In order to have a good argumentative essay, there are a few important standards of critical thinking that is needed to be found in the essay such as the clearness, accuracy, importance or relevance, sufficiency, depth, breath and precision that is stated by Nosich. The strength of this argumentative essay is consider weak because it does not capture the interest of the reader and was not persuasive enough; even though from the introduction of the argumentative essay includes full sentences and a good opinion, the argumentative essay is all objective. The introduction includes too much of the emotional appeals, such as when it wrote " Day after day the number of people worshipping this icon has been growing since the birth of this creature. well to many it may seem harmless idol but in my opinion, Mickey Mouse is an 'devil in disguise' influencing the minds of young and old people to adopt the culture of the 'devil' which doesn't blend will with the moral values of society and should be banned". To improve the introduction, the writer should include of all objectives statements relative facts and appeals to the mind of people who agree or disagree with the topic.
Discursive Essay Basics
Paragraph 1: Introduction
Introduce the topic. Give some background about the situation in your country/area. Then mention the possible reasons for the situation. Crime is one of the most important issues ... In the last few years, crime has been going up/down. The most common crimes are ... The most worrying trend is the increase in ... One of the reasons for this is possibly the fact that unemployment has risen ... Another reason is that...
Note: if you are 'for' something, put the arguments 'against' first. If you are 'against' something, put the arguments 'for' first.
Paragraph 2: A list of arguments 'for7
Express the attitudes and reasons to support this point of view. Provide examples and facts where possible. (see Style below)...show more content... Provide examples and facts where possible. (see Style below)
Paragraph 4: Conclusion
Finally, give your own personal opinion about the topic. In my opinion. ... /All things considered. I believe that...
Style
In a discursive essay it is important to list the points of view of both sides of an argument as objectively as possible. Only in the conclusion can
you express your own point of view. Notice the use of report structures (e.g. feel that), passives and formal linkers (e.g. moreover, furthermore) in the sentences below.
Listing arguments:
Many people feel that harder sentences should be brought back. The American system of 'three strikes and out' has supporters in Britain. Moreover, some people say that conditions in prisons are too soft. There are arguments for the restoration of the death penalty. The wishes of victims' family and friends possibly need to be taken into account. There are arguments against harder sentences and capital punishment
One of the arguments against longer prison sentence is that the prisons are already full. Other people disagree and think that prisons should reform
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The art of writing is a complex and difficult process. Proper writing requires careful planning, revision, and proofreading. Throughout the past semester, the quality of my writing has evolved significantly. At first, I struggled with the separation of different types of paragraphs, and I found writing them laborious. Constant practice, however, has eliminated many of my original difficulties, and helped to inspire confidence in my skills. As a collegiate writer, my strength lies in my clear understanding of the fundamentals of writing, while my primary weakness is proofreading my own work. During the transition from a high school writer to a collegiate writer, my strength at understanding the basic principles of...show more content...
Finding an introductory paragraph that hooks the reader can be troublesome, but throughout the course, I have spent considerable time developing that technique. The body of my arguments each exhibit strong support for the thesis. In addition, my conclusions summarize the papers without restating unnecessary information. Overall, my comprehension of the basic format of an argument has proved to be a valuable asset. The weakest portion of my writing is my lack of good proofreading. All papers require a significant amount of proofreading not only for grammatical errors, but also for structural problems. Proofreading my own work is difficult. Many times, I wrongly assume that the reader is able to understand my thoughts, while the various points of my argument are actually not expressed clearly. In some instances, I fail to catch obvious errors, such as sentence fragments or contractions, which I should be able to eliminate easily from my writing. Proofreading my own work has consistently been the most difficult part of my writing process, and I continue to struggle with catching all of the errors in my papers. Analyzing my strengths and weaknesses as a writer is extremely important. Despite the fact that I understand the structure of a good argument, I still miss obvious errors in my papers because I lack the skills necessary to properly proofread my own work. In the future, I plan on spending a large portion of my time
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Essay By Kerri Smith
Teaching the process of a five–paragraph essay seems to be a popular strategy when it comes to teaching new writers; however, not everyone agrees that five–paragraph essays are the best way to go about introducing the writing process. John Warner, author of "Kill the 5–Paragraph Essay" believes the process gives writers little freedom and is a "tool for the worst of teachers to hide amongst the good." On the other hand, Kerri Smith, author of "In the Defense of the Five–Paragraph Essay" claims "students who know the five–paragraph essay intimately are more prepared to take on the challenge of college–level writing." Both first–year composition professors make great arguments; however, Warner's article seems to argue his point effectively....show more content...
Warren's reasoning also backs his claims quite well. Evidence, appeals, assumptions, and reasonings make an argumentative essay, without them the writing has little strength and credibility. Smith fails to adequately present her argument. She uses little evidence as to why she defends the five–paragraph essay, drags out her personal experiences for two out of the five paragraphs in her writing, and has little credible reasoning. At one point in her article, she states many professors do not care about the organization and would be happy "if they could write well." Organization, planning, and content are all important to creating quality and strong essays. Stating professors do not care about organization of an essay, Smith claims professors do not want appropriate college–level
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Global Warming: Myth or Fact? The Global Warming theory has become increasingly popular over the past few years. Citizens of the world are being encouraged to be more environmentally conscious by others including politicians, celebrities, and world organizations. The problem with the theory lies in the fact that it has become more and more controversial as it gains publicity and attention. The basic concept behind this theory is that the earth was made with a balance of "greenhouse gasses". These gasses are naturally occurring within the atmosphere and they essentially make the planet habitable by keeping it warm. When the world became more industrialized, the amount of carbon dioxide that was being emitted into the atmosphere...show more content...
The more people habituating the planet, the more potential there is for emission of greenhouse gasses. In short, the basis of this argument other than years of documented research and scientific discovery is what harm could we do by being more conservative in our use of energy and other entities that produce more than their share of greenhouse gasses? The answer as it stands now is none. The harmful effects of ignoring this crisis are all but proven fact. The problem that the pro– global warming theorists have created is that of social standing and little else. While there may be scientific backing to support some of the theory, the media presents the problem with great sensationalism. Global warming and energy conservation has thus become a trend and losses some of its validity through this. The scare tactics used by the media to "promote awareness" are just that, a linguistic ploy to gain favor. "Awareness of this global threat reinforced public concern and environmental problems and thereby provided environmental activists, scientists, and policy makers with new momentum in their efforts to promote environmental protection." (McCright, 2000) This statement draws line to the potential benefits that would be received if the pro–global warming theorists were to draw enough attention to the issue. Driven by social empowerment and conviction to environmental protection, these activists misrepresent the actual threat and paint it as being much more
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The Passive Voice
The English language has two voices the active and the passive. The active voice and the passive voice differ in that a passive verb phrase has an additional auxiliary BE followed by an EN participle. In a sense, the English passive is "inflexible" when compared to the passive formation of other languages. For example, some languages use word order, verb inflections, and impersonal constructions to form the passive voice. In their book, The Grammar Book: ESL/EFL Teacher's Course, Celce–Murcia and Larson–Freeman demonstrate how the Bantu passive voice differs from the English passive voice. "Kingarwanda, a Bantu language, can make even a locative phrase the subject of the passive as in On the bus was eaten a...show more content... In order to better understand the usage rules of the English passive voice, it is necessary to begin by examining the most common grammatical function order of English sentences, subject–verb–object.
Active and passive sentences
Subject–verb–object (S–V–O) is the basic structure of English sentences and defines the grammatical function order of active voice sentences. For example, I can handle Mary is a sentence in the active voice which demonstrates the S–V–O pattern. However, S–V–O is not the only sentence pattern of the English language; object–verb–subject (O–V–S) is an alternative pattern. For example, Mary, I can handle produces an O–V–S pattern.
In addition to the grammatical function of a sentence such as subject, verb, and object, each noun phrase in a sentence has a semantic role. Semantic roles are discussed in Finegan and Besnier's chapter on semantics (171). Several of the semantic roles Finegan and Besnier list are: agent, patient, experiencer, instrument, and locative (200). Therefore, when taking the sentence Americans join Chinese in their morning from the New York Times Editorial Corpus, one can label Americans the agent, the responsible initiator of the action.
The above sentence, Americans join Chinese in their morning, has two focus positions, a main focus position and a secondary focus position. The
main focus is on
Intercultural Communication
Intercultural communication is commonly explained as an interaction between people of 'different cultures whether defined in terms of racial, ethnic or socioeconomic differences.' Human communication consists of verbal and nonverbal messages (language and gestures) which are shaped by gender,social class or culture. Thus, what perimeters define the intercultural exchange and what primary messages do we need or try to convey?
Our communication process or the way we attribute symbolic meanings to words and gestures, in order to express ourselves is shaped by the society in which we evolve. This shared use of codes within a given group of persons, also leads to a common philosophy of life, ideas or...show more content...
Although Latin American countries like Ecuador are defined as ?Third World? due to their economical level the lifestyle in Quito, for instance, follows more or less the pattern we know in this part of the world. People, drive to work, eat out and children go to school. However, this system functions with different values, customs or schedule. I spent four weeks in Quito at the Spanish Academy to take transfer credits in this language. During this time period I lived with an Ecuadorian family that is the parents and their two daughters, which allowed me to interact with them on a daily basis. The father, Ramon works in the United States and Marcella, 18, the eldest daughter attends college in Quito where she studies medicine. I found it easy to interact with Marcella because our age difference is not big and we are both college students. In addition she is a girl and we could discuss topics that are relevant to our gender, such as fashion or dates. The fact that this family educational level does not greatly differ from mine helped our communication, and shaped the messages we were exchanging. We were able to discuss many topics from politics to sociological and although they are from a different culture, our views were not radically opposites. However, the pace at which the Ecuadorian society develops made it difficult for me to explain them clearly
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Questions on Rhetoric and Style:
1. Describe the tone Thoreau establishes in paragraph 2. How does it contribute to the rhetorical effect of the paragraph? In paragraph two, Thoreau uses a depressing, problematic and facetious tone to get his message across. Thoreau explains how he is strongly against the United States government, and also points out problems of the government. Thoreau uses depressing diction when describing the problems of the government in order to make people feel hatred toward the government and realize how problematic it actually is. Thoreau uses Power of Three to exemplify the problems of the government, and further connects with the audience on an emotional level by pointing out how the citizens help lead to the countries' problematic state. Thoreau's use of inappropriate humor when he explains trade makes the United States government seem trivial and almost as a lost cause due to the problems caused by the leaders. His relation of such a serious topic to a comical reference makes it an easier to understand situation. The use of this specific tone creates a more impactful rhetorical effect that is relayed in the paragraph.
3. Thoreau develops many analogies to support his arguments (e.g., in paras. 8 and 9). Select three, and explain whether you find them convincing. How effectively does each one support the claim Thoreau is using it to support? Thoreau's use of analogies to support his arguments are very beneficial in getting his point
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Who am I? What is it that defines that personality? Anzaldua argues in her essay that the language is what defines one's identity. Language is indeed an important component of culture, and culture is known to be a crucial definer of identity. People uselanguage to connect to their identities and communicating their realities and values to themselves and to the world around them... In other words, language is important because people use it to express their thoughts and beliefs. "People evolve a language in order to describe and thus control their circumstances" (Baldwin 109). Consequently, language does not necessarily define identity as much as identity defines language. People decide on...show more content...
Tan clearly mentions in her story that she had to speak two different languages to her Asian mom who had her own made up English. Tan relates to both her Asian descent and American belongings by using her mom's made up English to speak with her mom, and uses the proper English to give lectures and speak to most Americans. On the same grounds, Anzaldua learned through her life experiences to frequently use multiple types of English, and many other Dialects of proper Spanish and Mexican Spanish. She uses each language to communicate, connect and affiliate to specific people according to their background. This proves that the assumption that language defines culture and identity fails. What happens to the people who speak many languages, do they not get the benefit and pride of belonging to a certain community? Rather the contrary, they belong to multiple communities and they choose which group they want to communicate with and with which language. People have the ability to switch from a language to another to be part of a group and this supports the idea that identity defines and shapes language, and not the opposite.
Language is used as a way to identify with people, but it is also used to distinguish between them. People use language to differentiate between people and associate them to a specific culture and community according to the language they speak. America is known for having a diverse
The Other Wes Moore In the book, The Other Wes Moore it is difficult to believe the great similarities in the lives of the two Moores, who share a name and other aspects of life. The two were raised fatherless and were born in the late 1970's in the neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. They also happen to have encountered similar experiences when growing up, but at one point one of them became a criminal and the other a scholar (the author of the book). The author of the book seems to be interested in the similarities of the two boys as opposed to their different experiences. The story is interesting and makes one imagine what would have become of the writer if he did not by any chance come across the people who guided him to become what...show more content...
The first Moore, the author, began his deviance in school through failing to do his assignments and performing extremely poorly in class. The second Moore, the prisoner, began through the use of a knife to solve conflicts as a child. Another case of defiance in the two children is evident when the first Moore, the author, started vandalizing public property. On the other hand, the other Moore was busy helping drug peddlers in supplying narcotics in the neighborhood. The mother of the first Moore became concerned of his son's behavior and enrolled him to a prison school, where he would later become a leader of several cadets. It was while at this school that he gave his deviant behavior after several attempts to escape failed. The discipline levels in the school were extremely high, resulting in the young Moore changing his behavior for the better (Moore, 2011). Theoretical Analysis In the story, it is clear that the Strain sociological theory clearly presents itself. This theory argues that depending on person's situation in the society, one reacts differently to the difficulties that face them in the achievement of their objectives. The theory categorizes people in the society to tow broad categories. These are the poor and the rich, with the poor being the ones who strain the most in an attempt to accomplish their
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Missing Formatting
In today's world, there are many social issues, like poverty, vandalism and unemployment. However, prejudice has become the most dramatic one. Prejudging people for their appearance is a common practice that humans perform. People are not only ridiculed for their color, but also by their religion, sex or age. Therefore, I consider that racism, ageism and sexism are the three major problems in our society and we need to cease them immediately. Much of our world's history were based upon racism. In the 1600's, white men used Africans as slaves and treated them as they were not human. "Colored" people were not even allowed to use the same drinking fountains as white people. Fortunately, in the last threedecades , race...show more content...
The most popular watched sport in America, NBA basketball, is played by over 87% of the African decent. Nevertheless, racism is still a issue that will never completely go away. Ageism is also a worrying problem in our society. Though many people think that this is not a serious problem, people are being harassed about their age everyday, whether they are "too young" or "too old". I have dealt with this problem myself, as many other teenagers have. When I walk into some stores, I am asked to leave my purse at the counter and I am often followed around by employees. They watch every move I make to make sure that I will not steal anything. I know that theft is a dilemma that many businesses have to deal with , but when it gets to the point of being untrusted due to your age, it is completely ridiculous and inappropriate. Men and women have never been equal in the world and that is what we call sexism. For example, if a man and a woman who have the same knowledge ask for the same job, the boss will probably pick the man. Even though they both get the job, the man will maybe have a better salary than the woman. People always believe that men work better than women but no one can give a satisfying explication to support that thought. Fortunately, sexism is decreasing constantly but it will never diminish to the point of complete equality. We can never judge someone by their
Global warming, we see it as sad polar bears hopelessly swimming for their lives in the ocean. It's shown as rising sea levels that can washout entire cities. It even sometimes gets turned into politics but scientifically, what is the definition of global warming? It is the heating up the of Earth, caused by infrared radiation that gets stuck in our atmosphere because of the increase of CO2 put into the atmosphere. Infrared radiation is electromagnetic radiation that cannot be seen by the human eye, but we feel it as heat. Seems pretty logical doesn't it? To some it doesn't seem as reasonable. Some believe global warming isn't a man made problem, but just a cycle of 'weather patterns'. For example, our now president
–Donald J. Trump– doesn't consider climate change to a threat to the inhabitants of earth. Our president also said that global warming is a 'hoax'.
"Snowing in Texas and Louisiana, record setting freezing temperatures throughout the country and beyond. Global warming is an expensive hoax!"
–Donald J. Trump
This is what many people believe, and this tweet too seems pretty logical to a majority of people. But in 2014 January 29th when Donald J. Trump posted this tweet, there was record setting freezing temperatures happening nation and worldwide. But also 2014 was one of the top three hottest years on record. Now that doesn't seem like a 'hoax'.
Humans don't like being wrong. It's embarrassing, uncomfortable to believe something and then be confronted about it. So that's why there's still high percentage of people who don't believe in the change in climate. People who work with oil companies don't want to acknowledge it because it can ruin their business. Politicians ignore the problem because it costs money to fix our past mistakes. That fear, people being scared, it makes us shut down. But we can try ignoring the problem, but the thing about problems is, they can be ignored but they never truly disappear. Weather may feel the same as every other year, but The whole world is heating up, including our vast oceans. Tropical hurricanes need to have surface water temperatures to be 26В°C or more for them to form. As our oceans get hotter hurricanes are able to form farther out in the sea