Smarthinking Tutor Response Form

Your tutor has written overview comments about your essay in the form below. Your tutor has also
embedded comments [in bold and in brackets] within your essay. Thank you for choosing
Smarthinking to help you improve your writing!

Hello, Stephanie! My name is Angela B. I look forward to working with you on this Essay Center
Review to improve your writing today. Let's get star

*Writing Strength:
The title of your essay is very enticing, Stephanie. It draws your readers into reading your paper, and
it is powerful enough to summarize the message of the entire essay. Good job!

*Stephanie 9581887 has requested that you respond to the Main Idea/Thesis:
Your main idea needs clarification. This is a problem because your readers will not understand the
main point of your essay.

You start by describing your busy schedule. After that, you present how you sometimes get stressed
because of the many things going on in your life. You then tell your readers about how this forced you
to manage and cope with stress. Finally, you end with a statement that shows how your resilience,
grit, and busy schedule can make people understand that being stressed is okay and that they will
eventually get over it.

Your draft seems to roughly present two different topics: the narration of your stressful schedule and
being okay with stress. Theyre presented in such a way that they look like theyre separate from each
other. Which one is your main focus? Which one is better at emphasizing lesson of this essay? The
draft must focus on a major lesson your readers can learn after reading your story. All other
details can go into smaller discussions within the draft.

Make sure that the draft focuses on the significance of this essay. The aforementioned questions can
be used to aid you in the revision process. You may read more about Developing Ideas in your
Writers Handbook.

*Stephanie 9581887 has requested that you respond to the Introduction/Conclusion:

The introduction is meant to present a brief summary of your main topic. This summary ensures that
your readers are prepared for the contents of your paper. However, your introduction does not provide
enough background information for your readers. This may cause them to get lost while reading
through your work. Take a look at this excerpt from your introduction:

Showing you my resilience and true grit with my busy schedule in life will help you understand
that it is okay to be stressed and how to pull through

An introduction should include enough background material to set the tone for the discussion and
guide readers to think about the essays purpose. Think about this: some of your readers might
not even be aware of why you think you have grit. Therefore, you must briefly introduce them to
this since this seems to be the focus of your essay.

Why do you say that you have grit? What about your busy schedule shows true grit? Tell your readers
more about how your busy schedule and stress management skills show your true grit. Revise your
introduction accordingly. Also, you may refer to the lesson on Effective Introductions in your Writers
Handbook.

Sentence Structure
Some of your sentences are run-ons, Stephanie. These cause ideas to run together for the reader, and
your meaning may become lost in the shuffle. Ill be citing a sentence from your draft that contains
the said error:
 soccer, cheer, two jobs, and school is what keeps me going in life but these at all the same
time can be stressful.

You can correct a run-on by adding a comma between two ideas to show contrast. For example:

Although football and soccer are exactly the same, Ronald says that the term soccer is
reserved for losers.

Another way is to create a compound sentence by joining two independent clauses with a comma and
a coordinating conjunction. The coordinating conjunction shows readers the relationship between the
two ideas. For example:

Football and soccer are exactly the same, but Ronald says that the term soccer is reserved
for losers.

Compound sentences can be created with a semicolon (;). This follows the structure below:

Independent Clause; Conjunctive Adverb, Independent Clause.

In order for you to clearly understand this structure, Ive created an example below:

Football and soccer are exactly the same; nevertheless, Ronald says that the term
soccer is reserved for losers.

You may also add a period between the two different independent clauses. For example:

Football and soccer are exactly the same. Nevertheless, Ronald says that the term soccer is
reserved for losers.

You may use these sentences to aid you in the revision process. Also, you may read more about Run-
ons in your Smarthinking Writers Handbook.

Summary of Next Steps:

Clarify your main idea.

Add more background information to your introduction.

Revise the run-ons in your draft.

Thank you for submitting your essay for a review. I enjoyed helping you with this step in the revision
process. Have a good day, Stephanie! Angela B.

You can find more information about writing, grammar, and usage in the Smarthinking Writer's
Handbook.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Please look for comments [in bold and in brackets] in your essay below.
Thank you for submitting your work to Smarthinking! We hope to see you again soon.
Stephanie Spano

Denise Strenger

Marriage and the Family

28 April 17

I am stressed about stress

Am I resilient? has stress taught me to be resilient? soccer, cheer, two jobs, and school is

what keeps me going in life but these at all the same time can be stressful. Being a busy bee has

always been me, having down time scares me not knowing what to do or knowing how to relax

really scares me, I am one to always be doing something even if I have a night off. Stress can hit

me all at once and because holding in my emotions in all at once is what I do I get stressed about

everything at the same time. Stress has not only taught me to be resilient but has shown me how

to manage my stress and coping with it. [In what sense do you consider yourself as resilient?

Clarify this for your readers.] Showing you my resilience and true grit with my busy schedule

in life will help you understand that it is okay to be stressed and how to pull through. [What

about your busy schedule and stress management skills show your true grit? Let your

readers know more about this quality of yours, Stephanie.]

Knox, David. Marriage and the Family. 3rd ed. N.p.: Cengage Learning, 2016,2014. Print.

Hoffman, Jan. "Four-Legged Roommates Help with the Stresses of Campus Life." New York

Times, 05 Oct, 2015, pp. A.1, SIRS Issues Researcher, https://sks-sirs-com.dctproxy.mnpals.net.

[Where are the in-text citations for these entries, Stephanie? Make sure that every entry in

this list corresponds to an in-text citation.]

Elias, Marilyn. "There's a Recipe for Resilience." USA TODAY, 29 Jun, 2005, SIRS Issues

Researcher, https://sks-sirs-com.dctproxy.mnpals.net.

Blum, Deborah. "Finding Strength: How to Overcome Anything." Psychology Today, 1998, pp.

32+, SIRS Issues Researcher, https://sks-sirs-com.dctproxy.mnpals.net.

McGonigal, Kelly. "How to Make Stress Your Friend." Kelly McGonigal: How to Make Stress

Your Friend | TED Talk | TED.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2017.

Mullins, Aimee. "The Opportunity of Adversity." Aimee Mullins: The Opportunity of Adversity |

TED Talk | TED.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2017.

BLOCK, SANDRA. "De-Stress Your Life." Kiplinger's Personal Finance, vol. 71, no. 2, Feb.

2017, pp. 64-69. EBSCOhost, dctproxy.mnpals.net/login?

url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=120227501&site=ehost-

live&scope=site.