Persuasive Essay

Persuasive Essay Summary

For your blog post today, I want you to provide a brief summary of your persuasive essay. What is your thesis? What are your main arguments? What are your counter-arguments? If you've written a strong thesis statement and topic sentences, this should be a fairly easy post. If your essay is still pretty rough, this post will help you clarify the points you are trying to make.

 

THESIS: The most efficient choice in which to obtain a Bachelor’s degree is through a public, four year institution.

 

MAIN ARGUMENTS: Private school is not efficient because it's extremely pricey. Junior college is not efficient because there are transfer dilemmas that lead into other problems.

 

COUNTER ARGUMENTS: Private schools are more prestigous and have a small student to faculty ratio. Most college students can get out of private schools within 4 years if they take a full schedule. Junior colleges are more affordable and more convenient. (However, with juco's, one must have it exactly planned out on what classes they need to take before transferring to a 4 year college to avoid transfer dilemmas.)

MLA

For today's blog post, I want you to just provide an MLA-formatted list of the resources you are using for your persuasive essay. This is a pretty easy post for the day AND it helps you prepare your works cited page for your essay.

Works Cited

Grove, Allen. "5 Reasons to Consider Community College." About.com. About.com, 2011. Web. 24 Oct 2011. <http://collegeapps.about.com/od/choosingacollege/tp/Community-College.htm>.

Grove, Allen. "The Hidden Cost of Community College." About.com. About.com, 2011. Web.

24 Oct 2011. <http://collegeapps.about.com/od/choosingacollege/tp/hidden-cost-community-college.htm>.

"A Breakdown of College Education Costs." Guide To Online Schools. SR Education Group, 2011. Web. 24 Oct 2011. <http://www.guidetoonlineschools.com/articles/financial-aid/college-education-costs>.

"Fast Facts." National Center for Education Statistics. Institute of Education Sciences, 2009. Web. 24 Oct 2011. <http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=77>.

"The Pros & Cons of Community Colleges." Scholarships.com. Scholarships.com, 2011. Web. 24 Oct 2011. <http://www.scholarships.com/resources/college-prep/choosing-the-right-school/the-pros-and-cons-of-community-colleges/>.

Style

Style

Read Section II in The Elements of Style, "An Approach to Style (With a List of Reminders)" (pages 66-85). Just as exciting as the last ones, right?

OK, so which of these are helpful tips? Which ones make you say to yourself, "I never thought of that before, but it really just makes sense," like you should have known it all along? Which parts seem counterintuitive to you—the ones that go against what you think about writing? How will they help you in revising your paper (due Monday, btw).

 

Overwriting is a flaw of mine. I think it's because I'm used to writing in APA format so we are taught in our classes to explain our topics in that someone has never been introduced to a particular topic before. So when I write about something else, it becomes overkill.

 

Revising and rewriting is something I hate doing, but must be done. I will never ever handwrite a paper again. I get to typing and don't stop-that's how my papers get done. Therefore, by the end of the paper I don't want to look at it anymore-I just want to be done with it already. I find it best to have someone else that has experience with writing papers (perhaps more education than I) help me.

Effective Argument

Read Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" in your yellow Seagull Reader book. It's kind of a lengthy one, but it's a good read, I promise. Go ahead—I'll wait.

Done? Ok, now that you've read it, I want you to do some analytical thinking. Who's he addressing? What is he addressing? What is the tone he's using to address these people? Taking all that together—audience, purpose, tone, context—what in it is effective? What's ineffective? Where does he utilize logical fallacies (they're in there, I promise) and where does he make sound logical arguments? How does he balance the ethos, pathos and logos parts of his argument?

And, perhaps most importantly, how can you utilize any of this in your paper?

He's addressing more than just the titled clergymen. He's addressing the whole human species. He makes references to Thomas Jefferson stating that "...all men are created equal"; Abraham Lincoln about segregation; etc. The tone that he is using a diplomatic and objective tone. He isn't speaking only with his heart, he's speaking logically and politically correct. He speaks with factual information and leaves out unnecessary information. He could easily cuss out the whole white race, but he simply wants them to understand and visualize what they are doing to the minority. The effective speech derives from how he is directly speaking to the clergy about biblical phrases and stories. He is what we call "calling them out" on their own fallacies.

He is ineffective when he speaks of the Negroes being there before everyone else and wondering why they are exploited out of the church and society. Yes, they were there and there's no argument for that, but what society is doing now and how to reach a solution is what's important.

He utilizes the three appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos when talking about the church. The church is supposed to be the most non-judgmental place one can go and in the South in that time period-it wasn't.

Logos.

refute, and should make up the bulk of your argument. WHEN HE WAS SPEAKING ABOUT BIBLICAL STORIES.

Appeal to logic. An argument based on facts and reason. This is the hardest type of appeal to

Ethos.

everyone subscribes to the same belief system, thus making determination of what is “right” and

what is “wrong” very subjective and harder to assert successfully. WHEN THE CHURCH WAS TURNING THEIR BACKS ON THE BLACK POPULATION.

Appeal to morals/ethics. An argument based on what is right or wrong. Remember that not

Pathos.

pull readers in and make a connection, it is less persuasive and much more subjective than logically

based arguments. WHEN HE WAS SPEAKING OUT ABOUT HOW THE NEGROES WERE THEIR FIRST DOING ALL THE "DIRTY WORK".

I can utilize all of these things in my paper, but the most important aspect is to remain objective instead of subjective. Appeal to emotion. An argument designed to play on the reader’s feelings. While good to

Logical Fallicies

Find the file on Angel about Logical Fallacies. Read all those and get yourself familiar. They're pretty handy to know. Now, I want you to pick out three of them and come up with an example to fit each of them. I also want you to explain how each is an example of that particular fallacy. Make me believe you.

• Rationalization.

frequently come up with excuses and weak explanations for their own and others’ behavior that

avoid actual causes.

I have a friend that is the "Queen of Rationalization". Nothing she does is ever her fault. She received a DUI and only had 2 beers. She rationalized that she was passing another vehicle that was impeding traffic, that's when the officer pulled her over for speeding. (I know her and how she drives so I can almost guaruntee that she looked like she was drunk, driving too fast, and stereo blaring.) She blew barely over the limit and the cop still took her to jail and that was the cop being a jerk. She admits that she won't drink and drive again, but will not admit that she was at fault for going to jail in the first place.

• Polarization.

An example of polarization would be that all Middle Eastern people are terrorists. It's not-at-all true. Did some of their people kill our civilians? Yes. Have we killed some of theirs? Yes. Saying that all of them are terrorists is very extreme. The people that have immigrated here help our society function. Many of them are business owners, doctors, surgeons, etc. They are not out to get anyone.

• Either‐or.

Either we eliminate the regulation of business or else profits will suffer. The either‐or fallacy suggests that there are only two choices in a complex situation. Rarely, if ever, is the case. (In this example, the writer ignores the fact that Enron was unregulated and went bankrupt.)I work for some people that think "either-or" to a lot of things. We have a very high turnover at where I work simply because of this. "Either he/she does this the way that I want, or they are gone." No, all they have to do is explain to their employees that this is what needs to be done and if they need assistance to let them know. Hello, if you want a sense of morale in your business you have to be patient with the internal and external guests. No one is perfect.  Hasty decisions or rationalizations are ridiculous.
Feminists are all manhaters. Polarization, like name calling, exaggerates positions and groups by representing them as extreme and divisive.I could have finished my paper on time if my printer had been working. People

Topic!

Ok, so we have to write a persuasive topic. The topic that I choose to write about is why it's more cost effective to go to a 4 year right out of high school instead of going to a junior college first. Although, junior college typically are easier and much cheaper, getting a Bachelor's degree requires that you have 4 years of what they want.

I'm taking this from my own person experience in that if I would've just gone to a 4 year right out of the gate, I would be done by  now. Instead, I graduate a year later with almost 170 credits. There are multiple reasons:

• You have to have a certain number of upper division credits.
• Most institutions only allow a transfer of 64-70 credits.
• Many transferred classes do not count for certain programs so they must be re-taken.
• Many classes are prerequisites for another class. So, if you haven't taken one class, it can hold you back from taking a number of classes which in turn pushes back your graduation date.

There are many other reasons that prove that just going to a 4 year is more cost effective, but those are to follow in my paper.

Persuasion

Today, I'm going through a situation that involves persuasion. I'm getting a 5th year completion scholarship thru the Athletic Department. We get scholarships and have to work athletic events (for each credit hour we take, we have to work one event). I had a meeting with my advisor to make sure that everything was on track and I didn't have anything else I needed to take. Well it turns out, that I do have one more class. So of course, I have to email and let her know so I can get that class paid for my graduation requirements.

She isn't too receptive and kind've inquired that I was pulling a fast one. To argue my case, I gave her a copy of my graduation plan signed by the chair members, gave her contact information of my advisors, and a breakdown of what's going on.

The only thing that I wish I would've done different is been more thorough when I was looking through the classes that I needed to take initially. Oh well, just gotta plead a hard case and be empathetic with the perpetrator.

Muddiest Points

Today, we'll do an exercise called "Muddiest Point." Read the assignment sheet for the persuasive paper and write a blog post about the "muddiest point" for you—the part of the assignment you understand least or are having the most trouble with. Which part could be a little clearer? How would you change the assignment (aside from making it shorter/easier) to make it help you better?

Conversely, what's the easiest part to understand? What's got you going down the street, high-fiving everyone you pass because you're just that good?

I don't really feel like I have a "muddy point". I felt like the assignment was clear-an explanation of the assignment followed with an example. Now, I just have to come up with something or a position that I have to "sell". A sample essay would make it over the top easy.

On the contrary, since I learn by example and modeling, the example given is what helped me to understand it best. I'm walking down the street high=fiving everyone because I'm just that good.