Hatrack River Forum: English Midterm: Ender's Cynicism

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Posted by MaddJackKidd (Member # 6418) on :

Howdy. First off, I'm a sophmore at Texas A&M majoring in Genetics. As an English elective, I'm taking "Science Fiction Past and Present". Our midterm paper is a critical essay over one of the works we've read this semester. I chose Ender's Game because I've read it at least once a year since 8th grade, and the entire series (parallax included) every few years.
My thesis is "Ender's relationship with different characters throughout the book affects the development of his cynicism."
I have to turn the paper in later this week, and I was wondering if I could get some feedback from the crowd that knows this book best. I have the essay in .doc, .rtf, and .txt here:
http://arctic.tamug.tamu.edu/~jml9360/misc/english

Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :

First, congratulations on writing the essay before asking for feedback. [Smile]

We get a lot of people looking for help with homework, but I think you're the first to actually do it first.

Second, I can give some feedback later today. You do have to buy me dinner first.

Posted by Ayelar (Member # 183) on :

I second kat's kudos... and I'm impressed that you've finished it with plenty of time left for reviews!

A lot of people here have mental blocks about following links, though.... we're just so lazy. [Smile]

More people might read it if you were to post it in this thread, with lots of nice space between paragraphs. [Smile]

Just a thought.

Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :

quote:
Though this doesn’t cause Ender to become cynical towards his teachers, it does teach him

My English professor used to hate it when I would use "towards" instead of simply "toward." It doesn't need the "s". But many people say it that way when talking.

Just the first thing that jumped at me. I'm going back to re-read -- kind of hard to read with so little white space, and not double-spaced or anything.

Farmgirl

edit:

quote:
Throughout the text of the book, Ender is almost constantly adjusting to his environment by hardening of softening his shell of cynicism against the world.

Huh? something doesn't read right here -- even when I say it outloud

[ April 06, 2004, 10:56 AM: Message edited by: Farmgirl ]

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

quote:
by hardening of softening his shell

Should that be by hadening OR softening his shell?

Posted by MaddJackKidd (Member # 6418) on :

- thank you. but how would I go about procuring you dinner?

- well it's 8 pages double spaced, and I didn't think that'd be very comfortable in forum format. I now have it available that way online here

- Farm: Thank you. I'd forgotten that little tidbit of grammar. And that second part is a typo. It's now fixed on my original copy, though not on the online ones.

[ April 06, 2004, 11:27 AM: Message edited by: MaddJackKidd ]

Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :

MJK -- check your AIM -- I saved out your doc, made some editing suggestions (with track changes) and am attempting to get it back to you).

Farmgirl

Posted by Starbuck (Member # 4552) on :

Same here . . . your e-mail was not available, so you can find it here.

Good luck!
[Smile]

Posted by jehovoid (Member # 2014) on :

Split infinitive. Shifts in tense. Sometimes you just retell the plot instead of make a point. Your conclusion kind of goes off on its own little tangent unrelated to your thesis.

On the whole, just focus more on how and why Ender is hardened/softened and perhaps what this has to do with the nature of cynicism. Also, the title is a tad boring.

Other than that, you can definitely tell that you've read the book a half dozen times. Which I mean as a compliment.

(I only kind of read through it once, so I can't really give more specific suggestions than these pretty much useless general ones.)

Posted by MaddJackKidd (Member # 6418) on :

Thanks for all the help everyone, especially Starbuck and Farmgirl. I'll defintely be taking advantage of that input.
Looking at it this morning I see that there were quite a few stupid typographical and grammatical errors; I was up until 4.30 finishing it, and I'm sorry i didn't check through it more thouroughly before posting.

I have to turn it in this afternoon, so hopefully I'll see how I did sometime next week, and I'll let ya'll know.

Thanks!

[ April 06, 2004, 01:56 PM: Message edited by: MaddJackKidd ]

Posted by MaddJackKidd (Member # 6418) on :

I keep forgetting to come tell ya'll, but I got my paper back Tuesday. I got a 95! My professor told me he kept forgetting to grade the paper becasue he was so busy reading it. I missed a couple stupid gramattical errors, like using single quotes instead of doubles and suchnot, but other than that, he loved it.

Thanks again everyone!

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

Congrats! [Big Grin]