Download Response-Reply to John_Lorena Fuentes - ESL 100

Lorena Fuentes
Response Reply to: WangJun,Zou (John)
English B/C
September 11th, 2013
Family Issues
In his essay (no tile), Zou attempts to explain the importance and the crucial roles that our
families play in our lives. Zou particularly focuses on the role our parents play, and the genuine
love and care they have for us. However, as social beings, he emphasizes, there are always
conflicts that can lead us to create barriers when communicating with our family members. More
specifically, he sets up an example of the difficulties he encounters when interacting with his
brother as there is always an underlying idea of competition between siblings. Yet, these
conflicts will never overshadow the fundamental goals of a real family: love, understanding, and
support.
Although Zou did a very good job summarizing both articles “Brothers” by Bret Lott, and
“There was Rice at Every Meal” by Eric Koji, he could have found more connections between
both readings. In addition, those connections would have been more useful to have them in the
introduction as it was somehow difficult to understand the purpose of mentioning both readings
in the first paragraph without a clear point to make. On the other hand, his paper doesn’t have a
thesis statement (the main point of your discussion), so it is difficult to follow the main ideas in
his essay.
In regards to his conclusion, it was advised in class to add some personal experiences in
the conclusion as a way to contextualize the content of the readings. However, Zou mentioned
somebody else’s story without citing the source where he took the story from. It is clear that if
the story belongs to a famous person, this information is not common knowledge, and hence,
must be correctly cited. Finally, even though he tried to make sense of the information in both
readings, his paper must be organized so every idea runs smoothly and connects to the main idea
of the essay (Thesis Statement). Finally, I was wondering if he used a dictionary to translate the
essay from Chinese to English because the essay is full of grammar mistakes which are not
reflected on his speaking skills. It is always a good idea to edit your paper twice before
submitting a final draft.