Homework Analysis

Being in the process of learning how to write a proper paragraph, it is important for me to, firstly, understand the mistakes I have made, and secondly, know how to correct them.
This is a piece of homework I handed in in class:

The emblem of South Dakota

The one thing that really surprised me about my CLI, Mount Rushmore, was how much effort was put into carving the presidents' faces as a memorial into the Black Mountains. One architect as well as four hundred experienced mountaineers and sculptors worked for fourteen years on the more than eighteen meter high faces. The workers dynamited to remove the largest rocks, but they used drills, chisels and hammers for more detailed work. It is impressing how much attention the sculptors paid to detail, looking for instance at the cubes of granite left inside the eyes' irises in order to make them seem more alive or at the characteristic glasses of Theodore Roosevelt which are present in the monument. The architect of Mount Rushmore even had plans to chisel each president from head to waist, but his early death caused the end of the project and left the sculpture as we know it today. Nevertheless, Mount Rushmore attracts nearly three million visitors a year who travel to South Dakota so as to get as surprised as I am, when travel guides and signs tell them how much work it has been to create this masterpiece.


The corrected paragraph:

The emblem of South Dakota

The one thing that really surprised me about my CLI, Mount Rushmore, was how much effort was put into carving the presidents' faces as a memorial into the Black Mountains. One architect as well as four hundred experienced mountaineers and sculptors worked for fourteen years on the more than eighteen meter high faces. The workers used dynamite to remove the largest rocks, but they used drills, chisels and hammers for more detailed work. It is impressive how much attention the sculptors paid to detail, taking into consideration for instance the cubes of granite left inside the irises in order to make the eyes seem more alive, or the characteristic glasses of Theodore Roosevelt which were carved into the monument too. The architect even had plans to chisel each president from head to waist, but he died before he could do so, consequently, the project and the sculpture were left as we know it today. Despite that fact, Mount Rushmore attracts nearly three million visitors a year who travel to South Dakota and are probably as surprised as I am, when travel guides and signs tell them how much work it was to create this masterpiece.


To talk about the positive aspects first, my original paragraph was cohesive. My supporting sentences as well as the conclusion sentence refer to the statement in the topic sentence and I do not overuse linking words.
There are many mistakes, though:

1) It is more common to say “to use dynamite to remove something”, than to “dynamite something”.
2) It is “impressive”, not “impressing”! If I wanted to use “impressing”, I would have had to write “it is impressing someone”. “Impressive” means that something is impressive in general and it does not need an object.
3) “Taking into consideration” is definitely more formal and sounds more intelligent than “looking”
4) “Left inside the irises to make the eyes seem more alive” fits better, because of possible reference confusions: In my original version, the reader might think that the eyes' irises look more alive because of the cubes of granite. Indeed, it is the eyes that look alive.
5) Punctuation: The comma between “alive” and “or” is necessary because there are two strong clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction (and, or, but, for, nor).
6) “Which are present in” is not a good way to say that the sculptors carved the glasses of Theodore Roosevelt into the Black Mountains. Probably I derived it from the German “präsent sein”. Anyway, it does not work in English.
7) “The architect of Mount Rushmore” → “of Mount Rushmore” is redundant because it would be illogical if I suddenly spoke about an architect of a different monument.
8) “Cause” means “to make something happen” and is a transitive verb. The question is: Can death make something happen? Obviously not. The absence of the architect could have caused the end of the project and the architect is absent because he is dead. “Stop” cannot be used in this context either, because the architect did not die so as to stop the project. That is why I decided to rebuild the sentence in order to avoid the use of one of these verbs.
9) “Nevertheless” is not appropriate because it indicates that the sculpture is not that good because it is not finished, but nevertheless there are many tourists who want to see it. What I actually wanted to convey to the reader is, that the sculpture is brilliant, even without the waists of the presidents.
10) “So as to get as surprised as I am” would mean that tourists go to Mount Rushmore with the intention of being as surprised as I am.
11) “has been”: wrong tense
Working on carving the sculpture is already over; I even know the date it was finished. Because of that, past tense is, in my opinion, more appropriate.