Essay Review

This essay is worth an A grade primarily because of its strong thesis statement, which aided that paper in many related ways. The thesis addresses the prompt of the essay  accurately by addressing not only the how of the reforms – “…stratified and expanded government roles” – but also the why – “… in order to strengthen Russia’’s international presence and to pacify conflict within and regulate the daily lives of the nobility and townspeople.” The rubric states that in an A paper the thesis is always kept in focus, and in this paper everything revolves around it just as it should.

The thesis also sets the essay up to be organized in a way that is clear and logical to the reader. Each topic sentence harkens back to a certain aspect of the thesis, pairing a ruler with their specific reforms and the reason for that reform. The essay is set up starting with analysis of Peter’s goal to centralize power, then goes on to talk about his desire to strengthen Russia’s military. The focus then switches to Catherine, starting with a comparison between her reforms and Peters and then going on to talk about her own goals of decentralization and control over the population through ranking. The transition paragraph between the analysis of Peter and Catherine is useful for reader to understand how the later paragraphs relate to the first, allowing the author of the essay to avoid having to talk about both rulers throughout and clutter up the essay.

The paper also follows all of the guidelines found in the “Tips on Writing for Me” resource. Besides following the basic formatting and grammar rules, the author also demonstrates an ability to achieve the more complicated goals set. The quotes used throughout the essay are only used when the benefit the argument the most, or are being closely analyzed. They are also always introduced in a way that makes the transition fluid and natural. It does not wear out any particular phrases, and utilizes a variety of sentences structures in composing the argument. The writing of the essay is also very concise: it says only what is needs to in order to get its point across clearly, be that analysis or examples, and nothing extraneous.

Document Analysis

The writer of this paper fulfills the requirements of the rubric very well and structured his/her essay properly to make the essay clear and easy to understand.
The topic sentence is set up well by the rest of the intro paragraph. By the time the reader gets to the topic sentence, he/she has a good understanding of the situational context. The sentence itself is concise, but very clear and describes effectively what the paper will be focusing on. The thesis is proven relevant by answering “so what?” and it is also an arguable statement.
The position of the author is well defined and clear. Evidence is effectively used to clarify points. The author analyzes a wide variety of resources to prove his/her points. The numerous resources are also properly cited.

The sources are well placed and agreeing with the claims made by the author. They effectively convey and respond to the points analyzed in the document.

Very few errors in the document overall, grammatically or structurally. The document appears to be very well-revised (probably three times at least).

The document also does a good job of maintaining my attention.

Overall, the paper was very well structured, well revised, and analyzes an interesting, arguable point.

Essay Review

The essay we are given to explain the grade for makes sense as an A given your standards. It does not appear to run afoul of any of the parts that would make it lose an automatic ten percent, the font, spacing etc. all appear correct. The thesis is takes a large topic and is able to answer the given topic clearly and concisely. The paper flows chronologically and addresses the ideas presented the thesis in order. The topic sentences each present the ideas that will be addressed in the following paragraph. Each source that is used is analyzed and then conclusions are drawn in a logical manner from the document. In my albeit not exhaustive reading of the essay it appeared that it had very few grammatical and punctuation errors. It appears to have been proofed several times. The vocabulary is clearly educated but none of it should be hard for a college student to understand. While obviously we where not allowed the length to explain everything mentioned in depth but the essay is able to give a reader, even one who does not necessarily know about the topic enough information to understand what it is about. The author of this essay approached had a clear plan for how they would write it. Either outlined before or after their first draft they set up a logical order that would address every part of the thesis. The lack of errors and the fact that no sentences are just off the wall confusing makes me assume it was done in several drafts, very likely with an outside reader as well. The essay makes use of several primary sources which are all cited. They all add to the readers understanding and the conclusions drawn from them are central evidence in the essay. The essay follows almost all of the guidelines set pout in various documents for writings in this class. It also achieves A level in all the categories of the rubric.