Why Animals Can Learn Human Languages

Crystal's feedback:

"Your topic is really interesting! You've done a good job with establishing your focus and stating your position on whether animals can learn language right in the first paragraph, and each of your body paragraphs is focused on one aspect of your argument to that effect. However, your thesis statement would be stronger if you included the three arguments in it; that way, the reader would know exactly what you're going to argue. In addition, each body paragraph has a clear topic sentence (good job with that!) outlining the main point, but the analysis in the paragraphs could be stronger. For instance, in the first body paragraph, you don't examine/discuss why it's a terrific way for animals to use language. The same is true in the other body paragraphs. Ideally, you want to introduce the information from your sources that supports your argument and then analyze why it supports the argument in more specific detail. Your paragraphs should have a bigger portion of the argument being flushed out rather than focusing so heavily on a series of facts. Throughout your essay, there's also some spots with awkward and/or unclear phrasing (reading your content slowly out loud would help you better identify these spots), verb tense errors (e.g., use past tense when talking about the past), capitalization errors (e.g., Chinese, not chinese), and grammar and punctuation errors (e.g., run-on sentences and comma splices), as well as some spots where you use generalities (many people). With generalities, using more specific phrasing would be ideal. You also do a good job making sure to include a counterargument, but your rebuttal could be stronger; ideally, you want to refute the counterargument with specific facts/reasons for why is wrong. Simply stating it’s wrong doesn’t refute it, ya know? Finally, your conclusion overall does a good job of bringing all the points together and ending with a final takeaway, so great job with that. Overall, then, you’ve handled the essay structure well and have a clear purpose, but the areas I’ve outlined above hurt the strength of the essay overall, especially the light amount of analysis/argument details, some of the awkward/unclear phrasing, and grammar and punctuation errors. A good edit for those things would improve your paper."

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