Read the following excerpt from a student essay. How can the writer best improve his or her ideas and development?
Asthma is a lung condition that makes it difficult to breathe. When people have asthma, their breathing passages can become inflamed, swelling up and filling with mucus. Emphysema is another lung disease that makes people short of breath. In people with asthma, inflamed airways become sensitive to smoke and dust, and as a result, the muscles of the airway can tighten up. All of these things make the passages narrow, so it's hard for air to move through. As a result, people with asthma sometimes have a hard time breathing.
by including more details to support the main idea by clearly stating the main idea by removing information unrelated to the main idea
During peer review, you read and respond to a fellow student's writing. While there are many methods and strategies that you can use for reviewing a text, it is generally helpful to frame your suggestions in concrete and constructive ways and to consider the following areas for revision:
Ideas and development: Does the writer express a clear idea and develop it with evidence, examples, or analysis?
Organization: Does the writer order ideas in a clear, logical way so that they build on one another and are easy to follow?
Voice: Does the writer maintain an appropriate voice, such as a formal and objective voice in an academic essay or an engaging and expressive voice in a narrative essay?
Sentence fluency: Does the writer use sentences that vary in structure and length to create a sense of rhythm and flow within and between sentences, or does the writing sound choppy, rambling, or repetitive?
Word choice: Does the writer use words accurately and precisely to create clear, effective, and engaging writing?
Grammar and mechanics: Does the writer follow appropriate conventions, using accurate spelling, punctuation, and grammar to create writing that is correct and easy to read?
The writer could best improve his or her ideas and development by removing information unrelated to the main idea.
For example, the writer could remove the underlined text and focus only on the main idea: how asthma affects breathing.
Asthma is a lung condition that makes it difficult to breathe. When people have asthma, their breathing passages can become inflamed, swelling up and filling with mucus. Emphysema is another lung disease that makes people short of breath. In people with asthma, inflamed airways become sensitive to smoke and dust, and as a result, the muscles of the airway can tighten up. All of these things make the passages narrow, so it's hard for air to move through. As a result, people with asthma sometimes have a hard time breathing.