Before: For me there are many elements that can make a good friend. But, before explaining those elements it is important to say that there are different types of friends. There are school friends, online friends, work friends, and many more. The biggest element that can make a good friend in any situation is shared experience. Konnikova says “one of the things that keeps face to face friendships strong is the nature of shared experience.” Which I strongly agree with. But, she goes on to say that people can’t bond over things online at the same time. That part I don’t completely agree with. When I was younger, I would play a lot of video games with a couple of my friends that I first met at school. We had a huge bond over video games that only helped create an even bigger bond in person. So, shared experience in my opinion can occur online and in some situations when paired with face to face interactions can greatly improve friendships.
After: In life you meet so many people from all different types of environments. With these different environments you can make many different types of friendships. You can have a school friend, who you hang out with and talk to during school hours. You can have online friends, who you talk to while you play video games on a weekend night. You can have work friends, who you see during work and honestly only talk to because you are around each other. The list can go on and on. The biggest element of friendship in any situation is shared experiences. Whether it’s talking to each other during lunch, playing the new NBA2k on Xbox together, or having to deal with an angry boss together, there are experiences to be shared in all types of environments. Maria Konnikova, a russian-American writer who has a phd in psychology writes in her essay “The Limits of Friendship” that “one of the things that keeps face to face friendships strong is the nature of shared experience.” (Konnikova 3) I would strongly agree with this. But, she goes on to say that people can’t bond over things online at the same time. That part I don’t completely agree with. When I was younger, I would play a lot of video games with a couple of my friends that I first met at school. We had a huge bond over video games that only helped create an even bigger bond in person. Shared experience in my opinion can occur online and in some situations when paired with face to face interactions can greatly improve friendships.
Reflection: Most of my adjustments in my paragraph came in the first half of the paragraph. I give some details of possible ways that you can connect with your different types of friends. I think this would help the reader be able to make personal connections within my writing. I also introduce Maria Konnikova so my reader has a better understanding of who she is and why she is a credible source for me to quote from. The improvements I made lengthened my paragraph significantly. I shouldn’t always strive for lengthier pieces of writing, but in this case I think I made improvements that positively impacted the clarity of the paragraph.
