Weathers Proffesor Akl 1/29/12 E2 Critique Essay In his Essay, Giving People a Second Chance, Ernest Martinez attempts

to convince readers that Hispanics who have been convicted of crimes ought to have an easier job of finding employment. Matinez's aim is to convince Hispanic employers to hire ex-convicts. It is a poorly organized essay that lacks details, facts, and any other form of pertinent information. Ernest Martinez spends the first of his seven full-length paragraphs going back and forth between talking about Mexican pride and Mexican unemployment, not staying on topic at all. I one sentence, Martinez talks about Hispanics coming together in order to make the most of their lives. In the next, he berates Hispanics for their insensitivity to ex-convicts who cannot find employment. There is also no clearly written thesis statement, although the author does make it very clear what the rest of the paper will be about. Martinez writes in his second paragraph that he was a vocational instructor at Wasco State Prison. One of the problems with this piece of writing is its credibility; Martinez's essay is based almost solely on his personal experience from when he was an instructor at the prison. This means that his information is not necessarily impartial, and that it cannot be verified by a third party. He also makes references to his faith which contribute nothing to the paper. However, it is in this paragraph that Martinez makes what may be his most well thought out argument. He states that virtually all people break the law at some point in their lives, and are simply not caught. He reasons that those who are arrested for these crimes (such as driving without a license or lying on a tax form) are lucky, and that those in prison simply are not. Martinez's third paragraph provides no relevant information.

Weathers In his fourth paragraph, Martinez quotes Dr. Peter Drucker, his one source in this essay. Drucker states that it is human beings that are what cause a successful company to run, and that without them a business would surely fail. This statement sums up the author's paragraph quite nicely; the point Martinez made throughout this paragraph was that all businesses need skilled people to succeed. He goes on in his next paragraph to say that he believes many inmates to possess qualities that would make them valuable as employees at a company, whether they are intelligent, skilled, or simply hard working. Martinez also says that oftentimes a crime is not committed due to the perpetrator being an immoral person, but due to a simple error in judgment. In other words, the author is saying that decent people make mistakes, and that it would be foolish not to take advantage of the services that these people could provide. Throughout his entire essay, Martinez uses very informal writing. His use of the words I, me, you, we and other such words makes the work sound much less professional. In addition, the author uses cliches and unclear metaphors in almost every paragraph. If Martinez had explained some of these metaphors and eliminated others entirely, then the paper would have been much more academic. Another issue with Martinez's paper was that he used more emotional arguments than logical ones. Martinez does not provide an abundance of actual evidence, attempting instead to use sympathy for the Hispanic race to convince his readers of his argument. Most of his arguments have to do with references to inmate's job qualifications and character's. He presents no numeric figures of any kind, and makes reference to only one outside source. Furthermore, Martinez does not provide logical answers as to why it is that former convicts often aren't hired in the first place. Giving potential reasons why a potential employer might not hire a former convict and then refuting that reasoning would have greatly strengthened the argument.

Weathers

Apart from conceding that not all Hispanics deserve the chance to redeem themselves, the author of this essay did not consider opposing viewpoints. The author of this piece does not berate an opposing viewpoint without offering evidence, but the evidence lacks credibility because he collected most of it through his job at Wasco State Prison. The authors conclusion logically follows the original premise. The author uses more emotional appeals than logical ones.