-on sentence. Whatever point you are trying to make here could be made much clearer if you separated that into a few compound sentences. I would also suggest that you remove the statement about Henry Ford and Model T completely. Such information is not relevant to your argument
Next, let’s discuss the overall relevancy of your essay. I noticed in the introduction that you are definitely striving to display how and why the topic of electric cars will apply to college students, but once again this is too reliant on generalization. Throughout the essay there are not really any other examples where you make your argument relatable to college students. I think your essay could really be improved if you further explained why as college students we should be interested in electric cars. Perhaps you could persuade young people to invest more time in researching such cars, since you are arguing that we all will be driving them soon. Maybe you could discuss the benefits we will see in the future when electric cars replace gasoline cars. Or, you can take whatever other approach you would like. No matter what you choose, you need to find a way to make your argument more interesting and applicable to college students as they are the ideal audience for all Commonplace authors.
Lastly, I would suggest that you add more substance to your paragraphs. As of now, they are all too short and uninformative. Take the introduction for example. Prior to your thesis in this paragraph you only have two other sentences, both of which are opinion based and unconvincing to an audience. If you are trying to argue that electric cars of the way of the future perhaps you should integrate some statistical evidence about the rising prices of gas, talk about the negative effects gasoline emissions are having on the environment, or discuss how many advancements have been made in the electric car industry in the past decade. All such things appeal to logos and would make your work much more compelling. Similar techniques would be beneficial if applied in all of your other paragraphs as well. You should also include come sort of emotional appeal in this essay. Using pathos is almost always necessary in writing for a public audience and once again it would make your work much more compelling.
Once again, thank you for your Commonplace submission. Your efforts are appreciated, valued, and have the potential to be Commonplace work. However, because it is not timely compelling or relevant, at this time your work must be rejected. Consider my suggestions and decide personally how you can improve your work. Best of luck.
Sincerely,
Peer Reveiwer
Title: High Voltage
Date: 05/26/2011
Decision: Revise and submit
Dear Devoted Writer,
First of all, thanks for getting the chance for reading your paper. This is the right time to write about Oil rates in this bad economy. The goal that you intended to be attained has been accomplished through your arguments. However, you have to improve you analytical skills, if you use those in your essay. In the beginning, you make use of your sense of humor to give an interesting start, such as” when first getting into a car one puts on their seat belt, checks the radio to make sure some music is on”. By using sentence as, “For many college students, like myself, filling my vehicle up at four dollars a gallon not only is painful to see the price continue to roll up but also is a huge drain on my bank account”. You made soundly relation between college students and oil prices. I prefer your essay to read as a student essay who wrote an easy for his own interest. Because, you didn’t achieved milestones that were needed for a commonplace platform to be achieved. Because of following reason, I would say that improve your analytical skills and revise your essay according to following instruction.
As you have introduced three companies’ names as General Motors, Nissan and Toyota in you discussion of high oil prices for your word on electric car. The sentence in you sixth paragraph, “Americans are creative enough to make the change to the electric vehicle” conflicts with companies’ name. Toyota and Nissan are Japanese companies, and as you make reference to Toyota as a leader in developing hybrid cars since the 2000’s in The United State shows Japanese company’s (Toyota) technological technical growth over time. Your words, American are creative enough is not linkable with the Japanese companies Nissan and Toyota’s. It doesn’t show creativity of Americans, because of lack of evidences which makes it less compelling. The commonplace is the place for all undergraduate students of English no matter what nation they belong to. But you address Americans student that makes your argument irrelevant to commonplace audience.
You would not have written the sentence like “In Toyota’s second year of producing the Prius their sales increased by 200%, now that’s incredible” because it doesn’t support you argument on electric machine; it goes beyond the beliefs. The essay’s tone reflects logos and pathos. But I didn’t see any ethos tone in your essay. These impressions lack the compellingness of commonplace essay. The Second line of your second paragraph, “alternatively fueled vehicle is ugly” is more generalized statement. The fuel itself is broad term. It includes renewable sources. But you criticize fuel as ugly one. I think, replacement of fuel with word oil makes your essay more oriented toward your objective. One of the main reasons is to use electric cars or any other type of energy car is to get rid of pollution. To make your essay more compelling, you should provide evidence for air pollution, and how is it affecting our environment.
You lack compellingness and relevance of commonplace essay. However, you highlight the current topic which attracts audience. You should revise your essay and take a look on the points that i have discussed with you.
Sincerely,
.
