Fluent Essays

Everything in PDF Peer Review Critique Guidelines Essay 2 Length Requirement: At least 250 words. Use the points below to help write your critique. You must address each of the issues outlined below. Please respond thoroughly, and give your peers’ essays the time and attention you would like for your own work. One- or two-word sentences are not acceptable. Don’t just say, “It’s good,” “I liked it,” or “It flows.” These statements are not descriptive enough. Quote specific sentences and explain what words or concepts work well, and why. Your Assignment: Read your peer’s essay AT LEAST twice. On your first read-through, do not make any notes. Read simply for content, to understand the points the author is trying to communicate. On the second read-through, check the text for any frequently repeated spelling/grammar/sentence construction errors. Any mechanical writing errors should only be noted if they happen frequently. If this is the case, quote the sentences where these occur in the essay. Do not be concerned with noting every single error. Specific words, sentences, or even whole paragraphs are likely to change significantly before the final draft. No need to correct something that will be re-written later. It is most helpful to explain to the author what you believe the message of the essay is, and how they may go about developing that message and/or make it clearer. Lead your critique with positive feedback, and end with suggestions for improvement. Guidelines for Critiques: 1. Explain your understanding of the author’s thesis (i.e. – What is their central point about communication in their chosen group?; Quote the essay in your response). 2. What kinds of descriptive language does the author use to describe their observed group (Quote the essay in your response)? 3. Which quotations are working well in the piece, and how do they help characterize the observed group (Quote the essay in your response)? 4. What are the strongest aspects of the essay (Quote the essay in your response)? 5. What parts of the essay are difficult to understand (Quote the essay in your response)? Offer suggestions for improvement. 6. How does the introduction engage you with the essay (Quote the essay in your response)? 7. How could the author improve the introduction? 8. Is the structure of the essay laid out in a logical manner? How would you describe that structure? 9. What additional message does the author’s conclusion provide, aside from the original thesis (Quote the essay in your response)? How might the author improve their conclusion? 10. What aspects of the instructor’s formatting requirements (font style and size, margins, header, title, page numbers, word and page count minimums) does the author fail to adhere to (if any)? 11. How does the author fail to adhere to MLA or APA guidelines? Address the use of in-text citations and their Works Cited page (if one is necessary). Consult MLA/APA guidelines to answer this question, and quote the essay in your response. Objectives: This assignment is designed to address the following Learning Outcomes: • Produce texts that: have a clear purpose; respond to the needs of intended audiences; assume an appropriate stance; adopt an appropriate voice, tone, style, and level of formality. • Use reading and writing for inquiry, learning, thinking, and communicating; analyze relationships among writer, text, and audience in various kinds of texts; use various critical thinking strategies to analyze texts. • Understand writing as a series of recursive and interrelated steps that includes generating ideas and text, drafting, revising, and editing; recognize that writing is a flexible, recursive process. • Work with others to improve your own and others’ texts. • Employ appropriate conventions for structure, paragraphing, mechanics, and format. 1 Franques 3 Franques Claire Franques  Professor Koss Intro to Comp 18 October 2021      The only sound of human voices muffled by long neighs, clopping hooves, and the annoying buzzing of flies. The TCU Polo team shows their commitment to the sport by making an hour-long journey to Prestonwood Polo Club. The Club is located outside of Dallas on hundreds of acres. The polo fields are as large as nine football fields. The team bonding begins in their car rides to practice. The second they step out of the car, they redirect their focus to getting to know the horses. The process takes ten minutes to put on their polo gear. Next, it is time to prepare the horses and mentally for practice. The team captains and coach assign each player a different horse for every practice. This gets the girls used to riding different horses with different personalities. Claire Litchfield, The TCU Polo team captain explains, “Many horses have big personalities which doesn’t work well with all of our girls. We have to carefully match the personality of the horse with the personality of the girl.” In the US Polo Association within a college team, a team rides half their own horses and half the other teams horses, so a player has to get accustomed to riding horses they are not used to. The players continue to grow their knowledge of the game by working with new horses each time. There are a lot of professional players that play at Prestonwood so the horses the team uses are well-trained. A horse needs to have specific qualities to be a good polo horse. They have to have a ‘mind for the game’ which means they have a high intelligence. Even though smaller horses are used in the sport of polo, horses have to be strong and capable of speeds beyond a canter. Polo began as training for cavalry units. It is a game that was also played on elephants in India. The horses and gear used evolved over time. It started with as many as one hundred men using small ponies to play the game. Now, smaller mares are used and the number of players on field has lessened to four. There is always an umpire that enforces the rules of the game. The umpire wears less protective gear and holds a different type of mallet that has a clamp on the end to grab the ball. The umpire is the only person who is allowed to touch the ball with their hands. If the ball falls into a players lap they cannot touch it. You can see the speed of the horse decrease when this happens but the player must keep moving the ball towards the goal. There are five main rules of polo which Claire explains as “Man, Man, Man, Line, Ball.” The players  have to make sure that every other player isnt trying to score and you have to play defense for all three of the opposing teams players. “You first pay attention to the men, next you pay attention to where the ball is going and make sure you are not fouling the line of the ball, last have to pay attention to the ball and get the ball to score. There are a lot of things to think about during the game.” Polo is a game like most sports where the objective is to make a goal, except on a one thousand pound animal. The game of polo is strategic and it is largely a mental game. The many rules in the game are to protect both the players and the horses. A break in the rules is called a foul and can be committed intentionally or unintentionally. The players have to focus on their movements and the horses to not cause a foul. There are so many rules of the sport few players have all of them memorized. It is a game of multitasking to control your horse, hit the ball and communicate with your team but also with watching the plays, strategizing, marking and making sure you don’t commit any fouls. This makes communication between both teammates and the horses important.  Communication between teammates is essential in the game of polo. There is always a quartet on the field. This is the number of girls that play at a time. The TCU Polo club is made up of fourteen girls, most who are new to the game. The older girls help teach and coach the new players on the skill of the sport. They are led by their coach who was a professional polo player. On the field, you can tell the connection and bond between the players. When a player is riding on a horse they cannot turn around to see where the ball is behind them. They must rely on the loud calls of their team members to tell them the placement of the ball. They use sceam calls, like “Stay Up!” which means an opposing player is right behind them and to keep moving towards the goal. If no one is behind the players say youre alone, take your time. That way the player with the ball can slow down and concentrate on scoring. A rider also cannot see underneath the horse or if the horse kicked the ball. Claire explains, “Communication between teammates is huge in polo because you have to look where you want to go when you are riding.”  Much of their communication is done by yelling because of the fast and loud cantering of the horses and constant talking of the opponents. The players also have to listen for calls such as, The Line of Ball, which is the line the direction of the ball is moving towards. It is important to listen to this from the referee because at any time the ball changes direction, from whatever cause, a new Line of Ball is immediately established. The communication between the players and the referee is important to the game. The game of polo is very strategic with many rules and missing a call by the ref could determine whether a team wins or loses. The team has to communicate to win. There needs to be teamwork between a player and their horse but also the other players on the team. Defense is the most important position in the game. The players have to yell out calls to let their teammates know when the opposing team is approaching with the ball. The use of foul language is permitted during the game but this is overheard by the aggressive plays of the mens polo team playing on the field. The speed of the horses on the field next to them is faster. Their movements are more intense and there is more yelling at the opposing team.  The movement of the horses is very fast in the middle of the field and slows down towards the goal lines. They have to be aware of which teammates are by goal and make the decision to attempt the goal themselves or pass the ball to their teammates. Many players miss the ball right before the goal line and oftentimes there is a teammate behind them to back up their shot. This is the quietest moment in the game. The players voices are silent and there is only the sound of the horses hooves. This is when the player needs to focus on accuracy of their own movements and the horses to successfully score a goal.   The relationship between humans and animals can be seen in the sport of polo. A horse used in polo is called a polo pony. These horses can be of any breed but are typically smaller in size than an average horse. The size of the horse determines the length of the mallet the player uses. The performance of the polo ponies determines whether a team wins or loses the game. There have been studies on how a  horses intellect produced a negative main effect on the player’s handicap. Handicap refers to a players horsemanship, range of strokes, speed of play, team and game sense are the factors considered in determining his handicap. The team handicap is the sum of its players handicaps. A player assesses the intellect of a horse before riding it in the game. Eighty percent of the game is determined by the horse.  The horse needs to trust the player. Horses with bigger personalities need to be ridden by a player that knows how to control them. Horses that are more difficult are referred to as a ‘Mary.’ There can only be one ‘Mary’ on the field to avoid conflict between horses. Claire Litchfield says, “I like riding Mary, I have a strong personality where I am able to not let her personality overpower me. I have to assert my control on the field with sharp movements and a tight grip on the reign.” Throughout the game the player needs to trust the horse will remain focused and refrain from distractions. The horse needs to be able to move in the direction the rider wants. You can see the look of frustration on the riders face when they are struggling to move the horse in the desired direction. The game is so fast- paced that one delay could be a missed goal for the team. The players are allowed to strategically run into each other. This defensive move is called a ride off or bump. The movements of polo horses are described in two ways, push horses and pull horses. A horse that is a push horse has to be encouraged to go fast and is not inclined to have the same speed of a pull horse. Pull horses are horses that are naturally inclined to move fast but need to be trained to slow down when approaching the goal. The rider has to be aware of whether the horse is a pull or push horse before beginning the game. The TCU Polo team is preparing for their first tournament the first week of November. They are facing their rivals SMU, UT, and A&M. Four of the girls from the polo team will be able to compete in the tournament. The team has not played in almost two years since COVID. The team needs to prepare both the players and horses. Claire wants to strengthen the bond of team members and help they communicate better by bringing them to an escape room. The players will continue to ride different horses each practice to prepare for riding the other teams’ horses. The players prepare the horses by giving them a day to rest before the competition. Mamdouh 2 Mamdouh Mohamed Intro Comp: Writing as inquiry 073 Andrew Koss 10/15/2021 Riff Ram Bah Zoo It’s 3rd Down, eight yards from the goal, And Max Dougan sees an open wide receiver. He throws the ball to Johnson, who has a great grip on the football and scores a touchdown. Then Defensive player 44 fall on top of Johnson, and Johnson threw him off and celebrated his touchdown. “Touchdown!” shouted the commentator at the top of Amon G. Carter Stadium. The stands shouted loud, “TCU! TCU! TCU!” After the ball was given back to the referee, students chanted thrice: Riff, Ram, Bah Zoo Lickety, Lickety, Zoo, Zoo Who, Wah, Wah, Who Give ‘em Hell, TCU. It is sunny with a temperature of 90°F. The game is the Horned Frogs against the longhorns – long-time rivals. I Wake up with excitement today to watch this game and look into how this rival team is swept by the Frogs. This game is like no other, whereby a lot of people are attending, and tickets were sold out a week before. The game itself looks very challenging since the rivals are undefeated for the season. I walk to the stadium with two friends of mine and believe it or not, they are more excited than I am. Only a few minutes before kickoff, my friends and I jugged Finally, as we made it to our seats on the forty yardline, we start to settle in a little bit and get ready for another round of football excitement. The stadium look so packed everywhere and as if it is like we are watching a president give a speech at the center of the playing field. Five minutes as the Horned Frogs start to appear from the end-zones. As soon as the fireworks and canon go off, everyone raises their hands, chants as loud as they could, and even sway and cheer together. The Horned Frog players run onto the field as smoke pours out the end-zone; they appear to come from underground. The cheerleaders are on the other side of the field and they seen ready to start their show. The pregame show looks so good to the naked eye. To watch all these events happening at the same time builds up excitement on top of our excitement for the game that thats about to start. Students are standing and chanting different phrases. “Austin Sucks”, “ Horns Down” Horns Down” were some of those phrases. I have never experienced such crowd of students yelling at the players and scaring them with their chants. The TCU football players look ready and they are there to prove themselves. Horn Frog players spend most of their day time training and getting things they need to stay in motion and healthy. The TCU athletics department works their best to nurture the students with healthy food and make sure they go to their own dinning place. Most of this young talented players loved football at a young age and their dream is to make It to the National Football League. “ I have worked hard, to make it to where I am today and I want to bring victory for myself and for my college, I would do whatever I can to play my role well and support my teammates “ said by Foster. You could tell the passion every football player has for the game of football by how they are excited about the games and how they respond to you when you ask them, are you sure we are going to beat this team. For instance, Foster, a TCU running back, lives the same building I live in and I asked him about whether we are going to win against Oklahoma University, and he responded, “ don’t ask me, put just see how we whoop them”. OU has one of the best teams in the nation, and yet TCU players are not having a single worry about who their rival team is and their goal is to tackle the ball and get as many touchdown to the end-zone. This game that I was watching was very entertaining and as TCU lead the first quarter I thought to myself that it was done and they would keep up the lead. However, the Long horns surpassed and they showed a great game throughout leading TCU to loose. It was a disaster and something that everybody who get up for that day to watch the rivals was not expecting. That day I felt bad for the TCU horn frogs who showed everything they could and yet faced unlock. The game ended with 32 - 27. A day from that I was thinking about the expression foster gave me about not the long horns but OU and I said to myself, was that really true or as long as someone has the passion they will make it to it. As the game was about to end, you could see a lot of people leaving the stadium and the seats becoming empty after one of the other. Imagine one of my friends who was so hyped to not miss watching the game the night before, said to me, “Yo, its done, lets just go”. I was shocked and said, No, we are not. they are only down a score and they can make an interception and score that, so wait. The whistle was blown and the long horns players ran off the filed like crazy celebrating their win in our home. I was shocked so as everyone surrounding me. The excited students at once seemed all sorrow and you could hear some of them insulting some of the TCU players. “ They are dump, “ Max is useless, he doesn’t know how to play and should be kicked off the team”, “ I would never come back here, what a shame!”. The students all of a sudden where feeling bad about their rivals beating them and so I was. However, I was not mad of the fact that we lost, but the fact that we had the lead at the first quarter and we were playing so well and then started to stop the stamina. I do not watch football that much, but that day you could see me talking to the players, “ pass to him”, “Why in the world would you make that move Max”. I felt very confident behind the stage talking about the game when I did not know enough of how the players are struggling just to maintain their momentum. Coming back to my dorm, I saw this student who painted his skin with TCU and he was setting nearby the BLUU and from his face you could tell that he was very angry at the game. I felt that same especially when you have painted yourself and you were expecting a win over your rivals. You could hear his cracking voice and how he was swearing at the TCU players saying, “I rather play their game and I would deserve to be in the team than them assholes” It is was not good to hear that, but I could feel his emotion and how many of young Americans really support College Football. College football is very common among many Americans and it is very supported by mainly graduates of schools that are playing. For instance, many TCU fans were parents and also the Fort Worth Community who wanted to show their support for the TCU players that are playing for their environment. They have not only supported them by attending the game, but they also paid expensive tickets to get into the game. They are a source of funding for them. I have not seen many parents fed up about the game, but according to them I thought that they are mature enough to know that the ball was black and white and everything could happen. I could hear some parents even congratulating for the players and building their reputation even though they have lost that day. Have you yourself watched a college football? And what was one thing you will always remember from going there. For me, I believe its the students chants and how they were screaming different phrases that were made-up. This created a bond between the football players and the people Cheering form the stand because that support seems to be a bit confident in the players hearts. Believe or not, Horned Frog players will keep playing their best and always try to beat their rivals.