My Fave Paper!

Of the four essays that we had written in this class, the one that I enjoyed most was the argument analysis essay. Maybe it was because of the topic?..This could be because I view marijuana as a growing issue in society and this topic interests me very much. I hold very strong beliefs against marijuana and I do not agree with people who partake in these activities.  And for myself, I could never see myself doing or trying to smoke weed. What's the point? You're only hurting yourself... and coming from someone who has heart problems.. I can just never see any good coming out of getting a high, not just for me, but anyone. So because of this topic, I was drawn to this essay because I wanted to see where this argument was heading towards because any argument in marijuana's favor, appears immoral to me. I felt that since I was writing about something that I hold strong beliefs against I was able to complete this paper without it feeling like a hassle and a waste of time.

Or maybe it was because I enjoyed critiquing someone elses work, instead of constantly having my own work critiqued. Yes, I know that my work would eventually be critiqued through peer review, but I found this essay quite enjoyable because for some reason, it always seems to appear easier to critique someone elses work other than your own. Because of this attribute, I found this essay enjoyable and fun to work on and I feel that the effort that I put forth into this essay really shined through with the result of my final grade.

Thesis: Most students, particularly those who are easily distracted and influenced from the opposite sex, would benefit from attending a single sex school rather than a co-ed school.

Pathos

-A more distraction free atmosphere- easier to focus, which results in better grades.

-A less judgmental environment/no intimidations- benefits future education(college)

-Grow in own person without influence of opposite sex- find yourself at a young, respectable age.

Lagos

-Personal experience- I explain how these benefits have helped me in college.

Ethos

-Acknowledge co-ed school benefits-avoid bias

-Add in my brother’s point of view because he attended a single-sex school as well.

-discuss downfalls- fees (tuition)

·         My most compelling evidence in my argument is my point regarding future success in later years of education.  I stated that single-sex schools bring about a judge-free zone which would benefit a student’s success in college, seeing as students will pick up pointers that it is Ok to be yourself and express your thoughts and ideas out loud. Especially in college this is beneficial, seeing as college consists of lots of critical thinking, while also participation is a huge factor in a student’s accumulative grade. I find this evidence compelling because I state a personal experience following this idea. Through firsthand experience, I will appear to my audience as that I have authority, while also that this evidence is logical.

·         My weakest evidence in my argument is the evidence regarding distractions. I stated that distractions are more likely to occur in co-ed school. While single-sex schools allow for students to have an easier time focusing due to less sexual tension, students work and grades will excel at a much higher rate. After my peer review with Channelle, she had stated that although this evidence is a good point, the way that I had worded and structured this had appeared a bit confusing. Also, although this evidence is a strong attribute, this evidence loses meaning because of organizational dilemmas. I plan to better this attribute through rewording it as I would naturally speak about it to a student in person. This is because, for most, saying your thoughts out loud will make for a more grammatically correct, stronger piece of evidence.  So hopefully, doing this little exercise will make my evidence a bit easier to read and follow along with, which will maybe in the end allow for my paper to contain strong, logical evidence through and through.

Analyzing and Writing Arguments #11

Three specific things that I have learned after analyzing the article"the $78 Million Dollar Bag" was the influence that tone, relavence, and structure had.

•  Tone- In the article "the $78 Million Dollar bag", both authors use an informal tone when trying to reach out to their intended audience. They make remarks toward their audience that were supposed to befriend them, but ultimately came off as offensive, such as "Come on, fess up most of you had probably done it last night". What I had learned from this example proves that for my paper I am able to use an informal, friendly tone, but only to a certain extent. I must make sure that I do not come off as offense, which can push away my audience. If I am aware of this problem that is  able to occur, I will be successful in attempting to write in an appropriate tone for my arguement.
• Relavence- In the article "the $78 Million Dollar bag", one huge issue regarding their arguement was the revelvance regarding their examples and facts. Throughout their paper, they had supplied a great amount of evidence that furthest related to their thesis statement that dealt with the raising of awareness of issues that marijuana is bringing around. Both authors get off track multiple times when trying to state facts and statistics regarding their thesis, which in the end weaked their argument. For my arguement, I will be sure to supply my paper with effective, suffitent, relevant evidence that will allow for my arguement to be nothing but strong.
• Structure- In "the $78 Million Dollar Bag", both authors failed at writing a well structures, organized arguement. This dilemma made for their argument to appear weak. By jumping from one point to another and then back to the first, deffinitely confuses  audiences and weakens their postion. All in all, when writing my arguement, I will be sure to write in an effective, organized, relevant manner.

Peer Review # 10

As you know, our fourth essay that we have done peer review for was a little differnt from other times that we have done peer review. This time, we met in bigger groups than normal. I feel that this method was effective because as we were organized in groups that our group members wrote about a similar topics compared to ours, this benefitted us greatly. We were able to share ideas and express likes and dislikes towards eachothers work, ultimately strengthening our final products.  Since I found this peer review method more effective than small group peer reviewing, I feel that we should stick to these methods because it inspired me to view my paper and ideas in differnt ways through the help of multiple brains coming together.

As a peer reviewer, I find it hard to be brutally honest. I always try to butter things up so that I do not come off as offensive, mainly because I do not know these students the way that I know girls that I went to high school with. However, I think that I do a good job when having to determine where more detail needs to come into play. I am able to identify when cetain statements such as, facts and examples appear as weak evidence.

I think the way that we have contructed peer review in our class is a helpful process. After writing our "first shitty draft" is the best time for us students to start the peer review prosess. However, I beleive that more often we should have bigger groups, just as we did for our third essay. This peer review process made ideas flow easier and helped many of us out tromendously. Having multiple ideas thrown at us allows a students to pick and choose what ideas best help their individual paper. Also, even though we do have an appropriate amount of time to complete our peer review process, it becomes very difficult to complete this process when only bits and peices of everyone's paper is complete. We are given enough time to complete this process, but not when incomplete work is infront of us.