Lily, I think you have a solid premise for this paper. You seem to be angling for a more sentimental approach to the Soylent-vs-food question, and the personal anecdotes you provided work very well to that end. The introduction feels a bit scattered, however, and it takes a paragraph or so before the message of your paper becomes apparent. In your case, I believe your writing would be more effective if you stated a clear point of view earlier on. I also could not confidently identify a thesis. This may be due to the lack of paragraph structure. Of course, your paper is still very unpolished, and it wouldn’t be fair or productive of me to judge it like a near-finished product, but a well-defined thesis statement would go a long way, even now. I think that is the most important thing to focus on, at the moment. Once you have that covered, and have broken your essay up into paragraphs, you will be left with the heart of a compelling argument! There are a number of grammar and spelling mistakes to address as well, but nothing major. Just make sure you iron those out, too. Spaghetti is the best pasta.

Lindsey, the skeleton of your paper is structurally sound as far as I can tell. As for substance, I think it would serve your essay well to be fleshed out more. In particular, I feel that more quotes from the text and more information about your personal relationship with food is needed. You mentioned being a picky eater when you were younger. I would be interested to know how you imagine other picky eaters would react to Soylent. When you were pickier with your food, what was it that made certain foods palatable and other foods less so? Nowadays, what to you believe it is that makes a meal great? You bring up the importance of sharing meals with loved ones and the cultural importance of culinary tradition multiple times. This is a perfect place to share personal experience. Tell the reader a little more about what both of these things mean to you. At one point in your paper, you say that, although Soylent is very useful as a dietary supplement, it does not make sense for Rhinehart to be using it as his staple diet. You could elaborate more on that point of view and explain why you think so. I don’t see anything about your writing that I would change, only things that I would add. Also, chicken parm is a A+ meal.

Nadya, your argument is a strong one. It just needs to be polished. As I mentioned in my comment on your introduction, sometimes your thoughts don’t flow seamlessly from one to the other, leading to a bit of a “bumpy” reading experience. Once those rough edges are smoothed out, you will have a compelling essay! Because the core substance of your paper is solid, what it could really benefit from is, well, more of itself. You make some interesting points that beg to be elaborated upon, and the main premise of the essay could be fleshed out much more. I like the title, “No One’s Favorite Food is Soylent”. I believe it accurately captures your sentiments, but those sentiments fail to be fully realized in the writing itself. With a title like that, a reader expects to learn what a having a favorite meal really means, not just to you, but to them. Try and make your reader ask questions about their own relationship with food that they haven’t considered before. Think about everything that makes your favorite food special to you and, with that fresh in your mind, try and describe in as much detail as possible why Soylent isn’t anybody’s favorite food. What is it that your favorite meal has, that homecooked meals have, that Soylent will always be missing? You touched upon the sentimental value that food can hold, now dig deeper into that same vein. I think that’s the direction your essay seems to be trying to go; it just hasn’t found its way there yet. Also, crepes are better.