The student came in with <item> <status>.
< <<Phrase> ||?+<Phrase>||> ?/ <<Phrase> ||?+<Pharse>||> >
where <Phrase>: <gender: His/Her <aspect> is <<brief-comment>/<long-comment>>
where <long-comment>: <Content>, which is <brief-comment>
<Describe>
The student came in with the first draft completed. His thesis is clear, which is that the tributary system is win-win in politics, but the first half of his paper was answering the question "why China and the neighboring countries would accept this system". So I asked the student about his opinion and it turned out that he thought this part was not only a background introduction, but also a main reason for the tributary system to last for hundreds of years, since the tributary system was the most appropriate for both countries. Therefore, we agreed that it should also be included in the thesis. Then the student asked some questions about citation. Since the structure of this paper is quite clear, we spent the rest of the time polishing sentences and expressions in the paper.
The student came with his completed draft. He has formed his opinion on tributary system in his draft, but the thesis is not clear enough. He recognized the tribute system as a smart and beneficial system for Chinese governors. He mentioned the background and provides the system as a solution to the problem of territorial expansion; then he discusses the benefit from military and culture aspect. To establish the thesis, I asked the student how he understood the inner nature of tribute system. We went through his draft and concluded that the tribute system leads to a win-win situation for both sides and forms a cheap boundary defense system for China. The student also asked about the format of citation, which was not found by himself in the requirements. In the end, the structure of “what-how-result” is also suggested to improve the logic flow of his article.
The student came in with a complete draft. His argument focuses on the "Liu Bei's governance has some similarity with Mencius Truly King, meanwhile they have some difference.", which is vague and incomplete: he just answered "what", not "why". I asked the student about his opinion on this topic, and it turns out that the shift of people's preference on how to be a great governor has always been changing, and we listed several possible factors supported by the material. In the end, we agreed on the thesis and title and he'll improve accordingly.