Cody Wilkinson -- Persian Religious Beliefs

  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*. 

  Your opening paragraph is generally very good.  But in the sentence "The borders Herodotus 
  crosses in this section is that of culture" you are describing the borders as cultural in nature,
  but you don't say exactly what they are, what lies on either side of them, or how they 
  connect those things (as in the general comment above).  (By the way, the subject "borders" 
  is plural but the verb "is" is singular. They should match in number.)  For your rewrite, try 
  to work those ideas from the general comment into what you are saying.  

  My major comment is the paper sort of "runs out" at the end by mentioning several other
  interesting, non-religious, customs that Herodotus describes in quite a bit of detail. 
  I get the impression you really wanted to say more there and it might be good to do that
  by widening the scope--discuss Persian customs in general, not just the religious customs
  from the first two chapters 1.131 and 1.132.  That might give you a more satisfying way 
  to come to a satisfying overall conclusion as well.

  Some smaller points about wording, etc.

    (1)  In the second paragraph, "alter" and "altar" are two different words.  You want "altar."
         "non sentient" needs a hyphen

    (2)  "For the Greeks, all of these things represented specific gods with their own 
         background and personality. Apollo, Artemis, Hades, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hephaestus 
         respectively" -- This is very good, but I think it's probably more accurate to say 
         "... each of these things was represented by a specific god, each with his or her 
         own background and personality."  The list of specfic gods is not a complete sentence 
         (no verb).  I know people do this sometimes, but I would say to avoid it unless there's 
         a really good reason to do it.  Here you could append the list to the previous 
         sentence with a colon or a dash.  Or you could make it a free standing complete
         sentence by adding "These were ... "

    (3)  Farther down in this paragraph "culture borders" should be "cultural borders"

    (4)  Second paragraph on page 2 -- you start by saying the Persian practices 
         were different from what Herodotus was used to.  But then most the rest of
         the paragraph discusses how there were really some surprising underlying similarities
         and you suggest a reason for why that was the case. Your topic sentence "fakes out" 
         the reader by suggesting something different from what the paragraph says.

    (5)  Bottom of page 3:  "... Herodotus goes onto ... " You mean he *goes on to* ... 
         Again the following statement is not a complete sentence.  See (2) above.

  In terms of the attached writing rubric, most of this is at the "Proficient" level
  with some "Advanced" elements (especially the Evidence categories).

  Content: B+

  Mechanics: B+