1. Describe your essay’s most notable strength, using at least one direct quote from your work to support your choice. 

Personally I am finding it difficult to pick out a notable strength as I definitely struggled with this essay. I think if anything a good strength within this essay would be when I add in my own voice throughout the essay. Throughout each paragraph I try to work my own voice in. At the end of my second body paragraph I write, “I can understand why it is important to focus on yourself and ensure you are in the right mindset to be taking on the emotions of others. The simplest gestures of acknowledgment and appreciation while sympathizing with others go a long way.” I think this nicely brings the topic back to my claim. 

2. Describe the differences in your revision process from Essay #1 to Essay #2. How has your revision process improved? Call attention to one place in your 2nd essay where revision helped significantly.

Revisions definitely went differently in my second essay to reform my barclay and naysayer paragraph. Since essay one didn’t have these I didn’t have to worry about reformatting my paragraph structure. Revisions helped a lot in my second essay when it came to my barclay paragraph as I did not include two different sources in the original draft. Other than that revisions through the two essays were fairly similar. 

3. Briefly analyze your integration of source material. What techniques did you use to synthesize source materials within your 2nd essay?

I used a barclay paragraph and the naysayer to integrate my source material into my essay. I tried my best to relate each outside source back to my claim about sympathy which I think I did fairly well. As well as the two required paragraph structures I also used templates from They Say I Say to transition and integrate my sources into my essay. 

4. Copy and paste your final draft’s strongest claim sentence into your post, then analyze it briefly. What makes it your strongest claim? How has your voice been integrated as part of your academic writing so far this semester?

Bloom and Wallace’s points, I can understand why it is important to focus on yourself and ensure you are in the right mindset to be taking on the emotions of others. The simplest gestures of acknowledgment and appreciation while sympathizing with others go a long way.

I believe this claim is my strongest as I use bloom and wallace’s points as well as my own voice. I am able to relate back nicely to my claim and I think it becomes a nice transition. I think through thots years I have definitely improved when adding in my own voice as I was never really allowed to in prior essays.

5. Paste then analyze your thesis statements from the first and second essay. How do they compare? Note similarities/differences. Which is stronger and why? 

Essay 1: Even though social media allows us to communicate with anyone anywhere, online connections are not equivalent to the benefits of in-person relationships, such as touch, shared real-time experience, and listening. 

Essay 2:  While empathy is crucial for understanding the feelings of others, sympathy allows you to help others and make them feel heard, without exhausting yourself. 

From reviewing my two thesis statements from my first and second essay I can automatically see some similarities and differences between them. I immediately noticed how much shorter my second thesis is compared to my first. I feel like my second thesis is able to say the same thing as my first thesis, but in a more condensed way. In this way this could mean that my second thesis is stronger than my first but I think they are fairly similar. I start out both the same by addressing a sort of counter argument and writing what I believe.