Smarthinking's Tutor Response Form

(Your marked-up essay is below this form.)

HOW THIS WORKS: Your tutor has written overview comments about your essay in the form
below. Your tutor has also embedded comments [in bold and in brackets] throughout your
essay. Thank you for choosing Smarthinking's Spanish-language Essay Center; best wishes
with revising your paper!

Hello, Preston. Welcome to SMARTHINKING's Spanish Essay Center! You have presented some good
ideas in your essay. My name is Sherry. I hope my comments will be helpful to you as you revise your
work.

*Strengths of the essay: 

Your essay has a lot of good content, Preston. There is a nice variety of vocabulary and grammatical
structures, and it is well organized. Also, it is very interesting. I enjoyed reading about you.   

Once you have made the corrections I have suggested below, you should have an excellent essay to
turn in. Great job so far!

*Preston 13745868 has requested that you respond to the Grammatical Agreement: 

Preston, there are two errors in grammatical agreement. Both are with the verb “gustar”.

Mi [word choice – ‘to me’ (indirect object pronoun)] gusta [agreement] el [plural] Rifle
[plural], y [omit “y”] el track [translate to Spanish] y [add ‘the’] Cross [lower case] Country
[lower case] [translate ‘cross country’ to Spanish].

Mi [word choice – ‘to me’ (indirect object pronoun)] Gusta [lower case] [agreement] [add
‘the’] pizza[add a comma] [add ‘the’] hamburguesas y de [omit] [add ‘the’] mozzeria
[‘mozzarella’?] sticks [translate ‘mozzarella sticks’ to Spanish],[punctuation – period]

In both sentences above, the subject of “gustar” is plural. The subject in the first sentence is rifles,
track, and cross country”, and the subject of the second sentence is ‘pizza, hamburgers, and
mozzarella sticks’. When the subject of the verb “gustar” is plural, you need the ‘they’ form of the
verb.

*Preston 13745868 has requested that you respond to the Accents & Punctuation: 

I did not find any errors in accents, Preston, but there are several punctuation errors.

Hola, soy Preston Gradillas,[omit comma and add ‘and’] soy estadondese [spelling],
[punctuation – period] mi [upper case] trabajo es la escuela.

The excerpt above, which you have as one sentence, is actually three complete (short, but complete)
sentences. I think it is best to combine the first two parts into one sentence and state the last part as
a separate sentence. Of course, sentences  need a period at the end (unless they have a question
mark or exclamation mark).

Soy un estudiante,[omit comma] responsible [spelling] y elegante [word choice - ¿? (how are
you elegant in class?)] en clase.

There is no need to separate the noun and the adjective describing the noun in the sentence above.
Soy [word choice – the other ‘to be’] in [translate to Spanish] clase hoy,[punctuation –
period or semicolon] yo [omit] salgo de la escuela es [omit] a lot [translate to Spanish] veces.
[rephrase “salgo….. veces” (meaning unclear)]

‘I am in class today’ is a complete sentence, and the rest of the excerpt above is a separate complete
sentence. Complete sentences can be separated with a period or a semicolon. A semicolon is used
only if the two (would-be) complete sentences are related enough in topic.

Mi [word choice – ‘to me’ (indirect object pronoun)] Gusta [lower case] [agreement] [add
‘the’] pizza[add a comma] [add ‘the’] hamburguesas y de [omit] [add ‘the’] mozzeria
(‘mozzarella’?) sticks [translate ‘mozzarella sticks’ to Spanish],[punctuation – period]

Both Spanish and English use commas to separate items in a series, but a comma is never used in
Spanish before "y".

Me gusta estudiar historia[add a comma] y [omit] ciwncias [spelling],[omit comma and add
‘and’] mathmática [spelling].

See above.

Summary of Next Steps: 

Preston, you have a great start to a very nice essay. I look forward to working with you on revisions of
future work.

As you revise:

 Check your work for errors in grammatical agreement and make the appropriate corrections.

 Look carefully for errors in punctuation and make the necessary changes.

 Review my comments in bold and brackets below and make the appropriate revisions.

 Be sure to make good use of wordreference.com (online dictionary), www.verbix.com (verb

conjugator), and es.spellcheck.cc (Spanish spell-check).

 Consider submitting your revised draft for further review.

Thank you for using our site, Preston. Please visit as often as you like. We will be very happy to assist
you.

Additional Spanish resources offered by Smarthinking: 

Besides the Spanish essay center, we also offer live tutoring and the ability to submit
offline questions 24 hours a day in Spanish. If you have a question about how a particular
grammatical construction works or want to try one or two sentences live with a tutor to
make sure you are on the right track, you may find Smarthinking Spanish tutoring to be a
helpful accompaniment to the Spanish essay center.

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Please look for more comments in your essay below. Thank you for visiting Smarthinking.
We encourage you to submit future essays.

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Hola, soy Preston Gradillas,[omit comma and add ‘and’] soy estadondese [spelling],

[punctuation – period] mi [upper case] trabajo es la escuela. Soy un estudiante,[omit comma]

responsible [spelling] y elegante [word choice - ¿? (how are you elegant in class?)] en clase.

Soy [word choice – the other ‘to be’] in [translate to Spanish] clase hoy,[punctuation –

period or semicolon] yo [omit] salgo de la escuela es [omit] a lot [translate to Spanish] veces.

[rephrase “salgo….. veces” (meaning unclear)] Mi [word choice – ‘to me’ (indirect object

pronoun)] gusta [agreement] el [plural] Rifle [plural], y [omit “y”] el track [translate to

Spanish] y [add ‘the’] Cross [lower case] Country [lower case] [translate ‘cross country’ to

Spanish]. Mi [word choice – ‘to me’ (indirect object pronoun)] Gusta [lower case]

[agreement] [add ‘the’] pizza[add a comma] [add ‘the’] hamburguesas y de [omit] [add

‘the’] mozzeria (‘mozzarella’?) sticks [translate ‘mozzarella sticks’ to Spanish],[punctuation

– period] Mi [word choice – ‘to me’ (indirect object pronoun)] gustan mucho. Me gusta

estudiar historia[add a comma] y [omit] ciwncias [spelling],[omit comma and add ‘and’]

mathmática [spelling].

 
 The accent marks and symbols were not working(user error) so I had to copy and past

some of them from the instructions and form the supersite/google. I hope that was ok?