Smiles

Heya Erza, it's around 1:30am, it's review day, and I am pumped! As a result, I thought I'd come check out the essay you have here and drop by to give it a review. I won't get into nit-picks because they're a little time consuming and aren't a necessity, so what I'll do instead is give my overall opinion. I'll begin with what I like about your essay, which I'm sure won't be too difficult of a task, and then I'll move on to critiques and suggestions so that I ca try and help you improve what you have here at the moment.

Now the first positive thing that struck me about this was your opening sentence because I am actually very fond of it. I think rhetorical are awesome literary techniques, and I think you've used one to your full advantage in this essay's opening because immediately, you've made your readers begin thinking. I'm also really rather fond of the theme of this essay because hey, smiling is important and everyone should smile at least once a day if you ask me I also quite like the cheery mood and atmosphere of this essay as a whole because after reading this, it left me with, well, a smile on my face!

Now I don't have masses of critiques and suggestions for you because this is a very short essay, and I do like it overall, but I have managed to conjure up one or two things I'd like to mention. The first is just a quick note for you really because basically, I noticed quite a few sneaky typos here and there among this essay. Not necessarily spelling errors or anything, but easy slips of the keyboard that I make at least ten times a day. I'll show you some examples that I found:

Its as is smiles are the different shades of the same color.

You need an apostrophe in its and you've got a typo where it should be if rather than is

shiuld

should

worls

world

Do you see what I mean? You hardly have masses and masses of typos, but I did notice a few sneaky ones popping up. I's suggest that you read over this again with a fine toothed comb so that you can spot every typo you make, and then correct each one. You could also just use a spell checker to point out your typos, and they're very quick and easy. If you don't have a programme such as Microsoft Word that can highlight misspellings and typos, there are plenty of online spell checkers you can use. Just google it.

Now in terms of content, I want more of it! I want it longer too! I do really like what you have here at the moment because it's rather cute, and I like cute things. Nonetheless, I do think you need to add more meat to this review and give us readers some more detail on the topic you're writing about. You have a tendency to mention something, but then not really explain it any further, thus leaving us readers gasping for more. Let me give an example: the part where you mention there's been a specific study where scientists concluded there were 19 types of smiles. What was the study called? What was involved in the study? What are some of the 19 different types? What's your opinion on the study? What's your opinion on the 19 different types (you don't have to do all 19, but three or four would be nice).

I basically want you to go into as much detail as you can, and I want you to feed us readers as much information as you can because after reading an essay, you want people to really think about what you've written and feel that they have been educated from reading your essay. You do achieve this a little right now, so awesome job there, but I definitely think you can take it further by explaining things further and in more detail such as the study involving scientists finding 19 different types of smiles. Wherever you can, expand on the detail and make us readers feel so informed that our brains almost bulge out of our skulls! (Okay, maybe not quite that far, but you know what I mean.)

Something else I want to bring up is paragraphing. I mentioned this in one of my last reviews, and you have a similar issue that other writer had because you have a rather large paragraph here. The fact that this essay currently only consists of that one paragraph makes it more noticeable, methinks. What I'm going to say to you is to not be afraid to paragraph like there's no tomorrow! The benefits of paragraphing is not only improving appearance by making a piece look cleaner and tidier, but it also improves the way in which your readers read your essay. When it's in a single, rather large paragraph like it is at the moment, all of the information feels rather squeezed in and rushed. This is what you have right now:

People smile for so many different reasons don't they? Well, they smile for reasons like to forget their worries, tell someone they are fine; etc etc. But it all involves one thing- sharing happiness and joy. Its as is smiles are the different shades of the same color. There is a purpose behind every smile but its not necessary that each smile shiuld have a reason. The scientists say that there are 19 types of smiles but who count (other than them of course..) ? And then the fact that everyone in this worls smiled today atleast once makes me realize that a smile is the only thing that is priceless and free of cost! A smile can lift a ton of weight from someones heart. Sometimes people smile to intidimate or even scare others which is truly hilarious. But, smile is a treasure that is omnipresent. We share, give or take smiles instinctively most of the time. It is more priceless than any treasure. They say that if you kept smiling then you would live ten times longer. Maybe...just maybe..if someone never smiled at all then they would die at the age of twenty. Even a baby can smile so let us not be lazy or scared and smile cheerfully to light up the world with happiness.

Do you see how that looks a little disorganised and chunky, and how your readers may find it a bit rushed and cramped? If you were to separate it a little and turn it into two, maybe three paragraphs then you'd be surprised at how nicer it is to read. And when a reader finds a piece comfortable to read, they are guaranteed to enjoy it a lot more. I'd suggest for you to try changing it into something along the lines of this:

People smile for so many different reasons don't they? Well, they smile for reasons like to forget their worries, tell someone they are fine; etc etc. But it all involves one thing- sharing happiness and joy. Its as is smiles are the different shades of the same color. There is a purpose behind every smile but its not necessary that each smile shiuld have a reason.

The scientists say that there are 19 types of smiles but who count (other than them of course..) ? And then the fact that everyone in this worls smiled today atleast once makes me realize that a smile is the only thing that is priceless and free of cost! A smile can lift a ton of weight from someones heart. Sometimes people smile to intidimate or even scare others which is truly hilarious. But, smile is a treasure that is omnipresent. We share, give or take smiles instinctively most of the time. It is more priceless than any treasure.

They say that if you kept smiling then you would live ten times longer. Maybe...just maybe..if someone never smiled at all then they would die at the age of twenty. Even a baby can smile so let us not be lazy or scared and smile cheerfully to light up the world with happiness.

That's not necessarily the best paragraphing on my part, but can you see how that looks a lot nicer than your current version does? It's a lot cleaner and is both nicer to look at, but also nicer to read. It feels and looks a lot more organised, and so if your readers were to come across your little essay here, I think they'd be a lot more likely to read it if it was paragraphed more smoothly compared to if you keep it as it is with a single, rather chunky paragraph.

Other than that, I don't really have anything to critique. I'm not exactly an essay expert so I'm not sure how much use I've been, but I hope I've managed to help you out at least a little bit. Despite my critiques, this is an overall very nice, cute little piece, and so you should be happy with what you have here so far. If you have any questions or comments regarding this review, please go ahead and let me know by contacting me in any way you can think of. Although if you respond with a reply to this review, I may be a bit slow because I always forget to check back at things I've reviewed because I'm pretty darn useless really.

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins

Hey, ERZA.
Thanks for taking the time to explore this topic. It's kind of like that effect where you read about someone breathing, you suddenly become aware of your own breath and have to do it manually instead of automatically like you had been doing. What I mean is that with so many mentions of smiling, I couldn't help but smiling while reading. And you're right, it feels so good, because just the act releases some happy feelings.

But the problem I had with this paragraph was that it seemed too naive and not realistic. For example:

The scientists say that there are 19 types of smiles but who count (other than them of course..) ?

WHAT!? I don't count, but that is EXTREMELY interesting to me. I know this isn't really the place to go down the list of them, but bringing out some examples would help open the reader to the varied world that is smiles, when we might originally think there's just one kind: the happy one!

Also, I know this really stinks to think about, but it's not as rare as you think it is for someone to go a whole day without smiling. There are thousands and thousands of really unhappy people that never in a day have a reason to smile, and even if you don't want to, you kinda have to face that fact. Reading what felt to me like a lie -- "everyone smiles at least once" -- made me feel uncomfortable and less likely to believe what came after.

All in all, it's an optimistic report on smiles, and I think it could still be with more realistic edits. I think it would just be much more valuable if it could face the sad facts and STILL come away with a positive message. Are you up to the challenge?

PM me if you have any questions or comments about my review, please.
And keep writing!

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