Victoria Pierce -- no title

  General comment to everyone:  Be sure you articulate why you are calling some things 
  *borders* or *boundaries* (i.e. things that divide some place from another place or 
  some people from others, while at the same time forming a connection between them).  
  Some of you seem to be using those words almost as synonyms for "differences," but there is 
  more to it than that because you aren't always working in the idea of simultaneous 
  *separation* and *connection*. 

  I think your paper makes a number of good points, but there are some structural problems.
  The main comment I have is that the theme of borders is kind of "buried" in the paper
  in the paragraph starting "There are historical, geographical and moral borders ... "
  and then again even later in the paragraph that starts  "It is where we live that defines 
  us ... ."  I think that could serve as the start of your paper. (But the following
  clause "Herodotus does a great job of making that statement true" doesn't really work -- 
  Herodotus doesn't *make that statement true*; you could say he provides evidence for it, 
  though.)  
  
  You don't exactly say what those borders are or discuss how Herodotus is using them
  to structure his presentation of Egyptian culture in your passage.  For your rewrite, 
  you should start by seeing whether you can move all or some of that paragraph closer 
  to the start to be a component of your introduction. Your goal should be to lay out the 
  exact borders that you are going to consider.  I think the first thing to concentrate on is 
  the way Herodotus frames his description of Egyptian customs by introducing the "entirely opposite" 
  idea.  You could say something like "Herodotus is claiming that there is a border between 
  Egyptian customs and those of all other societies defined by the fact that the Egyptians 
  do everything in a completely opposite way."  Note that this is certainly a separation.  
  But it is also a connection in a sense because, in order to describe the Egyptian customs, 
  Herodotus has to compare them to customs of Greek and other cultures.  

  Then, I think you need to work on getting your paragraphs to develop a single idea (or 
  perhaps a few related ideas).  For example, the paragraph starting on page 1 with opening
  sentence "Gender plays a huge role in [the] lives of Egyptians from what Herodotus found"
  has a good topic sentence and you discuss that point in the sentences that follow.  But then
  half-way through you shift gears and say "Also, another main topic ... "  If you find yourself
  doing that, you really should be starting a new paragraph.  

  On a more local level, your writing is direct and clear but your sentences tend to be very 
  short and a bit "choppy."  You should be working now to make things flow better and 
  lead the reader to see the connections you are trying to make.

  In terms of the attached writing rubric, I think that in most of the categories, this
  paper is "Proficient."  However, the "Paragraph Usage" is closer to "Basic."

  Content:  B

  Mechanics: B