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V-Opolis

edit .

TheJESTERJ

What was the prompt? What course is this for? College or High School?

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KniteOps

The content was enjoyable. I'd like to know more about what can be done to improve the quality of American soccer to match how utterly popular it is in Europe. As for content, I'm not a soccer player or a fan. Therefore, I can't judge how accurate your statements are. But I was definitely hooked by your writing. If this is for Expository Writing or Research Writing there are minor nitpicking details that need to be fixed, but what you have written so far was entertaining and interesting.

The ending is a lot better without the rhetorical question at the end. It seems like you're about to get really serious and all of a sudden the odd structure kind of throws the whole pacing off. Perhaps this is the main snag that I have to offer commentary on. Another thing that was a bit annoying was using "you" in a personal first person piece. I tend to think that it draws away from the strength of opinion pieces which stress philosophical thought and analyzation rather than having to address the needs of the audience.

hobosexual

How hard does your teacher grade?

I mean it's pretty good aside from a few things here and there but I dunno how harsh I should be, this could be an A+ paper to your prof and absolute shit to another.

TheJESTERJ

It's a bit short, the second and last paragraphs could use a bit more substance on how MLS started and the importance. Seems more like you're giving your opinion on MLS rather than informing the reader.

The first paragraph could be shortened a bit. Just give the reader the idea that you are passionate about the sport and move on. There's also the structure and overall grammar, but you said you'll work on that later. EDIT: In fact I think the entire first paragraph is not needed. I suggest either deleting it and integrating your story into one of the other paragraphs. You could move the second paragraph up, delete the first, and fit your story into the first few sentences of that paragraph.

I also agree with KniteOps. It's sort of accusing the reader and insinuating a lot when you use the word "you". Rhetoric questions often are taboo. To get a point across don't leave anything up to the reader.

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Ronin

When reading it, I was wondering what the "lead" is.

Getting it across could be easily accomplished by adding one introductory sentence, that contains something like "the question" you were asking yourself when thinking about what you should write.

That would make it much easier to get into the story, as you said, it is to be something similar to a feature in a mag, or some editorial; That comes from the fact that people do want to know at a glance what it is about, not read through a whole lot of words, just to get to the point of deciding if the article even interests them, because than they probably will decide that it doesn't pretty early.

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hobosexual

Yeah do you have the prompt?

Is this supposed to be some kind of informative article or an opinion piece or what.

KniteOps

Well the "lead" would be the original magazine article that he is addressing. Which might be more of a hassle to post then to simply receive criticism.

Six hours should be more than enough time for a paper.

Ronin

I am confused, I thought he was writing an article, not discussing one.

However, I think that every piece of words should be interesting, so the basic rules of news-writing still apply.

You need to lead people in or they won't come, which I wanted to point out.
You can not live without a lead.

@V-Opolis:
If you want to shorten it up, look for redundancies rather than cutting the personal aspect which I thought had a good flow.

(Six hours is a long time, I wrote a 6 page long paper on some metallurgical topic once in one sitting, lol.)

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Ronin

Well I do not know if that is how it works for the term lead, but basically an article needs a catchy intro. (I don't know if the English term "lead" is also substitutable with the "shot" or the intent of the whole article and basically a synonym for the story itself, but if it is, that's the right word.)

This would be the lead. It tells you what you will get in the rest of the article and might reveal the intentions of the writer or the motivation.

With this, the process of reading becomes more natural; the leads introduces the "concerns" and the article discusses them to completion.

Often people forget that when they write something, others will not get this introductory question of why and what, that made the article start, delivered on a silver tablet.
That's why any (informational) article has to start with a lead.
The clearer, the simpler and the shorter, the better.

Example:
"Where does soccers stand at?"
Added in in front would already sort it out (though hardly fit in).

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