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1. Ezra Halleck says:

   April 11, 2013 at 2:27 pm

   Melecia Lee comments:
   1. I like that I could have clearly identify why you became interested in the topic of how to recognize human behavior through statistical analysis from early in your paper when you mentioned “how the word usage is affected….and I find that really fascinating”. I think your first paragraph should have opened with this statement because this is the direction of the remaining paper. I think this is a strong sentence and it can be your thesis statement. I can’t connect the basketball example with your paper. I would omit that piece.

   2. There are a few sections where you’re trying to introduce a section that comes out of an article and one good way of saying it can be “In Brooks’ article entitled “The Philosophy of Data”, ” instead of “On brooks article the philosophy of data”. Also on page one the section “That is the whole point of Brooks in his second article” can be reworded to say “That is the whole point of Brooks’ second article.”

   3. There was only one instance of a repetition of a point that was made and it may be a mistake but since I am notorious of repeating myself I figure I’d point it out because I wouldn’t want you to make the same mistake that I make. I usually ask a friend to read my paper and they usually point out those areas where I am being repetitious. I think the section on page one that states “so people with more self-confidence than others say less the word “I” than others” needs to be deleted because it’s repeating the point that you had just made. You did a great job at making the point and I understood it. No need for the last statement that I just mentioned in the quotes above.

   4. Paragraphs that are conclusion can perhaps begin with “Based on the studies that Barabási and Feldman conducted…” instead of “With the studies that Barabási…” because I don’t think that a conclusion can start with the word “With”.

   5. Keep stating exactly where the information you are writing about came from. One example of an area where mentioning precisely where an idea or example came from is on page two where it states “In the example of the presidents,…. about who they are”. I think the example is from one of Brooks’ articles but the paragraph on page two began with some research you did so I’m not sure if you were able to connect the Presidents examples from Brooks’ article with some research you found but I don’t see the connection, perhaps a quote from the research will prove that another person also thinks the same about lack of self-confidence when using the word “I”. Another area where you made a good point but I wasn’t sure if this was your opinion or someone else’s was on page two with the paragraph that starts off with “The most interesting articles I read” and ended with a quote “stretch the truth”. If the point here was a part of your research then at the end of the quote or paraphrase state the author’s name and the page number that the quote or paraphrase came from as this will avoid plagiarism. I love the paragraph on page three that states “Another study conducted….humans being so predictable.” because you clearly show the point you’re making and clearly identified where the quotes and thoughts came from.

   6. The conclusion paragraph has a sentence that states “…and also to determine the quantity of the data, and the results.” which I would omit because your entire research speaks of human behavior being predictable based on research but the paper doesn’t speak of the quantity of data. There was one section that speaks of 93% but this is not a good representation of the quantity of the data. When speaking of the quantity of the data then some mention of the sample size of the people that Northeastern University network scientists did their research on would have been needed. For all I know their research could have been on 10 people which means 93% of behavior was assessed based on 10 people. I doubt this is the case but it can weaken your research so I would recommend deleting that section that I quoted above.

   Summary
   I must say again that I enjoy reading your paper because I clearly and easily knew where your research was headed which is a defect that I have when I am writing. I like that you clearly stated why you became interested in the human behavior being identified through statistics when you said “how the word usage is affected….and I find that really fascinating”. I also like your connection with human behavior identified via statistical research done by Northeastern University network scientists and you proved it well when you identified the percentage “…reactions is predictable 93% of the time”. One note when doing your paper is to be careful with ensuring that you clearly identify the name of an article and its author for example the opening paragraph could have quotes around the name of Brooks’ article so any reader will know that Brooks is the author of the article. Also maintain citing your quotes for example on page two that states “…don’t lie, or if they don’t “stretch the truth”…” which I think is a quote from one of your research but I’m not sure which one. Clearly stating where your quotations came from will avoid plagiarism. One last piece is to be careful with the additional two research citations used in the paper because I think the Professor wanted us to get specifically scholarly articles. I think the http://phys.org/news186174216.html might be a journal and it may be acceptable but I am not sure if http://www.livescience.com/14152-destructive-human-behaviors-bad-habits.html is an acceptable Source. I could definitely be wrong so I would recommend confirming your Sources with the Professor. Like me, you too have to reread your work when it’s finished because you will notice those areas where there are mis-paragraphing and a huge space between paragraphs. I am so guilty of that too. Your research grabs me to read it and I can’t wait for the finalized version.

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