hat We Talk About When We Talk About Love

I read Raymond Carver’s story, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love for about three times just to get a real grasp of what he wanted to convey. Thus, I edited my essay and started it with a message that stuck to my mind after three times of reading it: love is truly a vague and subjective concept, whose definition depends on the experiences and beliefs of the person being asked. Furthermore, in the second line of the first paragraph, I edited out the word “for” because they were inappropriate. Moreover, I also changed the use of the first person in the fourth and fifth sentences to maintain a third person voice throughout the essay.

Also, to build up a stronger argument, I added the fact that it is God’s love that is the greatest and should therefore be emulated. In addition, I included the word “among” in the fourth line because I realized that problems do not only arise between two parties but also “among” many parties. Moreover, after mentioning God’s great love, I juxtaposed it with the breakup of relationships due to men and women’s desire to search for more. I strived to maintain parallelism so I changed “finding men who are more…” to “finding a man who is more…” to be parallel with the earlier contention of men “finding a woman who is more…” Finally, in the last line, I adhered to APA style so instead of placing quotation marks before and after the title of the story, I italicized them and also changed the second person and instead use the third for consistency.

In the second paragraph, I noticed some verb-tense inconsistencies in the second and third lines that is why I changed the present tense to the appropriate past tense. I also saw this mistake in the eight line where I wrote, “this would save her life, and give…,” thus, I added “would” before “give” for consistency and correctness. Furthermore, I also noticed the several quotes I included in my previous essay, so I tried to explain my arguments without directly quoting from the text but using my own words and compressing my ideas in short but concise sentences.

For smooth transition of ideas, I started the third paragraph with a transition statement. I paid attention to my grammar in the whole of the paragraph and also maintained the third person. I cited properly the direct quotes that moved the ideas forward. I added a quotation from Mel, in contrast with the argument Terri insisted, to show that love is not selfish and possessive like the love Ed offered Terri. I also added what my idea of love is, based on what I see on my own environment and on what Mel displayed – love is allowing the other person to grow and be free.

Again, I added a transition statement at the start of the fourth paragraph for smooth transition. I removed the word “very” in the first and third lines because they appear highfaluting and subjective. For consistency, I changed the second person in the second line to the third person and altered “finer and nobler than anyone” to a simpler “perfect,” which seemed more appropriate and correct. I removed the direct quotes because they were too long and instead used my own words to explain my arguments. Furthermore, I removed the underlined sentence and placed it, along with the succeeding lines, to the next paragraph in the edited version of the essay. In this new paragraph, I corrected mistakes in the present tense of the verb, which was supposedly in the past because they have already transpired. Moreover, I inserted a quote from the story, which defined what physical love was, as I think it explained the statement better. I also added a phrase after what true love means in that it “is tested over time.” Again, I removed the word very as this was inappropriate and subjective. Also, I added one more line from

Mel’s quotation as I believed it made the statement stronger and more justified. I also removed the word “sex” in the last line because I thought it was quite improper and instead changed it with the more suitable “physical or sensual” love.

In the fifth paragraph of the earlier essay, I used second person again so I changed it to the third for objectivity and consistency. I also started it with a transition statement like what I did in the previous paragraphs. I altered my contention that not sharing the details of one’s past as “the best way to have a good present relationship” and changed it to “one of the best ways…” because I realized there are other ways to maintain a good relationship, not just doing away with discussing one’s past.

In the sixth paragraph, I inserted a transition statement at the beginning and checked my grammar, sentence construction, prepositions, choice of words, verb tenses, and the use of contractions such as “couldn’t” and “didn’t,” as the use of these is improper in formal writing. I also deleted unnecessary quotations, which did not bring the arguments forward. Notably, I removed the last line, which was a quotation, as it is wrong to end a paragraph in a quotation.

In the conclusion, I removed the first person “we” which was inconsistent with the whole of the essay and instead use the third person “people” and “they.” I also added some of the ideas in the previous paragraphs for a simple recap and connection of arguments. Specifically, I linked the last idea to the argument in the first paragraph by repeating the contention held in the latter to make a stronger argument. I inserted a quote from Mel which supported this contention, thus I believe I concluded the essay quite well and with stronger arguments. Finally, I came up with a question-form title, What is Love?, which is consistent with the theme of my essay and the story.