Essay talk:The Wrestling Room

If you wish to vote on the quality or content of my essay, please wait until someone tells me how to set up a new vote. Thanks. And it'd be nice if you'd wait until someone shows me how to indent each paragraph, but I guess it's okay if you don't--User:Brxbrx/sig 15:23, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Nx fixed it for me, vote away...--User:Brxbrx/sig 15:35, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Tips

I assume you're interested in criticism since you posted it here.

• You have some basic problems with spelling and grammar. It's "scrimmage," for example, and you frequently lack accurate punctuation; e.g. "The moral." is a sentence fragment that should be attached to the preceding sentence with a colon, or the improper insertion of, "good job!" into a sentence. This is usually a reflection of insufficient editing. Go through the entire thing, sentence by sentence, and read it. Try to see it fresh. Reading it slowly, sentence by sentence, forces you to avoid sliding through and hearing what you want to say (that voice in your head you tried to put on the page).
• As Mark Twain said, "Never use a twenty-five cent word when a ten-cent word will do." Here are some of the words that you should eliminate: venerable, monologue, senility, sadomasochism, and hypoglycemia. Those words have meanings that do not appear to match your intentions, and accordingly don't belong there. "Sadomasochism," for example, is just a fancy way of saying "sadism," in this context. So just say "sadism," which is what you mean.
• Don't write what you hear. Fix "wrasslin'," "oughta," and other such asinine transcriptions of dialect. Unless it is really charming (and this isn't!) then such vernacular gets very annoying, very quickly. Similarly, eliminate "(grumble grumble)" and "(yada yada yada)." If you don't know how to fill in those blanks, then don't write that dialogue. Instead, describe your coach's tendency to trail off into grumbles.
• When you write, "woe is me," or "the nobility of the human spirit," you sound like a complete asshole. The tone of the entire essay reflects that trait, actually. You are successfully communicating to the reader that you think (not past tense, present) that you are smarter and wiser than the coach. The gestures at false humility ("Boys aspiring to be men") are just icing on that contemptuous cake.
• If you were my student, I'd tell you to dump this and start again. Hemingway said that the best way he could begin a story was to "write one true sentence. The truest one I know." Go with that. Focus on one difficult thing your coach made you do. Try to put yourself back there. Remember the sodden flop of hair against your forehead, soaked with sweat. Or the burning roar of stomach muscles that refuse to do another sit-up, forcing a grunt out of you as you raise your body upright just one last time. Then describe what happened. Quit trying to be smart or cute, and don't use any cliches. Your basic unit of expression should be the clean cold word. Drop this framing device of "I could wake up," and just tell it like it happened.
  

My two cents.--^talk 00:09, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

lol, I had only ever heard scrimmage said, and never seen it written. And what do you know, my spellcheck isn't flagging anymore! Also, no, I wasn't asking for feedback. I posted this as an example of how an essay could be rated. I actually asked Nx to delete it for me, after he kindly demonstrated to me how to fix the markup/html errors.

Anyways, this is an old essay from college English. The professor gave me a B (it was a community college). I had no illusions as to its quality, and I expected people to rate it down not just because it sucks, but also because few people care much for me here.

But I really do appreciate your feedback. I enjoy writing and I look forward to using your suggestions and advice in any future endeavors. Thanks!--User:Brxbrx/sig 00:23, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

If you use firefox, and have updated recently, a bug killed spelling. they fixed it.GodotTue pour toujours, et tu veux vivre aussi. 23:53, 21 October 2011 (UTC)