7 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2017
    1. Examples of friendships of utility is a classmate who you study with, but will lose contact after the course ends. A friend of pleasure is a person who you might spend time to engage in a shared hobby. The few friendships of the good are friends you can disclose whatever you want to and have as a long-term support system. Although Aristotle groups friends into three groups, he believes that “to be friends therefore, men must (1) feel goodwill for each other, that is, wish each other’s good, and (2) be aware of each other’s goodwill, and (3) the cause of their goodwill must be one of the lovable qualities mentioned above.” An important characteristic of a friendship is that it is a known mutual goodwill. Of course, friendship of the good is the best and most virtuous form of friendship, but there is no formula for it.

      I added examples of the three types of friendships, defined by Aristotle, after a classmate suggested I expand on them. People who have not learned about the three types might not know how they differ so providing specific and realistic examples would make the paragraph more explicit and detailed. I closed the paragraph by acknowledging Aristotle's three qualifications for a friendship and stating that there is no formula for developing a friendship. Philosophy is not clear-cut, but still offers insight into abstract concepts like friendship.

    2. I was curious what one of my best friends, Lindsey, thought about friendships. She responded, “The friends that are a part of my inner circle are the ones who I talk about everything to and share my private feelings. There are some friends I talk more about guys and about my social life with. Some friends I talk about myself as a whole ranging from academics to social life. In finding a friend, I look for those who are loyal and will give me a support system. I seek within my friends a refuge when I become overwhelmed by school and parents. I seek those who will be there to listen and love me. They don’t make me feel less; I look for friends who give honest, yet uplifting comments.” We both, like many people, need people who love us and will stay with us no matter the circumstances.

      I added an interview with one of my closest friends to provide personal, realistic thoughts about friendship- something that is subjective. Her reflection on the types of friends she has and what she looks for in friendships supports the idea that an individual has different levels of friends and values positive behavior in friends. I decided to interview my friend, in particular, because I believed we were friends of good and I personally wanted to know what she saw in me.

    3. Friendships cannot and should not be forced. It is all in the matter of time and place, and if you have not found them yet, the ones you eventually find will be the right ones. When it comes to relationships and friendships, it’s about quality, not quantity.

      I added this to conclude my essay in a more personal way. The ending is more targeted to my intended audience- people like me who want to know what friendships are and the impact friends have on a person. This part also contains hard truth, but with some optimism. A lot of my essay is analysis on research, but the end of it was my chance to include my own thoughts as a social being.

    4. Throughout my life, I had many fleeting friends due to losing contact and growing apart from them. In most of my high school years after I entered a new school sophomore year, I felt something missing in my social life.

      I added this part because I wanted my essay to reflect my own personal experiences with friends as well. My classmates and professor highly encouraged me to use my experience to strengthen the point of the essay. I intended for this essay to explain what friendship is and how friends are made. I originally wanted to write about this topic because the concept and impact of friends was also included in my past essays. I wanted to discuss friends because my personal experience made me realize the importance of them in our social lives.

    5. There is something about our culture where we are superficially “friendly” to many people, but at the end we are not truly friends with all of them. It seems as though love is not the only factor in a friendship; there also shouldn’t be hostility.

      I added this part to my first draft because I was lacking a connection between love between friends and "friendships" that contained no love. I thought some interesting points to include in my essay were the idea of toxic friendships and our culture's practice of appearing "friendly" to most, but only friends with a few. I also use the idea that friendships must be constituted by love to denounce bad friendships.

    1. Reading on, I came to consider that this way of killing is more merciful and that the personal responsibility for cutting the lobster is more dignified than tossing it into boiling water and looking away.

      This piece is a one-page response to David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster. I wanted to work on this further because it was one of most complete one-pagers I had written and I wanted to make revisions according to Mr. Zimmerman's comments. In this sentence, I clarified that this was a point I was making after analyzing what David Foster Wallace wrote. Even in other assignments, I fail to make clear where certain ideas are coming from. This is an example of where I need to be explicit of my personal thoughts and to distinguish between my ideas and the ones from the original writing.

    2. Whether a lobster is stabbed between the eyestalks or is slowly boiled alive, it most likely feels pain as does any other animal. Although killing animals for food may be mentally discomforting for some cooks, it still does not prevent people from preparing and consuming them.

      I added this as a conclusion to my original draft because I ended the essay too abruptly. I wanted to include some thoughts I had after reading and analyzing "Consider the Lobster" that DFW could perhaps agree with. This addition also supports why the moment I explain in this essay is significant. The knife-in-head method is gruesome and might not actually be a more humane way in killing lobsters, but it doesn't stop people from doing so.