Exercise 1: Respond to Feedback

Read this student's essay. Then look at the comments from the teacher. Specific parts of the text are underlined when feedback is connected to a specific part of the paragraph. The bullet points list the feedback the teacher provided.

Review the feedback and decide what changes you would need to make before the next draft.

Smart Homes vs Traditional Homes

       Some advantages and disadvantages between traditional homes and a smart home are technologically significant. A smart home is defined like properties* where devices can be controlled remotely by smartphone or other devices connected to the internet. In a traditional home you need to turn on/off the lights or close/open the windows manually, while in a smart home, you can press only one button and you can have the control over all your home wherever you are with an Internet connection. However, there are pros and cons between these two options of homes. Advantages include energy efficiency and savings, while disadvantages include security and internet reliance.

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       Even though smart home technology is more energy-efficient than traditional home there are also some problems associated with them. The initial cost to transform your traditional home into a smart home is expensive. However, once installed everything the* electronic components and appliances for smart homes are designed to work with less amount of energy. As a result, the savings on gas, electric and water are reflected in your bills. You can save money diminishing the waste of water or gas because the smart energy devices can avoid excessive use of energy. Also, the savings and the control of heating and air conditioning is totally different than a conventional installation in a traditional home. For example, “The first way in which smart homes save energy is heat monitoring. Old school thermostats are rarely capable of properly keeping track of the heat in your home. Smart homes use multiple sensors to measure the exact temperature and therefore have a better knowledge of how to heat it” (https://www.smart-energy.com/features-analysis/how-smart-homes-save-energy/) with these changes in your home you can approach the energy and save money if you utilize the correct sensors in a practical way. These improvements help you to use the energy as efficiently as possible a difference than a traditional house where you can’t make improvements or monitoring the consumption in your energy. 

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       It’s very expensive convert traditional homes into smart homes. At the beginning you will need some main devices like switches, hubs, change some traditional outlets to smart outlets to automate lighting, climate or some products that currently are not smart yet, you must change* the most appliances to smart appliances that support the new technologies and those can be connected to Internet. Besides you will need a new security system to protect your network and your Internet from hackers or malicious people. Therefore, the new digital and modern appliances and devices will result in a strong investment, and it will necessarily include a new budget for maintenance because the new devices are often more expensive and more sophisticated to repair than their traditional counterparts. In contrast with traditional homes where you can fix some issue in your home easily or found someone to fix it, with the smart homes you need to find someone who has the expertise and knowledge about smart things. Many handymen are not skilled enough in this field yet and finding how to fix these smart home technologies could not be easy and cheap than stuff in traditional homes.

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       However, if you have decided to transform your traditional home in a smart home “The convenience factor here is enormous. Being able to keep all of the technology in your home connected through one interface is a massive step forward for technology and home management” (https://edtechbooks.org/-rXei), but if you want to enjoy these full capabilities you should have a good and stable Internet connection, and often another Internet service to have redundance, because a smart home without a reliable Internet connection will not work properly. For instance, if you live in an area where the internet connection is poor, you could experience serious issues because your smart home devices might not respond correctly. Besides if you want to control your home or your devices since your work or another remote place, you will not be able to do it. 

• This is a great quote, but it should not be part of your topic sentence. Begin your paragraph properly, then use the quote to support your controlling idea.
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       The security is another very important point, whereas a traditional home is secure because the data or the information is not expose, in smart homes are at risk of getting hacked, while more devices are connected to Internet there are more probability to be attacked. The hackers can learn about your routine, stole important data, images, videos, take the control of surveillance cameras, doors, lights, alarms and everything with a connection in the network. On the other hand, in a traditional home, you can be safe for hackers, but you should be careful to thieves who may be attracted by unsecure traditional homes than a surrounded and equipped home with cameras and alarms. Nowadays many older people don´t like the idea of a smart home because they think “it easy for burglars to get into our home, many people may refrain from those smart home technologies and rather rely on their old-school locks, even if those locks are also quite unsafe” (https://environmental-conscience.com/smart-homes-pros-cons/) but unless you have enough expertise or knowledge in programming or hacking you won’t be able to break the security in a smart home.

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Your house represents and express the style of living that you want. The traditional home can be more warmth and reflect a natural lifestyle while a smart home is completely automatized house with everything programable. There are many important advantages to smart homes like the energy efficiency and the savings that you can achieve having a smart home. However, there are also some problems related to smart homes associated with the initial costs, with security problems and the internet reliance. Although many traditional homes are being transformed into smart homes to manage the energy efficiently and help the environment with these technologies, we need to be careful improving security in our devices and network to have a secure place where we might live.

Sources

https://edtechbooks.org/-Insm 

https://edtechbooks.org/-GcMf 

https://edtechbooks.org/-Ctto 

**Complete essay comments**

• Your body paragraphs sometimes do not have clear topic sentences and concluding sentences. 
• I think your body paragraphs a slightly out of order.
• Your TurnItIn score is too high. Check your information and add (or correct) citations.
• Find the author(s) and year to put in the citation in the paragraph. You also need page numbers or paragraph numbers for direct quotes.
• Watch for simple grammar mistakes: mainly subject-verb agreement, verb tense, and infinitives