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Cierra Truett

June 2nd, 2019

ENG-111-502

Review Essay: Bilsland's journey around the world

Before reading this article, my expectations were that I was going to learn about

Elizabeth Bisland’s race around the world. As a reader, I would have liked to have discovered

more information about her race around the world and less about things such as what magazine

published her poems and what type of house her and her husband built together. Another thing I

would have also would have liked to have seen is more information about the person she was

racing against. If you are going to produce an informative article, I think you need to include

both sides of the journey, not just one.

One of the key weaknesses of the article is the noticeable lack of a smooth transition

between the paragraphs. In my opinion, the article could have been restructured to where it

flowed more smoothly. For example, a paragraph in the article talks about how Bilsland was a

published poet. From this paragraph, the reader gains more practical knowledge about Bilsland's

preferred style of writing and continues on to list various segments of her writing. In the

following paragraph, it talks about how prior to her race around the world, she had never been

outside of the country.

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The title of the article seems to be misleading. When I noticed the title of the article, I

assumed I was going to be learning about Bisland’s race around the world. The story did talk

about her race around the world, but it also talked about other things. For example, it noted

multiple titles of books that she wrote during her lifetime, informed the reader about her

husband, and abot h living in Applegarth made Bisland highly productive as a writer. As a

reader, I would have liked to have learned more information about her race around the world and

less about things such as what magazine published her articles and what type of house her and

her husband built together.

A weakness that I noticed is there didn’t seem to be enough information about the race itself.

In the first paragraph of the article, the author starts off by talking about John Walker, a wealthy

publisher of the magazine The Cosmopolitan. As I continued to read through the article, it

seemed to me as though the information about John Walker was altogether unnecessary. In my

opinion, this information could have been left out of the article and it still would have made

sense. If the author would have been structured the article to where he had a more significant part

within the story, I think the information would have made sense. Towards the end of the article,

it goes on to talk about how she went on to marry Charles Wetmore and together, they built a

Tudor style home in Long Island, New York. This didn’t demonstrate any relevance to Bilsland’s

race around the world. Did she receive some type of reward that allowed and her husband the

money to build this house? Did her and Wetmore meeting and their marriage have something to

do with her fame when she came back from the trip? I believe that information like this is

necessary to include in the article to relate relevance. If it doesn’t have anything to do with her

race around the world, I do not think it is needed.

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One of the key strengths that stood out to me throughout the article was it was worded

quite well. I think the sentences were structured in a format to where the reader always knew

what was happening and didn’t have any questions about who did something or what happened.

Another strength I noticed was tht instead of jumping directly into the race itself, the

reader got to learn about why the race took place, some background knowledge about who

Bisland was and how she and her competitor reacted to the fame they received after the race and

their return back home.

The author used positive and negative connotations to formulate their argument

throughout the article. When reading the article, it seemed to be unbiased and listed both sides of

the story. The author was certain to structure the writing to where it did not seem that one

woman was superior to or lesser than the other. The article then went on to supply the reader

with adequate information about both of the women’s experiences along their remarkable

journey around the world.