Guide To Everyday Writing Assignments

Guide to
Everyday Writing Assignments
1. WRITING AUTOBIOGRAPHY
1a. Developing a Perspective on Autobiography

1. The Aims of Autobiography
2. Assignments: The Autobiographer’s Options
1b. “Inventing” an Autobiography
1. Finding a Topic
2. Exploring a Topic
3. Focusing Your Autobiography
1c. Planning an Autobiography
1. Creating Your Persona (Your Voice)
2. Organizing Your Experiences
1d. Writing and Revising an Autobiography
1. Paragraphing in Autobiography
2. A Revision Checklist
3. Questions for Peer Reviews of Autobiography
1e. Student Examples—Writing Autobiography
1. Time to Say Goodbye (a personal experience essay)
2. On the Border in Borders (a reflective essay)
3. The Imperfect Gift (an epiphany)
4. A Growing Love (a memoir)
2. WRITING REPORTS
2a. Developing a Perspective on Reports

1. The Aims of Report Writing
2. Assignments: The Reporter’s Options
2b. “Inventing” a Report
1. Gathering Information
2. Focusing Your Report
2c. Planning a Report
1. Profiling Your Audience
2. Organizing Information
3. Placing Your Conclusion Statement
4. Creating Your Persona
5. Planning an Introduction
2d. Writing and Revising a Report
1. Choosing Words
2. Paragraphing in Reports
4. Questions for Peer Reviewers of Reports
2e. Student Examples—Writing a Report
1. Code Switching—Spontaneous Occurrence (an informal report)
2. A New Brain (a “New Journalism”-style informal report)
Copyright © 2006 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Longman

3. Tough Times Ahead for Harper College Students—and Their Professors (a brief formal
report)
3. WRITING ESSAYS
3a. Developing a Perspective on Essays

1. The Aims of Essays
2. Assignments: Three Options
3b. “Inventing” an Essay
1. Choosing a Topic and Expressing a Tentative Thesis or Purpose Statement
2. Gathering Materials for an Essay
3. Focusing on an Essay
3c. Planning an Essay
1. Organizing a Thesis-Support Essay
2. Organizing an Instructional Essay
3. Planning an Introduction and Conclusion
3d. Writing and Revising an Essay
2. Paragraphing in Essays
3. Quoting for Support
5. Questions for Peer Reviewers of Essays
3e. Student Examples—Essay Writing
1. The Unpleasant Dilemma of Suburban Deer (a thesis-support essay)
2. In Defense of “That Jazz Crap” (a thesis-support essay)
3. Greek Philosophy and the Art of Century Riding (a how-to essay)
4. Economically Feasible Methods of Protecting Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest (a problem-solution
essay)
5. Sick Building Syndrome (research essay)
3f. Student Examples—Writing About Literature
1. Natural Abundance of Country Life as Shown by Willa Cather’s “Neighbour Rosicky” (a
thesis-support essay of analysis and interpretation)
2. The Truth about White Lies (a personal response essay)
3. The Stranger: Epilogue (a creative response essay)
4. Cup of Sorrow (a literary research paper)
5. Looking for the Good Man in Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” (a literary
research paper)
6. Masculinity and Money: Glengarry Glen Ross (a literary essay)
7. “Such a Mad Marriage Never was Before:” Kate and Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew (a
literary research paper)
4. WRITING CRITIQUES AND REVIEWS
4a. Developing a Perspective on Critiques and Reviews

1. The Aims of Critiques and Reviews
2. Assignments: The Critical Writer’s Options
4b. “Inventing” a Critique or Review
1. Choosing a Topic and Evaluating Your Credentials
2. Gathering Materials for a Critique
3. Focusing a Critique
4c. Planning a Critique or Review
1. Organizing

4d. Writing and Revising a Critique or Review
2. Paragraphing in Critiques
3. Choosing Critical Words
5. Questions for Peer Reviewers of Critiques
4e. Student Examples—Writing a Critique
1. Television News: Only One Version of Reality (a critical essay)
2. One Fine Romance (a movie review)
3. The Siam Café (a restaurant review)
5. WRITING ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION
5a. Developing a Perspective on Argument and Persuasion

1. The Aims of Argument and Persuasion
2. Assignments: Options for Argument and Persuasion
5b. “Inventing” Argument and Persuasion
1. Choosing a Topic
2. Exploring a Topic and Writing a Claim
3. Gathering the Support for Your Claim
4. Focusing Your Writing
5. Focusing Your Argument
5c. Planning Argument and Persuasion
1. Building a Logical and Persuasive Argument
3. Planning a Trustworthy Persona
5d. Writing and Revising Argument and Persuasion
2. Creating a Persuasive style: Words and Sentences
4. Questions for Peer Reviewers of Arguments and Persuasions
5e. Student Examples—Writing Argument and Persuasion
1. Considering Children? Start Earlier, Finish Earlier!
2. Cinder Block vs. Supercomputer (a persuasive value judgment essay)

1 Writing Autobiography
1a. Developing a Perspective on Autobiography
1. The Aims of Autobiography
When you do autobiographical writing, you tell the stories of your life--of course. But
autobiographers do more than give the who, what, when, where, and why of their experiences.
They aim to recreate those experiences, bring them to life, relive them, find their meaning, and
preserve them in words. They write so vividly that readers become partners to their experiences.
When you write as an autobiographer, you answer not only the journalist’s “who,” “what,” and
“when” questions but also one other, more interesting question: “What did it feel like to have that
experience?”
Listen to this writer describing the experience of losing his job:
Walking to the company parking lot that bright spring

morning, I could hear the voices of those who, until minutes
ago, had been co-workers: “Hey, Eric, how’s it going?”
“What’s up?” “Where are you going?” But the good-natured
questions were little more than faint background music to
the message booming in my brain, reverberating for the
fifteen minutes since I’d first heard it: “Eric, we’re going
to have to let you go . . .” mumble, mumble, something about
“reductions in force,” “economies of scale,” mumble, mumble,
“. . . so you’d better clean out your locker.”
I had stood there in my boss’s office, listening to
those words, trying to absorb their meaning, the way you’d
concentrate to hear a garbled announcement from an airport
public address system. I had been distracted--by the one
gold tooth that glinted in Mr. Shiner’s mouth as he spoke,
by the black stubble under his nose that he missed while
shaving, standing out starkly in the fluorescent light. It
was as if I had to mold the sound of his words into a lump
of sense, the way a terrorist might shape a plastic
explosive.
And then--boom! I got the message: fired, terminated,
gone, done, out! And suddenly I felt myself far away. I
imagined those movies of space ships ascending from spent
booster rockets, dropping back to the earth looming in the
background. That was me--spent, empty, done--all my lofty
dreams of school, career, and life rushing out and away into
some dark, unreachable space.
--Eric Martínez
The scenes here are not only an office and a parking lot but a sensitive writer’s mind; the action,
not only a college student losing his job, but a human being discovering the isolation and loss of
joblessness. Autobiography aims to capture in words these double-sided moments of action and
reaction, sight and insight that carry writers and readers alike deep into the heart of life.
2. Assignments: The Autobiographer’s Options
The personal experience essay. To write a personal experience essay, tell a story from your
life--about a time of personal growth, new experience, discovery and change. Focus on yourself,
your actions, feelings, and thoughts. Flesh out your story with descriptions of the people involved
with you, dramatize the conflict or tension, the joy or comfort resulting from your relationships,
and present some turning point or moment of crisis--good or bad--that led to changes in your life,
outlook, or understanding.
The reflective essay. To write a reflective essay, do two things, usually in this order: First,
focus on an experience and describe it in detail. Second, reflect upon its meaning or importance.
Although not always serious in subject or mood, reflective essays usually have a meditative or
philosophical tone that comes from the attempt to make sense of an experience.
The epiphany. Originating in a Greek word that means “to shine forth,” like a bright light, an
epiphany is a brief, intense experience that leads to an insight of some kind. In the course of your
life, you’ve probably had experiences like this--powerfully affecting events that lasted only a
minute or two, illuminated by your awareness. Suddenly, you saw into the secret truth of
something, or perhaps you felt an intense emotion or dominant impression. To write an epiphany,
briefly describe the scene of the experience, followed by the experience itself, and then the insight
that came to you.
The memoir. When you write a memoir, your focus is double. You’re looking outside yourself
and inside, aiming to present in equal measure some important person, place, or event from your
life and your impressions of this person, place, or event. You might write a memoir as a story, but
you shift back and forth between what’s outside you and what’s going on inside you. Memoir
writers pursue a kind of “public” purpose in their writing--to tell their own story but as part of
another, perhaps larger story, one with more than personal interest.

1b. “Inventing” an Autobiography
1. Finding a Topic
You may begin this assignment with an autobiographical topic clearly in mind. Or you may have to
think for a bit, remember, and explore. Think of vivid or important experiences worth sharing,
those still unsettled in your thoughts, or those worth preserving from the frailties of memory. Good
topics for autobiography are not necessarily the “right” topics, the ones you think you should
choose because they’re popular, “big,” or ones that make you look good. Rather, a good
autobiographical topic should be important to you, worth remembering, preserving, understanding,
and sharing.
If a topic doesn’t come immediately to mind, try a brainstorm (see The Ready Reference
Handbook, 2a2). If you can’t get started, choose from the following prompts:
Blue skies It’s all an act Take this job and

Boring I’ve got you under my skin The day that
Clothes Jealousy The best is yet to come
Courage Lessons I’ve learned The rain on my parade
Desire Love The room
Do you see what I see? Money The word
Eureka! Must The sound of _____’s
First rate My niche in life voice
Guilt Night and day There are daggers in men’s
Guilty pleasures No smiles
Hate Regret Trifles
Heartburn Seasoning Under _____’s thumb
Hint, hint Seconds, minutes, hours, Vice and virtue
I read where days Waste
In the book Shadows When
In a tight place Speechless Where
Injury and abuse Stormy weather Yes
If one good topic doesn’t jump out at you, do another brainstorm about two or three possibilities
from earlier exploratory writing. Look for “hot spots” in language or feeling that reveal your
interest. Choose something important to you that you want to share with others.
2. Exploring a Topic

Freewriting. When you find a topic to write about, you may want to begin writing your
autobiography at once. But don’t. If you begin telling your story from the beginning, memories
might become hazy, you’ll get tired writing, and your story will flatten into a mere report of events:
“this happened, and then this, and this, and the end.” Instead of writing from start to finish, jot
more lists or do freewriting (see The Ready Reference Handbook, 2a4) to gather the bits and pieces
of your experience before you fashion them into a story.
Documents and conversations. Read about your experience in your own words (in diaries,
journals, or letters you’ve written) or in the words of others who have had a similar experience.
Talk with others who have had a similar experience or who might be interested in sharing yours.
Recording “telling details.” Aim to record as many details of your experience as possible: details of
weather, geography, and place; details of personality, dress, speech, and action. Use concrete
words, a sensory vocabulary of things to see, touch, taste, smell, and hear. Don’t write that it was a
“lovely day”; write about the temperature, clouds, and color of the sky. Don’t just say you were
happy, sad, or perplexed; write about the condition of your stomach, the sensations of your skin
and muscles. What you’re looking for are what one writer has called “telling details,” details both
vivid and significant. (For more on concrete words, see The Ready Reference Handbook, 26a.)
Your exploratory writing may take the following forms:
 Fragments. Do a series of brainstorms about parts of your story: its scenes, characters,
important events, discoveries, and secrets. Write words to remember your story and
bring it to life.
 Topic map. Make a topic map to help you “see” the parts of your story. (see The Ready
Reference Handbook, 2a4.)
 Lists. Make a list of the major events or moments that mark the stages of your story.
This list may become a map and help you remember even more.
 Souvenirs. List the souvenirs of your story. A souvenir is anything memorable that
reminds you of your story.

key words or important lines spoken that you’ll want to quote

famous sayings that illustrate the meaning of your story

anything else that suggests your meaning or sets the mood of your story -
snapshots (little “word pictures” describing place, objects, people, or events)
 Figurative language. Write similes or metaphors to bring your topic to life. Begin with
figurative free associations that follow the formula in the “How to Create Similes and
Metaphors” box in 26c of The Ready Reference Handbook.
3. Focusing Your Autobiography
As you explore your experience, watch for its hidden significance to reveal itself. You’re not only
attempting to recall the features of an experience but to feel for its spine, for what holds it together

and gives it the nervous electricity it has for you. Sum up your discoveries using one of these
formulas:
 What really happened was . . .
 What I discovered was . . .
 The point of it all is . . .
 My dominant impression of [my subject] is . . .
 What people can’t see about [my subject] is . . .
 The main thing I want my readers to see is . . .
What you’re creating is a “unifier” statement for your writing, the “secret” meaning of your topic
that you want to preserve or share, and it may feel a little like a thesis statement (see The Ready
Reference Handbook, 2d). You won’t necessarily repeat these formulas in the finished draft of
your writing, but you will use them to guide you as you write. Everything in your autobiography
should help you express the insights of this unifying statement.

1c. Planning an Autobiography
1. Creating Your Persona (Your Voice)
Most exploratory writing in an assignment like this will be for yourself, to make up your mind
about an experience. But once you’ve begun to consider its point or mood, begin thinking of your
readers and how you’ll communicate with them. Reread your exploratory writing and listen for
your persona, the voice in which you’re writing about your subject (see The Ready Reference
Handbook, 2c). Is it right for telling about these experiences?
You will probably write about yourself using one of two voices: one involved, the other reflective.
The involved voice is like the one the college student Eric Martínez adopts to describe being laid
off from his job:
Walking to the company parking lot that bright spring

morning, I could hear the voices of those who, until minutes
ago, had been co-workers: “Hey, Eric, how’s it going?”
“What’s up?” “Where are you going?” But the good-natured
greetings were little more than faint background music to
the message booming in my brain, reverberating for the
fifteen minutes since I’d first heard it: “Eric, we’re going
to have to let you go . . .” mumble, mumble, something about
“reductions in force,” “economies of scale,” mumble, mumble,
“. . . so you’d better clean out your locker.”
Martínez sounds immediately involved with his experience, as if, while writing, he had returned to
his job site and the moment of his departure. He describes events as if they were happening and he
didn’t know what their outcome would be. This is the persona to choose if you want your readers
to identify with you, to feel as you did, to be surprised by your secrets.
Another persona, the detached voice, adopts the attitude and outlook of someone who has already
lived through an experience and is looking back to it though the clarifying lens of hindsight. This is
the right persona for reflecting on experience, explaining, or giving events a larger, public
significance. Listen to student Lacey Blevins describing the experience of learning to read:
Picture a little girl, four years old, standing in her

parents’ bedroom early one Sunday morning, holding a page
from the New York Times, pretending to read its words. The
page is nearly as big as she. I don’t know why she is in
that bedroom; her parents usually kept to themselves on
early Sunday mornings. But I do know why she’s pretending to
read. The little girl is me, and I lived in a house that
must have seemed to a girl of four to be made of words--the
sounds of words as my mother read her beloved historical
novels to us whenever we traveled for more than an hour in

our car (no radios or CDs allowed), the sounds of the words
in the fantastical stories my father told me as we snuggled
on our family room couch at night (TV rationed out to an
hour a day), the look of words in books piled on coffee and
end tables, the feeling of words as they clicked onto the
screen of my father’s early-model computer.
Of course I would want to read. And so I stood in that
bedroom staring at that newspaper, pretending to read its
words, until, suddenly, like a photograph emerging from
developer fluid, the word “like” appeared on the page. Now,
I don’t know why I knew it was “like”--perhaps my mother had
pointed it out once as she read a story to me--but it was
there, clear as a picture. And suddenly, I knew I could
read. What delight!
Whatever the sound of your voice, whether you write from inside or outside an experience, you’ll
write “I” repeatedly, and you shouldn’t worry about this repetition. Your “I” is the reader’s “eye”
on your experience. Reader’s expect you to refer to yourself.
2. Organizing Experiences
You’ll probably organize your autobiography in chronological order--in time sequence--like a

story. To tell a good story, look for the “story line” leading event by event from the “old” you to
the “new,” from a time of peace, ignorance, or indifference to a time of conflict, mystery,
excitement, or suspense, and then to a time of crisis, discovery, or change. If you could see this
story line, it might look like this:
What draws writers and readers alike along this story line is tension or conflict and the anticipation
that something is about to happen. Organize events to create this tension and then to release it. This
pattern will become your story’s “spine,” holding everything together. For the sake of drama,
suspense, or background information, you may vary this design with flashbacks or flash-forwards.
But no matter how you design it, your story should tug readers suspensefully toward an
unexpected moment of crisis and the discovery of something that remained hidden to you until you

had the experiences of your story. Almost always this moment occurs near the end of
autobiographical writing. If you can, aim to reveal your discovery in your last line, even in your
last word.
To create your “story line,” do the following:
 List events or scenes in the order you want to cover them.
 Divide your list according to where these events or scenes will fall: in the introduction,
body, or conclusion. Decide where you’ll put your unifier, the “secret” meaning of your
experience that you want to share.
 Study your earlier exploratory writing. List details from that writing in the order you
want to use them in your introduction, body, or conclusion.
 Come up with a catchy title and opening line. Begin fast--with action, dialogue, or vivid
description. Capture attention, reveal the topic of your story, and suggest its direction or
importance.
 Plan your conclusion as if it were the end of a journey: describe your destination and
arrival, a return, a new departure, the secrets you’ve discovered; take stock of where
you’ve been; compare this journey to others (see The Ready Reference Handbook, 6c
and d).

1d. Writing and Revising an Autobiography
1. Paragraphing in Autobiography
To write your story, you’ll use four kinds of paragraphs. The first two are narrative and
descriptive. Focus each on an individual scene or action. When you shift scenes or change actions,
more than likely you’ll begin a new paragraph. (For examples of these paragraphs, see The Ready
Reference Handbook, 6b1 and 2.)
The third kind of paragraph you’ll write is the dialogue paragraph, presenting the words of one of
your characters and a signal statement to introduce that speech. Listen to this writer describing an
automobile breakdown during a cross-country trip with friends:
Behind us, a quarter mile away, shimmering in the

desert sunlight by the side of the road, sat our broken-down
car. Ahead of us, down a broad drive, surrounded by a lush
lawn dotted with sprinklers sounding “ffft, ffft, ffft,”
shaded by arching palm trees and sheltering shrubbery, was
the wonder of this desert place, an immense new house built
in the Spanish style.
As we walked up the drive, a large black pickup came
toward us. “All right!” cried Peter. “Help is at hand. We’ll
get a tow out of this--or at least a phone call to a
garage.”
The pickup rolled to a silent stop, and the occupant
stared at us for a moment from behind tinted windows. Then
slowly a window descended, and we looked into the driver’s
small, marble-colored, depthless eyes.
“I wonder if we could ask you for a little favor,” said
Peter in his best insinuating voice.
As the driver of the pickup shifted his hand on the
steering wheel, a gold Rolex glinted on his wrist. A two-way
radio hung by his knees; on the seat lay a cell phone and a
revolver. Peter quickly told him of our plight. “We just
need a little help--a tow, or a phone to arrange a tow.”
He studied us for a moment, blinked twice, and then as
the tinted window rose between us and his air conditioned
cab, we heard him say, “No. No help around here that I know
of. Maybe up the road a few miles.” Through the small
remaining crack in the window, we could see him jerk a thumb
toward the road.
Around us the sprinklers sounded “ffft, ffft, ffft.”
--Thom Sandersall

As this writer does, you’ll use dialogue to bring your narratives to life, to create personalities, and
to reveal secrets. Introductory signal statements will identify the speaker and tone of voice, give
background information, or evaluate the speaker’s remarks. (For more on quoting dialogue, see
The Ready Reference Handbook, 38a and b.)
The fourth kind of paragraph you’ll write is the transitional paragraph, illustrated by Thom
Sandersall’s third paragraph above. In these often brief paragraphs writers summarize unimportant
events, provide background information, or mark the passage of time and heighten suspense.
Transitional paragraphs build bridges to carry a story from one episode to the next.
As you revise and edit your autobiography, follow these tips and guidelines:
 Sometimes you won’t know the point of your story--its secret meaning or significance,
your main idea, or dominant impression--until you’ve nearly finished a first draft. If,
near your conclusion, you find yourself thinking, “Aha!”, you may have discovered
your point, and you should rewrite in light of your discovery. Often writers plunge to a
new depth of understanding just as they are about to finish. Rewrite to lead your story
to this new depth.
 No matter how good a sentence or how vivid a memory--if it doesn’t develop your
main idea or dominant impression, you should cut it.
 Beware of beginning too soon, with irrelevant introductory materials, or too late,
without the background information readers need to understand you.
 Reread to see that you’ve provided connecting links to carry readers from one episode
to the next.
 Examine your words to see that each is faithful to the truth of your experience. In
autobiographical writing, there’s no such thing as an almost-right word.
 Reread looking for clichés, old metaphors and similes that everyone has heard and that
have lost their power. Look, too, for mixed metaphors, two or more figures of speech
that clash with one another. (See The Ready Reference Handbook, 26d.)

3. Questions for Peer Reviews of Autobiography
Writers: If you’re passing out copies of your writing for peer reviewers to read, number your
paragraphs to make your story easy to discuss. Make a brief introduction:
1. Identify your audience (name yourself or your intended readers).

2. Identify the kind of autobiography you’ve written: a personal experience essay, a
reflective essay, an epiphany, or a memoir.
3. Describe your intentions. “In my story I’m trying to tell/show. . . .”
4. Tell your peer reviewers about the feedback you want from them. Ask questions,
describe problems, or pose alternative solutions for which you want opinions. Take
notes as you listen to their feedback. Use your reviewers’ suggestions where they’re
helpful. But remember, this is your autobiography; it should say what you want.
Peer reviewers: Answer the following questions to help this writer see his/her autobiographical
essay clearly and begin planning revisions.
1. What is this story about--its subject? Does it change from one page to the next? If so,
what subject is most interesting or important?
2. Is the purpose of the writing autobiographical, informative, persuasive, or critical? Does
it change? Role: Does the writer sound like a story-teller (autobiographer), reporter,
teacher, critic, or persuader? What purpose and role are appropriate?
3. Is the audience for this project supposed to respond with sympathy, understanding,
evaluation, agreement, or enjoyment? Will this writing achieve its purpose? What
changes might help it achieve its purpose?
4. Does this project have a unifier, a secret or discovery to share, a main idea, or an
overall mood? Point it out or summarize it.
5. Development. Does the writing provide enough detail for you to re-live the story with
the writer and get its “secret” message? Tell the writer what description, dialogue,
metaphors or similes you most remember. Are some parts of the story vague, needing
more detail to bring them to life?
6. Organization. Can you follow this story from start to finish? Where is it hard to follow?
Point to specific sentences or paragraphs.
7. What message or picture is expressed by the essay’s title? Does the story suggest a
more vivid or revealing title? What does the introduction do to interest you or help you
see where the story is going? Propose alternative openings the writer could use to begin
his/her story.
8. Does the writer’s “voice” seem right for the topic, too formal, or too informal? Point
out words that don’t seem to fit.

1e. Student Examples—Writing Autobiography
1. Time to Say Goodbye (a personal experience essay)
ASSIGNMENT: Write a personal experience essay. Tell your story using description, dialogue,
and figurative language.
Time to Say Goodbye
by Dawn Uza
My mom and I drive to my aunt and uncle’s house. The air in the car tingles with
nervous electricity. Out the window I stare, glad, for once, to be listening to my mom’s light
rock station. With Air Supply and Carpenters songs playing, I worry about not associating any
of my usual tunes with this day. The drive is short, but I wish it were longer. Can one ever have
enough time to prepare to visit someone about to die?
Sudden: that is the way of death with which I have been familiar. I found myself, in
previous experiences, wishing I had more time: time to say what I had learned and loved about
that person; time to say thank you; time to say goodbye. Time is what I wished for. Now I have
that time, but am left confused, overwhelmed, and afraid. What will I say? How will I say it?
Will I be able to look at him, the life of every party, the great teller of jokes, the epitome of a
gentleman, and hide the way my heart is breaking?
I wipe moist palms on faded jeans as we approach the front door. She says that Wil, her
husband, is resting. Her smile is triggered as she tries to be strong for us. Necessity masks the
despair that must be inside her. I can’t imagine watching your husband deteriorate by the hour.
The three of us speak for a short while in the front room. She and my mom smoke. Perhaps my
aunt is mercifully giving us a moment to prepare. My attention turns to their courtyard, and I am
lost in my thoughts, wondering if we will be having snow this Christmas. I snap out of my

irrelevant daydream. What a stupid thing to think about now, while the man who could light up
a room with his smile and make a woman of any age giggle like a little girl succumbs to cancer.
My ears tune into the conversation.
“If he stops breathing,” my aunt explains, “they cannot resuscitate him. His bones will
all break.” They put out their cigarettes and we go to see Wil.
She leads us down the hallway. My pace is slowing. The air in front of me pushes me
back. The air behind me pushes me forward. All the air becomes too thick to breathe. The
hallway is longer than I ever remember it being. I trip over my trepidation.
“Honey,” my aunt says, “you have visitors!”
The wrinkles that circle their eyes look like ripples from a pebble dropping in water. I sit
on the edge of their bed, beside his hospital bed. The metal rails remind me of a zoo cage,
separating the beautiful creature from the world he once knew. At first I do not touch him. As
children, after all, we are taught not to reach into the cages.
I kiss the top of his hairless head and gently squeeze his hand. I compliment him on the
lovely shape of his head. The conversation floats, each word dangling, disconnected. I make
sure to monitor my comments. Remember to be cheerful. Don’t ask how are you? We speak of
school. I am reminded of what he told me when I, unsure of my choice, decided to return to
college. He had leaned in close to me, put out his hand squeezing my shoulder, and said, “You
know what one of the saddest days of my life was?” He leaned closer, and with a lowered voice
said, “It was the day I graduated from college!” He had then leaned back, with a beaming smile
and twinkled blue eyes, and patted me on the back. He started to laugh, and I then knew that I
was making the right decision. How could anyone doubt eyes that sparkled so confidently? We
speak of travel. I admire his worldliness, his having been places, such as Italy and France, which
I dream of going to. He encourages me to pursue my goal of studying abroad, suggesting
Denmark. We speak of this and that. Do I sound as stupid as I feel? I am so large and so small;

so powerful, so weak. Sadness and happiness fight for the space inside me like territorial beasts.
I am intelligent and wise, yet so naïve to the ways of . . . of what? Of God? Of the world? I
ponder life, death, and everything in between. Oh, and remember to smile.
I feel the relief of death in the room. If I sit here long enough, will it consume me, too?
My aunt smiles at Wil and jokes as she helps him move his legs. He laughs. I cherish that
sound, heard so frequently, accompanied by his jovial smile. Never before have I met anyone so
sincerely interested in everyone, always making each person feel important, powerful, and
beautiful. With the dedication of an aching athlete running the last mile of a marathon, my aunt
lifts some water for him to sip. Perhaps she, like the runner, has been conditioned for this in
some unspoken training. A moment later his eyes close. Is he dead?
I am not breathing.
My emotions revolve like merry-go-round horses. Wil’s eyes open slightly and he says
he needs to rest. I breathe again. It is time for us to go. Will looks at me, looks into me. I
quiver at his penetration, but welcome his unspoken wisdom. His eyes are bloodshot, but gentler
than red . . . more like magenta. Wil always knows exactly what to say and when to say it,
something I wish I could do now. I numbly rise. I cannot say goodbye. I cannot say thank you. I
cannot say I love you. I cannot create words to mirror all that races inside me. Come late spring I
cannot pick the last wildflower in the meadow. So I smile and say, “I’ll see you soon.”

2. On the Border in Borders (a reflective essay)
ASSIGNMENT: Write a reflective essay about a favorite place, “a holy spot” like E. B. White’s in
“Once More to the Lake.”
On the Border in Borders
by Radik Lapushin
Do we really choose the places we love? Or maybe they choose us, peering at our faces,
listening attentively to our voices, and reading the pages of our lives. They attract and seduce us;
they tame us gradually day by day, step by step, until we are not able even to imagine ourselves
without them. Then we can leave these places, but we are powerless to forget them because they
become a part of us, and we ourselves become a part of them.
I keep in my memory my first date with one such special place. It was during my first
days in this country. Everything was strange, unknown, and different from what I had been
adjusted to before. I would wake up in the early morning to the voices of the fussy geese, I
would walk down unaccustomedly empty streets, almost without pedestrians, and I would feel a
lack of air because of the horrible heat and the intolerable humidity. Besides that, I could hardly
speak English and was not able to understand what people were telling me. In that condition,
almost by accident, I opened the door of Borders, where I found myself surrounded by books and
the long-expected freshness, which, as I felt at that moment, came from those books. There were
not many people. The quiet and pensive music penetrated me slowly from the second floor. I
headed for the cozy café with the high ceiling that reminded me of the cupola of a cathedral. I
ordered a cup of tea, and with the first gulps, I experienced the feeling of being at home.
Then, I tried to visit that place as often as I could. I did not have a car yet, but my
relatives used to pick me up when they drove to the health club not far from Borders. They made
fun of my attachment to an ordinary store. Chuckling, they invited me to join them, but I
consistently preferred Borders. Why? Of course, I could study there, and from childhood I had

fallen in love with books and music. But there was something else I was not able to explain. It
seemed to me that opening the door of that store, I was not a stranger anymore, that I had
discovered my own place where nobody and nothing could threaten or disturb me, and where I
was not so vulnerable and unprotected from reality.
I did not have much time there, but I was never in a hurry. I liked, for example, to take
any book from a shelf, open it at random, and try to read. It was not simple for me because of
my English, but I was not afraid of misunderstanding: I imagined myself capable of reading
something between the lines if not in the lines. I remember the first English poem I read from
the beginning to the end without stopping. It was the very dramatic poem by W. H. Auden,
“Song for St. Cecilia’s Day” (sec. 24), where the poet transforms his personal fear of losing his
loved one into the objective form of the ballad. Reading it, I felt a special rapture thanks to just
one rhyme which burned me from within:
O is it the parson they want, with white hair,

Is it the parson, is it, is it?
No, they are passing his gateway, dear,
Without a visit. (222-23)
That double “is it” sounded for me so much like a cry of a wild bird suddenly penetrating the
space of the store that I had to pull my head down, frightened of its touching me.
But from the very beginning, Borders was not for me just a place that had to do with
books and music. It gave me a beautiful opportunity to observe people inside the store and the
life outside. That is why I preferred the table near the window in the café, where I myself was
“on the border” between the modern world of streets and the eternal world of culture. It seemed
to me that centuries were looking at me from the bookshelves, while people were filing up the
store and the café. I really liked to observe them from my place. All of the time, I tried to
imagine their lives and to read their pasts, their thoughts, and feelings in their smiles, gestures, or
gait. Of course, I had time to catch just scraps of their words, only profiles of their faces. But

that was enough for my imagination to be awakened. Once, for example, I saw an elderly man
sitting at the table next to mine, holding a woman’s hand gently. She was smiling, but she was
sad at the same time. Such a combination of smile and sadness made her face especially
attractive and expressive. Who were they? Maybe they were husband and wife. Lovers?
Simply friends? I knew that I would never be able to learn the answer. But it seemed to me that
their lives inexplicably had to do with my life. Besides that, I felt that if I had opened one of
those books from the shelves around, I would have read their story.
In order to be honest, I need to confess that sometimes I hated my refuge, my dearest and
loveliest place. The reason for that feeling was inside me. It appeared to me that I tried to hide
from reality behind books and CDs, that I was just an incurable dreamer and contemplator who
was not able to do what normal people did, and that I lived surrounded by phantoms and
mirages, like that cry of the bird which I just “heard” once above the bookshelves. And those
shelves seemed to me like a tremendous sandcastle that was about to fall down and cover me
completely. “You should escape from here! You have to escape! You must!” I used to whisper
to myself, but every time I found myself returning.
And now I am here again at my favorite table near the window, and it is my favorite time,
the soft twilight when things lose their shapes and penetrate each other. Oh, how I like this play
of the reflections when the bookshelves leave their usual places, reach the road, and stop in the
middle of it. The fast-moving cars drive through the shelves that remain invisible to them. They
drive through the pages and lines, rhymes and characters, through the centuries and countries,
religions and doctrines, through the fire, tears, prayers, and curses, through the permanent
despair and irresistible hope. No book has fallen! And who can answer where the border is
between seeing and existing, between my imagination and reality, between ourselves and the
places we choose?

WORKS CITED
Auden, W. H. “Song for St. Cecilia’s Day.” The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden. New York:
Random House, 1945. 203-39.

3. The Imperfect Gift (an epiphany)
ASSIGNMENT: Write an epiphany, a brief intense experience that leads to an important insight.
The Imperfect Gift
by Justin Clack
The sun fires its rays deep into the winter’s midmorning, and the light filters through a
window and onto the floor. After having just talked for an hour to my Sunday school class about
Jonah and the whale, my throat is raw. The effort of answering the children’s barrage of
questions has left me exhausted and dejected.
The lesson went well. The eight-and nine-year-olds understood the plot, and more
importantly, they understood what Jonah must have felt, entombed in the belly of a whale,
surrounded on all sides by wet, fetid fish flesh.
Today, that is how I think I feel, cut off from the world by this disgusting layer of flesh I
call my body. I am seventeen years old, and I have a face covered with bright red pimples.
When I look at my body, all I can see is a pair of long gangly arms, placed on a stunningly white
torso, which is balanced precariously on twig-thin legs. My face looks far worse; my nose, chin
and Adam’s apple jut out in three hideous explosions of flesh, causing me to resemble a troll. I
feel hopelessly cut off from all that is human and beautiful; I am an island in a sea of
imperfection, with no isthmus to the mainland of humanity.
I walk out of my classroom and down a dank passage that leads to the courtyard. Before
entering the courtyard, I stop and lean against the smooth, machine-crafted doorpost of the
building’s exit. A pool of light has formed on the cold linoleum floor that surrounds the door.
My bag of worn Sunday school props slung loosely over my shoulder is getting heavy. I let the
bag slide off; it then hits the ground with a muffled thump and splashes in the pool of sunlight.
Directly in front of me stands an iron table with a dimpled and worn surface. On top of the table
are opaque teacups and saucers ready to be used by the congregation after the service.

The Church service has just ended, and people are beginning to congregate in the
courtyard. Helpers scurry between the table and the kitchen, carrying scalding pots of coffee and
tea. As the helpers complete their preparations, the crowd of people slowly migrates toward the
table.
I notice a young boy, four years of age, approaching. I know him from the class I taught
last year. He stops in front of the table, then pans his eyes over the cups and saucers, finally
stopping at a beaten up old teapot. He lifts his eyes from the teapot to me and slowly, his tight,
fresh face lights with a smile.
“Hi Justin,” he bleats.
“Good morning,” I reply.
He walks around the table and stands in front of me. I am two and a half feet taller than
he is, and looking down on him makes me feel like a giraffe. So I lower myself onto my
haunches to make our conversation easier. I am curious why he has approached me, but before I
have a chance to ask, he hugs me. I squeeze back and smell the pungent mix of soap and play on
his shirt.
“How are you?” I ask.
“Good,” he replies.
I can’t help but smile at how confident he is.
“What is that?” I ask, pointing to a miniature blue van with oversized tires and tinted
windows.
“It’s my car,” he replies and hands it to me.
I take the car from him and begin a mock appraisal. First, I hold it up to the sunlight and
rotate it. Then, I turn to him and nod; next, I flick its wheels and watch them spin.
“Niiiiiice,” I comment enthusiastically.
His shoulders arch back; he presses his chest forward in pride.

“I noticed it was your birthday today. Have you enjoyed it so far?” I ask him.
“Yes, my teacher gave me chocolate,” he replies.
“What kind?” I ask.
“Um . . . chocolate,” he replies again and opens his hand to reveal his treasured last piece.
“Kom bokkie,”1 his mother’s voice calls out in our general direction. He snaps to
attention and walks towards her.
“Bye,” he shouts over his shoulder as an afterthought.
“Cheers,” I reply and reach for my bag.
I stand up and begin to leave.
“Wait!” I hear his little voice call out from behind me.
I turn around to see him looking up and smiling at me. He raises his short, plump little
arm with his hand tightly balled into a fist. Slowly, one-by-one, he peels his sticky fingers back
to reveal his last piece of chocolate.
He wants me to take the melted blob from his grubby hand and eat it. My stomach
convulses at the thought. I also feel uncomfortable accepting the chocolate because it is his last
piece.
He raises his arm higher with a slightly distressed expression and motions for me to
accept. Not wanting to offend him, I ignore the violent internal protests, reach down, take the
deformed rectangle, and eat it. It tastes salty from the sweat of his hand; I fight an impulse to
screw my lips. Eventually, the taste of chocolate comes and I can smile.
“Ummmm, that’s good; thank you,” I lie.
His face lights with pride and joy; he smiles, showing all his teeth.
Then it hits me! It comes crashing through like a freight train—I realize what it is I am
looking at. I fight back tears. This small child with his small gift has opened the big gates of

Heaven. Here beaming back at me is everything human and beautiful. It is not his appearance or
his imperfect gift that strike me but his heart and action of giving. It is not my appearance or
performance but the spirit of my undertakings that count.
1
Kom Bokkie is an Afrikaans term of endearment. Roughly translated, it means “come here my young antelope.” In
Afrikaans, the expression conjures images of a wholesome and natural being given by the creator and for whom the
speaker has intense affection. It has a very guttural/Dutch pronunciation.

4. A Growing Love (a memoir)
ASSIGNMENT: Write a memoir about a person important to you. Dramatize your relationship with
this person.
A Growing Love
by Ewa J. Pasterski
It was November 7, the day of my father’s funeral. It rained, but I do not remember
getting wet. We walked slowly, almost in slow motion, into the colorless church in the middle of
nowhere. I did not hear a sound. No one was smiling. People’s mouths moved, but the words
were inaudible. All birds had escaped somewhere. The clock seemed to keep pace with the rain.
I walked, but my feet did not touch the muddy ground. I was numb. Only twelve, I was too
young to comprehend, yet old enough that I would never forget. My real understanding came
years later: my father’s presence had a large impact on me, and his philosophy of life still lingers
deep inside me.
Even though many years have gone by, the memory of my father is still alive, like a
timeless story. I keep in my mind the picture of his incredible eyes and beloved face. Some say
he looked like a movie star: tall, firm, and handsome. My father always kept his hair the same
way: short with the bangs combed back, like Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca.” He was a
strong, muscular man, but what I remember most was his gentle touch.
My memory of my time with my father is full of discoveries and excursions and lifetime
experiences that can only occur between a father and a daughter. It was he who showed me for
the first time the beauty of my native town of Cracow and its unforgettable views, such as Vavel
Castle. From the opposite side of the river he showed me its monumental architecture from
hundreds of years ago, like a perfect beauty from a fairy tale story. At the base of the castle’s
foundation, the Vistula River, like a gentle snake, writhed around it to protect the heart of the
town from enemy forces. I also remember walks down the old, narrow streets in Cracow, filled

with the history of people and events from hundreds of years ago. Walking down these streets, I
always search for our previous tracks lost somewhere in the past, like unwritten stories. He was
teaching me how to perceive, how to discover and see things invisible to others. His words were
like the sound of music. Once he asked, almost whispering in my ear, “Do you feel the power of
past generations?” I did not even know how to answer.
There are many little things that I still remember about him. On frosty Sundays, he liked
to take me for a hot cup of tea in the café at the corner. This picture comes back to me every
time I pass that place. A few times, I glanced inside but there was nobody sitting in his chair.
Also, I remember the sentence he used to say to me: “There is something inside each of us, a
dreaming passion that we have to look for and find before we die.” He was this way, deep and
introspective. Moreover, I remember the kisses that he gave me every night before I slept. Only
after he had gone did I realize that it was nearly impossible to sleep without them. Nonetheless, I
deeply enjoyed all the moments we shared, such as drinking ice-cold water straight from a
mountain spring, picking wild flowers from a little wood-glad, or watching bright starts hung on
a cloudless sky.
There was something special about the way he talked and looked at me that made me feel
his love. I could run to him with all my problems and fears; he was not just a parent but a friend
as well. It was a special connection between a father and a daughter built on respect, love, and
understanding. Even though I had to share his attention with my twin sister, I was always the
first who got a little smile from him, and the first who found a free space on his lap. But it was
also I who on dark, rainy evenings waited for him with my nose stuck to the cold glass of the
window. And he knew it. I was hungry for more, much more time exclusively offered to me.
My father worked all day long; he was always gone before I woke; and he came back when the
sun was down. So it was impossible for me to see him as often as I wanted to. Sometimes, I

admit to myself, I did not try to know him better. I did not expect that days with my father might
be limited, irretrievably cut off like a wonderful dream gone when I woke.
The first day of his sickness was cloudy and cold. It seemed to me that the skies agreed
with the circumstance. The doctor’s voice tore my ears: “A stroke has paralyzed him. He will
live, but he will not walk again.” His words were like a nightmare; it seemed to me as if someone
had cut off the wings of a bird. All that I saw at this moment was a vision of the two of us
walking down the street and the feeling that those days were over. I grasped his hands firmly,
and for the first time I realized how much I loved him. I would pay any price to keep him alive,
but I was not sure what he was wishing for. His unhappiness was painful for me.
A few weeks later, exactly when night changes to day, my father died. When he was
ready to go, the window of the small hospital room opened rapidly as if someone had come to
take him away, far away from me and forever. First of all, I did not believe what had happened,
or I did not want to believe. We had so many things to do together and so many plans for the
future. Afterwards, I had nothing left, only a painful, empty hole in my heart. Finally, I came to
know my life would never be the same.
I do not know exactly when or how, but as I live my life little by little, I have come to
realize the influence my father has had on me. At some point, I faced the reality that it was
impossible to see those gentle eyes again. His death was as if someone had torn the roof off the
house and left me unprotected from the rain. Not only did I lose my father, but also I lost my
friend. I realized that our secret relationship was founded on his sheltering protection over me. I
lost those strong, safe arms that I used to run to, and I lost those eyes where I could find all the
answers. Now that I am an adult, I miss those days even more. I sometimes think how my life
might be now with him, but I can only imagine. One day I came to know that even though he is
not next to me anymore, my love and admiration for him are still growing.

2 Writing Reports
2a. Developing a Perspective on Reports
1. The Aims of Report Writing
The word “report” comes from the Latin reportare, “to carry back.” Writing as a reporter, you carry
back to interested readers the information you’ve gathered about people, places, things, or events.
You aim to tell the whole truth and nothing but--or at least as much truth as you can find or your
readers require--and in the process answer the journalist’s five questions: “Who?” “What?”
“When?” “Where?” and “Why?”
Some people regard this factual writing as less worthy than other kinds, such as the imaginative
writing of fiction or the thoughtful writing of essays of opinion. After all, they reason, facts are
such small things, as common as leaves, “mere facts,” trivial and transitory, the stuff of old
newspapers, heaped in a recycling bin. But this is a short-sighted view, for what is a rare idea or a
sound opinion without facts to give it weight? Facts are not the leaves on the tree of knowledge but
its root and trunk, the nourishing source for good ideas and opinions.
2. Assignments: The Reporter’s Options
Informal report. An informal report is not necessarily written in an informal style. Its name
refers to the fact that it is designed to flow, like an essay, from paragraph to paragraph, without the
distinct parts characteristic of formal reports. An informal report might also be called an
“informative essay.” A biography is an informal report, as are many of the assignments you’ll
write in humanities or social science classes in college and the memos or brief documents you’ll
prepare at work. A special form of the informal report is the “New-Journalism” report, in which
reporters use the narrative and descriptive tools of novelists both to report on a topic and tell the
story of their encounter with that topic.
Formal report. A formal report, often referred to as a “technical report,” presents a formal
design, with distinct parts. Formal reports are frequent assignments in the sciences and on the job
and appear in several versions: the lab report to present the results of an experiment, the periodic or
progress report to bring readers up to date, the field report to give the results of an on-site
inspection, or the research report to answer a research question or solve a problem. (See The Ready
Reference Handbook, 62f.)
Case study. The case study is a special kind of technical report, most common in the social
sciences, medicine, and wherever investigators trace the course of a phenomenon as it appears in
one individual’s life. The reporter aims not only to tell one episode from a person’s life but also to
explain that episode according to current theory or to draw conclusions that might help explain the
behavior of other, similar people.

Book report. A book report is a special kind of technical report, one unique to school. When you
write a book report, you aim not merely to summarize a book you’ve read but to demonstrate your
understanding of it and, frequently, to evaluate it.

2b. “Inventing” a Report
1. Gathering Information
Choosing a topic. Reporters are frequently assigned their topics. If you choose your own topic,
find one that provokes your curiosity and that makes you feel like a curator, wanting to gather,
understand, preserve, and share valuable information. Time limits, your knowledge, or the
complexity of a topic may require you to focus on one interesting part. At the beginning, before
you start your investigation, freewrite to discover what you know about your topic, what you
don’t, your feelings, and opinions. This freewriting will establish your perspective as you gather
information.
Discus sing your topic. Discuss your topic with others, in person or online, to see other
perspectives. (See The Ready Reference Handbook, 2a3.)
Writing questions. To begin your investigation, pose questions to answer. But don’t be
surprised if, in response to your growing understanding, they change during your research. These
questions may come from readers, the assignment, or a request for information. Or they may be
more pointed versions of the questions in the “How to Think Critically” box (see 1a of The Ready
Reference Handbook) that you’ve adapted to your topic.
After you’ve formulated questions, rewrite to make them clear and precise. Computer experts have
an acronym, GIGO, relevant to reporters: “Garbage in--garbage out.” The answers to your
questions will be only as good as the questions themselves. A good research question is clear,
precise in wording, unbiased, single rather than multiple, and well focused. If you can do so, avoid
asking “yes/no” questions; their answers may short-circuit your investigation or prevent you from
considering alternatives.
Ans wering questions. Answer your questions by reading, observing, experimenting,

interviewing, and sampling with surveys or questionnaires. Record your information in carefully
prepared notes. As you investigate your topic, use the guidelines for evaluating information
sources in The Ready Reference Handbook, 49a; for note-taking guidelines, see 49b, c, and d.
Your notes will probably include the following kinds of information:
 Facts, figures, and definitions of important terms.
 Explanations of whatever information may be unclear.
 Step-by-step descriptions of events or processes.
 Descriptions of people, places, and things to make your report interesting, especially
details readers might have difficulty imagining or understanding.

 Figurative comparisons, especially analogies, to help readers see and understand your
subject (see The Ready Reference Handbook, 6b7 and 26c).
 Quotations of experts or eyewitnesses to illustrate, explain, or dramatize.
 Visual information contained in tables, charts, graphs, and photographs. (See 1c of The
Ready Reference Handbook for guidelines to interpreting this information.)
 Careful and complete information about your sources so that you can acknowledge
where you’ve borrowed information, quotations, or others’ opinions. List author
names, titles, dates, and publication information.
2. Focusing Your Report
You won’t get far in your investigation before you begin taking stock of what you’re finding and
draw conclusions to focus and unify your report. Your conclusions may be:
 Summaries that sum up or give the gist of the information.
 Generalizations that compare, classify, or estimate the size, number, or amount of

groups of things.
 Cause-effect statements.
 Value judgments evaluating the morality, usefulness, or pleasures of a subject.
 Predictions.
 Proposals recommending specific actions or policy.
To write conclusions, try one of these formulas:
 What my information seems to show is . . .
 What I want my readers to know about ___________ is that . . .
 My subject is important because . . .
 The causes/effects of my subject are . . .
 The actions these facts require are . . .
Choose the most appropriate formula; combine them if necessary. Write several versions until you
find one that says what you want it to say. Good conclusions are:

 Complete, accounting for all relevant information.
 Sound, supported by the information you’ve gathered.
 Clear, precise, and unambiguous in wording.
 Qualified, containing words such as “some,” “may,” “possibly,” “many,” “rarely,”

“often,” “seldom.” Rarely do conclusions contain categorical words like “all,” “never,”
“no,” “every.” Good conclusions never claim more than the information allows.
 Grammatically complete. Conclusions are declarative sentences that make statements,

not questions.
Here, for example, is the conclusion to a student’s formal report investigating reduced tax funding
of state colleges in Illinois. Note how thoroughly the conclusion responds to all of the information
the student has gathered: the causes and consequences of reduced taxes, the problems and their
solution.
As a result of reduced state taxes, public funding of

state colleges has been reduced. In response to shrinking
payroll budgets, faculty have begun leaving for better-
paying positions in business or at colleges in other states.
Class sizes have been increased, preventing many students
from taking required courses and delaying their graduation.
Some colleges have even been forced to reduce enrollment,
thus denying students access to higher education.
Ultimately, budgetary reductions for higher education will
affect not only faculty, staff, and students; it will
diminish the state’s overall economic competitiveness. The
solution is an increase of state taxes, an action that
surveys show a majority of citizens support.
--Kevin Kravitz

2c. Planning a Report
1. Profiling Your Audience
As you draw conclusions about your subject, begin thinking about your audience. You’ll almost
never address readers directly in your reports--as “you”--but you’ll acknowledge their interests by
what you say about a subject and the way you say it. As a reporter, you’ll address two kinds of
audience:
 Audiences motivated by natural curiosity. These readers want to be entertained

as well as informed. They probably know little about your subject, so you’ll provide
detailed background information and define specialized terms.
 Audiences who want information for their jobs or for technical

purposes. These readers want to act on your information, to fulfill the responsibilities
that brought them to your report; they don’t expect to be entertained. Because they
probably have a general knowledge of your subject, you’ll provide less background
information and define fewer terms. These are the audiences for formal reports and for
most academic writing.
To help you decide who your readers are and what information to include in your report, prepare
an audience profile. Use the questions in the “How to Profile an Audience” box in 1d of The
Ready Reference Handbook.
2. Organizing Information
Following are conventional organizing patterns for reports. Whatever your design, if your
information is complex or unfamiliar, you’ll have to write an outline to put everything in the right
order (see The Ready Reference Handbook, 3c).
Informal report. You’ll likely organize an informal report or informative essay in one of two
ways:
 Narrative order. If you’re reporting on people, you’ll probably organize your report
in chronological or “time” order. In addition to dramatic details and events, you’ll
emphasize the significance of people’s lives, the causes and consequences of their
actions, and the features of their personalities.
 Logical order. Other subjects you’ll organize topically, to answer the relevant
journalist’s questions. Or you may organize according to causes and effects,
classification, comparison/contrast, problem/solution, or answers to readers questions
in the order in which they were asked.

Formal report. A formal report is divided into clearly labeled sections that appear in a customary
order:
 Abstract. An abstract is a brief summary that often precedes a report. (For an

example, see The Ready Reference Handbook, 55d.)
 Statement of the Problem. This is the introduction to your report. “Problem”

means whatever requires a report. It may be an actual problem that needs solving, a
question that needs answering, a request for information so that an audience can take
action, a misperception that needs correcting, or some phenomenon that deserves
investigation.
 Background. Depending on your subject, you’ll describe the causes of the problem,
present background information or history, define important terms, summarize relevant
research that others have conducted, identify the materials or methods used in an
experiment, or explain the techniques of your investigation.
 Results and Discussion. You’ll present and explain your findings in detail. In
some reports, the “results” section contains only the factual information you’ve
gathered; the “discussion” contains explanation, interpretation, and evaluation of this
information.
 Conclusion. You’ll summarize the results of your research, draw any conclusions
that your information has led to, describe solutions to the problem, recommend action,
policy change, or the course of future research.
 Reference list or works cited. Here you’ll give full citations for all the sources of
information you’ve used in your report. (For Modern Language Association guidelines,
see The Ready Reference Handbook, 53b; for the American Psychological Association
guidelines, see 55b; for guidelines in other fields, see Chaps. 56 and 57.)
These large sections of a formal report may be subdivided into shorter sections, each with its own
heading. For guidelines to effective section headings, see The Ready Reference Handbook, 46b.
(For further guidelines to formal reports, see The Ready Reference Handbook, 62f.)
Case study. A case study is usually arranged chronologically, like a story, but explanations
frequently interrupt. It really contains two stories, that of the patient, client, or other person under
observation and that of the observer who selects facts, explains them, draws conclusions, and
applies those findings to other instances. To write an effective case study, you’ll need to describe
accurately and vividly to bring your subject to life yet avoid “loaded” language that might color or
distort your facts.
Book report. A book report usually contains:
 An introduction. You’ll give information about the book, including its kind, history
of composition, important facts about the author’s life relevant to the book’s contents,
and publishing information (editor, publisher, place of publication, date of publication,
and length).

 Contents. A systematic summary, describing the book’s design, major subjects, style
or method of presentation, and conclusions.
 Positive and negative features of the book.
 Conclusions. An identification of the book’s intended audience and uses, a

comparison with related books, and your judgment of its value.
3. Placing Your Conclusion Statement
As you organize your report, decide where you’ll place your conclusion statement for greatest
impact. In many reports, conclusions appear not at the end but in the beginning, immediately
following the introduction. This is frequently true of informal reports and of formal reports that
may not always be read in their entirety, as often is the case in business. A conclusion placed in the
beginning will sum up your findings and point the way through the report. A conclusion placed at
the end assumes readers have read the entire report and that it represents a logical end to a chain of
reasoning.
As you get organized, decide how much of yourself to put in your report. In most reports, the
conventions of objectivity require that you not refer to yourself. Stay in the background, out of the
way of your information. You’ll put yourself in a report, as an “I” in the following situations:
 When you’re part of the story you’re reporting, often the case in “New-Journalism”-
style informal reports.
 When you’re reporting primarily to inform yourself, often the case for reports assigned
in school.
 When you’re describing your point of view (your background, values, or vantage point
for viewing your subject). If your point of view differs from that of your readers, you
must acknowledge that difference, usually in your introduction.
 When you give your credentials as a reporter or describe your methods of gathering
information.
Rarely will the occasion for your report be so formal that you’ll refer to yourself as “this reporter,”
“the writer,” or “one.”
5. Planning an Introduction
The introductions to your reports will usually be brief. Most readers will begin reading your report
already interested in your topic, officially as part of their jobs or naturally as an expression of their
curiosity. When reporting about people, begin simply, by introducing the person and describing the

conditions of your observation. If your subject is complex or unfamiliar to your readers, you may
begin illustratively, with some fact, detail, or event that identifies your subject and dramatically
sums up the results of your investigation. Here, for example, student John Chen opens an informal
report of interest to urban and suburban commuters:
In a car-crazy culture like that of the United States,

citizens measure the quality of their lives, in part, by the
quality of their drives. Whether traveling for work,
leisure, or family obligations, Americans yearn for “good
drives,” and often change their addresses just to make
travel easier. Increasingly, however, Americans are unhappy
travelers. Highways, expressways, and local streets are
crowded and getting more crowded. In many parts of the
country, the seasons of the year are now divided into winter
and road-repair, and millions of orange traffic cones,
months-long lane closures, and roundabout detours make
American roadways even more congested. Incredibly, no sooner
are many of these roads repaired than they begin to show new
pot-holed signs of wear and tear. Even travelers like me,
who try do as much of their local travel as possible on foot
or by bicycle, encounter difficulties as we navigate
neighborhoods without walkways and streets ill-designed to
accommodate both motorized and human-powered vehicles.
I wanted to find out how we have created road systems
seemingly so at odds with our traveling needs and desires.
In particular, I wanted to learn the process and principles
by which US roads and streets are designed, how their
construction and maintenance are funded, and how they are
constructed to ensure durability.
--John Chen
With a few brief observations and by summarized research questions, this writer focuses his report
and prepares for the information to follow.
In most reports, readers expect the introduction to give your purposes for reporting, point of view
if different from theirs, methods of investigation or sources of information, some clue to your
pattern of organization, and, often, the conclusions you’ve drawn. This is a lot to do in only one or
two paragraphs. No wonder professional writers spend so much time on their openings! You
should, too. (For an example of an introduction to a formal report, see The Ready Reference
Handbook, 6c2.)

2d. Writing and Revising a Report
1. Choosing Words
As you draft a report, present facts objectively, using a vocabulary that is concrete, precise in
denotative meaning, heavy with nouns and verbs, and as specialized as the subject requires and
readers will allow. Here, for example, is an excerpt from a report investigating college students’
self-perceptions and expectations:
Contemporary college students believe their academic

and career prospects are bright. According to students
interviewed here at Harper College and 252,090 students at
464 colleges and universities surveyed by the Higher
Education Research Institute, fifty-six percent rank
themselves in the top ten percent in academic ability. Fifty
percent expect to get at least a B average. Of special
interest to English teachers, forty percent rank themselves
in the top ten percent in writing ability. Twenty percent,
up from eleven percent ten years ago, expect to graduate
with honors. After graduation, forty percent plan to go on
to earn master’s degrees, and fifteen percent, to earn PhDs.
Seventy-four percent expect their college preparation will
earn them good jobs. Said one Harper faculty member, “It’s
not unusual for students to tell me they expect to make $50-
70,000 a year right out of college. Can you believe that?”
--Larry Barnett
This student-writer may have definite opinions about his fellow students’ illogical self-perceptions
and their naiveté about their careers, but he avoids judgments and chooses neutral words, without
connotative meaning. The more technical your report, on the job or in school, the more you should
choose words for their informative precision.
This principle of objectivity, however, does not mean that you must use words as flat and faceless
as the language of road signs. If you’re writing informally, if readers want your evaluation, or if
your conclusions require you to make judgments, present your information in descriptive words
with connotative as well as denotative meanings. Here, for example, historian Eliott Gorn contrasts
a particularly brutal form of nineteenth century boxing and the genteel tradition of dueling with
pistols:
A rough-and-tumble [boxing match] was more than a poor

man’s duel, a botched version of genteel combat. Plain folk
chose not to ape the dispassionate, antiseptic style of the
gentry but to invert it. The gentleman’s code of honor
insisted on cool restraint, while eye gougers gloried in
unvarnished brutality.

--“Eye Gouging in the Backwoods,” Harper’s Magazine
The connotative meaning implied by words such as botched, ape, antiseptic, cool restraint, gloried, and unvarnished
brutality suggest Gorn’s conclusion that rough-and-tumble boxing had a social importance and human value that
duelling lacked.
2. Paragraphing in Reports
As a reporter, you’ll occasionally write narrative and descriptive paragraphs. But most of your
paragraphs will be informative, organized logically (see The Ready Reference Handbook, 5a and
b). Such paragraphs often begin with topic sentences to introduce their topics and make a point.
The body of the paragraph explains the topic or supports an assertion. Singly or in series,
informative paragraphs are often like mini-essays, with their own introduction, body, and
conclusion. Here, in a report on standardized testing, student Ashley Sheffer describes the
problems of these tests:
Topic sentence A third cause of the decline in the popularity of standardized tests [as
college admission tools] is their bias against test takers who might be
considered “different”: the poor, minorities, and women. Kohn (2001,
Clarification of the p. 348) explains that when schools, towns, or states are compared for
assertion in the topic the test scores of their students, “an overwhelming proportion of the
sentence variance” in these scores can be accounted for by the socioeconomic
status (SES) of the test takers. “The truth of the matter,” he declares, is
that [standardized tests] offer a remarkably precise method for
Support: expert gauging the size of the houses near the school where the test was
opinions administered.” It would be more honest, says Harvard professor Lani
Guinier, to call a standardized test a “wealth test,” and Peter Sacks,
author of Standardized Minds, refers to disparity in scores between
wealthy and poor students as “the Volvo effect” (Zwick, 2001, p. 34).
Such disparity exists, Zwick reasons, because “students who come
from wealthier families are more likely to have achievement-oriented
Explanation of the environments and to attend resource rich schools staffed by better-
causes for the bias trained teachers” (p. 34). In addition, Owen and Doerr (1999) note
asserted in the topic that it is the wealthy students who are able to pay the $1000 tuition for
sentence test coaching schools to help them prepare for the supposedly
“uncoachable” ACT and SAT tests.
Involved with this economic bias, as both symptom and result, are
Transition/topic ethnic, gender, and geographic biases that “stack the deck” against
sentence for a paragraph women, minorities, and rural students (Northwest Regional
describing other forms Educational Laboratory Equity Center, 2001). It is widely recognized
of bias that African-American and Hispanic students tend to score lower than
whites or Asians (Zwick, 2001, p. 33). Why? Jay Rosner (2003),
Executive Director of the Princeton Review, a test-coaching service,
explained:
If you look at all of the SAT questions on the test, every
question is pretested and preselected, and they just happen to
favor whites over blacks. That is, higher percentages of
whites answer every SAT question correctly than blacks, and
Information and the test makers know this before they choose the questions to
explanation about the appear on the test.

causes of these other The gap between male and female test takers is less pronounced
forms of bias than that between white and minority test takers but just as constant:
“despite the fact that girls earn higher grades throughout both high
school and college, they consistently receive lower scores on [ACT
and SAT tests] than do their male counterparts” (FairTest, “Gender
Bias,” 2003). Again the question, why? Those at the National Center
for Fair and Open Testing argue that just as the test makers tend to be
white and upper middle class, so do they tend to be male. And the test
questions they write tend to reflect the values of the white upper
middle class, as well as knowledge important to males and male
problem-solving strategies (FairTest, “Gender Bias,” 2003).
 Be sure you’ve covered your topic in a way helpful to your intended audience. Have
you defined specialized terms? Have you provided background information and
explanation?
 Outline your drafts after you’ve written to see that you’ve organized in a logical
manner. Readers can’t follow a report as easily as a story, so you’ll have to help them
with headings, transitions, and repeated key words. (For more on coherence, see The
Ready Reference Handbook, Ch. 7.)
 Document the information you’ve borrowed, whether from books, magazines,

interviews, the Internet, or other sources. Document whether you quote, summarize, or
paraphrase. (For guidelines to the fair use of sources, see The Ready Reference
Handbook, Chap. 51. For the Modern Language Association’s documentation style,
see 52 a and b. For the American Psychological Association style, see 55b. For other
styles, see Chaps. 56 and 57.)
 Check your language for “loaded” words that reveal inappropriate bias. Draw
conclusions about your information, but remember that your purpose is to report, not
argue or express your feelings. Also check to see that your language is concrete,
precise, and specific. Reporting unfamiliar subjects, you may have written vaguely and
wordily as you try to understand your subject and fit all the facts together (see The
Ready Reference Handbook, 25a and b, and Chapter 28).

4. Questions for Peer Reviewers of Reports
paragraphs to make your report easy to discuss. Then make a brief introduction:
1. Identify your audience--your intended readers.
2. Identify the kind of report you’ve written: informal report (informative essay), formal
report, case study, or book report.
3. Describe your intentions. “In my report I’m trying to tell/show. . . .”
describe problems, or pose alternative solutions for which you want opinions. Then
take notes as you listen to this feedback. Use the your reviewers’ suggestions where
they’re helpful, but remember, this is your report. It should say what you want it to say.
Peer reviewers: Answer the following questions to help this writer see his/her report clearly and
begin planning revisions.
1. The reporter’s role. Has this writer written consistently as a reporter? Does the writer
occasionally sound like an autobiographer (focusing on him/herself more than the
subject), like a teacher (trying to teach something or prove a point), or like a critic
(praising or condemning)? Identify paragraphs in which the writer does not sound like
a reporter. Point out language that seems biased.
2. Does this project have a unifier, a conclusion about the meaning, significance, or uses
of the information in the report? Identify it by paragraph and summarize it.
3. Development. Has the writer said everything necessary to inform his/her audience
about the subject of the report? Does the writing provide enough detail to support its
conclusion? What should be added: description, facts, quotations or dialogue,
definitions, metaphors or similes? Identify by paragraph where additions would help
readers get the writer’s message.
4. Organization. Will the audience for this report be able to follow it from start to finish?
What reorganization would make its ideas clearer or easier to follow?

5. Does the report have the appropriate features of an informal or formal report?
 Title (Does it capture attention, identify the topic, or suggest the writer’s
conclusion?)
 Introduction (Does it interest the audience and help them see where the report is
going?)
 Point of view (Does the writer identify his/her perspective if it differs from that
of his/her audience? Point of view, remember, refers to the cultural, psychological,
or physical vantage point from which a writer views a subject.)
 Headings (Do they signal the function or identify the topic of each part?)
 Topic sentences (Does the writer use topic sentences to introduce the topics of
paragraphs?)
 Source citations (Does the writer introduce his/her sources of information by

name?)
 List of sources (Does the writer provide a list of sources at the end of the
report?)

2e. Student Examples—Writing A Report
1. Code Switching—Spontaneous Occurrence (an informal report)
ASSIGNMENT: As a bilingual person, observe the conditions when code-switching occurs.

Report your experiences, i.e., the occasions when you and family members or friends use one
language as opposed to a second or third language.
Code Switching—Spont aneous Occurrence
by Eva Kuznicki
Although the term “bilingual” is generously granted all individuals who speak two
languages, in fact, for most there is always one of those languages that they feel more
comfortable using. The native language, the tongue of comfort, is the one that they grew up with
and acquired during their childhood and adolescence.
While social situations demand that bilinguals choose a particular language in the
presence of a person who is monolingual, often the absence of that foreigner does not necessarily
signal a conversion to the native language between bilingual speakers. Among bilingual
individuals, code switching happens automatically, depending mainly on speech circumstances
and the topic of communication. The players of the scene remain the same, yet regardless of their
ability to communicate in both languages, bilingual speakers go back and forth from one tongue
to another to convey different messages. These statements are very general and perhaps cannot
be applied to all individuals who consider themselves bilingual. Code switching often depends
on the extent of their command of the second language.
My observations are based on the behavior of a typical immigrant family, my own. The
parents, that is, my husband and I, came to the United States with no knowledge of English.
Through work and social experiences, we slowly learned some “Pidgin English,” but more
embarrassed by it than satisfied with that minimal progress, we took English classes.

Unfortunately, we were both in our late twenties when first exposed to our second language, and
even though English is the language that we speak exclusively during daily routines, Polish will
always be the language we “feel.” That does not mean that we both automatically switch to
Polish when we get home. It all depends on our emotional attachment to the topic. When my
husband talks about his work, he speaks English to report his daily tasks. However, if there was
a problem with a client or something unusual happened, he immediately switches to Polish. The
same code switching occurs when, after discussing a TV program that we saw, we begin talking
about our family. We both automatically convert from English to Polish because we are
emotionally attached to that topic, not for lack of knowledge of English words.
There are, however, some words that did not exist or we had never heard when we were
acquiring our first language. For example, the entire computer-related vocabulary or expressions
pertaining to the stock market, we learned in English first, and we always use this language
whenever we talk about computers or finances. In fact, even when a whole sentence is spoken in
Polish, those words are said in English. The same expressions translated to Polish sound very
strange, as if they were spoken in some foreign language. We became so used to the way we
speak that we started to believe that those words are actually Polish. It took a great deal of
explanation before my mother, a bookkeeper, who came for a visit, was able to convince us that
there is no such word in our native language as “transfer.” We had not used the Polish “przelew”
very often, erased it from our memory and replaced it with the English equivalent “transfer” that
we accepted as the “comfortable” one. Another example of mixing two languages in one
conversation is the simple word “screen.” We use this word to talk about computers even when
we speak Polish because we were first introduced to that topic in English. However, the TV
screen, in the same conversation, remains the Polish word “ekran” because we knew television
before we came to the United States.

We want all of our children to be bilingual. However, they were born while we were at
different stages of learning English. When our oldest son was a child, Polish was the only
language he heard at home. Whenever he wanted to communicate with us, he had to speak
Polish because we did not understand English. As a result, he is fluent in Polish, even though
when we have a conversation now, it is usually in English only. There is an exception, however.
When we want to enforce a rule that our oldest is not too thrilled about, we speak Polish. There
are two reasons for such language conversion. Obviously, both my husband and I feel more
comfortable using our native tongue in stressful situations. In addition, we are fully aware of the
flaws in our pronunciation and English grammar. To maintain whatever authority we still
possess, we have to sound knowledgeable. Unfortunately, no matter how wise the message is,
the way we convey it in English, our accent and other imperfections make us sound ignorant. To
avoid mistakes and have our son respect our opinions, we switch to Polish. Ultimately, my son
jokes about the whole experience, saying, “I know I am in trouble as soon as my mom starts
talking Polish to me.”
There is a substantial age difference between our oldest son and our two younger
children. They were born, respectively, twelve and fourteen years later. At that time both my
husband and I spoke fairly good English. Even though Polish was the language of their early
childhood, English became their first language as soon as they were introduced to the outside
world of neighborhood, playground, preschool, and television.
Nowadays, when we talk to them, we instinctively speak English because that is the only
language we know that they understand. Sometimes it is a challenging task, especially when I
have to help my daughter with her homework. I know the problem, I know the solution, I can do
it for her; however, to make her arrive at her own answer, I have to explain it in the same manner
and use the same words as her teacher did. That is difficult enough to do even in your own
language. To explain a math problem in a second language is twice as hard, so I mix English

and Polish words, hoping that she will somehow understand the idea. As a result, my daughter
looks at me in disbelief when I tell her that I really know arithmetic and that it is my English
deficiency that makes me sound uneducated.
One example will validate the results of my observations. My upbringing was very
traditional. Topics such as male and female body parts of their sexual functions were taboo in my
parents’ home. These subjects are still embedded in my mind as something too embarrassing to
talk about. Even when I am forced by circumstances to say anything pertaining to human sexual
behavior, I cannot utter those words without a great deal of resistance and blushing. All this
happens when I speak Polish. The same subject when I speak English does not make me blush at
all. I do not feel embarrassed talking about sex in English because I do not “feel” the words or
their consequences.
In my experience, code switching happens spontaneously, depending on the speakers’
unconscious reaction to a subject of their speech. There is always one language, the first one,
that they sense; the second one is reserved for official or unimportant topics.

2. A New Brain (a “New Journalism”-style informal report)
ASSIGNMENT: Write an informal, “New Journalism” –style report on a topic of interest to college
readers.
A New Brain
by John Tolan
“Fovea Capitis, Fovea Capitis, Fovea Capitis.” I repeated these words over and over,
sometimes with my eyes closed, trying to brand them into my memory. I chanted the words. I
even sang them in an operatic voice. I paced back and forth, reciting them in cadence with each
step.
Earlier that day I had mentioned to Duncan, a friend of mine, that I was taking a class in
physical anthropology, and that I had a test coming up, a test I was quite concerned about. I took
out the text and showed him all the parts of the bones I was trying to memorize. I mentioned the
“fovea Capitis,” that little hole in the femur, and he glanced at it without much interest.
Duncan and I work for an airline and we were flying together all month. The next day he
asked me if I had gotten much studying done. “Quite a bit,” I said. “Let me see. On the femur,
you have the lateral and medial condyles; you also have the patellar articular surface and uh, a
thing.” I drew a blank.
“Could it be the Fovea Capitis?” Duncan asked.
“Yes,” I remarked, surprised. “Did you know this from another class you’ve taken?”
“No, remember, you showed it to me yesterday.”
“What’s this? I must have gone over that term a hundred times, and you heard it once
and remembered it. How did you do that?”
Duncans’ expression told me that he was about to reveal a great secret, but first he
wanted to bask a moment in his intellectual triumph. “All right,” he said, “but are you willing to
change your brain?”

Willing to change my brain? No, not really, I thought, but to satisfy Duncan, sure, why
not? “Yes, Duncan, I am willing to change my brain. Do you have another handy?”
“You know what I mean. You don’t actually change your brain, but you change the way
you learn, especially learning new words and most especially words on a list.” He then
proceeded to share his great secret. “When I heard the term, my mind broke it down into
individual words, different words I am more familiar with. This is a habit I developed five years
ago, when I first started college, and it has stayed with me. For the term Fovea Capitis, I took my
career, as a first office of an airline, and that became FO. We travel; that was the VIA. And we
fly with a captain, that I related to Capitis, and thus, Fovia Capitis. The spelling isn’t always
correct, but it’s all you need to remind you of your word. If I didn’t use memory aids, I don’t
think I would have done nearly as well in college.”
I mentioned that I had heard of such aids before and had even used them without
realizing it. “Duncan, do you know what this memory tool you’re using is called?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah, they’re called mnemonics, and some teachers don’t like ’em. They think
we’re not learning or something, but I think they’re wrong. Just look at how smart I am.”
I think Duncan was making a joke, but then again, maybe not. I decided to look into
mnemonics, and even though it sounds like it would be a good name for a sixties soul group,
there could be something to it. Who knows—it might help me on that test I have coming up.
The memory aid books and Internet pages I researched each seemed to have a different
definition for mnemonics. Some authors leave it out of the text yet teach the techniques as if they
were the inventors. Webster defines mnemonics as, “Pertaining to, aiding or intended to aid the
memory.” That definition is of course correct; however, the term typically refers to rather
unusual, artificial aids.
The word “mnemonic” is derived from Mnemoysne, the name of the ancient Greek
goddess of memory. That fact I found interesting. I realize that ancient Greeks had gods for just

about everything, but I was surprised that they had one for the memory. I was not able to find a
picture of her, but I bet she was beautiful.
The earliest use of mnemonics dates to 500 BCE. Greek and Roman orators used it to
remember long speeches. What they did is amazing. They would visualize a familiar place
(usually parts or rooms of a building) and mentally place their speech fragments in many
different areas in this building. As they made their speeches, they would visualize this place in
their mind, going from one room or place to another, picking up their speech fragments as they
went along. This is how they remembered their oration. It seems to me the Aztecs used a
similar mnemonic device. Since they did not have a written language, they used runners to
communicate from one village to another. Chewing coca leaves for energy, men would run from
settlement to settlement. They carried a rope with many knots in it. Each knot stood for a
memorized message to be delivered. If the message was not delivered correctly, the next
message delivered could be “you have permission to tear my heart out and feed it to the people.”
Today, mnemonics consists of many different techniques. Probably the simplest and
most common method is the “first letter association.” An example would be remembering the
four great eras of time by using the phrase, “Can Men Pick Peppers.”
C – Cenozoic
M – Mesozoic
P – Paleozoic
P- Pre-Cambrian
Simple, but effective. But did I learn anything by memorizing “can men pick peppers?”
Let’s try another one. Imagine a new boat owner who cannot think of a name for his boat.
Finally, he comes up with, “Pan Ca Iv.” The words are meaningless, but if a person remembers
the story, one should be able to come up with the eight parts of speech.
P – Pronoun
A – Adjective
N – Noun
C – Conjunction
A – Adverb

P – Preposition
I – Interjection
V – Verb
Okay. Enough with the lists. They take up plenty of page space, and I don’t have space
to waste. Did I learn anything by learning these funny sounding phrases? Will any of these help
me with my upcoming exam? It never astounds me to hear students recite strange sounding
utterances before an exam, trying to relate a word they don’t understand to a word they do. Take
Duncan’s example on the “Fovea Capitis”—he knew he didn’t know the meaning of the term,
but the words he invented within the word had a message. How hard could that be to remember?
I asked the smart one if he could remember anything else about the Fovea Capitis.
“Oh yes,” he replied. “It’s the little hole on the ball joint of the femur.”
“How could you have known that?”
“Well, let’s just say remembering the word helped me remember the place; however, it
doesn’t work all the time.”
I discovered that that there are many types of mnemonic devices, from simple rhymes to
complicated link and peg systems. In the link system a person relates one item to be
remembered to the next by making up a story in his or her mind’s eye, with visualization as the
key in recalling the items to be remembered.
Some people (and some psychology textbooks) have dismissed mnemonics with the idea
that it is effective for certain kinds of rote memory tasks, and that many learning tasks involve
understanding more than memorized facts. The implication is that mnemonics is not worth
learning because it does not help with understanding.
So what? Mnemonics is not intended for such tasks as reasoning, understanding, and
problem solving. It was intended to aid learning and memory. Should we discard something if it
does not do what it was not intended to do as effectively as it does what it is intended to do? I
know that I will use mnemonics when a need for it arises. If it can help me remember a term

such as Fovea Capitis instantly, rather than through much repetition and time, then that’s okay
with me.
Oh, just one thing. I showed up for the exam knowing my little fovea. Guess what! It
was not even on the test!

3. Tough Times Ahead for Harper College Students—and Their
Professors (a brief formal report)
ASSIGNMENT: Write a brief formal report profiling Harper College students. Focus on an
interesting student trait or feature of campus life. Gather information through interviews, surveys,
and reading. Draw conclusions based on your research.
Tough Times Ahead for Harper College Students—and Their Professors

by Larry Barnett
Statement of the Problem

Before heading off to college last fall, I had the usual advice sessions with my parents
when they tried to tell me what to expect and how to cope. Inevitably, it seemed, they drifted
back to the old familiar “When we were in college . . .” themes, stressing how hard they had to
work in school and how uncertain their job outlooks were back in the 1970s and early 80s. Now
that I’ve been here for a few months, I can say that college looks little like their descriptions. Nor
do today’s college students fit the picture my parents painted of themselves. Even students who
graduated only a few years ago seem different from today’s students in their self-assessment,
behavior, and outlook.
I wondered whether others had a similar impression of differences between college
“generations” and whether there was any hard information to support this impression. In
particular, I wanted to find out about contemporary college students’ self-assessment, their post-
graduate expectations, and how those assessments and expectations matched the reality of
college life and life on the job.
Background
To investigate my topic and test my impressions, I asked eight long-time Harper
professors and two Harper administrators to compare contemporary college students with those
of ten years ago. I interviewed twenty-seven students in three of my classes, asking them how
they ranked themselves as students (top ten percent, twenty percent, and so forth); how they
ranked their abilities in math, English, and science classes; and what they expected to earn

following graduation. To compare Harper students with those on other campuses, I also gathered
information from a recent Higher Education Research Institute survey of 252,090 students at 464
colleges and universities.
Results and Discussion
Student Dreams
In contrast to my parents’ self-descriptions but similar to those of more recent graduates,
today’s college students believe their academic and job prospects are bright. According to
students surveyed at Harper and elsewhere, fifty-nine percent rank themselves in the top ten
percent in academic ability. Fifty percent expect to get at least a B average. Of interest to English
teachers, forty percent rank themselves in the top ten percent in writing ability. Twenty percent,
up from eleven percent ten years ago, according to the Higher Education Research Institute
survey, expect to graduate with honors.
After graduation, forty percent plan to go on to earn master’s degrees, and fifteen percent,
to earn PhDs. Seventy-four percent expect their college preparation will earn them good jobs and
salaries. Incredibly, nearly fifty percent expect to become millionaires before they’re fifty and
retire early. One Harper student, recognizing that he will be graduating during times of
economic and employment uncertainty, nevertheless observed, “In my field, they may not be
giving bonuses to new employees, the way they were a few years ago. But I’ll get offers. The
jobs are there.” Said one Harper faculty member, “It’s not unusual for students to tell me they
expect to make $40-70,000 a year right out of college or within the first few years. Can you
believe that?”
The Reality
The reality, as reported by these students, by the colleges they attend, and by their
professors, conflicts with these bright self-assessments and prospects. Harper faculty state that
while today’s students are “eager,” “nice,” “comfortable,” and “obliging,” they are also
“immature,” “undisciplined,” and “unrealistic.” According to the Higher Education Research
Institute survey, thirty-six percent of today’s students claim to be bored in class, compared with

twenty-nine percent ten years ago. Thirty-five percent report oversleeping, missing class, and
neglecting appointments with teachers, compared with thirty percent in 1987.
Regarding homework, only thirty-three percent of today’s students claim to study six or
more hours per week, compared with forty-four percent a decade ago. This last is surprising,
because Harper’s Director of Admissions reports that over ten percent of today’s students come
to college needing remedial work in English, more than twenty-five percent needing extra classes
in math. One Harper English teacher observed, “Many of my students, even the bright ones, are
unprepared for the critical thinking, sound research, and polished writing required for success in
college and, later, for success on the job.”
Conclusions
If these facts and impressions are accurate, students of the new millennium are in for a
rough awakening in their college classes and broken dreams when they go out looking for new
jobs after graduation. Their self-assessments reveal lots of self esteem but an equal amount of
unrealistic thinking. Their teachers, too, may be in for difficult days in the classroom as they
attempt to improve these students’ skills and abilities. My parents no doubt painted a too-rosy
picture of themselves and a too-serious picture of college life back in the 1970s and 80s, but it
does appear that their generation was at least a little better prepared for college and a little more
realistic about themselves and their careers than today’s students.

3 Writing Essays
3a. Developing a Perspective on Essays
1. The Aims of Essays
Because reports and essays both deal with information, they may seem, except for their formats, to
be pretty much the same. But remember that the word report comes from a Latin word meaning “to
carry back.” As a reporter, you gather the “news” about a topic and bring it to waiting, interested
readers. The word essay, on the other hand, comes from a French word meaning “a test, a trial, an
attempt” and is related to the chemical term assay, referring to an analysis.
When you write an essay, you take a subject and break it down, examine it to see what it’s made
of, and then explain your findings. Your aim is not only to collect information but to develop and
convey your understanding. For example, if you write a report on air pollution in US national
parks, you focus on facts and figures about pollution and present them to readers. If you write an
essay about that pollution, however, you focus not only on facts and figures but also on your
opinions about that pollution.
2. Assignments: Three Options
The thesis-support essay. In various forms, the thesis-support essay is one of the most
frequent academic writing assignments, one you may already be familiar with as the “five-
paragraph theme” written in high school. When you write a thesis-support essay, you aim to
understand a topic, determine what’s true or plausible about it, and convey your opinions to readers
in an appealing way. In form, the thesis-support essay consists of the two parts of its name: a
thesis--a point or assertion about a topic--and the support for that thesis, consisting of information,
explanation, or proof. Several versions of the thesis-support essay are illustrated throughout The
Ready Reference Handbook:
 The expository essay explains an opinion in support of a topic. (See the essay on
bicycle commuting in The Ready Reference Handbook, 4f.)
 The argumentative essay is a more formal expository essay, aiming to prove the
truth or plausibility of an assertion. (See The Ready Reference Handbook, Chaps. 58
and 59, and the argumentative and persuasive essay in 59f.)
 The literary essay supports a reader/writer’s opinion about a literary work--a poem,
novel, short story, drama, or movie. (See The Ready Reference Handbook, Chap. 60
and the sample essay in 60g.)

 The research paper assigned in liberal arts courses tends to be a thesis-support
essay in which the writer gathers information from sources to understand a topic and to
develop a position on that topic summed up in the thesis. (See The Ready Reference
Handbook, Chaps. 47-51, and the example in Chap. 54.)
 The essay exam (see The Ready Reference Handbook, Chap. 61).
The instructional or “how-to” essay . This second kind of essay provides interested readers
with instructions for doing something. It unfolds not in support of a thesis but as a series of step-
by-step instructions or procedures, generally arranged in chronological order.
The personal essay. The personal essay, also referred to as the informal essay, contains a
strong autobiographical component that makes it similar in form and style to the personal
experience essay and the memoir. In it, a writer focuses on a topic outside him- or herself but aims
to present this topic in personal terms, as he or she experiences and understands it. Personal essays
are unified not so much by a thesis as by a main idea, dominant impression, or overall mood.

3b. “Inventing” an Essay
1. Choosing a Topic and Expressing a Tentative Thesis or Purpose

Statement
If a topic has not been assigned to you, brainstorm a list of possible topics: problems affecting you
or people you know; solutions that you have for well-recognized but as- yet-unsolved problems;
topics frequently misunderstood; things you know how to do well that others would like to learn.
(See The Ready Reference Handbook, 2a2.) Then consider the most interesting topics from your
list. Identify one that you could write about insightfully, freshly, or importantly. You don’t want to
tell people what they already know or believe.
When you have a topic, free write about it to explore your knowledge and opinions, as well as to
find an audience and a voice right for speaking to them.
 Speak directly to an audience (“you” or “we”) involved with your topic in some way or
to one who doesn’t know about your subject. Refer to yourself where necessary (“I”).
 Tell your audience what you know about your topic. Or tell them what they don’t know
or misunderstand; tell your opinions and, if possible, why you think as you do.
 Use definition, description, anecdote, example, and analogy in your explanations. (For
examples of these and other forms of explanation, see The Ready Reference Handbook,
6b1-10.)
 Listen to your “writer’s voice” (persona). Do you sound like someone interesting to
listen to?
Launch an investigation of your topic with a tentative thesis or purpose statement about it, an
assertion of your central opinion, main idea, or reason for writing. Use these formulas to get
started:
 My point is that . . . What I mean to say is that . . .
 My purpose in writing is to . . .
 Learning to . . . is/will . . .
Later, once you’re clear about what you want to say, cut these formulas from your polished
statement. They will help get you started, but your readers won’t need them. If you’re writing a
thesis-support essay, your thesis will look something like this example by student Eric Martínez:

Each US national park has its own “carrying capacity”
and can accommodate only so many visitors before their
pleasure and the environment are adversely affected. Such is
often the case at many of the most popular parks, which
receive the most destructive use. One reform to solve the
problems created by overcrowding is a reservations system
regulating access at the most crowded parks.
See how Martínez employs a key term, provides a clarifying definition, then makes an assertion
about a problem affecting US national parks and poses a solution to it? He wants to be sure readers
get his point. Like this example, your thesis will be the central, controlling assertion of your
writing. (For more on thesis and purpose statements, see The Ready Reference Handbook, 2d.)
2. Gathering Materials for an Essay
Taking notes. If you’re writing a “how-to” essay, you’re probably something of an expert on
your topic. But for a thesis-support essay, your preparation may be a process of self-education, as
you acquire the knowledge to develop sound opinions. In either case, as you gather information,
take notes. (Follow the guidelines in The Ready Reference Handbook, 49b, c, and d.)
Write down facts, figures, details, step-by-step procedures, eyewitness and expert testimony--
whatever will support your thesis or fulfill your purposes for writing. Also gather visual materials
to illustrate or explain. For guidelines to using visuals in your writing, see The Ready Reference
Handbook, 46c and 51c. Throughout this process, evaluate the results of your investigation
following the guidelines in Chap. 49a. If you borrow information from print, Internet, or
eyewitness sources, keep a detailed record of your sources. (See The Ready Reference Handbook,
47e1.)
Adding understanding to your notes. To deepen your understanding and give yourself
things to say in your writing, add to each note an explanation of why you’ve written that note, what
it shows, or what you want readers to understand. As you write, look for words your readers will
understand, listen for the sound of a voice that is right for teaching, think of illustrations to bring
your ideas to life: example, anecdote, comparison, analogy, definition, description, and visual
materials (see The Ready Reference Handbook, 6b1-10).
When possible, draw upon your own experiences and observations to illustrate ideas. Essayists
often appear in their writing, an “I” speaking to readers. If you can show that you have first-hand
experience with your subject, your ideas will gain in authority and liveliness. At the beginning of a
project, it may be hard to explain in this vivid and personal way, but as you continue your
preparation, you’ll gradually shift attention to your readers--and you’ll find the first draft of your
assignment easier to write.

3. Focusing on an Essay
Profiling your audience. “Real-world” readers of instructional or thesis-support writing will

almost always be people like you, with your background, interests, and outlook. They are willing
to listen to you and learn what you have to teach, but often they won’t know, as they begin reading,
that they have something to learn. And sometimes preconceptions about your subject may make
them reluctant to accept your views. Help yourself speak to them by preparing an audience profile.
Use the “How to Profile an Audience” box in 1d of The Ready Reference Handbook. Be sure to
answer these questions:
 What general knowledge about your subject does your audience already have?
 What questions will they have about your subject?
 What will be difficult for them to understand?
 What key words will they know; which ones will you have to define?
 What opinions, doubts, or fears will make them resist learning more about your
subject?
 What will interest them most about your subject and motivate them to learn more?
 What responses do you want them to have? What do you want them to do?
Academic readers--your instructors--may know more about your topics than you do, and they’ll
respond to your ideas from the vantage point of their expertise. But they expect you to “teach” them
your subject and your understanding of it as if they were “real-world” readers who wanted your
knowledge.
Revising your thesis or purpose statement. As you gather your materials, rewrite your
thesis or purpose statement in light of your growing knowledge of your topic and your awareness
of your audience. Rewrite these central, controlling statements until they make sense of your
materials and express what you want to say. (See The Ready Reference Handbook, 2d1.)
Listing your credentials. If you’re doing instructional writing or addressing a thesis-support

essay to a “real-world” audience, list your qualifications (knowledge, accomplishments, study, or
experience) for writing about your topic. You’ll work these qualifications into your essay without
seeming to brag about them. You want readers to know you’re someone worth listening to. If
you’re writing to an academic audience, your “qualifications” will be the quality of your
information and reasoning and the list of your sources accompanying your essay.

3c. Planning an Essay
1. Organizing a Thesis-Support Essay
Rhetorical modes . You’ll organize a thesis-support essay in a way appropriate to your topic but
also appropriate to your audience’s knowledge or desire for understanding. Thesis-support designs
frequently reflect basic methods of explanation. Referred to as “rhetorical modes” or “modes of
discourse,” these patterns are:
 Description: a point-by-point explanation of the parts of a subject, its features or

traits.
 Classification: a division of subjects into groups, one after the other, and a
description of the key traits of each group.
 Comparison: an explanation of similarities and differences.
 Process analysis: the steps in a process.
 Causal analysis: a description of causes and their effects.
Comment/response patterns. Based on your audience or purpose, you may organize

according to a “comment/response” pattern:
 Problem/solution: a pattern that unfolds by answering a series of questions. What is

the problem? What caused it? What will be the effects of the problem if it remains
unsolved? What is the solution? How can it be implemented?
 Qualification of ideas: organization by a “yes . . . but” or “not only . . . but also”

pattern.
Thesis patterns. You may organize according to the order of ideas in your thesis, which
provides a kind of blueprint for your essay. Consider a thesis by a student analyzing the failures of
the US death penalty:
The vast majority of those on America’s Death Rows may

well deserve death for their crimes, but we, as citizens of
a society that prizes justice, should not execute them. As
an instrument of justice, the death penalty fails the very
principles for which it is supposedly enforced. It does not
protect citizens but may, in fact, incite further crime; it
is disproportionally applied to minorities and the poor; it
is more expensive than natural-life imprisonment; and, as it

is currently carried out, there is a strong likelihood that
innocent men and women may be executed.
--Fareed Zayed
Following a concession statement, Zayed gives his central opinion that the death penalty is unjust
and follows it with a series of assertions that divide up his central opinion: that the death penalty
does not make citizens safer, that it is unfairly applied, that it is expensive, and that innocent people
risk execution. He’ll organize his essay, point by point, to explain each of these assertions.
Outlining. Whatever the design of your thesis or the essay itself, if your explanation is complex
or you’re new to the topic, make an outline to arrange everything in a logical order (see The Ready
Reference Handbook, 3c).
2. Organizing an Instructional Essay
If your instructions involve special tools, measurements, or ingredients, list them early in your
essay, all at once, immediately following your introduction. Be specific. Organize the body of your
essay step by step, to teach what you want readers to learn.
If the steps are long, group them into modules. If the instructions you give are especially complex,
pause to describe tools, materials, alternative procedures (“if . . . then”), or the right and wrong
ways of doing things. When you first use a technical term, define it in words readers will know. To
be clear, you may have to provide visual illustrations.
Thesis-support essays. Introductions to thesis-support essays are often challenging to write

because you have to do several things at once, usually in the space of only a paragraph or two:
attract readers’ attention, show them that your writing is intended for them, and, if necessary, give
your credentials for teaching.
One way to accomplish all this is to begin with something familiar--to put your readers at ease and
show that your writing is for them--but then, by dramatic detail or direct statement in your thesis,
show that the familiar is not so familiar. Prompt your readers to ask questions that your thesis will
answer. Making the familiar seem strange, even upsetting, creates the curiosity necessary to turn
readers into interested students, ready to be taught. Listen to student John Chen open an essay on
bicycle commuting:
For most residents of America’s cities and suburbs, the

worst part of any weekday is the excruciating time spent
trapped in rush-hour traffic. Morning, night, and sometimes
even at noon, I watch my fellow commuters lined up,
scowling, inching, and honking their way to work or school.
I used to share their fender benders, foul air, fouler
tempers, frazzled nerves, clenched jaws, high blood
pressure, higher insurance premiums, the same old tunes on
the radio, the wasted time, and boredom. But no more. Not
since I parked my car and began commuting by bicycle. What

I’ve discovered in the process is that bicycle commuting is
a safe, practical, and enjoyable alternative to short-trip
car travel. If other motorists joined me, we could bring an
end to this commuting misery.
In just a few sentences, Chen shows himself familiar with the world of his automobile-driving
audience, establishes his credentials as someone who knows his subject well, introduces his topic,
and states his thesis, that bicycle commuting is a viable transportation alternative for many
motorists.
The conclusions of thesis-support essays often reaffirm the central point of the thesis, evaluate the
topic, or propose action based on explanation in the body of the essay. Here, for example, John
Chen concludes his essay on bicycle commuting by dramatizing the benefits of bicycle commuting.
Imagine a morning or afternoon when the sky is not brown with smog. Imagine
broad, open streets easy and safe to travel any time of day. Imagine the scent of flowers and
trees instead of gasoline and rubber. Imagine the songs of birds instead of the blare of
horns, the rumble of engines, the screech of tires. Imagine feeling relaxed and exhilarated at
the end of a commute, instead of frustrated, tense, angry. This is what a bicycle rush hour
would be like. Instead of the worst part of the day, it just might be the best.
Instructional essays. Begin with an introduction that dramatizes the importance, pleasures, or
results of learning what you’re about to teach and, if necessary, that describes your qualifications.
Conclude briefly and in the expected way, by describing the results or benefits of your instructions
or by telling where and when they’re useful.
For more on introductions and conclusions, see The Ready Reference Handbook, 6c and d.

3d. Writing and Revising an Essay
As you draft an essay, listen to your words. Do you hear the encouraging voice characteristic of
good guides and teachers? Aim to sound like a friend or colleague. Often you’ll address readers
directly, as “you.” Listen to an essayist addressing fellow college students about the effects of
binge drinking:
If you’re an American college student, chances are

pretty good that you have a problem with alcohol. According
to a recent Harvard University study, nearly fifty percent
of you are binge drinkers, knocking back five or more drinks
in a row at least once during the last two weeks. The
percentages are even higher if you’re a white male living in
a fraternity or involved with athletics. Nearly twenty-five
percent of you have driven drunk recently; 500,000 of you
have been injured under the influence; and 600,000 have been
assaulted by another student who has been drinking.
Surprisingly--and ironically--few of you think you have a
problem with alcohol.
--Joseph Carrier
Or you may also address your readers as “we,” uniting yourself with them in a community of
shared perspectives, opinions, or problems. Here student John Chen describes typical journeys
made by him and his fellow commuters:
Most of the trips we take by car are less than ten

miles. Most of the routes we drive are bicycle accessible.
These are trips we could take most of the time in most
weather by bicycle. Many of us already own bicycles. A call
to our local government or a visit to a bike shop will give
us routes and maybe even maps.
2. Paragraphing in Essays
Even the basic design of informative paragraphs can help you find a voice right for reaching
readers: assertion, information, explanation, and illustration. This is the pattern of readers’ growing
understanding. Consider this paragraph explaining how innocent people in the US can find
themselves under a sentence of death:
How is it that in the United States, a country that

prizes fairness and justice, innocent people can find
themselves condemned to die? One answer lies in the victim’s

ethnicity. Most of those wrongly convicted and later
released from America’s Death Rows in the past few years
have been members of ethnic minorities. Numerous studies
have shown that ethnic prejudice continues to operate
throughout the process of criminal investigations, the work
of prosecuting attorneys, and the decisions of judges and
juries. Another answer lies in the economics of American
justice. The poor, more likely than the affluent, are likely
to be charged with violent crimes but lack the money to
mount an effective legal defense. Worse, the US Congress has
in the last decade reduced funding for lawyers willing to
represent the poor. And still worse, judges in many states
routinely appoint the least-competent attorneys to represent
those charged with capital crimes who are eligible for
court-appointed attorneys.
--Fareed Zayed
This writer opens, as essayists often do, with a question that anticipates his readers’ question; then
the body of the paragraph explains his multi-part answer. (For more on informative paragraphs, see
The Ready Reference Handbook, Chap. 5.)
3. Quoting for Support
Quotation of expert or eyewitness testimony will contribute powerfully to the explanation of

complex topics or the support for controversial statements. Here, for example, student Eric
Martínez quotes a researcher and an environmentalist and summarizes a National Park Service
official in support of his opinion that visitors are transforming national parks in harmful ways:
To meet the needs of the increasing numbers of national

parks visitors, argues Alan Ewert, more and more “natural
landscapes are being turned into theme parks” (64), no
longer nature preserves but “destination resorts” like
Disney World. They are becoming what Rob Smith,
representative for the Sierra Club, calls “a venue for
entertainment” (Graham 2), filled with stores, hotels, fast
food, groomed trails, and other amusements--“manicured,
manipulated, and increasingly regimented” (Ewert 64).
Increasingly, park rangers report vacationers more
interested in park services and amenities than the natural
environments surrounding them.
Note how Martínez writes signal statements to introduce one source and to connect it to another.
Also, see how he quotes briefly, borrowing others’ words only enough to support his opinion.
Quoting at length might obscure his point.

 Be clear about your thesis. First drafts are often a time for making up your mind about
your subject. Do you know what your point really is? Is it the same when you finish as
when you began, or have you grown in understanding? Will readers get your point? Is
it at an obvious place, near the beginning or end of your essay, and easy to spot? (See
The Ready Reference Handbook, 2d.)
 Be sure you’ve provided sufficient illustration, explanation, and definition to instruct

readers. Look closely at the ends of paragraphs, where readers will look to see what
you mean.
 Be sure your introduction shows why your subject is worth learning about.
 Be sure your paragraphs follow each other in a systematic order. If readers won’t see
this order, provide introductory/transitional sentences to show how far you’ve come in
the process of your explanation. Ask questions that readers will want answered.
 Consider your vocabulary. In first drafts on difficult subjects, you’re likely to write
theoretically, abstractly, and generally--teaching yourself more than your readers. When
you finish revising, you should be able to point to the concrete and specific words and
to the definitions of specialized words that “show” your subject to your readers. For
“how-to” or instructional writing, use “command language”: ”do this,” “place this,”
“measure that,” and so forth.
 Document information and opinions you have borrowed. Your instructor will give you
the correct format. (For the Modern Language Association’s documentation style, see
The Ready Reference Handbook, Chaps. 52 and 53. For other styles, see The Ready
Reference Handbook, Chaps. 55, 56, and 57.)
 Check your persona. Do you sound friendly, concerned about reader understanding and
welfare, like someone speaking directly to your audience? If the topic requires, be sure
to include your credentials for teaching.

5. Questions for Peer Reviewers of Essays
paragraphs to make your essay easy to discuss. Then make a brief introduction:
2. Identify the kind of essay you’ve written: thesis-support (expository, argumentative,

research), instructional (how-to), or personal.
3. Describe your intentions. “In my essay I’m trying to tell/show. . . .”
they’re helpful, but remember, this is your essay. It should say what you want.
Peer reviewers: Peer review questions for thesis-support and instructional essays appear in 4c2
of The Ready Reference Handbook. Questions for research papers appear at the end of Chap. 50d.
Questions for argumentative essays appear at the end of Chap. 59c. Questions for literary essays
appear in Chap. 60f2.

3e. Student Examples—Essay Writing
1. The Unpleasant Dilemma of Suburban Deer (a thesis-support essay)
ASSIGNMENT: To write a thesis-support essay that could appear on the editorial page of a
serious and influential newspaper or magazine aimed at readers identifiable by age, political
outlook, economic/educational level, and (if applicable) sex.
The Unpleasant Dil emma of Suburban Deer
by Pat Kirkham
Take a moment and think of the white-tail deer. What image comes to mind? Is it one of
a stately buck, poised by a woodland stream, or possibly a doe and her fawn grazing near the
edge of a prairie? Unfortunately, in many suburban areas of the United States a controversy is
brewing which centers around this gentle herbivore. Take, for example, Schuylkill Center in
suburban Philadelphia. Schuylkill is a five-hundred-acre environmental park which shelters
many endangered species of wild-flowers and trees. Schuylkill is also home to almost four-
hundred white-tails which are decimating the center’s botanical collection. Richard James,
executive director at Schuylkill estimates that a maximum deer population of no more than
twenty-five animals would be the proper natural balance. In the last fifteen years, suburban
development has claimed huge tracts of land, creating a patchwork of land use patterns and
drastically shrinking the white-tails’ natural habitat. The remaining open land is being put under
extreme stress by the growing population of deer that have no natural predators left except man.
At Schuylkill, as well as many other suburban sites, the need to reduce white-tail deer
populations to more manageable levels is painfully evident. The controversy lies in the methods
being proposed to reduce suburban deer populations to more manageable levels.
Politicians and citizens groups, as well as environmentalists, animal-rights activists and
land-management professionals, have been bitterly debating which methods to employ in order

to stabilize current deer populations and reduce future herds. Politicians are wary of taking any
stand for fear of being labeled Bambi killers. Citizens groups are generally well-meaning but
often too disorganized to accomplish any specific goals. Animal-rights activists and
environmentalists run the gamut from constructive criticism to outright guerilla tactics. For
example, the Sierra club is currently suing the U.S. Forest Service for allowing the deer
population to become so large that it threatens the botanical and biological diversity of
Wisconsin’s Nicolet National Forest. At the other end of the spectrum, the Humane Society of
the United States has charged that any method used to reduce deer population is nothing more
than a charade to cover up the willful abuse of animals. Many land-management professionals,
such as Richard James at Schuylkill, are desperate and willing to go to any lengths to rid their
land of the white-tail. James asserts, “We’re going to nail these deer. I do not consider them to
be wildlife anymore. I push them out of my way to get to work. They are unrestrained urban
cows.”
The only thing all these groups agree on is that there are four feasible methods and their
variations both to stabilize current deer populations and reduce future herds. The options are
relocation, sterilization, culling, and hunting. Even to the casual observer, none of these methods
represents a perfect solution; however, some appear more ridiculous than others. In my opinion,
the best solution lies in a combination of these methods coupled with a large dose of common
sense, cooperation, and above all, education.
On the surface, relocation seems to be the fairest and most humane method. Many
citizens groups, such as the one connected with the Ryerson Conservation Area in suburban
Chicago, feel this is the only method to pursue. On closer examination, this plan is unworkable
and in fact inhumane to the deer. Simply redistributing the population from suburban to rural
areas will not work for several reasons. First, most rural areas are also experiencing an over-
abundance of deer. This makes it very difficult to find a rural area willing to accept large

quantities of them. Also, past experience with deer relocation has taught us that many white-tails
later die from the stress induced by the trip. Game biologists emphasize this reality—the white-
tail deer are extremely stress-prone and, therefore, poor candidates for relocation. Aside from
these facts, which in themselves doom relocation as an option, the cost must be considered.
Unfortunately, the cost in tax dollars is prohibitive in today’s economy.
Sterilizing white-tail deer is a real paradox. Many land-management professionals, such
as Mr. James at Schuylkill, believe this method to be so totally unworkable that it borders on the
ridiculous. James cannot see how sterilizing his current population of white-tails will help save
his botanical collection. The paradox lies in the fact that sterilization will prove to be the best
option for saving both the natural environment and the deer in the future. The use of dart-gun
contraceptives to prevent white-tail doe from conceiving is a cost-effective, viable method of
population control. The key to its development lies in securing adequate public funding. We
have the technology; we need the funding to further develop the drug and experiment with it on a
large-scale basis. Unfortunately, killing excess deer in places like Schuylkill will have to
continue for some time in order to control the present herds. However, future emphasis
ultimately lies on sterilization as the best option for a long-term solution. With proper funding, a
good beginning could be made at Schuylkill.
In reality, culling, or baiting the deer into a small enclosed area and allowing professional
marksmen to make short work of them, is a humane form of population control. But culling the
herd is by far the most unpopular method of controlling white-tail. Animal-rights activists and
citizens groups in particular find culling abhorrent. Wildlife activists connected with the
Ryerson Conservation Area, for example, set up picket lines and physically tried to prevent deer
culling when it was first attempted there by forest preserve officials. Culling draws so much
public outcry and emotion that even experienced wildlife managers are reluctant to try it.

Shooting deer involves one quick shot through the brain, with presumably little pain or
anxiety to the deer. The consequences of not shooting excess white-tails are varied, but often
include slow starvation or physical trauma. Is watching a bloody and broken deer drag itself
away from an encounter with a plateglass window more humane than culling? These scenarios
happen with greater frequency every year. The inhumanity lies in the fact that animal-rights
activists, among others, choose to ignore these scenarios and unjustly focus their attention on
abolishing a humane form of controlling the excess white-tail population.
Other benefits of culling which are often overlooked include a resulting white-tail herd
that fits the natural balance—a proportional ratio of male to female and young to old. The
venison, which is a by-product of culling, can be used to augment public food pantries in low-
income areas. This is generally why most culling is done by marksmen and not by lethal
injection. Both the white-tail and the environment will be better served when opponents to the
culling process overcome their emotion and understand that culling is indeed a cost-effective
and, above all, humane effort to curb the deer population.
Hunting is almost as unpopular as culling. For example, the Fund for Animals publicly
opposes sport-hunting for any purpose, deriding attempts to portray recreational hunting as a
legitimate deer-control tool. Increasingly, hunting is seen as a socially unacceptable activity,
especially by younger suburbanites who have never been exposed to recreational hunting. On
opening day of deer season in Madison, Wisconsin, for instance, animal-rights activists and
university students strap mannequins in blaze-orange hunting gear to their car fenders and drive
in a honking procession around the state capitol. This annual activity is a serious effort to
dissuade recreational hunting.
Sadly, these anti-hunting activists are just one more example of man’s disconnection with
nature. Their misguided attempts to ban hunting in reality do disservice both to the white-tail
and the environment in general. We need to encourage deer-hunting as a means of responsibly

reducing deer population and go one step further by allowing hunters to bag does as well as
bucks. Shooting both sexes during the fall rutting season will not endanger offspring as
opponents predict, simply because yearlings born the previous spring are already weaned and
capable of survival without their mothers. White-tail have no natural predators left, except man;
by shooting both sexes, hunters are simulating the natural order. Is putting a bullet in the head of
a deer that has been hit by a car more humane than shooting it for sport? Recreational hunting is
one very necessary management technique, which, carried out responsibly, is capable of curbing
the white-tail population in a very humane way. It should be tolerated, even encouraged, for the
sake of the environment and deer.
In the final analysis, we have some difficult, unpleasant choices to make. As citizens, we
need to better accommodate deer and other wildlife that share space with our expanding human
population. We need to deal more responsibly and less emotionally with the excess population
of deer as well as other wildlife. Above all, we need to educate ourselves to the true needs of our
natural environment. As taxpayers, we need to set aside more open space for wildlife habitat
and, once that is done, support it with our tax dollars. If we are able to make the right choices
now, both our generation and future generations will benefit from a more wholesome natural
environment in which to live. If, on the other hand, we ignore this very real problem, both our
quality of life and our environment will suffer. The choice is ours to make. Let’s make the right
one.
Harrowsmith Country Life: specialty magazine which devotes itself, in part, to

environmental concerns.
Age range: adult
Political outlook : liberal to moderate
Economic/Educational: middle to upper-middle categories.
SOURCES

Rory Putnam. “The Natural History of Deer.” “Deer On Your Door Step” New York Times
Magazine.
Two articles concerning Ryerson Conservation Area. Daily Herald [Arlington Heights, IL].

2. In Defense of “That Jazz Crap” (a thesis-support essay)
ASSIGNMENT: Write an essay in which you explain something that many people misunderstand
or misperceive. Use information, explanation, and argument to correct their misunderstanding.
In Defense of “That Jazz Crap”
by Becky Klosowski
The arguments between my siblings and me over the radio in my mother’s minivan are
enormously vicious. When forced to ride somewhere together, we tear one another’s throats out
over who gets her pick of the music we all must listen to and—in all honesty—survive: my
brother’s classic rock and alternative, my sister’s rap and the latest number one on MTV’s Total
Request, and my jazz. “How can you listen to that crap?” my sister moans when I win the front
seat and control of the station. “Turn that crap off!” my brother shouts. “We don’t have to listen
to anything; let’s just talk…” (“That Crap” has become the working title of my music within my
family, and so accustomed to this title am I that I find myself calling jazz “that crap” when
talking to other people as well, even fellow jazz fans. Oops.) On one such occasion, I granted my
brother’s wish, turning the radio off and the conversation on to jazz to compensate. “Why do
you guys hate this stuff so much?” I asked. “Why do you have any opinion at all?”
“Why do you care?” my brother returned. “Why do you always try to force that crap on
us?”
“You do force,” my mother added. Thanks, mom.
It was the conversation that followed that inspired me to consider my opinion: Why do I
care? I’d never really thought about it before. I suppose I’ve always been offended by people
who make such quick judgments: I knew my brother and sister never really listened to jazz; they
simply whined the moment it came on and lived through it by entertaining themselves in some
other way, usually by attacking me for choosing it. I want others to understand my point of view,
but also—since jazz has become my career choice and main love in life—I want to share with

others its impact on me as well. Perhaps you don’t believe any music could have that much
impact on a person’s life, but perhaps that’s because you’ve never really listened to jazz. Before
jumping to the conclusion that it’s just “crap,” you have to understand what jazz is, what is true
as opposed to what is myth, and what makes jazz unique among popular styles of music.
It has been my experience that jazz has a relatively small audience. Obviously, I’ve lived
most of my life with a household of people who dislike my music. In the many part-time jobs
I’ve held, I’ve worked with people who told me to “turn that crap off.” In high school, I played
in a jazz band in which people who didn’t like jazz comprised the overwhelming majority of the
members. I began to feel that everyone I came in contact with must hate jazz. However, I
realize most of you aren’t so strongly opinionated as my siblings are, and that most of you have
had less exposure to jazz than even they. You don’t know what you’re missing.
As someone who has listened to jazz for many years, I can tell you that you’re missing
out on a deeply interesting and stimulating music. For example, improvisation is one of the
defining factors and most exciting aspects of jazz. When musicians improvise, they play with
the melody and chords of a song: they create music spontaneously, completely from their heads;
they strive to portray their emotions with their notes. Great soloists can play sorrow, anger, joy;
they can create and expand on ideas as though speaking in their own language. Wynton
Marsalis, a jazz trumpeter and composer as well as respected jazz educator, explains, “It’s just
like when we talk. We invent what we’re going to say right in the moment, and we try to
organize our thoughts as we go along.”
As I have so far spent nearly four years trying to learn this art of improvisation, I can tell
you that learning it is a life-long process. Improvising demands talent; respected jazz musicians
study their whole lives to constantly improve: to learn the music and its history. Louis
Armstrong, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Benny Goodman—these jazz greats played as long as
they were able. Joshua Redman, Leon Parker, Wynton Marsalis —though still young, these

highly respected players have devoted their lives to learning from jazz greats. Jazz is a long
story of both tradition and growth. But popular music lasts a short while and is replaced by the
next number one on MTV’s Total Request.
Because most people are uninformed about jazz, they hold many misconceptions. One of
these myths is that jazz is “old people’s music.” I’ll admit that some styles of jazz could be
considered “old people’s music,” swing for instance, since swing was the popular music when
these “old people” were our age. But that is not to say, however, that only the “old people”
should get the fun of listening (and dancing!) to swing. Ever see the movie “Swing Kids”? (If
not, I highly recommend you rent it.) According to the biography Swing, Swing, Swing: The
Life and Times of Benny Goodman, swing was a thrilling music. Whenever the big band up
front would kick off a hot tune, all the kids would jump up and dance! Everyone knew how to
jitterbug in the 30s and 40s: men would spin their ladies around, toss them into the air, catch
them deftly; people would bounce and fly across the dance floor. Were these kids all that much
different from us? Did they not want to have fun? The fiery music I would expect to have that
kind of effect on people does not sound like what I would call “old people’s music.”
Another myth is that jazz is “elevator music.” Let me set the record straight. “Smooth
jazz” is elevator music, not jazz; the two should not be confused. For those of you who are fans
of Kenny G and the like, I pity you. You have put your faith in a music that is a child’s attempt
at drawing a crayon masterpiece, with its circular trees, pentagon houses, stick character
families, and strip of blue sky at the top. This “masterpiece” is certainly not a fair representation
of the world, as this so called “jazz” is in no way representative of what true jazz is. They may
have their similarities, but smooth jazz is only an amateur pretending to be a professional. Most
smooth jazz tunes are merely unobtrusive arrangements of popular melodies, played by
“musicians” with little or no talent. While they do improvise, this lack of talent stands out
clearly when compared to “real” jazz improvisation. Their ideas are repetitive and

unimaginative. It’s a shame smooth jazz is allowed to be called “jazz” at all, as this confusion of
titles is usually the source of people’s misconceptions.
A popular myth drawn from that confusion is that all jazz is mellow and relaxing. This
belief is often the reason many people say they like jazz. I always cringe in response to that
opinion. What people don’t realize is that most of these “mellow and relaxing” songs are not
trying to be mellow or relaxing. True jazz isn’t meant to be background music. People who find
slow, emotional ballads with gorgeous melodies and harmonies relaxing are missing the point,
often because they are not really listening. Unlike smooth jazz, real jazz is not meant to relax,
but to stimulate, both emotionally and intellectually. For example, the range of emotions in Ken
Stanton’s arrangement of “My Funny Valentine” is staggering. The piece builds from a warm,
whispering, trombone opening to a screaming, dissonant, trumpet climax, but with the volume
turned down low, someone who doesn’t know what he’s listening to could call it “relaxing.”
On the other hand, many people I have talked to tell me they don’t like jazz for the same
reason: it’s too mellow; it doesn’t have the excitement of popular music—namely, the beat. On
the contrary! Listen to Buddy Rich or John Fedchock’s new big band or the old Count Basie
Orchestra: jazz is defined by its rousing and exciting beat. According to Ron Carter, director of
the top jazz band at Northern Illinois University, “If it don’t swing, it ain’t jazz!” The swing feel
is unique to jazz: a driving rhythm that both leans forward and lays back the solid beat at the
same time. Most popular music simply offers the solid beat monotonously and mind-numbingly.
I hope you are now starting to see what jazz is and isn’t. Jazz is obviously very different
from most types of popular music, and some believe jazz is not as good for this reason, but these
differences can actually help show how interesting and unique jazz is. For example, while most
jazz is purely instrumental, and most lyrics in jazz lack the depth of those in more musically
mature popular songs, this lack of emotional words is more than compensated for by the rich
emotional language of improvised jazz solos. When you understand jazz, you begin to

understand this language as you understand your spoken vocabulary. Because soloists create
music based on their own feelings, you can learn how to translate these ideas to fit their meaning
to you: much like hearing someone speak. You find with some surprise that musical ideas can
make you feel certain ways: some make you laugh; others remind you of a sad time in your life.
Another way jazz is distinct from popular music is that a particular song can be played
for decades and never get old; each performance of any jazz song is unique. Many of these
songs, called “standards,” have been around for over half a century. The reason for this
longevity is also one of the main reasons jazz still attracts young people today, despite its general
unpopularity: jazz is constantly growing while staying true to its history. Different arrangements
of an old standard can give it a fresh feel, sound, or style. Different groups always strive to have
their own original style, so playing old tunes doesn’t mean they have to sound old. Also even if
the same band plays the same arrangement of the same tune many, many times, the different
improvised solos of the different musicians in that band will make it a different song every time.
For example, Benny Goodman’s band was best known for the song “Sing, Sing, Sing,” a tune the
group must have played several times a night at various concerts and gigs. (You may have heard
this song in the old “Chips Ahoy” commercial with the dancing exclamation point.) The
members of the band often claimed to be sick of hearing it; however, the crowds they played for
always voiced their opinion, and the song continued to be played, night after night. Night after
night, the performers produced fresh solos that made the tune swing harder than ever (Firestone).
No other form of music is quite like jazz in that way.
If you open your ears, your heart, and your mind, you too can discover this amazing
music called jazz. When musicians of any genre write music, they do so to express and share
their emotions with those who listen to their music. This is something that is often overlooked
by fans of popular music who listen to the music for its “beat” or simply its popularity.
However, when you really listen to jazz, it is almost impossible to miss this true intent. Jazz is

not only an emotional roller coaster, a thrilling and engaging music, but it’s also deep and
intellectual, a music with a history and language all its own. One of these days, when you’re
driving in silence, try flipping on 90.9 FM (College of DuPage’s radio station, which plays
mostly jazz). Perhaps you’ll catch some big band jazz on “The Saturday Swing Shift,” maybe
some fusion on “Acid Jazz by Moonlight,” or perhaps even one of the shows in which people—
often famous musicians—discuss how jazz works, how to listen to it, and what makes it so
exciting. See if you notice any of the things I’ve mentioned: the intoxicating swing feel, the
intense emotions of improvised solos, the heart and head of the music. It’s almost impossible for
anyone to really listen to and understand jazz without being affected by it. At the very least, you
learn to appreciate it. At the very most, you come to love and respect it. As well, you begin to
hear all music in a deeper way: the way it was meant to be heard.

WORKS CITED
Carter, Ron. Lecture, NIU.
Enders, Clare. Interview.
Firestone, Ross. Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 1993
Kaisling, Jodi. Interview.
Klosowski, Jenny. Interview.
Klosowski, Scoot. Interview.
Marsalis, Wynton. “Marsalis on Music Online – From Sousa to Satchmo.”

<http://www.wnet.org/archive/mom/shows/3/index.html>.

3. Greek Philosophy and the Art of Century Riding (a how-to essay)
ASSIGNMENT: Write a “how-to” essay teaching a clearly defined audience how to do something
interesting, important, or pleasurable.
Greek Philosophy and the Art of Century Riding
by John Chen
Okay. This is the summer. You’ve been cycling for a few years now, long enough and
often enough that you no longer consider yourself merely a recreational or weekend rider. You
may not compare yourself with criterium racers, triathletes, or long-distance cyclo-tourists, but
you’ve become involved enough with the sport that cycling has become, well, serious pleasure.
And you’ve decided that you’re ready for one of the most serious pleasures of all, bicycling’s
extra-innings, overtime rite of passage: the century, one hundred miles, the aim of nearly every
serious cyclist at some time in his or her cycling career.
At least you’re ready to get ready to ride a century. But if you’re like me when the idea
first occurred, the thought is more than a little daunting. Part of it is the distance, of course. One
hundred miles is a trip--even in a car. But on a bike? How will it hold up over those long miles?
Forget the bike—how will I hold up? you wonder. Your doubts are made even more acute by the
fitness fanatics you sometimes ride with. “No pain, no gain!” “Train till you’re drained!” “Go for
the burn!” “Hit the wall!” “Bonk!” they groan. For these sado-masochists, the aim of every
century ride, it seems, is the tight-lipped ecstasy of “my personal best,” by which they mean
horror-movie agonies of the most intense sort compressed into the shortest period of time. “Five
hours twelve minutes!” mumbles a spent rider as he weaves across a century finish line, punches
his cycling computer with quavering finger, and collapses over his handlebars. This is pleasure?
I don’t think so. I know of a better way to prepare for and ride a century. It came to me
last summer in the middle of a summer-school philosophy course during the week and half a
dozen centuries on the weekends. All that my “Better Century” method takes is a little common

sense, a little good information, and an appetite for real pleasure. The ancient Greek philosophers
I studied in class may have lived a few years before the invention of the bicycle, but they
understood what it takes to cycle a century with ease and enjoyment. For these Greeks, all
matter exists in harmony, as one delicately balanced whole. And we mortals had better not upset
this balance. Then tragedy ensues. This understanding led them to the cardinal virtue of
sophrosyne, which means a sense of balance, temperance, and moderation. It is the poise that
energizes all graceful action. And bicycling at its best is nothing if not graceful action. So, if you
want to complete your first century—and enjoy the miles that precede and include it—forget the
exercise fanatics’ religion of pain. Join me, instead, and develop the virtue of sophrosyne.
Sophrosyne begins with your bike. Those hundred miles won’t give much pleasure if you
and your bike aren’t in harmony. These days, however, you can scarcely find a bicycle that’s not
a mountain or racing bike—neither much good for long-distance riding. Because it is often heavy
and its straight handlebars don’t allow you to change position much as you ride, a mountain bike
may carry you to early fatigue. Because of its stiff frame and skinny, hard racing saddle, a racing
bike will telegraph every pebble, crack, and frost heave from your butt up your spine to your
neck. You’ll be in aspirin-chewing agony by fifty miles. If you look around a little bit, however,
you can find the right bike for century-riding—the comfortable type, a road bike built to absorb
the road surface and lap the miles. Its frame will be stretched out just a little bit in chain stays
and fork rake and be built of energy absorbing tubing, such as Reynolds 531 steel. Its saddle will
give comfortably under you, and its handlebar stem will be a little shorter than you’d normally
select. The shorter stem will sit you a little higher and distribute your weight evenly among
hands, shoulders, back, seat, and legs. If you don’t enjoy sitting on your bike, how will you enjoy
your first century?
Don’t forget the virtue of sophrosyne as you train for your century. You may be riding
for pleasure, but you’re still aiming to ride one hundred miles, and that takes some preparation.

Bicycling Magazine publishes an annual century training table in a summer issue and maintains
the table on its Web site (http://www.bicycling.com/home/fitness/training/century). Follow the
plan described there, and you’ll put in the miles necessary to prepare yourself. To enjoy those
training miles nearly as much as the century itself, remember: temperance and balance.
Depending on your level of conditioning, give yourself four to eight weeks to train. If
you’re able, ride five or six days a week, varying the distance, terrain, and pace of your rides. On
two or three days ride at your normal pedal cadence until you know it’s time to quit. On two
other days, push yourself to ride a little faster than you normally would.
Don’t let yourself shift to bigger gears to increase your speed—you’ll stress your knees
that way. The bigger gears and higher speeds will come as your conditioning improves. Instead
of the bigger gears, spin the pedals a little faster. And be sure you’re spinning, moving your legs
through the entire pedal cycle, not pumping. Pumping is for pain freaks. Save the fifth or sixth
days of each training week for a longer ride to build endurance, half again as long as your regular
rides. Look for weekend club rides posted in bike shops. They’ll give you the distance you want
and introduce you to new cycling companions. When these long rides increase to seventy-five to
eighty miles, you’re ready for a century. Find the one you want to ride advertised in the
newspaper, at your local bike shop, or on the Web (again, check out Bicycling’s Web site).
The day of your century, think sophrosyne, think harmony, think comfort, think fun.
Dress comfortably. Chaffed legs or sore feet at fifty miles are no fun. Don’t let your cadence get
thrown off by the pace lines of racers flashing by you, their chains and derailleurs whirring like
angry bees. Your heart may pound, and you may want to give chase, but they may only be racing
forty or fifty miles, not a century, so let them go. If they’re going the whole distance, you might
just pass them collapsed at a rest stop at about the seventy-five mile mark. If you’re riding one of
the hundreds of organized centuries that occur across the nation each year, you’re sure to meet
someone whose pace matches yours. Strike up a conversation. Together you’ll sustain yourselves

through the curve of your journey: the exhilarating encounters of the first miles, the
contemplative stretches of the middle third, the short gauntlet of fatigue that looms for many
riders between sixty and seventy-five miles, and the reinvigoration of the final ten or fifteen
miles.
Be sure to eat, eat, eat, drink, drink, drink. Remember, you’re burning at least six- to
eight-hundred calories an hour. You’ve got to fuel your legs and quench your thirst. Don’t stuff
yourself—sophrosyne, remember—but do eat and drink enough. I love pancakes before a ride;
bananas, oranges, and oatmeal cookies during a ride; and lots of pasta afterward. Yes, some
people eat meat in the course of a long ride, and I’ve watched cyclists down half a pound of
catsup-drenched fries coming from a bag so greasy it was transparent, but meat and junk food are
hard to digest, especially when most of your energy is needed not for digesting food but for
getting you down the road. High carbohydrate foods will give you energy and keep your blood
sugar level up, the fuel for the pleasure you feel.
As you ride, sophrosyne will bring you into harmony with the elements and the terrain.
Spin into a headwind until you turn and receive the blessed boost of a tailwind. Ease up the hills,
bouncing on your pedals until you crest the top, and relax into the descent of the downhill. If you
ride in this way, in harmony with yourself, your bike, your partners, and the world around you,
you’re sure to experience something else the ancient Greek philosophers know about. It’s a
“personal best” that has little to do with speed and time. The Greeks called it an “epiphany,” a
shining forth. It refers to those moments in life when we experience with special clarity and
insight.
These have given me the keenest pleasures of cycling—odd moments and small scenes
that remain vivid in memory: the roof line of an unpainted barn in Michigan, hundreds of cyclists
gliding before me down an Ohio hillside, sunlight dancing off the sand and ocean of a New
Jersey beach, the neon green of maple trees on Long Island, the rush of lilac scent on a curve in

Illinois, the rustle of about-to-be-harvested corn in a Wisconsin valley, two strangers coming
abreast of each other on an Indiana back road, their bicycles drifting toward each other in a ballet
of first acquaintance. In these moments of high intensity and high energy, with endorphins
flowing, absorbed by the rhythms of effort, I feel my senses blend. Eyes feel like fingers, and
seeing old pine siding on a barn two hundred yards away, I can feel its grain. Wind acquires
color, sound has its smell, taste becomes texture. These are experiences I’ve had nowhere else
but in cycling, and especially on centuries. They are the rewards of sophrosyne, the fruits of my
“Better Century” method. They could be yours, too.

4. Economically Feasible Methods of Protecting Brazil’s Amazon
Rainforest (a problem-solution essay)
ASSIGNMENT: Write a problem-solution essay. Research and present a current issue or problem
facing a Latin-American country today. Propose a course of action for solving this problem.
Economically Feasible Methods of Protect ing Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest

By Kevin Farrell
In recent years, the destruction of tropical rainforests has received a great public outcry.
Brazil’s Amazon, the largest such forest in the world, has received the vast majority of attention.
The existence of the Amazon rainforest is of tremendous importance to Brazil—and, ironically
enough, to its economy—which makes the issue of deforestation all the more pressing. The
Brazilian government should recognize once and for all that the Amazon is essential to the
national welfare. By the same token, it must implement a series of ecological policies that
acknowledge the economic factors that drive deforestation and reconcile the need for protecting
the rainforest with the needs of capitalist development. Should the government impose a carbon
tax, replace destructive subsidies with ecologically sustainable but nevertheless profitable ones,
and protect as national forest the entirety of the Amazon rainforest, it can succeed in balancing
environmental and economic concerns.
The number of species living in tropical rainforests like the Amazon has never been
established because many of these species have yet to be discovered; however, 2-3 million, or
two-thirds of the earth’s species, may be an underestimation (Whitmore 58). A more
conservative estimate suggests that the rainforests, which cover only a twentieth of the earth’s
surface, are home to over 50 percent of all living organisms (Lewis 14). The plants and animals
in the rainforest play a crucial role in the world’s biodiversity. This biodiversity does more than
create a tingly feeling in the hearts of environmentalists. The Economist explains some of the
more tangible reasons for promoting biodiversity:
The strongest argument for conserving biodiversity is to protect the

“ecosystems” on which humanity itself depends. Diversified ecosystems
protect watersheds, local rainfall, food supply, and soil. The Amazon
ecosystem is so vast that it creates its own climate. Most rainfall is recycled,

and the forest affects light reflection, cloud formation, regional rainfall and
temperature. (“Saving the Rainforest”)
Even if the Brazilian government does not care about the long-term threat of global
warming, which the Amazon also keeps in check, these other domestic concerns pose a real
threat to the country. Uncontrolled flooding, irregular rainfall, and soil erosion will cause
billions of dollars in damage, to say nothing of the human anguish and disruption to everyday
living. Thus, a foresighted Amazon policy must include ways of dealing with deforestation,
which results in the loss of species diversity. Only biodiversity can preserve a stable and
healthy ecosystem.
There is a second reason—with its own economic bent—for supporting the

biodiversity of the rainforest. It is related to the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries.
Mac Margolis explains,
Once a species is eliminated, no laboratory can conjure it back again. And as

tropical forests contain so much of the gene stuff that is vital for our own
lives—curare for anesthesia, the rose periwinkle for leukemia or Hodgkin’s
disease, quinine for malaria, and a dozen analgesics, not to mention the
possible keys to pest and disease controls for agriculture—depleting the
species pool is lighting the long fuse of a time bomb for humanity. (140)
The value of the Amazon rainforest, much like the number of species living within it, cannot
even be assessed at this time. Unless the forest is protected, Brazil may miss out on a golden
opportunity to supply the world with cures for its diseases. Moreover, as The Economist
argues, there are agricultural consequences to extinction: “All crops, garden plants, and
domestic animals have wild ancestors. . . Their continued viability depends on the
maintenance of the genetic diversity of their ancestors, which alone makes possible the
breeding of new strains” (“Saving”).
Brazilian environmentalists must appeal to the economic effects of deforestation in
order to have any hope of stopping it. Therein lies the current dilemma. Brazil’s economy
depends on the products of deforestation, especially timber and cattle. Tree cutting and
burning results in the destruction of far more Amazon rainforest than all other factors
combined (Coffee). There has always been a demand for Brazilian hardwoods, which

explains why such enormous tracts of land have long been deforested. In more recent years
government subsidies have encouraged vast projects that clear the forest to open grazing land
for cattle. These two industries have supplied jobs for hundreds of thousands of Brazilians,
but they have come at a terrible price. Although the worst deforestation in the Amazon’s
history has ended, the rainforest continues to be depleted at the steady rate of about 12
percent annually.
One of Brazil’s continual problems is that it benefits from development at the
expense of the rainforest. On the one hand, Brazil cannot afford to resist the economic
opportunities presented. On the other hand, it has failed to impose regulations on the
destruction of its forests or, in some cases, simply does not have the resources to enforce
them. The government needs to search for innovative methods of raising revenue while still
protecting the land. A particularly effective way of doing this would involve carbon credits.
Since the world must decrease carbon emissions in order to combat global warming, and
developers inject tremendous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere when they destroy the
rainforests in the course of their development, the Brazilian government could charge nations
and companies for the right to emit carbon under the condition that they discontinue their
plans elsewhere. These carbon credits might provide Brazil with $2 billion per year and
simultaneously keep the Amazon rainforest intact (“Is it Possible to Save the Brazilian
Amazon?”).
In addition to charging for development and pollution on its land, the Brazilian
government must change its economic policies. It must pay special attention to the items that
it subsidizes because, The Economist observes, “deforestation has been as much an economic
as an environmental disaster” (“Managing the Rainforests”). This may seem hard to believe,
but it is true. In the past several decades, loggers have ripped out a stretch of forest and then
burned the rest of the land, thinking that agricultural potential would make the land worth
more cleared than as untouched forest. Farming turned out to be unprofitable, and many
people committed fraud or used their new “farms” as tax shelters for other businesses

(“Managing”). Hundreds of thousands of square kilometers now lay abandoned in Amazonia
with nothing to show for the deforestation.
In the last few years, the government has reduced these subsidies and closed some of
the loopholes. Good-quality forested land can be worth 40% more than cleared land.
Unharmed woodland can yield a profit indefinitely. Using reduced-impact logging,
companies can divide a forested area into 30 blocks, one of which is exploited each year,
before being left alone for 29 years. This method provides enough time to re-grow the lost
forest. It can even be more profitable than traditional, reckless logging because it leaves the
oldest trees, which would otherwise be cut down, to re-seed the block with new trees.
The government, if it subsidizes anything, should subsidize reduced-impact logging.
Ecologist Robin Chazdon discovered that “in secondary forests that are 15 to 20 years old,
the overall abundance of species that have medicinal uses is higher compared to the older
forests” (“Shaky science behind save-rainforest effort”). Furthermore, younger forests
consume more carbon dioxide than older forests, which makes careful deforestation more
effective in fighting global warming than leaving the rainforest alone (“Shaky science”). And
as far as illegal logging is concerned, an increasing number of foreign and domestic
consumers of hardwoods are demanding that timber be independently certified as the product
of reduced-impact logging, which has reduced the amount of illegal logging (“Managing”).
Another threat to rainforest destruction is the increase in population. With
Amazonia’s population on the rise, there is a need to find ways to support these new
inhabitants. Various projects have employed locals as fruit and plant collectors, and projects
are underway to train villagers to grow trees and fruits on their own small plot of land. They
can realize a decent living with such techniques (“Managing”).
Not to be overlooked is the idea of placing the entire Amazon rainforest under
government protection. Some of it could be designated a national park and be deemed
untouchable. Most of it could be made into a national forest and placed under strict
regulation for cutting, which would be conducted under reduced-impact guidelines. The

enforcement for the government’s mandate must be stronger than it currently is. This will
require money that Brazil does not have at the moment, but carbon credits could provide the
revenue needed to run a national forestry service equipped with satellite imaging. According
to The Economist, “Combined with better land registration, improved satellite imaging
should help to monitor, and thus prevent, deforestation. . . . A state laboratory is downloading
satellite images and comparing them with a computerized land register to spot breaches of
the often-flouted national forest code” (“Managing”). Enforcement of responsible rainforest
protection policies is a realistic expectation, especially as Brazil’s government cleans up
some of its historical corruption.
A combination of carbon credits, economically enticing subsidies for reduced-impact
logging, and federal protection of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest can make possible the
preservation of the environment without compromising the country’s economic needs. It is
only when the economic and environmental needs are unified and seen as compatible that the
problem of deforestation will be resolved. “Eco-agriculture,” the set of strategies being
devised to minimize conflicts between agriculture and biodiversity, is slowly producing
results.

WORKS CITED
Coffee, Russell. A Vision for the Forest. 2 Dec. 2002.

<http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/3950/author.html>
“Is it Possible to Save the Brazilian Amazon?” USA Today 129.2673 (June 2001): Rpt. in
Academic Search Premier. 30 Nov. 2002
<http://www.harpercollege.edu/library/articles/index.htm>
Lewis, Scott. The Rainforest Book. Venice, California: Living Planet Press, 1990.
“Managing the Rainforests.” The Economist. Academic Search Premier. 30 Nov. 2002
Margolis, Mac. The Last New World. New York: Norton, 1992.
“Saving the Rainforest.” The Economist. Academic Search Premier. 30 Nov. 2002
Whitmore, T.C. An Introduction to Tropical Rain Forests. New York: Oxford UP, 1990.

5. Sick Building Syndrome (research essay)
ASSIGNMENT: Research, define, and explain “sick building syndrome.” Explain why interior
designers should be concerned about this topic.
Sick Building Syndrome

By MaryJo Franciskovich
Every Product we use begins as a part of the earth, whether plant, mineral, or animal. It is
our individual responsibility to look at the methods by which these products are processed,
distributed, and put into use. The impact of certain manufacturing, processing, and distribution
practices can be harmful to all of us, individually and as a collective society. Once we receive
these products and put them to use, it rarely crosses our minds what impacts they will have on us,
and once we discard these same products, we again rarely take the time to consider the impact to
our earth.
My intention in this paper is to provide information about possible toxic exposures when
we install and use the products we put into our homes and other buildings, and what can be done
to minimize or eliminate negative environmental consequences. Interior design is, without
question, involved with this subject as many of the processes, installations, materials, and
furnishings chosen for clients may pose a threat to them, rather than solve a problem.
Sick building syndrome and building-related illnesses were the environmental buzzwords
of the 1990’s. For a chemically-sensitive segment of the society, education and research on these
subjects can hold possible explanations for the chronic discomfort plaguing them. Since
Americans spend an average of ninety percent of their time indoors, whether at home, in the
workplace, or at an entertainment spot, perhaps even the less chemically sensitive are affected by
this syndrome.
“Sick building syndrome” is a term used to describe situations in which the occupants of
a building experience acute health and comfort effects that appear to be linked to time spent in a
particular building--but for which no specific illness or cause can be identified. In the 1970’s,
health care providers were faced with a growing number of people coming to them with

complaints such as headaches; allergies or allergic-like reactions; dizziness; nausea; irritation of
the eyes, nose, and throat; chest tightness; difficulty concentrating; and sensitivity to odors.
Interest grew as these people discovered that their symptoms improved when they were removed
from the room or building that seemed to cause their physical reactions. This is the determining
factor. When one or more persons become “sick” when inside a room, but have no symptoms
when outside the room, it can be determined that there is some form of contaminant or pollutant
in the room. Something in that particular building or room has affected indoor air quality.
World Health Organization (WHO) research suggests that thirty percent of new and
remodeled office blocks in developed countries show signs of sick building syndrome and that
ten to thirty percent of occupants are affected. Numerous studies conducted by the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the last 25 years have shown measurable levels of
over 107 known carcinogens in modern offices and homes, resulting from the energy efficient
closed-design window and building structures that have recently been made necessary by the
developing energy crisis. The fact that concerns most doctors and scientists today is the unknown
effects that could occur in humans over long periods of time, through contact with low dosages
of these cancer-causing compounds found in modern offices and homes.
The syndrome affects individuals in different ways. We all differ in our sensitivities to
foods, medicines, and outdoor air pollutants. And our immune systems each function differently,
so not everyone entering a polluted space and breathing its air will feel sick, yet others breathing
in that same space may have a severe reaction.
Common Contaminants
Some primary sources of chemical indoor pollutants are emissions from building
materials, outdoor air, the human body, and human activities, furnishings, appliances, and use of
consumer products. There may be “hot spots” in a building, most likely in a home, such as one
room that particularly affects people because of its pollution, and the list of contaminants is long
and getting longer. The number one concern for homeowners today is a natural gas called radon,
but, happily, there is currently a test available to measure for radon in the home. Malfunction or

inappropriate use of heating devices can produce pollution at harmful levels, such as carbon
monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide. These can come from unvented kerosene and gas
space heaters, wood stoves, fireplaces, and gas stoves. Easy-to-use tests to measure carbon
monoxide levels in the home are also available.
Biological Contaminants. Dander, dust mites, and molds are carried by animals and
people into and throughout homes and buildings. High humidity, flooding, inadequate ventilation
and exhaust in heating and air conditioning systems, humidifiers, and dehumidifiers are all
sources of biological air pollution. Bacteria, pollen, and viruses are also included in this
category. They may breed in stagnant water accumulated in ducts, humidifiers, and drain pans, or
where water has collected on ceiling tiles, carpeting, or insulation. Molds and fungi occur on
walls, flooring, and ceilings in warm, humid climates. Condensation builds as the surface
temperatures are cooled by air conditioning in the surrounding air. If warm, moist, outdoor air
infiltrates the room, condensation and dampness occurs, developing the fungi and molds, and
they begin to colonize. In the past few years, there has been growing attention from the media
about the subject of toxic mold growth in the home. Because mold is virtually everywhere, it has
become an issue of great debate among homeowners, contractors, and insurance companies.
Volatile Organic Compounds. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted as gasses
at room temperature and at extreme temperatures from certain solids and liquids. Some of these
include formaldehyde, methelyne chloride, pesticides, solvents, cleaning chemicals, benzene,
perchloroethylene. Some indoor concentrations of VOC’s can be ten times greater than those
found outdoors.
Some buildings that had foam insulation installed in the 1970’s contained Urea-
Formaldehyde, which is no longer used. It has also been banned in most areas as a chemical
ingredient in wood floor finishes. Formaldehyde can also be found in plywood, particle board,
finishes, paneling, fiberboard, and some backing and adhesives for carpeting and textiles. It is
classified as a human carcinogen; even short term exposure can be fatal. Methelyne chloride is in
household products such as paint strippers and can be metabolized to Carbon Monoxide. VOC’s

can also be emitted through carpeting, adhesives, upholstery, manufactured wood products, and
copy machines. Even low to moderate levels of exposure to multiple VOC’s may produce acute
reactions.
Heavy Metals. Lead has been removed as an ingredient in paint since the 1940’s and was
banned in 1978. In 1990, mercury was removed from indoor latex paint and in 1991 from
outdoor latex paint. These should be considered primarily when remodeling or rehabbing an
older home or building.
Solutions
Increasing the ventilation rates and air distribution in existing residential areas is often a
cost effective way to reduce indoor pollutant levels. At the very least, heating, ventilation, and
air conditioning (HVAC) systems should be designed to meet ventilation standards in local
building codes. If there are strong pollutant sources, air may need to be vented directly to the
outside.
To keep an existing building healthy, homeowners can make sure that the heating and air
conditioning system is maintained and operating properly. Filters should be cleaned and the
system inspected on a regular basis. Regular professional cleaning of the duct work is
recommended, especially if the home is older or there has been new construction in the area.
The removal or modification of the pollutant or its source is the most effective way to
solve a known indoor air problem, when this solution is practicable. This can be accomplished
by replacing water-stained ceiling tiles and carpets, banning smoking or providing a separate,
ventilated room, venting the contaminant to the outside, using and storing paints, solvents,
pesticides, and adhesives in closed containers, in well-ventilated areas, or in low- or no-
occupancy locations, and allowing time for new building materials or newly remodeled areas to
gas-off before occupancy.
Also, air cleaning can be a useful addition to source control and ventilation. Air filters are
effective at removing some, but not all of the pollution. Furthermore, with humidity regulated
between thirty and fifty percent, molds cannot grow.

New construction areas and remodeled areas can be kept healthy with the following
actions:
• Dry any construction materials that are wet or moist before sealing the building’s
structural components.
• Use permeable wall coverings (permanence greater than 5 perms), and seal surfaces of
envelope and interior walls that may be subject to water or moisture damage.
• Avoid cooling the interior space below the mean monthly outdoor temperature. This
reduces the likelihood of condensation on interior surfaces.
• Before purchasing or occupying a new residence or building, inspect the structural
components for water damage and fungal growth.
• Maintain a constant air flow in the case of new carpet, draperies, or furniture; off–gasses
from a new carpet will often dissipate over a three- to twelve-month period.
Conclusion
There are very few tests to evaluate the possible synergistic effects that occur when we
combine chemicals in our food and water and when we allow them to be emitted into the air we
breathe. The few studies that have been done show that such effects dramatically increase the
risks to us of sickness and disease. Scientists do not yet understand enough to recommend
solutions so that regulations can be formed to guide us. We are, at the present time, still involved
in finding ways to measure, test, and supply by trial and error some possible solutions to correct
the problems with the air that surrounds us, in any space we occupy. When professionals use and
test chemicals in industrial settings, they are subject to strict health and safety codes, yet we use
these same chemicals at home without guidance or restriction. As further research is done, we
are learning that many of the household products we use and believe safe are actually considered
toxic. At this time in our lives, it is necessary for us to research for ourselves and continue to
learn all that we can as we decide to build, remodel, or refurnish our living spaces.

WORKS CONSULTED
Dadd, D. Nontoxic, Natural, and Earthwise: An Earthwise Consumer Guide. Chicago: Putnam,
1990.
Harris, Mark. “Building a Healthy Home.” Conscious Choice Magazine Oct. 2003: 40.
“Indoor Air.” U.S. Department of Labor. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
<http://www.osha-slc.gov/SLTC/indoorairquality/index.html>.
Meixner, Toni. “The Air You Breathe: ‘Sick Building Syndrome’ and Building Related Illness.”
Natural Health and Longevity Resource Center. Originally presented in Baltimore
Resource Journal, Summer 1995. <http://www.all-natural.com/air.html>.
“Sick Building Syndrome.” Consumer and Employment Protection Government of Western

Australia. Updated from and article in SafetyLine Apr. 1993.
<http://www.safetyline.wa.gov.au/pagebin/disegen10003.htm>.
“Sick Building Syndrome.” Environmental Health Center, a division of the US National Safety
Council. <http://www.nsc.org/EHC/indoor/sbs.htm>.
“Sick Building Syndrome.” Extoxnet FAQS.

<http://ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/faqs/indoorair/sick.htm>.
“What is Sick Building Syndrome?” Zone 10.com.

<http://www.zone10.com/tech/nasa/SICK_BLD.htm>.

3f. Student Examples—Writing About Literature
1. Natural Abundance of Country Life as Shown by Willa Cather’s

“Neighbour Rosicky” (a thesis-support essay of analysis and
interpretation)
ASSIGNMENT: Write an interpretive essay on Willa Cather’s “Neighbour Rosicky”
Natural Abundance of Country Life

as Shown by Willa Cather’s “Neighbour Rosicky”
by Amy Richter
Anton Rosicky believes the country is the best place to raise a happy family, because of
its natural abundance. Though the fairy-tale city life of Castle Garden, New York, satisfies
Rosicky for 5 years or so, the fantasy fades as his desire for real fulfillment in a more bucolic
setting increases. “That was why he drank too much; to get a temporary illusion of freedom and
wide horizons” (87). Rosicky realizes that although city life is appealing, it leaves an empty
feeling in the end. Both country and city settings described in “Neighbour Rosicky” by Willa
Cather illustrate the benefits of country living.
Rosicky’s love for the land began at a young age, when he was sent to live with his
grandparents following the death of his mother. “He stayed with them until he was twelve, and
formed those ties with the earth and the farm animals and growing things which are never made
at all unless they are made early” (88). Rosicky’s childhood marks the start of a lifelong
companionship between him and the open land.
The city, on the other hand, is disconnected from him because of its abundance of
cement. While sitting in the park in New York City, Rosicky observes “so much stone and
asphalt with nothing going on, so many empty windows” (88). Rosicky finds the isolation of the

city to be exhausting, because the cement denies him contact with the nourishing land. Rosicky
desires to move away from the city and get back to the country where his roots are.
Rosicky’s decision to head west and “buy his liberty” (89) occurs on a significant
holiday, Independence Day. Although he can’t afford one of the finer farms in High Prairie, he
does purchase property, and he enjoys the fact that he owns any land at all. This is an important
accomplishment for Rosicky because he becomes the first person in the family to own land. For
Rosicky, “To be a landless man was to be a wage-earner, a slave, all your life; to have nothing,
to be nothing” (93). Rosicky fears that Rudolph will give up the farming gamble and sacrifice
his freedom for guaranteed money made slaving at a factory job in the city. Rosicky compares
these blank buildings to “empty jails” (88), which represent the lack of freedom associated with
city life. Rosicky wants his son to understand that in the country, “what you had was your own.
You didn’t have to choose between bosses and strikers, and go wrong either way” (104). As
Rosicky’s health deteriorates, his concerns for his family’s welfare increase. He wants not only
freedom for himself, but for his family as well. It’s comforting for Rosicky to know that his
family will be together on the land long after he’s gone.
Rosicky’s heart may be failing, but he’s not in the ground yet. In the meantime, Rosicky
is encouraged by Doctor Burleigh to spend some quality time with his family. Dr. Ed advises,
“My Lord, Rosicky, you are one of the few men I know who has a family he can get some
comfort out of; happy dispositions, never quarrel among themselves, and they treat you right”
(74). Rosicky feels blessed to have such a wonderful family as he recalls the types of families
which inhabit the city. He remembers angry families arguing among themselves in dirty,
overcrowded kitchens. Rosicky believes that “the worst things he has come upon in his journey
through the world were human—depraved and poisonous specimens of life” (104). He doesn’t
think his children are prepared to understand the harshness and cruelty of human beings existing
in the city. Rosicky is not naïve to the fact that mean people live in the country as well. He feels

the advantage to living in the country is that such neighbors can be avoided by separation of the
land. But in the city, “all the foulness and misery and brutality of your neighbors was part of
your life” (104). There is no escaping the company of unwanted dishonesty.
The city also represents poverty and hunger for Rosicky. Rosicky remembers a special
Christmas in London. Christmas is thought to be a joyous occasion, the season of giving.
Rosicky describes an entirely different scenario. “All de windows is full of good t’ings to eat, an’
all de pushcarts in de streets is full, an’ you smell ‘em all de time, a’ you ain’t got no money,—
not a damn bit” (99). He understands that although the city is a great place to live if you’re rich,
it’s not an easy environment for the poor and hungry to survive in.
Rosicky counts his blessings for the opportunity to cultivate crops with which to feed and
nourish his family. After all these years in the country, Rosicky “had never had to take a cent
from anyone in bitter need,—never had to look at the face of a woman become like a wolf’s from
struggle and famine” (105). Rosicky knows that planting seasons are not consistent and stresses
the importance of adaptation to the uncertain. Regardless of the success of each year’s crops, the
Rosicky family celebrates life together. The family picnic is an important event showing the
strong bond uniting his family. Rosicky recalls a Fourth of July that was so hot, the intensity of
the heat ruined the entire crop of corn. He did not let this catastrophe ruin him as it did his
neighbors. Rosicky says, “An’ we enjoyed ourselves that year, poor as we was, an’ our
neighbours wasn’t a bit better off for bein’ miserable. Some of ’em grieved till they got poor
digestions and couldn’t relish what they did have” (98).
To Rosicky, happiness doesn’t come from having money but from enjoyment of his
loving family. Neighbors wonder why Rosicky doesn’t get ahead in life. “Maybe . . . people as
generous and warm-hearted and affectionate as the Roscikys never got ahead much; maybe you
couldn’t enjoy your life and put money in the bank” (84). The influence of money is not a

temptation for Rosicky because the satisfaction of being part of a family gives him all the wealth
he desires.
Part of being in a successful family includes struggling together through the best and
worst of times. The drought brings hard time to the country, which is a concern for Rudolph.
Rosicky replies, “You don’t know what hard times is. You don’t owe anybody, you got plenty to
eat an’ keep warm, an’ plenty water to keep clean. When you got them, you can’t have it very
hard” (96). The country offers feelings of comfort and companionship to Rosicky and his
family. Rosicky hopes his son Rudolph will not give up after one bad season of crops but
instead continue to work freely and live off the land.
The planting season is symbolic of reproduction, the cycle of continuous life and death.
Rosicky appreciates the beauty of snow falling over the open pastures and the nice graveyard
which lies nearby. “It was a nice graveyard, Rosicky reflected, sort of snug and homelike, not
cramped and mournful,—a big sweep all around it” (81). Rosicky is awfully fond of his farm
and isn’t anxious to leave it, but in the event of his death, he won’t have to go far at all. “The
snow, falling over his barnyard and the graveyard, seemed to draw things together like. And
they were all old neighbours in the graveyard, most of them friends” (81). The country
graveyard is much more comforting than cemeteries found in the city. He thinks of city
cemeteries as “arranged and lonely” (110) and considers them to be “cities of the dead . . . of the
forgotten” (111). These city cemeteries are not open and free like the little graveyard at the edge
of Rosicky’s farm.
And so, the time comes for Rosicky to return to his roots, the country, for the final time.
The condition of Rosicky’s heart deteriorates, and a heart attack is inevitable. Even though
Rosicky is dying, he celebrates the miraculous news of a future grandchild to be born to his son
Rudolph and his wife, Polly. Doctor Burleigh, a lifelong friend of Anton, comes back to the
country to visit the Rosicky family. As he drives past the graveyard, he notices the beauty. The

Doctor reflects, “nothing could be more undeathlike than his place; nothing could be more right
for a man who had helped to do the work of great cities and had always longed for the open
country and had got to it at last. Rosicky’s life seemed to him complete and beautiful” (111).
Though Rosicky’s life seemed to him complete and beautiful (111). Though Rosicky’s physical
body is buried in the ground, his spirit freely lives through his family’s enjoyment of the
country’s natural abundance, thus ensuring the infinite cycle of life.
WORKS CITED
Cather, Willa. “Neighbour Rosicky.” Willa Cather: Five Stories. Mattituck, New York:
American House, 1930. 72-111.

2. The Truth about White Lies (a personal response essay)
ASSIGNMENT: Write a “responsive essay” in which you present your personal response to a
work of literature. In the course of your essay, answer these questions:
1. What in the literary work prompts my response?
2. What are my feelings, memories, or associations?
3. What experiences, observations, or beliefs explain my responses?
Cheryl has chosen to respond to Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants,” a very short
story in which two characters, Jig, a young woman, and her unnamed American lover discuss
whether she should have an abortion, which the American wants and Jig does not. For whatever
reasons, Jig is unable to express her feelings or desires directly.
The Truth about White Lies
by Cheryl Vaccarello
As I browsed through the literary pieces looking for the perfect work to focus my essay
on, I kept coming back to Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.” I recalled many
conversations in my life where, like Jig, I would say, “I’m fine,” when I really wasn’t, or “that’s
okay,” when the situation really wasn’t okay with me. While reading this story, I was annoyed
with Jig for not being honest with her lover, and I was also sad for her, because it seemed that
she wasn’t able to be honest. She was putting the man’s feelings and wants before hers. I, too,
have been in situations when I have used the white lie to avoid confrontation.
The most recent telling of this little “white lie” happened just a month ago. My oldest
niece is getting married in Wisconsin on September 23rd. My husband Al and I were discussing
the details of the trip, trying to decide when we would leave for Wisconsin and where we would
stay. At that time, Al informed me that he could not leave on Friday morning because he had a
band job Friday night (he plays in a wedding band). Inside, I was steaming, but all I said to him
was that it was fine with me, and he could come on Saturday. There was an edge to my voice
that he must have picked up on, and so he pushed me further. Like Jig, I said I didn’t want to
discuss it anymore. The situation was the way it would be. I would be going alone, and he would
come the next day. I was very angry but could not express my anger.

It’s always been difficult for me to express anger. I am still trying to find why, but I think
part of the reason is that I am afraid of losing control. Hurtful words are said in anger, and I am
afraid of saying something that can’t be taken back and would be really hurtful. I try to see the
other point of view of the situation before getting angry. I understood Al’s side of the situation,
which was that he had the opportunity to play music. To Al, music is a top priority. The
wedding was on Saturday, so he could just drive up Saturday morning. My side was that this
was a family wedding, a time for all of us to be together. I felt it was essential that I be there
early for my niece Sarah, because she doesn’t have a mom to help her with those last minute
details. Instead of telling him all the reasons I was upset, I just said, “Okay, come up Saturday.
It’s okay.” I don’t know why I couldn’t explain to him my reasons for wanting to go to
Wisconsin as a family.
“Hills Like White Elephants” made me examine the use of the white lie. What exactly is
a white lie? It is a phrase such as “I don’t care,” I’m fine,” or “okay.” Sometimes the use of the
white lie is good. The white lie can be used to be polite or when you want to avoid hurting
someone’s feelings. But at what point is the “self” lost after constant telling of the white lie?
When do you begin to ignore your own feelings and only give in to what others want of you?
Reading this story made me stop and look at why I tell those white lies and what effect the
telling of the lies has on me.
I think I learned to say those white lies when I was very young. An older couple, Mr.
And Mrs. Henry, baby sat for my sister Bonnie and me when we were young because my mom
worked full time outside the home. My sister was 5 and I was 3 when this couple began
watching us. They lived a few blocks away from our house, so sometimes we would go to their
house for the day. As far as I can remember, they baby sat for us for about one year. A year of
abuse and neglect. There were days when lunch (if we got any) consisted of hot water. We were
locked in dark closets or kept outside on the back porch for many hours. Many days we were

forced to wear only our underwear so that we would stay clean for when mom got home. You
see, Mrs. Henry could then boast about how well she could take care of us. We could not play
games; we could not make noise. I don’t know how many hours I sat with my hands folded on
my lap, just sitting. Every day when mom came home from work, she would ask, “How was
your day today?” I would always say, “It was okay. It was fine.” We never told mom what was
really going on because we were the ones that were bad. We made Mrs. Henry do the things to
us that she did. Mom knew that, too. Why don’t you think she stopped Mrs. Henry? Mrs.
Henry said those things to us so many times that we believed her. As young as we were, we
knew Mom had to work and we didn’t want her to worry; therefore, the white lie.
Well, one summer day came the breaking point. I stopped saying everything was fine. I
stopped smiling and started screaming. Mrs. Henry had gone out and we were left with Don, her
husband. He was downstairs in the basement and called to us to go into the bathroom and look at
him through the vent in the bathroom floor. When we did, he exposed himself to us. I ran out of
the house screaming, while my sister stayed inside. The neighbor, a policeman, was home and I
ran to him. I kept pointing at the house and crying. The words would not come. He went into
the house and saw Don. When Don was arrested and the story of the abuse came tumbling out,
my mom was devastated. We had to go to court and testify against him. Convicted for his
exhibitionism, Don was sent to jail, and Mrs. Henry was sent to Elgin State Mental Hospital.
Finally, they were out of our lives.
As I brought this memory forward, I asked myself, at what point does the telling of the
white lie become harmful? I told my mom that everything was fine for different reasons. As I
look back on this painful time, the foremost reason was probably that I was afraid. Mrs. Henry
made me believe I was bad and that I was at fault. She was the adult, and my mom wasn’t
making her stop, so she must have had my mom’s approval. That was the thinking of a 3-year-
old. I also believe that I told those white lies because I didn’t want my mom to worry. She had

to work, and in my way, I was trying to help make it easier for her. A part of me also believed
that my mom should have known what was happening, so when I said everything was fine, it
was what I thought she wanted to hear. Jig used the same white lie, “everything’s fine,” when
she told the American man what she thought he wanted to hear.
In both episodes from my life, the outcome would have been different had I not told the
white lie. Had I told my husband how I really felt, I probably would be traveling to Wisconsin
with my family as a whole. Had I put my needs before what I thought were my mother’s, I
would not have to contend with the memory of that year in my life. Most specifically, I would
not carry the picture of that old man exposing himself to my sister and me.
White lies allow people to hide their feelings. Sometimes feelings are too painful to speak
about. Maybe the time is not right. Well, it is now the time in my life to take a stand. I am
really pushing myself to stop the white lies before they stop me. I can understand why I felt such
a pull to “Hills Like White Elephants.” I related strongly to Jig. I know I don’t want to be like
her and say, “I feel fine. There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.” It is time to stop the white
lies and find the truth.
I hope Jig finds whatever she has inside to stand up for what she wants and needs, as I am
trying to do.

3. The Stranger: Epilogue (a creative response essay)
ASSIGNMENT: Dramatize your understanding of a literary work by writing an imaginative

recreation of all or part of it. You become the artist and “extend” a work by adding to it in some
way that reflects your feelings about your subject.
Bill Mihalik has chosen to dramatize an episode that takes place immediately after the end of
Albert Camus’ novel The Stranger. This novel tells the story of Monsieur Meursault, a man capable
of rich sensory experience but indifferent to the conventional sentiments that too often pass for
human emotions. Almost by accident, Meursault kills a man and is arrested for his crime. At his
trial, his refusal to lie to save himself and his refusal to utter any expression of remorse earn him
a sentence of death by the guillotine. In his epilogue, created to follow the actual last lines of the
novel, Bill reveals Meursault’s final thoughts and experiences as he is led to his death
The Stranger: Epilogue
by Bill Mihalik
The sky turned red and the stars faded away. The red was the red of the rusty hinges on
my cell door. I thought I heard footsteps. But maybe that was my heart pounding. I stopped
breathing. Yes, those were footsteps echoing down the cold stone corridor. I listened as hard as
I could, as if my body were one giant ear and the footsteps were the pounding of a stone heart. I
pressed my body to the wooden door. There were many heavy footsteps. They sounded like a
company of guards. Perhaps the footsteps would stop before they came to my cell. The footsteps
became louder. Perhaps the footsteps would go past my cell. But the footsteps stopped in front
of my door. Maybe I had been pardoned.
“Meursault?” It was Edmund, the Sergeant of the Guard. I wanted to answer, but I
couldn’t breathe. “Meursault, we’re going to open the door. Are you ready?”
I croaked “Yes” in a voice so hoarse I didn’t recognize it as my own. The wooden door
creaked open on rusty hinges that hadn’t been oiled since I had been there. I saw Edmund’s face.
Next to him was the commandant of the prison. Behind them I saw more guards standing at
attention. They held their rifles motionless. It was as if time had stopped.
The commandant’s head was entirely bald. The morning sun glinted off the top of his
head. His eyes were light gray, like the light gray of fine dust. He had small wrinkles around the

corners of both eyes. He neither smiled nor frowned. A thin black moustache curled above each
end of his small mouth. He was taller than I, but not by much. He was heavier than Edmund. He
could have been forty or sixty. Six medals hung limply on his dress uniform. In a toneless bass
that echoed down the corridor like a church bell he began, “Patrice Meursault, your appeal has
been denied. It is my responsibility to carry out the sentence ordered by the high court of the
French people. You will be taken to the courtyard and executed by guillotine for the murder of
Ali ben Hassan. That is all.”
The head guard spoke. “Meursault, you will be escorted to the courtyard. Come with
us.” Of course, what else could I do? I did not want to cause trouble for Edmund. He had been
my only friend these past few months. Two guards came into the cell. They crouched under the
low arch of the doorway and faced me. They looked at me with a curious stare of pity and
hardness as if I were already a headless corpse. I walked out of the cell. My legs felt like rubber.
The two guards followed me. More guards were ahead of me. Our footsteps echoed down the
stone corridor. As we turned the corner and entered another corridor, I saw an open door at the
end. The light was growing brighter and brighter as we approached the door.
Almost blinded by the morning sun as I walked out into a prison yard, I felt dizzy, shaded
my eyes, and looked around. Onward we marched until we passed outside the prison gates and
into a courtyard. I was surrounded by many faces. The priest held his book by his chest. A
string of beads dangled in his left hand. The magistrate rubbed his cross in the fingers of his
right hand. The old reporter with the little mouth wrote furiously in his notebook. And then
there was the mob. The French stared quietly at me. Their eyes accused me. The Arabs shouted
curses at me. What had I done to any of them? I knew none of them. And none of them knew
me. I was the stranger. I turned around and saw the instrument of death. The sun gleamed off
the blade. I closed my eyes.

The commandant asked, “Meursault, do you want the priest to say a prayer?” The priest
started to move forward.
I shot a hot, angry look at the commandant. “No. I see no use for it!” The priest flinched
and moved back next to the magistrate. The magistrate blinked and his tongue licked his dry,
straight, thin lips.
“Meursault, do you have a last request?”
I thought for a moment. I thought of Marie swimming in the ocean and having lunch at
Celeste’s. I thought about the Sundays when I sat and watched people walking up and down the
street. “I’d like to smoke.” Edmund came up to me and offered me one of his cigarettes. They
were American, Lucky Strikes. I put the cigarette in my mouth. He struck a match. The acrid
phosphorus smelled like a woman’s perfume to me. The flame flickered toward me as I inhaled.
He waved the match twice and threw it on the dirt. The little blue and yellow flame flickered
and died. A wisp of smoke rose from the matchstick and curled up into the cool summer
morning air. There was no wind. I took a long puff. What could be better than relaxing on the
balcony with a cigarette and seeing Marie walking up the street to my apartment? The match
stopped smoking. The last wisps rose skyward. The cigarette tasted stronger than my regular
brand.
The commandant’s voice rang out, “Meursault, are you ready?”
Ready? Who is ever ready? Was he ready? Was the magistrate ready? Was the priest
ready? No, none of them were ready. I may have no choice, but I was not ready. I took one last
puff and savored the taste. I blew out the smoke through my nose and moth and watched the
smoke rise up in small wisps. I threw the cigarette on the ground and stamped it out.
“We will put a cloth around your head,” said Edmund.

“I don’t need it, and I don’t want it. I want to watch every last moment.” The guard
holding the cloth stopped. The cloth hung limply in midair like the tricolors on the prison
towers.
Edmund hesitated. Then in a lowered voice he continued, “It is more convenient for us.
It will be easier for the guards to collect your head after the execution.”
I thought about that for a moment. I had to agree that it was a perfectly reasonable
request. I nodded. The guard pulled the cloth like a sack over my head and darkness descended
on my eyes.
The guard touched my arms gently and led me. “Please bow down.”
I hadn’t bowed to anyone or anything since I had been a little boy. I didn’t want to bow
down now. I knew I would never again stand up straight. I would never again see the sea or sky.
I would never again know a woman. A hand gently pushed my head down on the wood. My
neck brushed the smooth wood. I listened for the blade to rush down the arms of the guillotine.
My muscles relaxed. I felt at one with the uncaring universe. I was alone no more.

4. Cup of Sorrow (a literary research paper)
ASSIGNMENT: Write a literary research paper.
Cup of Sorrow
by Sheri A. Luzzi
Most young people struggle to emerge from their parents’ shadow while fashioning ways
of expressing their own identities. In the normal course of events, sometimes after a few
tumultuous years, they cast off parental guidance and begin to navigate their own passages
through life. But some are caught like branches between the rocks that obstruct the water of a
rushing river. Feeling victimized, they remain immobilized behind masks of pride carefully
crafted to hide their fear. Looking for a scapegoat to bear their suns, they lash out at those
closest to them.
Julian Chestny, the protagonist in Flannery O’Connor’s “Everything That Rises Must
Converge,” is a tortured young man who blames his mother for his failures. A closer look into
Juilan’s troubled mind, however, reveals that his indignation is not the result of an imperfect
mother; rather, it is the cry of someone who is unable to reconcile his true identity with reality. It
takes an act of grace in the form of violent aggression to shake Julian from his ivory tower of
intellectual superiority and make him see himself for who he really is.
Julian is among the first generation of an aristocratic Southern family to live without
benefit of wealth or standing in a newly integrated South. He is desperately struggling to come
to terms with his identity under the formidable shadow of a mother defined by the South and
what he considers its outdated mannerisms. He is the great-grandson of a slave owner and
former governor of the southern state in which he and his mother live, and he is the grandson of a
wealthy landowner and a grandmother who was a Godhigh. Mrs. Chestny has lost her wealth and
aristocratic position. She is reduced to living a life of simple means in a world she defines as a
“mess” (O’Connor 407). What enables her to be civil in the integrated society she despises is her

unwavering belief in the manners and cultures of her upbringing (Bloom 47). Her “ardent faith
in the primacy of manners” is, according to Harold Bloom, a major schism in Julian’s
relationship with her (47). She tells Julian, “I can be gracious to anybody. I know who I am,” to
which Julian replies, “they don’t give a damn for your graciousness. Knowing who you are is
good for one generation only” (407).
Contributing to their fractured relationship is Mrs. Chestny’s habit of mouthing “self-
righteous moral platitudes,” indicating her probable perception of herself as a “good Christian”
(Walters 127). Mrs. Chestny’s behavior likely stems from the predominant belief in the old
South that Christianity is a birthright and not something someone consciously chooses as a
personal act of faith. His mother’s extravagant display of hypocritical Christianity may be why
Julian appears to have “lost his faith” (407). In addition to preaching a homespun version of
morality, Mrs. Chestny consistently oversimplifies difficult issues, making her appear ignorant to
Julian. He responds to such hypocrisy by cultivating his intellect and ignoring his spirit.
Through the character of Julian, O’Connor illustrates her belief that there are certain things in
this world that cannot be explained outside of God, “where God is present to men and faith is
never ‘mastered by human intelligence’” (True 272). Julian’s indifference to spiritual matters
while worshipping intellect will eventually bring him precariously close to the precipice of self-
destruction.
Mrs. Chestny’s perception of religion is repugnant to Julian, but what offends him most is
his mother’s persistence in behaving like an aristocrat when in reality she is just a simple woman
of simple means (Grimshaw 59). “They argue about true culture, which for Julian is only in the
mind, [but] for his mother it is in the heart” (Grimshaw 59). Refusing to relinquish her
aristocratic identity, Mrs. Chestny insists, “If you know who you are you can go anywhere” even
if it is only to the local Y to mix with people who are not her kind (407). His mother’s sense of
identity is lost on Julian, who believes himself to be “more broadminded than his mother”

(Martin 13). Julian sanctimoniously believes that his mother, who lived the life he only
“dreams” of (408), couldn’t possibly appreciate it as he could.
Julian claims he detests his mother’s heritage, but secretly he relishes it. He uses it to
fabricate an identity within his own reality. “Though outwardly he scoffs at her claims of
aristocratic connections, inwardly he treasures the knowledge of his own superior heritage”
(Walters 128). Julian feels conflicted when he envisions the mansion because it always remains
“in his mind as his mother had known it” (408). He believes his mother is out of touch with
reality and unenlightened, but fails to recognize his own phantom retreat into his mother’s past
(Desmond 3).
Julian wants desperately to distinguish himself from everything in the South

which he finds morally, intellectually, and aesthetically repugnant: its racism,
its nostalgia for the glorious past; its (to him) petty concern with manners; its
barren intellectual life; its insufferably banal social intercourse. (Bloom 46)
His retreat from the world is to no other than the mansion his mother grew up in (Walters
128). But the image of the irreclaimable plantation provokes such conflict for Julian that he
never speaks about it “without contempt or . . .[thinks] of it without longing” (O’Connor 408).
He is unconfined within his own imagination, yet he envisions the mansion not as an enlightened
individual might, but with slaves living in it (408). Certainly it would be difficult for a
progressive like Julian to admit that he is not different from his mother or his forefathers who
saw nothing wrong with owning slaves. In this way he betrays himself. “He uses liberalism
simply as a means of revenge against a past he both falsely idealized and nostalgically admires,”
and like his mother, he lives in his own reality (Denham 2).
Unable to express his contempt for the society he feels alienated from, Julian takes aim at
his mother. She is a constant reminder that his desired reality is nothing more than a dream.
Perhaps this is why Julian contemptuously refers to his mother as a child whenever he is upset
with her. Like a jealous sibling, he offends her by remind her of what she can no longer have.

Julian is one of certain other O’Connor characters who are “caught in ‘late adolescence’
impotence so acute that they can direct hostility only against their protective, and often times
patronizing and controlling mothers” (Bloom 46-7). Julian doesn’t realize that “what he thinks
he detests, he also loves and longs for” and “what Julian believes he is totally free of, he is, in
fact, fearfully dependent upon,” which is his mother (Bloom 47). As “one of O’Connor’s
ignorant intellectuals” who is educated but can’t make a living, Julian is dependent on his mother
to take care of him, blind to his own “intellectual arrogance and savagery” and doesn’t see his
total reliance on his mother (Baumgaertner 108). He doesn’t understand that his mother has
sacrificed everything to ensure his success, yet he ends up selling typewriters for a living
(Denham 2). Mrs. Chestny struggled to give Julian all the advantages she believed he should
have as a Chestny, and yet Julian “could not forgive her that she had enjoyed the struggle and
that she thought she had won” (411). He mistakenly believes he has been martyred on her
behalf and insists that he alone was responsible for raising himself out of their dismal
circumstances (McFarland 2). But “his is a martyrdom without spiritual content (Baumgaernter
108). It exists only in his mind.
Julian’s behavior is that of a child who expects his mother to service his needs without
having to give anything in return. His reliance on her is based on his refusal to group up. Julian
wants to be taken care of. His mother’s heritage represents a prefabricated, supposedly secure
existence that he feels robbed of, thus leaving him to forge his own way in society, but he knows
that he will never be able to make a living (406) so he acts like a spoiled child, transferring his
resentment to his mother, who has become his caretaker. Like a bird high in his perch, Julian
views his mother from a position of moral and intellectual superiority, smugly believing he can
“see her with absolute clarity” (411).
Julian not only resents his mother, but anyone he regards as his intellectual inferior.
“Playing the intellectual sophisticate, he sees his task as instructing the unenlightened, especially

his mother, in the ways of true culture which he believes are always defined in terms of the
mind” (Denham 2). However, Julian’s intellectualism is “shallowness and pretension” (Denham
3). He smugly ordains himself above his surroundings while evading his racial duplicity by
avoiding people or using them as pawns in his infantile game to annoy his mother (O’Connor
412). To her credit, Mrs. Chestny at least tries to live within her surroundings even though she is
uncomfortable with the people who inhabit them. In contrast, Julian favors living “three miles”
from the nearest neighbor. He isn’t really offended by his mother’s racial prejudice because he
isn’t capable of feeling compassion for people (Denham 3). He doesn’t much like people nor
does he have much regard for their mental capacity. He spends most of his time within the inner
sanctum of his mind. It is “the only place where he felt free of the general idiocy of his fellows”
(411). It is easy for Julian to measure himself against the shortcomings of others because he
never risks emotional failure himself. Instead, he withdraws into a “kind of mental bubble”
whenever he is uncomfortable with his surroundings (411). In his sanctuary, he is safe from
“any kind of penetration from without” (411) and is able to single-handly judge “the intellectual
bankruptcy of the rest of mankind (Browning 103).
However, Julian’s flight from humanity is futile because his intellectualism is simply the
way in which he escapes the reality of himself (McDermott 3). In a letter to author John F.
Desmond in December 1963, Flannery O’Connor wrote that her characters retreat into “abstract
intellectualism” and isolation to avoid growth and union with others (Desmond 2). The result is
a person who isolates himself from all he detests until he has only himself (McDermott 2). Jill
Baumgaertner relates Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s supposition that if we isolate ourselves, we
lose ourselves, and to find ourselves we must move toward one another. According to de
Chardin, it is our “originality” and not our “individuality” that defines who we are, and in order
to find ourselves, we must unite with others (qtd. in Baumgaertner 110). Due to his immaturity,
Julian doesn’t trust or understand his uniqueness as an individual. Instead of expressing himself

within a society he doesn’t like, he loses himself as an individual apart from society. He hides
behind a mask of indifference and intellectualism in the safety of his own reality.
Unfortunately for Julian, his reality is not impenetrable. His dependence on his mother is
a piercing reminder that he is not who he envisions himself to be. Consequently, Mrs. Chestny,
by default, bears the brunt of her son’s utter contempt for mankind. Author Dorothy Walters
suggests a person’s angst about society begins initially when he is a baby dependent upon his
authoritarian mother. The mother is the first in society to tell the child what he can or can’t do.
When the child grows up and can no longer tolerate society’s rules, he retaliates. He now wants
the mother punished for how he believes society has failed him. But Walters points out that
because children are so closely linked with their parents, an attack on the mother is not only an
attack against society but also an attack against the self. A child’s desire to injure his mother is
evidence of deeply buried hostilities.” The child either harms the parent or harms himself
through “spiritual withdrawal” (Walters 143-44). Julian contemplates harming his mother,
thinking he could “with pleasure have slapped her [his mother] as he would have slapped a
particularly obnoxious child in his charge” (414). As it turns out, Julian doesn’t physically harm
his mother, but he does cause her great emotional trauma that indirectly leads to her death.
Throughout the story, Julian imagines ways he can teach his mother a lesson through
what she would consider unacceptable interaction with African-Americans 9414). All the
delusive scenarios are concocted to provoke his mother to anger. Julian acts out the behavior of
young progressives who “seek to expiate the sins of the parents by openly accepting [what Mrs.
Chestny believes are] their inferiors” (Walter 128). When a well-dressed, obviously professional
black man takes a seat across from Julian, Julian purposefully gets up and sits down next to him
not so much to declare allegiance to the black race as to “declare war” on his mother
(McDermott 50). But Julian’s attempt to engage the black man in an intellectual conversation
“about art or politics or any subject that would be above the comprehension of those around

them” is met with indifference and finally annoyance (412-13). That particular opportunity to
enlighten his mother fails. However, when a rancorous black woman and her young boy board
the bus, Julian smiles at the situation that is rife with possibilities to teach his mother a lesson.
Unbeknownst to Julian, the outcome will shock him to his core.
Julian wants to see housemother punished but is unable to execute this except through
verbal attacks on her or inept interactions with people of the black race. When the black woman
boards the bus, Julian notices she is wearing the same hat as his mother. His reaction is like that
of a mischievous child who has just hatched an impish scheme. He revels in the irony of the
situation and flashes his mother a smile that bespeaks: “Your punishment exactly fits your
pettiness. This should teach you a permanent lesson” (416).
The black woman reminds Julian of his mother, but the woman bears similarities to
Julian as well. The woman “personifies the insidious gradations of his angry mind” (McDermott
3). Unexpectedly, Julian’s neurotic fantasy with his mother lying desperately ill (416) becomes a
reality, and he gleefully seizes the opportunity to knock his mother once and for all from her
aristocratic pedestal.
Nothing illustrates Julian’s callous insouciance more than the way he treats his elderly
mother, who has just suffered a violent attack. Incredibly, as she sits wounded and disoriented
on the sidewalk, Julian insolently launches into a bitter diatribe ordering her to face the reality of
a “new world and telling her to “buck up . . . It won’t kill you” (419). Her physical well being is
of no concern to Julian as his thoughts selfishly play back to the “house that had been lost for
him” (419). It’s the moment he has been waiting for, when he exacts retribution on his mother
and the society he believes has failed him.
The son Mrs. Chestny raised so sacrificially has become a total stranger to her. Instead of
giving her the comfort she so desperately searches his face for in her final moments on earth,
Julian completes the violent attack she suffered only moments before. McDermott contends it

isn’t the attack on Mrs. Chestny that kills her. Rather, he says, she died from looking into her
son’s face and seeing nothing (4). The “nothing” that she sees as her eyes “rake” her son’s soul is
“the equivalent of the total absence of goodness in Julian’s now vacuous spirit” (McDermott 2).
Pride killed his humanity and his ability to feel compassion. Julian resembles Satan more than
God, pouring salt in his mother’s physical wounds with angry taunts instead of words of mercy,
admonishing her like a child and saying, “I hope this teaches you a lesson” (O’Connor 419).
However, it is Julian who is about to learn a lesson of tragic proportions.
A rush of sorrow engulfs Julian as the gravity of the situation suddenly dawns on him.
He is beside himself with anguish as his mother crumples on the sidewalk and falls “at her side
crying ‘Mamma, Mamma!’” (420). But he is like a child unable to offer his mother any
consolation, in need of consolation himself. Everything he has believed in and relied on as a
source of identity fails him in this moment of greatest need. “Julian’s perverse intellectualism
suddenly pales before the stark reality of his mother’s death” and his belief that “he had cut
himself emotionally free from her and could see her with complete objectivity” is nothing but a
sham (Denham 3). Julian now recognizes his dependence on his mother.
He has been sheltered from convergence with the world by his mother, who has been
willing to deflect his pathos and foster the belief that he will eventually become something. Mrs.
Chestny’s attribution of Julian’s dour attitude to his immaturity and inexperience only serves to
contribute to his dependence on her. Absolved of accountability, Julian is free to hide behind the
masks of pride and intellectualism in order to remain detached from society. O’Connor believed
people resist convergence and that it takes a tragedy to force them out of isolation and into the
light of their true identity (Desmond 2). The tragedy that forces Julian’s convergence is his
mother’s death. Some critics speculate that Mrs. Chestny doesn’t die at the end of the story, but
if that were true, then the point of the story would be lost. Julian gets his wish to see his mother
punished, but it is Julian who “enters the world of guilt and sorrow” (Denham 4).

Mrs. Chestny experiences her own convergence as she struggles to find solace in a
familiar face. Not finding it in her son, she must resort to memories of the “Negro” nurse of her
childhood. The fact that she has to summon a memory from as far back as her childhood
suggests that she has led somewhat of an isolated life herself. But it is Julian, not his mother,
who has shirked the responsibility of forging survival for the self. “His perversions of her [his
mother’s] real values and his own prideful isolation have fostered a moral adolescence in which
he has no mature spiritual identity” (Denham 4). When his mother dies, Julian must face his
own true self. “He must face the void alone” (Denham 4).
Julian reaches a crisis as he loses the one person on earth he depends on. He experiences
an epiphany of life-altering proportions that will force him to connect with the rest of humanity,
to rise and converge. O’Connor referred to the one thing that stops people from rising as sin
(McFarland 2). Julian had led a life of one or all of the following: “entrenched pride; willful sin;
deliberate rejection of God, or possibly all three!” (Martin 120). He is “the personification of
pride” as evidenced by his treatment of his mother. Julian’s pride has been “so consuming” that
he hasn’t even been aware of how it has been changing him. The tragic violence against his
mother brusquely opens his eyes to his true self, and that is what traumatizes him (McDermott
2). Julian’s pride has caused him to lose his faith, but his moment of greatest sorrow is about to
become his moment of greatest grace.
Many of O’Connor’s stories concern God’s love and man’s ability to save his soul as he
receives the love as a gift of grace. Before the tragic loss of his mother, Julian had difficulty
accepting Christianity and the principle of divine grace as a result of his modern, rationalistic
intellect (Drake 273). After his mother’s death, Julian becomes one of O’Connor’s characters
who “are clearly in acceptance of grace after having lived insensitive to it” (Martin 133). Part of
God’s love is helping man to recognize His love (84). Mrs. Chestny’s death forces Julian to
confront “his betrayals and denials of love” (McFarland 3). At the end of the story, Julian is seen

running toward the lights, but “the tide of darkness seemed to sweep him back to her, postponing
from moment to moment his entry into the world of guilt and sorrow” (420). The lights might be
seen as the salvation of Christ. The “guilt and sorrow” indicate the inevitable struggle Julian will
face as he struggles to live less selfishly and more transparently, sharing the sufferings of Christ.
Julian’s excessive pride causes him to lose all touch with reality and subsequently
destroys his spirit (McDermott 2). Too proud to admit that he is bitter at having lost his heritage,
Julian hides behind a mask of intellectual superiority in order to isolate himself from human
connections. The consequence is total dependence on his mother, causing him further bitterness
and ultimately preventing his entrance to adulthood and his convergence with humanity. The
violence he witnesses is a result of his unwillingness to accept his true identity within “the
corporate unity” (Desmond 68-9). The death of Julian’s mother is the “terrible means by which
he can grow towards maturity” (Denham 5-6). It is, for Julian, a moment of grace. It is the
moment he “crosses over into maturity and knowledge” (Martin 132). It is the moment he
finally breaks loose from the tethers of deception and makes the choice to be a victor and not a
victim—to become the captain of his own soul in the sea of humanity. Exactly how Julian
navigates that sea remains a mystery to the reader except to know that he will, by choosing
grace, inevitably partake of the cup of sorrow that accompanies the circle of love.
WORKS CITED
Baumgaertner, Jill P. Flannery O’Connor: A Proper Scaring. Wheaton, Ill: Shaw, 1988.
Bloom, Harold. Bloom’s Major Short Story Writers: Flannery O’Connor. Broomhall: Chelsea,
1999.
Browning, Preston M., Jr. Flannery O’Connor. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1974.
Denham, Robert D. “The World of Guilt and Sorrow: Flannery O’Connor’s ‘Everything That
Rises Must Converge.’” The Flannery O’Connor Bulletin 6 (Autumn 1975): 42-51.
Gale. Online. Harper Coll. Lib. 14 Nov. 2000.

Desmond, John F. “The Lessons of History: Flannery O’Connor’s ‘Everything That Rises Must
Converge.’” The Flannery O’Connor Bulletin 1 (Autumn 1972). 39-45. Gale. Online.
Harper Coll. Lib. 14 Nov. 2000.
Drake, Robert. “Flannery O’Connor.” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 29. Ed. Stephen
King. Detroit: Gale, 1990. 273.
Grimshaw, Jr., James A. The Flannery O’Connor Comparison. Westport: Greenwood, 1981.
Martin, Carter W. The True Country: Themes in the Fiction of Flannery O’Connor. Kingsport:
Vanderbilt UP, 1969.
McDermott, John V. “Julian’s Journey into Hell: Flannery O’Connor’s Allegory of Pride.”
Mississippi Quarterly: The Journal of Southern Culture 28.2 (Spring 1975). 171-79.
McFarland, Dorothy Tuck. Flannery O’Connor. New York: Ungar, 1976.
O’Connor, Flannery. The Complete Stories. New York: Farrar, 1971.
True, Michael D. “Flannery O’Connor.” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 29. Ed. Stephen
King. Detroit: Gale, 1990. 272.
Walters, Dorothy. Flannery O’Connor. New York: Twayne, 1973.

5. Looking for the Good Man in Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is
Hard To Find” (a literary research paper)
ASSIGNMENT: Using secondary sources, write an interpretation of a Flannery O’Connor story.
Looking for the Good Man in Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To
Find”
by Bob Brown
Christianity is the underlying theme in much of Flannery O’Connor’s writing. As she
herself writes, “I write the way I do because (not though) I am a Catholic” (O’Connor, “On Her
Catholic Faith” 435). Without keeping her Christian background in focus, it is impossible to fully
understand and interpret O’Connor’s stories. Her major subjects, according to Frederick J.
Hoffman, include the struggle for redemption, the search for Jesus, and the meaning of
‘prophecy’ (33). Of these subjects, the struggle for redemption and the search for Jesus are the
major quests in a spiritually sensitive life. O’Connor’s stories, suggests Dorothy Walters, tell of
people in need of salvation and the violence that they encounter which wakes them up to that
need (23). It often takes a personal crisis to awaken someone to spiritual matters. In the context
of eternal spiritual realities, the crises in life, despite their ominous outward appearances, take on
a lesser significance than the spiritual realities that these crises often uncover. These
interpretations accurately describe the journey that the grandmother takes in “A Good Man Is
Hard To Find.” It is critical to read this story in light of O’Connor’s Christian focus and to look
for the faith message embodied by the characters and their experiences. In this story, the
grandmother's journey from manipulative self-absorption to grace symbolizes a Christian's
journey toward salvation.
As we begin to look at the grandmother, it is important to note that she is nameless. The
story opens, “The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida” (405). She is one of three main
characters in this story who are not given a name, the others being the children’s mother and the
Misfit. In the opening four paragraphs the grandmother is referred to three times and always
with her title rather than her name. Because the grandmother has no name and only a title, it is

possible to see her as a generic example of the average person. She represents all, and her
struggle with pride, manipulation, and self-importance is common to humankind.
Another aspect of the grandmother’s personality is her self-centeredness. As the story
opens, she is resisting the family’s plans for a vacation to Florida. “She wanted to visit some of
her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Baily’s mind”
(405). The word seizing implies more than a casual attempt. It shows that the grandmother is
exerting all her energy in a forceful, almost militant action to manipulate the situation and get her
own way. The primary reason that she brings up the newspaper article about the Misfit is to
attempt to change Baily’s mind about the family’s destination rather than as a serious concern
about the family’s safety. This demonstrates the grandmother’s selfish focus and her willingness
to manipulate others to achieve her own ends. Preston Browning says it well when he observes,
“The grandmother . . . displays a soul so empty that it seems to reverberate with the echoes of her
own incessant chatter. . . . [she is] smug [and] self-willed” (54). The center of the grandmother’s
soul is not filled with God but with herself and her own interests. This is an ungodly, sinful
condition.
A further aspect of her pride and self-focus is her obsession with her outward appearance.
She takes great effort to look well dressed despite the casual attire of the rest of the family. She
wore “A navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue
dress with a small white dot in the print…In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the
highway would know at once that she was a lady” (406). She is dressed in her Sunday best, as if
she were going to the Lord’s house. This is ironic because before the day is out she will meet
Jesus and go to His real house. As Miles Orvell observes, “she is somewhat prescient in this
regard, for if she is not precisely dressed to kill, this remnant of Southern gentility is, as it turns
out, dressed to be killed” (131). Having a proper and ladylike appearance, even in death, is
critical to the grandmother’s sense of self-worth. Appearance mattered to her above all else,
even her life.

Despite her orderly external appearance, the grandmother has some important internal
inconsistencies within her character. Due to her references to the Bible, Jesus, and praying, she
apparently views herself as a Christian lady, but she displays some very un-Christian values
while in the car. She tells the children, “Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!…Wouldn’t that
make a picture, now?” (406). These are racist words, coming from someone who believes in
Jesus. She is also good at lying and being manipulative. When she is losing the battle about
taking a side trip to visit the old plantation house, she has no hesitation in resorting to dishonesty.
“‘There was a secret panel in this house,’ she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that
she were, ‘and the story went that all the family silver was hidden in it when Sherman came
through but it was never found…’” (409). The word crafty shows how carefully the
grandmother is choosing her words to have the most powerful effect on the children. As much as
she may have wished for it to be the truth, it is a lie and she knows it. She is again making a
great effort to manipulate those around her. The allure of hidden treasure is sure to get the
children on her side. But for a woman who views herself as a Christian, and who wants to
project just the right appearance, it’s clear that the grandmother is a hypocrite who is really far
from living life as Jesus would want. The grandmother is a picture of anyone who doesn’t really
know Jesus and who goes through life giving the outward appearance of being good while her
inner life is full of inconsistencies. Something has to occur in a person’s life to jolt him/her out
of their self-absorbed world and enlighten them about what’s really important. For the
grandmother, this is about to happen.
She needs to confront her self-pride before she can truly find salvation. She believes that
her manipulation will be sufficient to save her from any situation. Even after the car accident,
which is largely her fault, she attempts to show herself as one to be pitied rather than blamed.
She is quick to say, “I believe I have injured an organ” (411) hoping to elicit sympathy from her
family. “The grandmother …[is] convinced of [her] inner capacity to deal with reality…until
[she is] suddenly confronted with forces more powerful than [herself]…For Flannery O’Connor,
the instruction of pride through the lessons of humility is…the means by which the soul is

prepared for its necessary illumination by the Holy Spirit” (Walters 73). In this story, as in many
of O’Connor’s stories, violence is the catalyst to effect change in the central character’s life,
beliefs, and fate.
Violence is a very powerful jolt to someone’s beliefs. The coming violence removes the
grandmother from her world of self-absorption and gives her the opportunity to find true
redemption and grace. The first hint of the violence to come occurs when the family catches
sight of the Misfit’s car. “The car continued to come on slowly…it was a black battered hearse-
like automobile” (411). The Misfit, like the grandmother, goes by a title rather than a name.
Being nameless, the Misfit is not just one man but represents a personification of evil in this
world. The title of Misfit accurately portrays evil’s relationship to God. Evil isn’t a part of
God’s plan for creation; therefore it doesn’t fit. The car that is used by the Misfit and his gang
represents mortality. The incessant pounding of the destruction that evil creates gives the car its
battered appearance. Evil brings death into this world just as the Misfit brings this symbol of
death into the grandmother’s presence. Like many people, the grandmother doesn’t leave her
world of hypocritical self-absorption until she is faced with her own mortality.
One by one, the Misfit’s men escort the grandmother’s family into the woods to be
murdered. As the last of her family is killed, “There was a piercing scream from the woods,
followed closely by a pistol report” (415), and only she and the Misfit are left. The
grandmother’s confrontation with her own mortality and her crisis of the soul begins. Preston
Browning observes that at her moment of crisis, faced with death, the grandmother resorts to the
tools that have served her well in life: her external appearance of Christianity, and her beliefs in
good breeding (Browning, 56). The many ways that the grandmother attempts to face evil all
stem from her own self-made fictions. Mary Jane Schenck argues, “In a desperate attempt to
cope with the threat posed by the murderer, the grandmother runs through her litany of
convenient fictions. She believes that there are class distinctions (‘I know you’re a good man at
heart. I can just look at you and tell’), that redemption can be achieved through work (‘You
could be honest too if you’d only try…’), and finally, that prayer will change him (‘Pray, pray,

she commanded him’)” (445). All of these attempts fail to deal with the evil of the world,
represented by the Misfit, that is confronting the grandmother. As O’Connor states, “The
heroine of this story, the grandmother, is in the most significant position life offers the Christian.
She is facing death. And to all appearances she, like the rest of us, is not too well prepared for it.
She would like to see the event postponed. Indefinitely” (“The Element of Suspense” 433).
While Christianity teaches eternal hope and salvation, the grandmother is acting out of
desperation. She realizes that she isn’t really a Christian and therefore she is unprepared to face
eternity. Despite her desperate attempts to diffuse the situation and escape her confrontation
with evil and her own mortality, the confrontation defies resolution.
It sometimes requires the removal of all external supports before a person is finally
prepared to receive God into his or her life. The grandmother sees her family murdered. This
removes her family from her life. She tries one last time to deal with this crisis by adjusting her
outward appearance, “The grandmother reached up to adjust her hat brim…but it came off in her
hand. She stood staring at it and after a second she let it fall on the ground” (412-413). This
attempt fails as her hat breaks, and it becomes apparent that this crisis won’t be solved by
outward appearances.
As her outward attempts at resolving this crisis fail, the grandmother turns inward. She
has intellectual knowledge of Jesus, and at this point, the grandmother and the Misfit enter into a
thoughtful exploration of His life. As this conversation reaches its climax, the Misfit, the
portrayal of evil incarnate, has started to become emotional. “’Listen lady,’ he said in a high
voice, ‘if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn’t be like I am now.’ His voice
seemed about to crack” (415). This now ceases to be an intellectual conversation about the facts
surrounding Jesus and instead reaches the true core of the Christian message.
Knowing facts about God doesn’t save a person; it takes a personal relationship with
Him. God must be let inside a life for that life to be saved. With everything external and
internal stripped away from her life, the grandmother finally finds redemption and enters into a
real relationship with Jesus. “The grandmother’s head cleared for an instant. She saw the man’s

face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, ‘Why you’re one of
my babies. You’re one of my own children!’ She reached out and touched him on the shoulder”
(415). Paulson says that now the grandmother, realizing that all people, regardless of their
deeds, are related to one another, experiences her epiphany (91). God created everyone;
therefore all people without regard to their actions or breeding are His children. This is a
Christian belief, one very different from the grandmother’s view of people earlier in this story.
A further interpretation of this line comes from Margaret Whitt: “The grandmother, to this point
in the story, has not said anything that could be mistaken as seriously thoughtful. One reading of
this moment is that the grandmother sees the charade that her own life has been in this split
second before her existence is blown away” (47). The grandmother sees the fact that she and the
Misfit are fellow creatures of God, and she finally sees that external appearances are
meaningless. She has finally met the real Jesus. As even the Misfit says about Jesus, “If He did
what He said, than it’s nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him, and if
He didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you
can…” (415). Until this point, the grandmother has been living the latter, living life the best way
that she could, which included manipulating others to achieve her own ends. It takes the extreme
violence brought by the Misfit to wake her up from her self-absorption. Now that she has really
met Jesus, she, in her spirit, throws away everything else that has previously been important to
her and is now following Jesus. She has dropped her attempts to manipulate and control and can
finally express real love. She is facing an evil man who, with his gang, has brutally murdered
her family, and she is now able to show him tenderness, love, and grace. Her ability to love her
enemy is one of the truest signs that she has really met Jesus.
Jesus repels evil, and the reaction of the Misfit to the grandmother’s love and grace is
another proof that she now knows the Lord. As soon as she shows Christian grace and love,
“The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest”
(415). Evil can’t accept Christian love and therefore must escape from it. The Misfit escapes it
by killing the grandmother.

There is symbolism in the grandmother’s death. The three bullets fired from the Misfit’s
gun represent the Holy Trinity. The three bullets were truly inside of her just as the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit were now truly living inside of her. The grandmother is shot through the chest,
which is where her heart is. God has penetrated her heart as the bullets penetrated her chest, and
God is having a life changing impact on her soul as the bullets have a life ending impact on her
body. When the Misfit says, “She would have been a good woman…if it had been somebody
there to shoot her every minute of her life” (416), he explains that receiving Christ is not a one-
time event. A person must continually seek to have his or her heart filled with God every day.
The posture of the Grandmother after her death is also symbolic. “Hiram and Bobby Lee
[were]…looking down at the grandmother who half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her
legs crossed under her like a child’s and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky” (416). Her legs
are crossed, referring to the cross of Jesus. She is lying in her own blood, symbolizing how her
spirit is now resting in the sacrificial blood of Jesus. Now that her spirit has been freed from her
body she has gone to join her Lord in heaven. The comparison of her posture to a child’s is
significant because Jesus said that to be a follower of His, you have to have the faith of a child
(Matthew 18:2-4). Now that all adult pretense and externalities are gone, the grandmother has
finally gotten to the deep level of true faith. She has the faith of a child. The final symbolism of
her death scene is that she is smiling up at the cloudless sky. As her spirit is ascending to God in
heaven, her face can finally smile. The fact that she finds salvation and that there is no reference
to her family being saved is also Biblical. The Gospel writer Matthew observes, “But small is
the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:14). The
grandmother is one of the few who responds to the pressure of crisis by receiving the Lord’s
salvation. Her family also dies, but apparently without finding God.
With the grandmother’s death, it is possible to identify the real focus of this story. What
is the identity of the “Good Man” who is allegedly hard to find? The answer is found by
following the path of the grandmother on her faith journey. The exploration of the consequences
of her prideful, selfish, manipulative, and empty life demonstrates that the good man is not

anyone like the grandmother. The good man is certainly not like the Misfit, his men, or any of
the other people in this story. In the end, the grandmother discovers that the only real Good Man
is Jesus2. It is, indeed, possible to find Him, but it takes a journey of faith. The grandmother
must abandon all of her manipulative self-absorption, her focus on class and her external show of
Christianity. In exchange for her sinfulness, she is given the Grace of God, forgiveness and the
hope of Paradise. In the end, she finally meets Jesus and is transformed by the Grace of God.
This enables her to show love and grace towards the Misfit, who has just had her family brutally
murdered. For the grandmother it is hard to find the Good Man, but at the end of her journey she
finally finds Him and is now with Him in Paradise.
2 During my research for this paper I ran across the concept of the Good Man in this story being Jesus. I cannot
find the specific reference for this concept but I believe that it came from one of the books in either my Works
Cited or Works Consulted lists.

WORKS CITED
Browning Jr., Preston M. Flannery O’Connor. Carbondale: Southern Il UP, 1974.
Hoffman, Frederick J. “The Search for Redemption: Flannery O’Connor’s Fiction.” The Added
Dimension: The Art and Mind of Flannery O’Connor. Eds. Melvin J. Friedman and
Lewis A. Lawson. New York: Fordham UP, 1977. 32-48.
O’Connor, Flannery. “The Element of Suspense in ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find.’” In “On Her
Own Work.” 1963. Rpt. in Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama.
Eds. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 8th ed. New York: Longman, 2002. 432-434.
---. “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” 1955. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and
Drama. Eds. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 8th ed. New York: Longman, 2002. 405-
416.
---. “On Her Catholic Faith.” In “The Habit of Being.” 1955. Rpt. In Literature: An
Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Eds. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 8th ed.
New York: Longman, 2002. 435.
Paulson, Suzanne Morrow. Flannery O’Connor: A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston: Twayne,
1988.
Orvell, Miles. Invisible Parade: The Fiction of Flannery O’Connor. Philidelphia: Temple UP,
1972.
Schenck, Mary Jane. “Deconstructing ‘A Good Man Is Hard To Find’.” 1988. Rpt. In
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Eds. X.J. Kennedy and Dana
Gioia. 8th ed. New York: Longman, 2002. 435.
Walters, Dorothy. Flannery O’Connor. Boston: Twayne, 1973.
Whitt, Margaret Earley. Understanding Flannery O’Connor. Columbia: U of South Carolina P,

1997. 43-48.
WORKS CONSULTED
Friedman, Melvin J. and Friedman, Lewis A, eds. The Added Dimension: The Art and Mind of
Flannery O’Connor. Lawson. New York: Fordham UP, 1977.
Hendin, Josephine. The World of Flannery O’Connor. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1970.

6. Masculinity and Money: Glengarry Glen Ross (a literary essay)
ASSIGNMENT: Write an essay explaining how the scenes added or deleted from the film version
of Glengarry Glen Ross reinforce the concept of masculinity found in the screenplay.
Masculinity and Money: Gleng arry Glen Ross

by Helen Johnson
“Always be closing.” This is the basic building block for a definition of masculinity in
David Mamet’s play Glengarry Glen Ross. According to the characters’ dialogue, masculinity
stands as the most important characteristic for any salesman and is only achievable by proficient
ones. In both the play and the film, the audience hears that a salesman’s masculinity is based,
almost exclusively, on his ability to sell products to his customers. However, the characters
compromise their masculinity many times over in their quest to “be a man.” Every character,
from the down-on-his-luck Shelly Levene to the top seller Ricky Roma, is involved in an
emasculating occurrence. Even Barker, the added film character played by Alec Baldwin, alludes
to effeminate actions. The audience draws several conclusions about Mamet’s concept of
masculinity, all stemming from the realization that the writer does not agree with his characters’
beliefs on the matter. The added and altered scenes in the movie reinforce the notion that
masculinity is not and cannot be achieved through the methods and theories of the characters.
George Aaronow’s character in both the play and movie embodies exactly what all of the
others are afraid of becoming: perpetually unsuccessful. Aaronow is not “always closing.” In fact
for the past few months, at least, he is never closing; therefore, he and his colleagues are unable
to consider him as masculine. In the film, Aaronow is more than an ineffective salesman; he is
hopelessly and helplessly effeminate. While the play does not show Aaronow even attempting a
sale, the movie reveals severe incompetence in his trade despite his best efforts. Several times in
the film, attempting to find a willing party, Aaronow places phone calls to his “leads,” but his
efforts are exhausted and he resorts to accompanying Moss on a sit. While the character’s
dialogue remains mostly unaltered from the play, except for his added phone conversations, the
ride with Moss, and participation in the meeting with Barker, the portrayal of Aaronow in the

film stresses that if a salesman cannot close a deal then he is incapable of being a man. In the
play and even more so in the film, Aaronow stutters and roughs his way through conversations,
implying a less masculine character. His speech and mannerisms create a character almost
entirely feminine. The audience’s impression of him, however, is challenged by his choice not to
burglarize the office. While Moss tries desperately to convince him that this is his last chance at
manhood, Aaronow chooses morality. He is not hailed as masculine by the characters in the
story, but in the world outside of the film morality, he is widely perceived as the better, if not
more masculine, choice.
Aaronow’s character most often directly contrasts that of David Moss. The two
characters share a lengthy exchange in the play, and two in the film. Moss acts like a man: he
uses profanity, he yells, he imposes his physical and mental power over anyone who shows him a
weakness. However, Moss sells far less land than his demeanor implies. In fact, Roma even
comments on his lack of any “good” sales in the recent past. In the added scene with Baker,
Moss endures a berating that shakes his confidence to the point that, as the viewer can see on his
face, his masculine façade cracks. This addition to the storyline provides a motivation for the
Moss conversation with Aaronow in his car—also an added scene—and for his plan to burglarize
the office. Rejected by yet another potential buyer, Moss and Aaronow discuss Mitch and
Murray’s business philosophy. The two distraught salesmen conclude that the blame for their
inability belongs to the policymakers because they created a slave mentality and destroyed the
confidence of their employees. Moss uses this blame to escape his own culpability and retain
what little masculinity his delusions allow. However, his inability to amass sufficient confidence
drives him to find an accomplice to robbery. The audience recognizes that if Moss were truly the
“man” he attempted to be, he would break into the office, steal the leads, and disappear without
any help. Yet terrified of the consequences of such actions, Moss seeks help from his co-
workers. While he utilizes Aaronow’s and, later we discover, Levene’s, perception of his
masculinity to undermine their better judgment, Moss’s real motivation—fear—fails to fulfill the
prevalent concept of masculinity.

Much like Moss, Shelly Levene uses most of his energy attempting to maintain his
masculinity. More so in the film than in the play, the audience sees his artifice vacillate between
varying degrees of strength and plausibility. Viewers are privy to a side of Levene hidden in the
play: While his reactions to Barker are strong and forceful—he is easily perceived as a man
standing up for himself and his peers—the film opens with Levene talking on the phone about
his hospital-laden daughter. In this conversation, and the others added in the film about his
daughter, Levene embodies many of the traits excluded from the definition of masculinity in
both the film and play. Out of desperation, Levene begs Williamson for “the premium leads.”
Instead of conversing in the restaurant, as originally set in the manuscript, in the film Levene
chases Williamson outside in the rain and then into his car begging to make a deal for more
promising sales contacts. Levene lives in his past successes, and uses them as an unspoken
promise to Williamson that he is capable of “closing a deal,” and therefore capable of being a
man. However, in his film visit to the Spano residence, Levene’s failure is only perpetuated as he
attempts to assert his contrived, masculine power and is forcefully rejected yet again. Levene’s
reaction to incessant failure slowly appears on his face, as the image of a once-feigned
confidence gives way to that of a distraught and desperate person. According to the standards of
the play, he cannot even be considered a man because of his inability to close.
Act two, the day after the robbery in the film, reveals a completely changed Levene. He
brings an $82,000 signed contract into the office along with renewed self-confidence. His
“manhood” affirmed by the check in his pocket, he no longer begs or attempts to ingratiate
himself with Williamson. Instead, he is belligerent and openly shares his thoughts on the
malevolent office manager. While these scenes are relatively unaltered from the original script,
Jack Lemmon’s characterization of Levene by a tremendous inflation of his ego and confidence
reveals in words, tone, and action exactly what masculinity is to the employees at Premiere
Properties. Shelly Levene made a sale and he brought in money; therefore he must be a man.
Then, when he realizes that his contract means nothing, he almost immediately admits to his own
guilt.

Money creating masculinity appears as a common theme in Glengarry Glen Ross;
Richard (Ricky) Roma sells the most land for the never-seen Mitch and Murray. His character
epitomizes masculinity as defined by this play. In fact, his character is excused from the
calumnious meeting with Barker in the film. His abilities exceed those of his peers exponentially,
and the added scenes in the film only confirm his “manhood.” However, during his conversation
with Lingk, Roma’s position slowly changes from one of power to one that appears submissive.
In fact, when Roma opens the brochure for land in Florida, he slides underneath Lingk’s resting
arm before making any detectable sales pitch. With this subtle action, Roma instantly put himself
in a typically docile, or feminine, position. His tactic, while carefully planned to give Lingk the
illusion of power, highlights the irony present in the entire film. This minute piece of visual
information increases the viewer’s skepticism about the concept of masculinity presented by the
characters.
The exclusion from the film of another brief exchange detracts from the viewer’s ability
to draw a clear connection between money and masculinity. In the play, while Levene is facing
his culpability and inevitable prison-time, Roma pulls Williamson aside and attempts to
negotiate a deal, whereby he would receive a portion of all Levene’s future sales. By removing
this portion of dialogue from the film, the audience is denied the idea that Roma has been
overcome by his desire for money—thereby masculinity—and has quite possibly been achieving
success by taking money from the other salesmen’s accomplishments. This scene also shows the
reader that Roma has lost any sense of morality or ethics; he succumbs completely to this idea
that selling land is the only means of achieving manhood. His belief that money creates a man is
enforced by the film as Levene enters the office while Roma chastises the detective and
proclaims Levene as a hero, as “The Machine.” This action creates a possibility for the audience
to believe that Roma in fact may be a man by standards outside of the world of his office.
However, his immediate action reminds the viewer that his only true concern is for making
money. In the film it is not the detective who refuses Levene’s request for Roma, as it is written
in the play; instead, before Levene utters one last request of his co-worker, Roma is already on

the phone with his next client. Roma’s commitment to his job, to making money, and
subsequently to being “a man,” serves as the culmination of the definition of masculinity
presented in the play.
Roma’s masculine counterpart in the film does not appear in the play, and is named by
the movie’s credits as Barker and nothing more. Played by Alec Baldwin, this egomaniacal
salesman dramatizes Mamet’s intended concept of masculinity more clearly than any other
character. He berates Moss, Aaronow, and Levene as incompetent and therefore not worthy of
their occupation and not fit to be considered men. Weak leads do not exist in his mind, only
weak salesmen. A salesman who cannot close a sale, he explains, is worthless and capable of as
much masculinity as a homosexual. Masculinity as defined by the employees of Premiere
Properties is summed up in Barker’s speech: “Your name is ‘You’re Wanting,’ you can’t play in
the man’s game, you can’t close them, then go home and tell your wife your troubles…They’re
sitting out there, wanting to give you their money. Are you going to take it? Are you man enough
to take it?” According to Barker, it is impossible to be successful in the real estate business as
anything less than a powerful, assertive, and fearless man—“it takes brass balls to sell real
estate.” When met with opposition, Barker shares his masculinity with Moss by enumerating his
monetary accomplishments. “You drove here in a Hyundai and I drove here in an $80,000
BMW”; “You see that watch? That watch cost more than your car”; “I made $970,000 last year--
how much did you make?” His statements all clarify the concept that masculinity is created by
one’s ability to make money and by his ability to manipulate the consumer in order to make
more money.
Barker clearly believes that his victims in the office are incapable of fulfilling his
challenge, and will all lose their jobs; still he attacks their pride and their confidence with
unrelenting ferocity. However, a crack in his own façade appears with one question from Moss:
“So, why are you here?” Beneath his profanity and sheer force of speech, the audience can see
that Barker, too, must submit to someone. He came “as a favor” to Mitch and Murray. Truly,
though, if Barker were as confident and capable as he portrayed, he would not be working for

them, nor would he be indebted to them or even obliged to do them any favors. The only logical
reason he traveled to the run-down office to castigate a group of men whom he deemed
“worthless” is that in order to maintain confidence in his own masculinity he needed to exert
power over someone else. This classic insecurity elucidates the clash that Mamet intends.
Throughout the play and the film, masculinity is portrayed as a result of the use of power
to facilitate the deprecation and exploitation of others. However, as events unfold, the audience
notices that the masculinity of the characters is only a guise used to mask dwindling confidence
and overwhelming fear. The added and altered scenes in the movie reinforce Mamet’s message
that in this office—a microcosm of a capitalistic culture—everything is lost, including
masculinity, as each person allows greed and hunger for power to control his entire life. We find
from the portrayal of these salesmen that the masculinity they seek is not truly manhood; instead
it is the strength and moneymaking power necessary to hide their dishonesty, weakness, and fear.
WORKS CITED
Glengarry Glen Ross. Dir. James Foley. Perf. Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Ed
Harris. New Line Cinema, 1992.
Mamet, David. Glengarry Glen Ross. New York: Grove Press, 1984.

7. “Such a Mad Marriage Never was Before:” Kate and Petruchio in The
Taming of the Shrew (a literary research paper)
ASSIGNMENT: Write a literary research paper in the MLA style. Draw from at least five sources,
including a scholarly book, an article from a scholarly periodical, and an Internet source.
“Such a Mad Marriage Never was Before: ”

Kate and Petru chio in The Taming of the Shrew
By Rachel Natale
Many plays have created controversy, and The Taming of the Shrew is no exception.
People have debated such things as Petruchio’s methods of “taming” and Kate’s speech at the
end of the play. Many think that Petruchio’s methods are harsh and Kate’s final speech
contrived. Neither of these opinions are accurate, however. To tame Kate, Petruchio uses
psychological methods, not aggressive or barbaric ones, that allow her to still be witty and
intellectual, but also happily married, at the end of the play. In the course of The Taming of the
Shrew, Kate and Petruchio’s relationship grows from one of verbal sparring and disagreement to
one of peace and balance.
Kate, called “Katherine the curst” (I, ii, 127, 29) by just about everyone, “wants
admiration--in fact, she wants a husband; but she feels that her lack of self-command has become
an insuperable obstacle to marriage” (Snider 3). Kate’s actions and speech do not help her in
attracting a husband, but it is really no wonder Kate acts the way she does. Hortensio and
Gremio make fun of her, and her father favors Bianca over her. As Velvet D. Pearson points out,
“[Kate] is surrounded by men who want to buy and sell her. Baptista, like any smart merchant,
wants to get rid of his unpopular goods before selling his prize, Bianca, off to the highest bidder.
He even stands by and allows Gremio and Hortensio to insult Kate and doesn’t deign to reply to
her ‘I pray you sir, is it your will/To make a stale of me amongst these mates?’ (1.1.57-58)”
(232). The assumption that the insults don’t bother Kate because she is a shrew is incorrect.
“The fact that she is a shrew does not mean that she cannot have hurt feelings . . . , indeed a
shrew may be defined--once she develops beyond a mere stereotype--as a person who has an
excess of hurt feelings and is taking revenge on the world for them” (Heilman lxxviii). Kate’s

shrewishness leads to taunting from other people, but their taunting leads her to become more
shrewish--a vicious cycle that can only be broken by someone willing to tame her.
Petruchio, “a mad man in his senses; a very honest fellow, who hardly speaks a word of
truth, and succeeds in all his tricks and impostures” (Hazlitt 1), comes into town “to see [his]
friends in Padua” (I, ii, 2, 24), but also “to wive it wealthily in Padua; If wealthily, then happily
in Padua” (I, ii, 74-5, 27). As a suitor of Bianca, Hortensio sees Petruchio as an opportunity to
marry off Kate in order to free Bianca for marriage. Although Hortensio tries to warn Petruchio
about Kate (“[h]er only fault--and that is faults enough--Is that she is intolerable curst/And
shrewd and froward” [I, ii, 87-89, 28]), “Petruchio, apparently experienced in battle, is not
deterred by her reputation” (Shirley 2). He assumes, because he has “heard lions roar,” “heard
the sea, puffed up with winds,” and “heard great ordinance in the field” (I, ii, 200-3, 31-2), that
Kate will be no match for him. Without so much as meeting Kate, Petruchio decides to woo her-
-with excitement even. Later, when Hortensio explains that Kate “broke the lute to” him (II, i,
148, 41), Petruchio exclaims, “I love her ten times more than e’er I did. O how I long to have
some chat with her!” (II, i, 161-62, 42). Petruchio is anxious to meet the woman who will turn
out to be his match, and he already has plans working in his head for their first meeting (II, i,
170-80, 42). As it turns out, “[h]is experience prepares him well for the task; he can meet
caprice with caprice, and if need be, blow with blow” (Snider 6).
When Kate and Petruchio first meet, they immediately begin to match wits and play off
of each other’s comments. Kate matches Petruchio’s greeting of “Good Morrow, Kate, for that’s
your name, I hear” (II, i, 182, 43, emphasis added) with “Well you have heard, but something
hard of hearing. They call me Katherine that do talk of me” (II, i, 183-84, 43, emphasis added).
Right from the beginning, Kate shows Petruchio two things: she is quick witted, and she will not
be wooed easily. From this first meeting, the reader gets a glimpse into what future exchanges
between Kate and Petruchio will be like. Kate plays off of Petruchio’s word “hear” by using it
twice in her reply. Going against what Kate has just said, Petruchio calls her “Kate” instead of
Katherine ten times in his reply passage (II, i, 185-90, 43) and confesses that he is “moved to

woo thee for my wife” (II, i, 194, 43). Petruchio’s “moved” turns into Kate’s “moveable,” “a
joint stool,” to which Petruchio replies, “[t]hou hast hit it, come sit on me” (II, i, 194-8, 43). In
this meeting, Petruchio sees Kate for who she really is--an intellectual, witty woman--and is
excited to pull her out from her defenses. Kate and Petruchio continue to play this verbal ping-
pong game for four more pages. Even though Kate objects to marrying Petruchio, and as much
as she may deny it, there is no doubt from this first encounter that Kate enjoys this verbal
sparring and that she has met her match.
Peter F. Heaney seems to think of this first exchange as “an act of terrorism,” an
“immediate assault,” and, most absurdly, “a form of verbal rape” by Petruchio (6). All of these
accusations are false. Petruchio is most assuredly testing the waters with Kate, having her prove
herself intellectually before he decides to marry her. Judging by Petruchio’s character thus far,
he would not be content with a wife like Bianca who cannot hold her own verbally or have her
own thoughts. As Pearson points out, “[h]e serves as a mirror in the games they play; [Kate]
perceives his ‘insane’ behavior in the same manner in which men see her ‘insane’ behavior. Yet
Petruchio, unlike the other men in the play, enjoy his wife’s intelligence and wit, and expends
much time and effort encouraging her how to use them in a challenging way” (240). The same
goes for Kate; she would not be happy with a man who would be scared off by her opinions and
confidence to speak them. The very fact that Kate stays to talk to Petruchio shows some interest
on her part. “Kate must ultimately submit to a male if her life is to be tolerable, and part of her
wants to be tamed. Petruchio’s masterfulness undermines her pride in her own aggressiveness,
awakens her self-effacing side, and promises to relieve her of the burden of her wildness, which
makes her an anomalous figure in her society” (Paris 341). For Kate to be tamed and get married
is a good thing, as long as she finds the right man. She, like Petruchio, wants to make sure that
she embarks on the journey with someone worthy of her. Petruchio and Kate may have enjoyed
their first encounter with each other, but it is during and after the wedding that the real fun
begins.

All of Petruchio’s actions towards Kate are intended to mirror her behavior and, in turn,
tame her. Denton J. Snider has this feeling about Petruchio: “The course of drama will reveal the
true impelling power of his conduct--it is the pleasure which he takes in taming just such a shrew
by means of her own shrewishness. . . . His method is clear and logical; serve up her own
character to her . . .” (6). First, Petruchio “disappoints [Kate] by not returning at the time he has
promised to wed her, and when he returns, creates no small consternation by the oddity of his
dress and equipage” (Hazlitt 3). The way Petruchio dresses at his wedding is just the first
example of how he uses unconventional ways of taming Kate. Biondello describes Petruchio’s
inappropriate clothing to Tranio and Baptista, “Petruchio is coming in a new hat and an old
jerkin; a pair of old breeches thrice turned; a pair of boots that have been candle-cases; one
buckled, another laced; an old rusty sword ta’en out of the town armory, with a broken hilt and
chapeless; with two broken points . . .” (III, ii, 43-8, 57). It appears to everyone that it is very
odd for Petruchio to be dressed like this on his wedding day, “[b]ut as Tranio observes he ‘has
some meaning in his mad attire.’ His dress is a parallel to Kate’s equally ‘mad’ attitude that only
Petruchio sees as being something which is donned but not so easily doffed as his outlandish
garb” (Sanders 2). To everyone else, Petruchio’s clothes seem out of place, but to him, they are
the perfect way to begin taming Kate.
Petruchio’s second display of taming genius occurs at his house, during his and Kate’s
first meal together, “a travesty of a feast” (Sanders 1). Before the meal begins, Grumio describes
to Curtis Petruchio’s behavior on the trip back from Baptista’s (IV, i, 68-80, 68-69) to which
Curtis replies, “[b]y this reck’ning he is more shrew than she” (IV, i, 81, 69). In this one line,
Curtis sums up Petruchio’s plans and the object of his behavior at the coming meal. “Barking
correctives about everything from his slippers to the meat, Petruchio here intentionally mimics
Katherine’s shrewishness, admitting later that the faults he finds are ‘undeserved’ (4.1.186)”
(Christensen 32). Petruchio and Kate arrive, and Petruchio begins his performance immediately
by yelling at his servants for not being at the door when he arrived (IV, i, 119-21, 70). When the
food is served, Petruchio yells at Peter, “‘[t]is burnt, and so is all the meat. What dogs are these!

Where is the rascal cook? How durst you, villains, bring it from the dresser, And serve it thus to
me that love it not?” and proceeds to throw the food and dishes at them (IV, i, 155-59, 72). Kate,
probably surprised and uncomfortable by her new husband’s actions, is, for once and maybe the
first time, the voice of reason and optimism, “I pray you, husband, be not so disquiet. The meat
was well if you were so contented” (IV, i, 162-63, 72), when in the past she may have made such
remarks herself.
Bernard J. Paris has commented that this scene shows Petruchio “capable of violence by
capriciously beating his servants, with Kate vainly trying to intercede on their behalf” (342), but
this is not altogether correct. Petruchio’s treatment of his servants is not a whim. They are
helping him prove a point to Kate, and they are not unaware of the reasons behind his behavior.
They live with Petruchio and no doubt know his everyday behavior to be contrary to his current
behavior. Peter knows what is going on and says about Petruchio, “[h]e kills her in her own
humor” (IV, i, 174, 72). Kate’s vain interception is also part of Petruchio’s plan. He’s helping
her sympathetic side to come out and succeeds in doing so.
If it were not for the fact that Petruchio joins her in deprivation of food, Kate
would become a woman completely defeated by a tyrant. Petruchio’s
recognition that he is as volatile as she softens his behavior considerably:
‘And better ‘twere that both of us did fast,/Since of ourselves, ourselves are
choleric,/Than feed it with such overroasted flesh’ (4.1.173-75). (Pearson 234)
Rather than eating in front of her, or making her leave while he stays to eat, Petruchio leaves the
table with Kate, proving his behavior to be not selfish but selfless.
Though the explanation of the wedding night is short, it holds a great deal of meaning. If
all of Petruchio’s behavior up to this point had been merely for his own amusement or without
reason, he would surely choose to consummate the marriage on the wedding night. Instead,
Petruchio chooses to “[make] a sermon of continency to [Kate]” (IV, i, 176, 73), showing that he
is really interested in polishing her character rather than just making her a subordinate wife. He
“has the decency to respect Kate’s person on the wedding night, choosing to lecture her on
continence rather than enter the marriage bed. Surely this is an action from a many-faceted,
sensitive character. Such kindness from a husband was not often the case in Elizabethan or later

times; many women were forced to perform in the bridal bed before they were ready (Dash 54-
56)” (Pearson 234). This action alone defends Petruchio against accusations that he is a
domineering man simply looking for superiority over his wife. Undoubtedly, if Petruchio had
made a different choice on the wedding night, the play would not be the same.
Through all of his outrageous methods, Petruchio succeeds in taming Kate, and Kate
“discover[s] love through the discovery of her own identity” (Bean 66). “In the process of the
play, Petruchio has explained to Kate, with the same care and patience that he might have used in
training his hawk, how to take her place in the harmony of human society” (Williams 21). Kate
has changed due to Petruchio’s taming, and he is even willing to bet on it. At the banquet at the
end of the play, Baptista says to Petruchio, “Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio, I think thou
hast the veriest shrew of all” (V, ii, 63-4, 104) to which Petruchio responds, “Well, I say no” and
suggests that each man send for his wife, and whoever’s wife comes first will win the bet (V, ii,
65, 104). Not only is Kate the only one who comes when sent for--winning the bet for
Petruchio--but she proceeds to drag the other women into the room and scolds them for
disrespecting their husbands. “Just as Petruchio enjoys making the bet, so Kate enjoys helping
him win as the length and care of her performance demonstrate (Leggatt 61)” (Pearson 237-8).
(In contrast, Bianca says to Lucentio after losing the bet for him, “The more fool you for laying
on my duty” [V, ii, 129, 107].) If Kate were unhappy in her marriage or felt that she had to make
a speech, she would have undoubtedly kept quiet instead of giving a speech praising marriage. It
is in Kate’s final speech that the reader sees her at her finest: “[t]hy husband is thy lord, thy life,
thy keeper, thy head, thy sovereign--one that cares for thee” (V, ii, 146-7, 108). Her speech is
not that of an inferior wife, but of a woman who loves and respects her husband. This is the
inner Kate that had been hiding all the time. Pearson points out that in her speech, Kate “chooses
to emphasize positive aspects of woman in the context of marriage” (236), again showing her
newfound ability to be optimistic. Kate has grown to love and respect Petruchio and has
“achieve[d] a fullness of life that she could not have enjoyed as a conventional shrew” (Shirley

2). She can now be appreciated for who she is by someone who is willing to see her for what she
is.
WORKS CITED
Bean, John C. “Comic Structure and the Humanizing of Kate in The Taming of the Shrew.”
The Woman’s Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed. Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz,
Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1983. 65-78.
Christensen, Ann C. “Petruchio’s House in Postwar Suburbia: Reinventing the Domestic

Woman (Again).” Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities 17. 1 (Dec. 1994): 28-
42.
Hazlitt, William. “A review of The Taming of the Shrew.” Characters of Shakespear’s Plays &
Lectures on the English Poets.” Macmillan, 1903. 191-95. Rpt. Shakespearean
Criticism, Vol. 9. Literature Resource Center. 11 Nov 2002
<http://www.galenet.com/servlet/ LitRC?c=17&stab=512&ste=41&printer=1&doc>.
Heaney, Peter F. “Petruchio’s Horse: Equine and Household Mismanagement in The Taming of
the Shrew.” Early Modern Literary Studies 4.1 (May 1998): 2.1-12. 30 Nov 2002
<http://www.shu.ac.uk/emls/04-1/heanshak.html>.
Heilman, Robert B. “Introduction.” William Shakespeare. The Taming of the Shrew. Ed.
Robert B. Heilman. New York: Penguin, 1998. lxiii-lxxxii.
Paris, Bernard J. “Petruchio’s Taming of Kate: A Horneyan Perspective: Commentary on Roger

Sealey’s ‘The Psychology of the Shrew and Shrew Taming.’” American Journal of
Psychoanalysis 54.4 (Dec. 1994): 339-44.
Pearson, Velvet D. “In Search of a Liberated Kate in The Taming of the Shrew.” Rocky
Mountain Review of Language and Literature 44.4 (1990): 229-42.
Sanders, Norman. “Themes and Imagery in The Taming of the Shrew.” Renaissance Papers.
(1963). Rpt. Shakespeare for Students, Book II. Literature Resource Center. 11 Nov
2002 <http://www.galenet.com/servlet/LitRc?c=22&stab=512&ste=41&printer=1&doc>.
Shakespeare, William. The Taming of the Shrew. Ed. Robert B. Heilman. New York:
Penguin, 1998. 1-109.
Shirley, Frances A. “The Taming of the Shrew: Overview.” Reference Guide to English
Literature. 2nd ed. Ed. D.L. Kirkpatrick. St. James Press. (1991). Literature Resource
Center. 11 Nov 2002
<http://www.galenet.com/servlet/LitRc?c=8&stab=512&ste=41&printer=1&docN>.
Snider, Denton J. “A review of The Taming of the Shrew.” The Shakespearean Drama, a
Commentary: The Comedies, 1890? Rpt. Indiana Publishing Co. 1894. 77-101. Rpt.
Shakespearean Criticism, Vol. 9. Literature Resource Center. 11 Nov 2002
<http://www.galenet.com/servlet/LitRc?c=20&stab=512&ste=41&printer=1&doc>.

Williams, George Walton. “Kate and Petruchio: Strength and Love.” English Language Notes
29. 1 (Sept. 1991): 18-24.

4 Writing Critiques and Reviews
4a. Developing a Perspective on Critiques and
Reviews
1. The Aims of Critiques and Reviews
Critics criticize. But their role involves more than complaining and bad mouthing. The word “critic”
comes from the Greek kritikós, meaning skilled in judging. It is related to other words meaning to
separate or decide. Critics may just as well praise as condemn. When you write as a critic, you do
the kind of critical thinking described in Chapter 1 of The Ready Reference Handbook as you
classify what you’re criticizing, compare it to related topics, evaluate it, and sometimes make
recommendations.
Here is another misunderstanding about critics: Mention the word “evaluate” and some people
think of opinions and the phrase, “Well, it’s only my opinion, but . . .” It’s easy to imagine a
critic’s business as little more than expressing “personal opinions”--quirky, half-baked impressions
biased by habits of subjective preference. But look again at the definition of critics and criticism. To
be skilled in judging means more than having opinions; it means having the experience necessary
for sound judgment. Good critics have been playing their role long enough to know first hand and
in detail the subjects they criticize.
And they know how to criticize because they know what standards of value apply to their subjects.
Standards of value are yardsticks, points of comparison, or principles of ethical behavior,
usefulness, or art that help them measure their subjects and decide whether they’re good, bad, or
middling. They are not matters of personal preference; they are objective, public standards of good
taste critics often share with one another and their audiences. Listen to essayist Mark Kramer
evaluate American tomatoes grown for mass consumption:
Tomatoes we remember from the past tasted rich, delicate,

and juicy. Tomatoes hauled home in today’s grocery bag taste
bland, tough, and dry. The new taste is the taste of modern
agriculture.
--“The Ruination of the Tomato,” from The Atlantic Monthly
Kramer dislikes modern tomatoes not because he ate stewed tomatoes when he was a child or
because they give him hives, but because they don’t meet his standards for good tomatoes. Do you
share his standards of taste and texture? If so, then you probably judge modern, commercially
grown tomatoes the same way.
Now listen to student Donald Woodson critique the design of contemporary American suburbs:

The suburb near Chicago where I live, and most other
suburbs where I’ve lived or visited, illustrate the paradox
of modern American life. On the one hand, they dramatize the
democratic dream to live as well as the next person, to
breathe free, and to create, if only a quarter acre in size,
space for individual identity. On the other hand, in the
monotonous reductions of suburban architecture, in the
disconnections of subdivision streets and cul-de-sacs, in
the rigid conformity on sale in mall after mall, and in the
bland food served in the cutesy theme restaurants attached
to these malls, American suburbs simultaneously dramatize
the betrayal of that dream.
Did you identify this writer’s standards? The good American community expresses the values of
freedom, individual identity, community connection, and variety of experience. When you write as
a critic, as these writers have done, you apply relevant standards of value that you share with others
to present a topic and see how it measures up.
2. Assignments: The Critical Writer’s Options
Criticism is an activity we’re involved in every day--as men and women who want to do the right
thing, as consumers interested in the quality of goods we buy, as spectators and performers who
value good performances of all kinds, as creatures who seek the pleasures of life. And the critical
writing assignments you might do reflect this variety in your life.
The critical essay. This kind of critique is written in school, especially in liberal arts courses,
and also appears in books and magazines and on the Internet. Its subjects are widely varied.
Almost always, however, the critical essay looks and sounds like a thesis-support essay. Its thesis
is a statement of evaluation; its support consists of the facts, details, and comparisons showing
whether the subject being evaluated meets or fails to meet specific standards of value.
Writing about people . Whether written on the job, in school, or for publication, there are two
kinds of critical writing about people. An encomium is an essay of praise, named after the ancient
Greek songs in honor of heroes. It extols the virtues and extraordinary deeds of individuals or
groups, illustrating what is meritorious about them. A negative essay about people is a reproach.
Sometimes addressed to the individuals or groups criticized, a reproach calls people to account for
wrongful words and deeds, describes their failure of vision, performance, or responsibility, and
sometimes even attempts to make them feel ashamed.
Travel writing. Although travel writers inevitably write about journeys taken, they emphasize
not the journey itself, as they would if writing as autobiographers. Instead, they emphasize their
destination and impressions of the place--positive or negative. The secret to effective travel writing
is making readers imagine they’ve arrived with you at your destination. By inviting them to join
you in their imaginations, you’ll help them decide whether they’d like to travel there in person. You
don’t have to tell everything about the place--your readers don’t want you to. What they want is
that you capture what the ancient Romans called the “genius” of the place, the unique spirit that sets
one place apart from another.

The review. The reviews you’ll most likely read and write are book, movie, drama, music,
restaurant, performance, and product reviews. As a reviewer, you’ll provide readers with
anticipatory experiences: what it would be like if they read the book, saw the movie, heard the
music, ate at the restaurant, or used the product you’ve written about. They expect detailed
description of the experiences and impressions, as well as frequent comparisons to similar books,
movies, musicians, restaurants, and products to see how they measure up. And they expect that
you’ll judge your subject according to familiar standards that, for the most part, they share.
 Movie and drama reviews. When you review a movie or drama, you evaluate plot,
character, casting, acting, setting and staging, music, technical features like color,
lighting, and special effects, the “message” of the movie or play, its effect on audiences,
its fulfillment of its intentions and the conventions of the genre. (For principles of
visual design that will help you analyze and evaluate movies and plays, see 1c of The
Ready Reference Handbook.)
 Book reviews. If you evaluate a work of fiction, describe the same story-telling
features you would in a movie review. If the work you review is non-fiction, consider
the reliability and appropriateness of its facts, its thoroughness, its depth, originality,
fairness, and style.
 Scholarly reviews. Also referred to as a “review of the literature,” a scholarly

review is a version of the book review. For a scholarly review, describe in detail a book
or article you’ve chosen (subject matter, author’s purpose, main points or questions, the
support for the writer’s ideas, organization, the author’s theoretical perspective and
values, any significant omissions, and the writer’s style). Then evaluate each of the
features you’ve described and make an over-all estimation of the work’s value.
 Music reviews. Whether you review a recording or live performance, evaluate the
compositions, the skill of the performers, and how well the performance was produced.
 Restaurant reviews. When you write a restaurant review, not only describe a typical
meal at a restaurant your audience might consider visiting; also comment on the
atmosphere, service, and price of the meal.
 Product reviews. To write a product review, describe how well something performs,
whether it does what is advertised, how well it compares to similar products, whether
it’s worth its price tag.

4b. “Inventing” a Critique or Review
1. Choosing a Topic and Evaluating Your Credentials
If you have a choice of topics for your critique but are unsure what to choose, do a freewriting.
Begin: “Let’s see, I have strong opinions about [list topics about which you have strong
opinions].” Then record your feelings, knowledge, and experiences with the topics you’ve listed.
(For more on freewriting, see The Ready Reference Handbook, 2a5.)
Choose to critique something you know well from experience or observation. As topics come to
mind, make a self-evaluation. Do you have the direct experiences with your topic and background
information to make judgments? Do you have experiences broad enough to make informed
comparisons? How can you evaluate a Vietnamese restaurant, for example, if you have been to
only one? How can you evaluate the safety of nuclear power plants if you understand little about
plant design, the production of electrical power, and the disposal of nuclear wastes? If you respond
negatively to your self-evaluation, you’ll have to get the information and experience you need--or
find a new topic.
2. Gathering Materials for a Critique
Exploring your experiences. When you’ve found a topic, begin gathering your materials with
another freewriting. Record the details of your experiences with your topic and your feelings about
it. Create “word-pictures” and choose words with connotative meaning. State your over-all
impressions; remember the small details and experiences that created your impressions.
Doing “on the job” research and taking notes. If possible, re-experience your topic and
make close observation: Reread the book, see the movie again, listen to the record, eat at the
restaurant, visit the place you’re evaluating, and so forth. Gather the background information you
need to understand or explain your subject. Take notes. (For more on note-taking, see The Ready
Reference Handbook, 49b, c, and d.) Answer the following questions; if necessary, adapt them to
your topic.
 What is my subject, exactly? What is it for--its function, purpose, or motive? Does it

fulfill its intentions?
 What standards help me know whether my subject is good, bad, or middling?
 What specific details show how my subject measures up to my standards?
 To what does it compare favorably or unfavorably?

 What do others say about my subject? How do their experiences and judgments
compare with mine?
 What are my purposes in writing--to review, evaluate and explain, or evaluate and
recommend?
 What does my audience know about my subject? What will I have to explain?
 What are my credentials for evaluating this subject? Will readers want to know them
before they accept my judgments?
3. Focusing a Critique
Writing a dominant impression. When you’ve gathered the materials for your critique, make
a “pluses-and-minuses” list to help you arrive at a sound dominant impression. Don’t always trust
first impressions. This list, together with your standards of value, may urge you to revise first
impressions and come to a fairer, more insightful dominant impression. As your impression takes
shape, write it out. As the thesis for your critique, it should be clear, precise, and complete.
“My dominant impression of [your subject] is that he/she/it

is . . . I feel this way because . . .”
Here, for example, is a surprising impression that unifies an essay in praise of the great physicist
Albert Einstein:
He was one of the greatest scientists the world has ever

known, yet if I had to convey the essence of Albert Einstein
in a single word, I would choose simplicity.
--Banesh Hoffman, “The Unforgettable Albert Einstein,” from The
Reader’s Digest
And here is a negative impression, in which a student reviewer evaluates American fast food:
Heavy with saturated fats, laced with all kinds of additives

to hide the mechanized conditions of its production,
frequently tainted with disease-causing agents--the American
fast food meal is really a kind of anti-food. Eat it on a
regular basis, as many American do, and instead of
nourishing yourself, you’ll make yourself unhealthy, even
sick.
--Keri Gregorio
(For more on thesis statements and similar unifying assertions, see The Ready Reference
Handbook, 2d.)
Creating figurative language to dramatize your impression. As you form a dominant

impression, use the formula in the “How to Create Similes and Metaphors” box in 26c of The
Ready Reference Handbook to create metaphors, similes, and analogies to describe your subject

and dramatize your impressions. For example, note how student Donald Woodson creates an
analogy to dramatize the process of suburban development and expansion:
To understand suburban sprawl and the harm it causes,

imagine a formless, one-celled organism that lives and
nourishes itself by devouring dirt. For that is what
developers do as they prepare the site for a new subdivision
or mall: First they chew up all the top soil, too valuable
to be buried under concrete or black top, pile it up at the
edges of their sites, and then sell it back to those who
wish to buy--or haul it off to be sold elsewhere. To develop
or expand a suburb is to consume and eliminate what is
essential to life.

4c. Planning a Critique or Review
1. Organizing
The critical essay. Critical essays usually unfold according to a logical pattern:
 A detailed description of the subject to be evaluated.
 Often simultaneously, an evaluation of what is right or wrong about the subject

according to relevant standards.
 An evaluation of how this subject has come to its present status.
Writing about people. Whether you write an essay of praise (an encomium) or an essay of
blame (a reproach), organize logically, according to the praise- or blameworthy traits you’re
describing, or chronologically, by telling a story that dramatizes how your chosen person’s
behavior supports your dominant impression.
Travel writing. Organize your critique chronologically, as an itinerary readers might follow if
they took a journey like yours, or descriptively, according to the scenes, vignettes, and details that
support your dominant impression.
The review. Organize your review according to a part-by-part evaluation of the most important
features of your topic.
 The movie or drama review. Open by identifying the kind of movie or play, state
your dominant impression, give the gist of the plot (without giving too much away!),
and then evaluate your chosen work feature-by-feature.
 The book review and scholarly review. Open with an introduction that states
your dominant impression; provide the book’s aims, purposes, and audience; present
background information about the work and its composition; and then make a detailed
evaluation of the features of the work.
 The restaurant review. After an opening that identifies the restaurant and states
your dominant impression, describe the atmosphere; then focus on the quality, variety,
appearance, aromas, textures, and flavors of the food; indicate the quality of service and
tell whether the meals are worth the prices; evaluate the extent to which the restaurant
fulfills its intentions. Close with information about location, hours, reservations, dress
requirements, and so forth.
 The Product review. Begin by describing the product and then explain how you
made your evaluation. Describe the product feature by feature, making sure that you

judge how well it does what it intends to do, how easy or comfortable it is to use, its
cost of operation, optional equipment, reliability, durability, appearance, and price.
Make your review useful by comparing your product to similar products that are clearly
better or worse.
Plan an introduction that identifies your subject, brings it to life, and states your dominant
impression. Watch how a student reviewer opens her review of the Steve Martin comedy Roxanne:
Released in 1987 and long available on cassette or DVD,

Roxanne is an easy movie to miss at your local video store.
To find it, you’ll have to hunt for it far from the “new
release” section, deep in the middle of the Comedy section,
probably at the bottom of the Steve Martin rack. But hunt
for it you should. For if you miss this movie, you’ll be
missing a warm, funny, old-fashioned love story updated and
given all sorts of hilarious twists by writer-producer
Martin.
--Lisa Larsen
With her clear dominant impression in the last sentence, readers know this writer’s opinion at the
outset--and also her larger point, that this is one movie often overlooked. Once you’ve introduced
your topic in this way, you’ll be ready to support your impression in the body of your critique. At
its end, restate your impression in fresh language or find a way to dramatize it for emphasis, as
Lisa Larsen does in her final paragraph:
This wise, warm, funny, movie is just right for a great

date-night-at-home video, for anyone who likes wit along
with sight gags and slapstick, for viewers who want romance
that carries us away to a magical land where real people
live. Don’t miss it.
(For more on introductions and conclusions, see The Ready Reference Handbook, 6c and d.)

4d. Writing and Revising a Critique or Review
In the first draft of your critique, focus attention in two places, on your subject and your
impressions of it. Whether you refer to yourself as an “I,” you’ll put a lot of yourself into your
writing: your knowledge, experience, enthusiasms--whatever is relevant to your evaluation.
To create a persona readers will enjoy, find a voice appropriate for praise or blame, but avoid the
gush of excessive praise or the thin-lipped fury of excessive blame. Unless you’re trying for
humor or irony--neither easy to bring off in critical writing--understatement is generally more
effective than overstatement. After all, you may not have seen it yet, but there’s surely something,
somewhere, more praise- or blameworthy than your subject.
Take a “we” attitude toward your readers. Talk to them directly, as “we” or “you.” If you can, be
clear that you share their standards and interests, that your praise or blame is what they would offer
in similar circumstances. Here is where comparisons, drawing upon shared experience, can ally
you with readers. Quotations of other observers, people like your readers, will show them you’re
not alone in your opinions. And always, anchor your judgments with concrete details.
2. Paragraphing in Critiques
Critical paragraphs usually follow the same pattern found in thesis-support essays: an assertion, in
this case a judgment or impression, followed by facts or observation, then illustration or
explanation. Watch how this student travel-writer evaluates France, the French, and many first-time
travelers’ mistaken stereotypes:
Many Americans visit France for the first time carrying

with them some heavy mental baggage about the French. The
French, they imagine, are snobbish. They’re rude. They
didn’t support us during the Iraq War. They know how to
speak English but won’t, yet they’ll correct even the
tiniest error when you try to talk French to them. With such
stereotypes, no wonder many Americans return home with
pretty photographs but unpleasant memories. The truth is,
the French are among the most friendly people on earth;
since tourism is France’s major industry, they’d better be.
But if not shy, they are just a little bit reserved when
greeted by us abrupt and sometimes loud Americans. When a
French person, however, senses a visitor’s openness, he or
she almost always responds with warmth and kindness.
Last summer, two friends and I, in the city of Amiens
north of Paris, went to a French supermarket for picnic
ingredients. Here, as in so many other parts of France, we

found that most French did not speak much English--just as
most Americans don’t speak French. We stood for long minutes
at the butcher’s counter, gazing at an appetizing array of
sausages. I thumbed through my French phrase book,
struggling for the right words to tell what I wanted. I
opened my mouth and tried to speak. I fumbled. I stumbled. I
started again. Then suddenly, a tall blond butcher stepped
in front of her shorter co-workers and announced in English
both halting and ten times more fluent than my French: “Put
your book away, Mademoiselle! I will help you!” And help she
did--guiding us to the tastiest sausage and then, from one
part of the store to the next, to the most full-flavored
cheese, the chewiest bread, and the richest wine. Yes, along
the way she and her co-workers corrected the French of my
friends and me, but in a manner both proud and helpful, like
a parent who wanted her children to do their best.
--Rebecca Mocas
After an opening description of the stereotypes she will correct, the writer follows with a topic
sentence about French friendliness and supports it with a personal anecdote from her own travels.
(For more on effective paragraphing, see The Ready Reference Handbook, 5a and b.)
3. Choosing Critical Words
Your greatest challenge as a critical writer is to present your judgment in more than judgmental
words, such as beautiful, terrible, ugly, wonderful, and so forth. These words tell your readers little
except that you like or don’t like the subject of your composition. To make your critique
successful, look for concrete, “word picture” words whose denotative and connotative meanings
dramatize your subject and suggest your experience of it, as writer Rebecca Mocas does in her
story of the friendly French butchers. Her judgment words--“warmth,” “kindness,” and “appetizing
array”--are few, but the descriptive words are so strong in their connotations that the paragraph
praises its subject almost without seeming to try. The critical experience comes alive in the
language that describes it. Make your critical descriptions equally vivid. (For more on effective
word choice, see The Ready Reference Handbook, Chaps. 25 and 26.)

 Be sure you’ve described vividly, so readers can share your impressions. Look for
judgment words unsupported by facts and details. If you can’t support them, cut them
and modify your dominant impression.
 If you see any words that could appear in an advertisement for your subject, cut them.
You don’t want your readers to think you’re in sales; you want them to trust you.
 Make sure you’ve compared your subject to other subjects your readers are familiar
with, so they can see how it measures up.
 Make sure your dominant impression is clear and forceful. Don’t distort or overstate,
but avoid qualifiers like “seems,” “perhaps,” and “may.”
 Be sure you’ve judged your subject according to standards that are objective, relevant,
and consistent.
 Check your persona. Do you sound fair, without undue bias? If your judgments are
negative, beware of name-calling. If your judgments are positive, beware of platitudes
and sentimentality.
5. Questions for Peer Reviewers of Critiques
paragraphs to make your critique easy to discuss. Then make a brief introduction:
2. Identify the kind of critique you’ve written: a critical essay, an essay about a person
(encomium or reproach), a travel essay, a review.
3. Describe your intentions. “In my critique I’m trying to tell/show. . . .”
they’re helpful, but remember, this is your critique. It should say what you want.

Peer reviewers: Answer the following questions to help this writer see his/her critique clearly
and begin planning revisions.
1. Does the critique have a clear dominant impression statement? Point it out or summarize
it. Is it clear and precise? Does it make a thorough judgment that accounts for all
important features of the writer’s topic? What changes would make this dominant
impression more effective?
2. Describe the writer’s persona. Does this writer sound like a fair critic that readers could
trust? Point out judgments that seem unfair, either unsupported or exaggerated.
3. Summarize the writer’s standards of value for evaluating his or her topic. Are they
appropriate to the topic, objective rather than subjectively personal, and complete? Can
you suggest additional standards of value?
4. Has the writer provided all the description, comparison, background information,
quotation, explanation, and visual materials necessary to support his or her dominant
impression? Point out any places where the writer’s judgments are insufficiently
supported or where the writer uses “judgment words” without details to back them up.
5. Does the critique contain all the parts you expect to find in a critical essay, an essay
about a person, a travel essay, or a review? Point out omissions or places where the
writer needs to say more.
6. Could you follow this critique from start to finish? Point out places where you got lost.
7. Does the introduction make the critique sound interesting, identify the topic, and at least
hint at the writer’s dominant impression?

4e. Student Examples—Writing a Critique or Review
1. Television News: Only One Version of Reality (a critical essay)
ASSIGNMENT: Write a critical essay in which you present an argument regarding the effect that
media have on today’s society.
Television News: Only One Version of Reality
by Hiroko Morii
Today, television news, especially prime-time news, is indispensable to our lives. If we
turn on the television set and tune to CNN headline news, Fox News, or one of the network
stations, we can learn about all the significant events of the day within thirty minutes. We might
think we don’t need other news sources, such as newspapers, anymore. However, it is dangerous
to reply on television news blindly. Although it shows us the events in the world with many
moving images in an orderly manner, the facts it shows us are not the entire facts, but just
fragments or parts of them that people involved in the television news industry (hereinafter
referred to as “news people”) choose for us, the viewers. Unfortunately, we often overlook this
important fact.
There seem to be two causes for our oversight. One is that news degrades our ability to
think. We unconsciously stop thinking while watching newscasts: we have no time to think
about each news story because we are forced to make a hurried, superficial tour of the world to
catch up with the stories that change rapidly. News people usually cram in as many news stories
as they can to inform us of all significant events in the world within a limited span of time.
Therefore, as Neil Postman mentions in his essay “The News,” all stories are “unconnected to
each other or to any sense of a history unfolding” (80). We store those stories in our memory
banks so that we can analyze, connect, classify, and evaluate them later. Only through this

process can we realize that news stories show us just a part of the facts. However, we rarely
have enough time to go through the process; consequently, there is slight chance of our realizing
the truth held in the news.
The other cause is our impression that news always shows us truth. With this unconscious
trust in news, we easily believe all broadcast stories are the entire facts. However, the truth is
that what is broadcast is what news people want to show us. All news stories coming from all
over the world are screened, and only the stories that those people think appeal to or interest
viewers most are picked up. We watch only the news “produced” by news people. Although
they know they must eliminate prejudice and selfish motives in this “producing” process, it is
very difficult to give them up completely. Even if they can achieve this, what aspect of a piece
of news is chosen might vary in different situations. When a big event occurs, it is usual that
several reports, each of which focuses on the different aspects of the event, are sent to new
stations from the spot. However, news people must decide which report they adopt because the
time for broadcasting is limited. As Av Westin, the executive producer of ABC News in the
1980s, says in his Newswatch,” television news operates on the basis of elimination rather than
inclusion” (62). Then how do they choose the most appropriate report (or reports)? In other
words, how are news stories produced?
Let us suppose that a chemical plan has exploded, and the explosion has killed and
injured workers. One report might feature the burning plant, and the other might show the scene
of rescued workers hugging their families tightly. If the explosion is the only big event of the
day, the former report would be chosen because the roaring flame and thick clouds of black
smoke make a good spectacle. However, if all other news stories are depressing, gloomy ones,
the latter might be chosen. No viewer likes continuous tension. He or she unconsciously wants
alternation of tension and relaxation. News people always keep this in mind when they choose

reports. Consequently, viewers see news stories that have been based on fragmentary reports.
They would never see the eliminated reports.
Let me give you another example of news production. The shooting at Columbine High
School in Littleton, Colorado, shook the whole country. In the news about this massacre, an
injured boy who was asking for help while leaning out a broken window, parents and their
children who were hugging each other tightly, and parents who were looking half-crazily for
their children appeared on the television screen again and again. However, dead bodies never
appeared on the screen. Probably, the news people thought such a scene would appeal to viewers
too much: they might have been afraid that it would let viewers feel strong loathing and would
arouse their antagonism. Among the reports that were left out of the broadcasts, there also might
be an image of the surrounding neighborhood, which would help us know that the scene of the
crime was the normal, peaceful suburbs. Such an image appeals to viewers less than the
dramatic scenes actually shown in the news.
In addition, we, the viewers must know that news people, who should take an objective
position, might prepare their reports with specific political or nationalistic motives, regardless of
whether they realize it or not: they might choose reports which lead us to the conclusion
favorable to them. Think back to a series of news reports covering NATO air strikes during the
war in Yugoslavia. You must have seen attacks by bombers, soldiers caught by Serb troops, or
Albanian refugees driven out of their Serb troops, or Albanian refugees driven out of their homes
in Kosovo on the television screen many times. However, have you seen Serbs who were
frightened by NATO attacks or NATO-destroyed buildings as many times as you saw those
scenes? Maybe not. It is natural that news people, as American citizens, don’t want to think
NATO air forces threaten or kill unarmed Serb citizens, and thus they unconsciously eliminate or
shorten the images of Serb people suffering from NATO attacks. However, viewers who watch

news stories chosen with such unconscious prejudices might judge whether NATO’s military
action is right or wrong only from those stories.
When we express our opinions about serious affairs, we usually search our memory
banks for news stories helpful to us. The most dangerous thing is that we believe we form fair
judgments, considering all aspects of events, even though we have seen only a few specifically
selected aspects. This misunderstanding itself is not so dangerous as long as it is limited to
individual opinion. However, when the individual opinions are put together and become public
opinion, this wrong impression can be a menace to our society because the public opinion has
force that moves not only our country but also the entire world. In addition, who can be sure that
the movers and shakers of our economy or politics never err in their judgment in the critical
situation where their judgment would decide the fate of our country? We must realize that news
shows are just a part of each event in the world. Av Westin himself admits that “if you rely only
on the television newscast, you are woefully ignorant” (58) and says “[newspapers, news radio
broadcasts, news magazine, books on current affairs] must be relied on if one is to be truly
informed” (57-8). Otherwise, before long, we will come to be governed by the news, without
being aware of it.
WORKS CITED
Westin, Av. Newswatch: How TV Decides the News. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Postman, Neil. “The News.” Conscientious Objections: Stirring up Trouble about Language,
Technology, and Education. New York: Vintage Books.

2. One Fine Romance (a movie review)
ASSIGNMENT: Review a movie of interest to college students. Choose something available for
rental or purchase on videocassette or DVD. Make a recommendation, positive or negative.
One Fine Romance
by Leslie Kelly
Released in 1987, long available on video and now on DVD, Roxanne is an easy movie
to miss at your local video store. To find it, you may have to hunt for it far from the “new
release” section, deep in the middle of the Comedy section, probably at the bottom of the Steve
Martin rack. But hunt for it you should. For if you miss this movie, you’re really missing
something.
For one thing, you’re missing a warm, funny, old-fashioned love story updated and given
all sorts of hilarious twists by writer-producer Martin. If you were awake in high school English
class, you may recognize that Roxanne is based on that version of the eternal triangle dramatized
in Cyrano de Bergerac. Martin plays C. D. Bales (get those initials?), small town fire chief and
possessor of one large nose. No, it’s more than large. As one character exclaims, “It’s big! I
mean it’s really big! It’s huge!” C. D. falls in love with the beautiful Roxanne Kowalski (Daryl
Hannah), graduate student astronomer in town for the summer, but she falls for C. D.’s
blindingly handsome, inarticulate assistant Chris (Rick Rossovich), just arrived to help C. D.
train his troop of volunteer fire fighters. Believing himself ugly, unwilling to express his love, C.
D. finds himself approached first by Roxanne to help her meet Chris and then by Chris to arrange
a meeting with Roxanne.
All of the plot complications and most of the laughs come from jokes involving C. D.’s
nose and from his attempts to help Chris win Roxanne’s heart. Nose insults, slamming doors, and
some trouble drinking wine alternate with C. D.’s increasingly hilarious schemes to give Chris
the wit and charm Roxanne desires in her lover. What she really wants, of course, is the mind of

one man and the body of the other. But three into two won’t go. Not when C. D. coaches Chris
what to say, not when he writes Chris’s letters, not even when he tries to communicate the right
words of love to Chris through an earphone hidden by a hunter’s hat with the earflaps pulled
down. Not until C. D. stands in for Chris during the funniest balcony scene you’ll ever see does
Roxanne surrender and Chris call out, “She wants us!”
But more is going on here than a wacky love story that takes its comic energies from two
flawed suitors and one heroine who doesn’t know what she really wants in a man. Early in the
movie, C. D. walks out of a café, stops before a newspaper vending box, drops in a coin, pulls
out the paper, begins to read, cries out in alarm, reaches for another coin, drops it in the box and
returns the paper. Through this small episode the movie tells us that Roxanne inhabits a different
world from the real world of woe we read about in the papers. If you miss Roxanne, you’ll miss
a magic world of romance, a world of real people but with its own laws of comic joy and poetic
justice, where things turn out as happily as they should and as we wish they would in our far
different world.
The setting, supposedly ski-country Nelson, Washington, but actually British Columbia,
is a mountain-sheltered contemporary romantic retreat, everyone’s dream of an idyllic
community. There is no pollution, no poverty, no crime, endless leisure, and only a few
insensitive types in town on vacation, easily bested by C. D.’s wit and fencing skills with a
racquetball racket. Except for C. D.'s friend and café owner Dixie (Shelley Duvall), the only
characters who do any work are the volunteer fire fighters. Led by whimsically sly and
subversive Michael J. Pollard, these good-hearted bumblers, who can’t even coax a cat out of a
tree, recall the gentlest of Shakespeare’s clowns and fools. Fumbling with their equipment,
falling over one another, blown over by hoses, hoisted on fountains of water, setting themselves
on fire, almost destroying their firehouse, they never will master fire fighting, it seems. That is,
until the climax when, dancing a fire fighter’s ballet, they save the day.

Magical in another way is Daryl Hannah’s Roxanne. Dressed in white, her frank, open
features framed by radiant hair, photographed to soften her angular figure, Hannah is at her most
attractive best here. She makes it easy to believe that, as she says, she has mistaken sex for love
in a past affair. Her role in the plot is to discover the difference. Prizing intelligence and wit as
much as physical strength and attractiveness, Hannah’s Roxanne is a character too seldom the
romantic attraction in American movies directed at young people—a woman who combines
body, mind, and soul and who values that combination in her man. She may not have the mental
fire and sharp wit of old-time romantic heroines like Katherine Hepburn, but Hannah is more
than adequate for this role.
Most magical of all is Steven Martin’s C. D. Bales. Martin seems more relaxed here than
in his earlier movies about divided or incomplete persons: The Jerk, The Man with Two Brains,
and All of Me. Perhaps because he is so comfortable in his role he is able to harmonize many
different forms of comedy and make them work naturally together. If you’re a fan of movie
comedians through the years, you’ll see Martin pay tribute here to the Three Stooges, the Marx
Brothers, W. C. Fields, and Buster Keaton. But he also combines wit with a dancer’s grace—in
the way he fights his foes, walks on rooftops, and swings from balcony railings—so that he
recalls Fred Astaire. Martin is capable of Robin Williams’ hyperkinetic action but without the
sweat or hyperventilation.
So at home is he in his role that he becomes C. D. Bales, a complex human being. He
never suggests that he is merely extending a Saturday Night Live sketch, making fun of another
“wild and crazy guy.” Unlike so many comedians these days, Martin doesn’t punish his character
with comedy. We laugh with him, not at him. The only objects of our scorn and his comic wrath
are the insensitive brutes who insult his nose and threaten him with ski poles. There is real pain
in his eyes from living with a nose so outrageously long (the make-up is very good, by the way).

Better than anyone else, he knows the worst nose jokes that could ever be told at his expense—
and he tells them. He has turned to laughter and fighting skills as his best defenses.
But what the film also shows is how a person’s greatest flaw may also become his
greatest strength. C. D.’s nose saves the town, literally, since this fire fighter can smell smoke
long before he or anyone else can see the flames. And living with his nose has given him the wit,
sensitivity, and intelligence that eventually win Roxanne’s love. When at last she discovers that
it is his words that have wooed her in balcony declarations and love letters, she speaks what in
others’ mouths would be the greatest insult: “You’ve got a big nose, Charlie!” But when she
utters them, they are words of acceptance, of recognition that he is loved not in spite of his flaw
but because of it.
This wise, warm, funny, movie is just right for a great date-night-at-home video, for
anyone who likes wit along with sight gags and slapstick, for viewers who want romance that
carries us away to a magical land where real people live. Don’t miss it.

3. The Siam Café (a restaurant review)
ASSIGNMENT: Review a restaurant the fits a college student’s budget. Choose one that he or she
may not have visited. Make a recommendation, positive or negative.
The Siam Café
by Alfredo Guzman
Some suburban Harper College students won’t go into Chicago for love or money—
certainly not for an evening’s entertainment or a meal. To these timid souls, ethnic food is
microwave egg rolls, a hamburger with pizza cheese, or a tortilla that tastes like it was made by
Hostess. There are, however, many Harper students who are a little more adventuresome. For
them the big city is a place to go for good fun and great food. If you’re one of them, the next
time you’re in Chicago—hungry for adventure or just plain hungry—you should try one of
Chicago’s newest cuisines and one of its best, the food of Thailand.
Suspended between India and China, Thailand has borrowed from both, especially the
curries, sweet sauces, and strong spices from India and, from China, complex ingredients, fresh
vegetables, and the wonders of wok cooking. The result is food rich in contrasting temperatures,
tastes, and textures. The best place I know to savor these contrasts is The Siam Café, just fifteen
minutes north of the Loop on Lakeshore Drive (exit at Wilson Avenue, drive three blocks west to
Sheridan Road, turn north one block, and you’ve arrived). There, in the middle of inauspicious,
“urban renewal” Uptown, you’ll find some of the most flavorful and least expensive food you’ll
ever enjoy.
As soon as you open the door, you know you’re not in one of those trendy but bland
pretend-ethnic restaurants. In the foyer, posters written in intricate Thai script announce Thai
golf outings, businesses, and social events, all suggesting the large Thai community in
metropolitan Chicago. An anteroom furnished with straight chairs, plants, and Thai wood
statuary tells you The Siam Café has a thriving takeout business—a clue to its quality. The large

dining room is divided in the middle by a trellis, the seating is primarily in booths for four, and
the oak-paneled and poster-hung walls have that earnest “home-decorating” look. The customers
are a mixed crew: Latinos, African-Americans, Thais, Chinese, Indians, and southern whites
from Uptown; young urban types from Lincoln Park, New Town, and Evanston; and even groups
of seniors bussed by mini-van from Glencoe and Highland Park. Wherever they come from,
you’re not likely to hear much from them; they’re here to eat.
If you’re new to Thai food, the tall menu, half in Thai, half in English, with dozens of
strange-sounding dishes, may be baffling. The only clues to the food are stars to identify hot
dishes. But you won’t go wrong ordering what have become my favorites. Start with the most
popular Thai appetizer, Satay, here called “Siam Bar-B-Que”: tender strips of curry-marinated
pork or chicken broiled on delicate wood skewers and served with a spicy peanut sauce for
dipping. On the side are toast squares that contrast with the lacy textures of the meat and a small
cucumber, onion, and chili salad that balances the temperature of the meat. The salad dressing, a
blend of water, vinegar, and sugar, is itself a study in contrasts. Unless you eat the chilies in the
salad, satay is spicy but not hot.
A second spicy but mild appetizer is egg salad: fried egg on a bed of cucumber and
tomatoes, sprinkled with sliced scallions, crushed peanuts, and coriander and doused with a
sweet oil and red pepper sauce. A third mild appetizer is mee krob: small crispy rice noodles
deep fried in sweet oil and mixed with tiny dried shrimp. For hot appetizers, try the carrot
salad—it looks but doesn’t taste like the carrot salad your mother used to make—or yum nam
tok, lightly cooked beef salad, a mixture of tender beef, onions, lettuce, and the ubiquitous green
chilies. If Cantonese cooking is as adventuresome as you feel, The Siam Café will cook you up a
crunchy order of thin but well-packed egg rolls.
My favorite main dishes are pad Thai (here called “Thai rice sticks”) and garlic chicken,
two more good dishes for diners new to Thai food. Pad Thai is a mound of wok-fried bean

sprouts, rice noodles, tiny dried shrimp (fresh jumbo shrimp, $1.00 extra), red pepper, crushed
peanuts, and coriander, all covered with a light, sweet sauce and served with wedges of lime and
cabbage for taste and texture contrasts. Garlic chicken is a simple dish: chunks of white meat on
a bed of rice covered with garlic sauce, scallions, and coriander, accompanied by peeled
cucumber slices.
Another mild dish is wide noodles in oyster sauce: chopped greens, rice noodles, thin
slices of beef, and black beans (some say that The Siam Café serves Chicago’s best version of
this dish). A bit spicier, especially if you pour on the Tabasco-like red sauce, are fried mussels:
fried mussels mixed with fried egg and laid on a bed of bean sprouts. Cuttlefish in garlic is also
on the spicy-but-not-hot-side. If you want hot main dishes, the hottest and the best are chili
chicken, beef, or shrimp: meat topped with garlic sauce, crushed basil leaves, and fresh chilies,
all on a bed of white rice. As you take a bite then pause to wipe perspiration from your brow,
you’ll discover that chilies have flavors as well as temperatures; different kinds of chilies lend
different tastes to the foods they spice.
To cool the fire, you may want a bottle or two of Sinha, imported Thai beer. The house
white wine is good, too, but tastes more like California than Thailand. Best of all is Thai iced
coffee: dark, sweet coffee floating on heavy cream and ice cubes.
The deserts are the only disappointment to American tastes, usually sticky-sweet tarts
made from stewed fruits you’ve never seen or tasted before. The fruit should provide a welcome
balance to the spices and fire of the main dishes, but the effect is more of an apprentice Middle
Eastern pastry chef who doesn’t know how to make baklava. I usually pass on the desserts.
The food is served by a staff that will never be hired by some cutesy theme restaurant.
They are reserved, they don’t chat or shmooze, they won’t tell you their first names, and they
write your order on your ticket in Thai and serve your food as soon as it’s ready, sometimes
almost immediately, sometimes after a few minutes’ wait. Like everything and everyone else at

The Siam Café, they suggest that this is a place for eating, eating, eating, not for jawing,
gawking, or being seen.
The Siam Café is a no-nonsense-casual restaurant, sometimes crowded but rarely full. Don’t
worry about reservations; even on weekends you shouldn’t have to wait for a table. And the
prices are rock-bottom. Last weekend a friend and I spent $28.00, including drinks and tip. The
Siam Café offers one of the cheapest great meals in town. It is located at 4712 North Sheridan
Road, parking available. Hours: Monday-Thursday, noon to 10:30 p.m.; Friday, Saturday, noon
to 11 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 10 p.m. Major credit cards accepted. Telephone 773-555-1652.

5 Writing Argument and Persuasion
5a. Developing a Perspective on Argument and
Persuasion
1. The Aims of Argument and Persuasion
The introduction to Chapter 58 of The Ready Reference Handbook mentions the popular confusion
of argument with heated dispute. In academic and career writing, when you argue, you may be
involved with highly controversial topics, but you make the case for your opinion not with angry
words but with reasoned deliberation.
Persuasive writing, too, is often misunderstood, perhaps because the examples we’re exposed to
most insistently and frequently appear in advertisements. It’s easy to think that persuasion consists
of emotional pressure or seductive appeal, that to be successful, you have to lean heavily on your
readers.
Not so. The word “persuade” comes from Latin words meaning “to advise thoroughly.” Most
successful persuasive writing depends heavily on the logic of argument. What distinguishes
argument from persuasion is that argument focuses primarily on the topic being argued. In
persuasion, the focus is on the audience being “advised.” Writers shape their arguments to appeal
to specific readers, with distinct opinions, needs, and desires, and to convert them from skeptics or
opponents into allies.
2. Assignments: Options for Argument and Persuasion
Writing arguments. Many of the Thesis-Support Essays or Critiques that you write in college
are really arguments. When you’re asked to write an essay, consider “operator” words in the
assignment. (For a list of these words, see The Ready Reference Handbook, 61a.) If you’re asked
to “criticize,” “defend,” “discuss,” “evaluate,” “justify,” “prove,” “review,” or “rebut,” you’re being
asked to argue. Most of your essay and research paper assignments will ask you to construct
arguments.
So, too, will your on-the-job writing involve argument. In most cases, readers of your memos,
letters, reports, and e-mails want more than information; they also want you to evaluate or
recommend a person, product, or course of action, or show that your view of the facts is better than
another view.
Ar guing persuasively. In academic writing, your persuasion will be subtle, demonstrating that
your information is trustworthy and your opinions logical. But in writing as part of your career or
civic life--whether a job application letter, a letter to the editor, or a statement of your position

posted on a Web site--your argument won’t be convincing unless you energize it with persuasive
appeals.

5b. “Inventing” Argument and Persuasion
1. Choosing a Topic
Because argument involves personal beliefs, preferences, and desires, it’s usually easy to find
topics to write about. But if an academic assignment gives you options, consider your topic in light
of your answers to these questions:
 Can you imagine yourself changing your opinion about your topic? We hold some
beliefs so deeply that it’s very difficult for us to change our minds, even when faced
with compelling evidence. If you can’t see yourself changing your mind about a topic,
then you’re probably not prepared to think critically about the materials of an argument.
That stumbling block will make it difficult to argue logically, and you should probably
find another topic, something about which you have opinions, yes, but about which you
can think reasonably.
 Can you express practical opinions about your topic? We often have wishes and dreams
about beliefs that we hold deeply, ideals we’d like to see fulfilled. But real-world
arguments call for practical opinions and actions based on an awareness of the
resources, time, money, and people involved. Choose topics for which you can make
practical cases.
 Can you find the materials you need to make a logically convincing case for your
opinion? See The Ready Reference Handbook, Chapters 47-49, for information-
gathering tips and guidelines.
2. Exploring a Topic and Writing a Claim
Exploring. When you have a topic, begin building an argument by exploring its context. Do a
brainstorm or freewriting to respond to the following prompts (see The Ready Reference
Handbook, 2a, for guidelines to exploratory writing):
 The controversies involved with my topic are whether to . . . how to . . . what should be
done to . . . why . . . when . . .
 Those involved with these controversies who disagree with each other are . . . (Identify
these opponents by name, group, or the organization they belong to.)
 Summarize each side’s position. What does each side want or believe?
 Describe what you need to know to determine whose position is better or what is the
best course of action.

 Divide your topic into its parts, key issues, or key questions.
 Identify what the assignment or the situation seems to require of your argument: proof,
evaluation, rebuttal of your opponents, changing others’ opinions, establishing policies,
or changing others’ actions.
 Write down your current opinions, if any, about your topic.
Writing a tentative claim. Write out a tentative version of the claim for your argument. This is
a succinct statement of your central opinion, the point you want to prove, the policy your want to
establish, the action you want taken. Begin as if you were writing a tentative thesis statement: “My
point is that . . .” (See The Ready Reference Handbook, 58a.) This preliminary statement will guide
you as you gather the materials for your argument.
3. Gathering the Support for Your Claim
Building argument. Through research, observation, interviewing, or experiment, gather the

evidence and warrants that will prove your points and argue your case. If your assignment asks for
argument alone, you’ll gather facts, figures, expert testimony, relevant comparisons, definitions,
laws, and principles that apply to your situation (see The Ready Reference Handbook, 58b).
Gathering appeals. The more the situation requires you to make persuasive appeals in addition
to argument, the more you should look for examples, anecdotes, and analogies (see The Ready
Reference Handbook, 6b5 and 7) to dramatize your case and make it emotionally compelling.
Making rebuttals. If you know of people who disagree with your position, especially if they’re
your readers or if your assignment calls for rebuttal, you should prepare responses to your
opponents’ position. Make a rebuttal by answering these questions:
 What is your opponents’ claim? How does it differ from yours?
 What proof do they have? Can you show their position to be erroneous, incomplete,
over-simplifying, or missing the point?
 What are their priorities: ethical, practical, or matters of pleasure or satisfaction? Can
you show that your readers have different priorities?
 What are the strengths of their case that you’ll have to concede? Should you propose compromise with
your opponents? If so, what?
4. Focusing Your Writing
Profiling your audience. As you gather support for your claim, you learn more about your
readers, what they think, and what they expect from you. Do the following audience profile:

 Who are my readers by age, sex, education, politics, or group membership? (You’ll
appeal to different groups in different ways.)
 What does my audience know about my topic? (Summarize their knowledge.)
 What do they believe about my subject? Are they my opponents? Skeptical or

undecided? What do they know or think of me, if anything?
 What are the omissions, weaknesses, or errors in my audience’s thinking?
 How are they involved with my subject? Can they act upon it themselves or encourage
others? What role do I want them to play with respect to my opinion (believer, financial
supporter, actor, or some other role)?
 What are their priorities? Are they concerned with morality (justice, fairness, honor,
virtue, and so forth)? With practical matters (whether something is efficient, effective,
workable, and so forth)? Or with comfort, health, safety, pleasure, and so forth?
 What is the most appealing part of my argument, given my audience’s priorities? What
descriptive details, anecdotes, examples, or quotations will make my position most
appealing?
5. Focusing Your Argument
To be successful, your argument and persuasion should speak directly to the readers described in
your audience profile. These readers, like most people, don’t like hassles. And their differences
with you will seem like one big hassle--enough to stop them from reading--unless you make your
case attractive. They should feel it like a magnet, drawing them toward agreement along the path of
least resistance.
Revising your claim. Begin tracing this path of least resistance by adapting your claim based
on the support you’ve gathered and your knowledge of your readers. Write it to speak to them,
perhaps, in non-academic writing, addressing them directly as “you” or connecting with them as
“we.” Answer this question: Based on the support for my case and my readers’ beliefs and
resources, what’s the most I can ask of them? Here, for example, a writer proposes legislation to
replace the US national anthem and urges that passage of this legislation would have wide support:
Congress should enact legislation replacing “The Star-

Spangled Banner” with “America the Beautiful.” Our new
national anthem would be easier to sing and, more important,
would celebrate a broader range of American virtues. Members
of Congress can vote with the knowledge that such a change
has widespread support.
--Adam Pasterski

Identifying your purpose. As your claim takes shape, consider the argument that will support
it. Knowing what to do will make your argument easier to write. You may have to:
 Establish the truth of the matter.
 Identify causes and effects.
 Argue for the value of something.
 Propose action or policy.
 Make a rebuttal.
In the preceding example about the US national anthem, the writer makes a propositional claim
appealing for active support. For more on these kinds of argument, see The Ready Reference
Handbook, 58c.

5c. Planning Argument and Persuasion
1. Building a Logical and Persuasive Argument
Selecting the most effective support. The audience for your argument won’t need to read
everything you could say in support of it. In fact, some of what you say might even distract from
your central point or raise issues that would weaken your case. Given your audience’s needs,
interests, and expectations, select facts and figures, descriptive details, quotations, comparisons,
examples, anecdotes, and visual materials most likely to be convincing to your readers.
Testing and modifying your argument. As you select support for your claim, make sure
that your case is logical. Apply the tests described in The Ready Reference Handbook, 58d1. Then
strengthen your claim and support using the guidelines in 58d2.
Or ganizing your writing. Persuasive arguments consist of two and often three messages:
“What I’m saying is reasonable”; “You can believe what I’m saying”; and “You’ll feel good if you
accept my position.” Whether you send two or three messages and how you arrange those
messages depend upon the situation (whether you’re writing in college, as part of your job, or for
personal reasons) and the identity of your readers. The Ready Reference Handbook, 59a3,
provides several patterns for arranging these messages for the most persuasive effect. Choose the
one right for your claim, purpose, and readers.
Academic arguments. Arguments assigned in school tend to be straightforward, two-message

projects. Your introduction and the body of your writing will send the “What I’m saying is
reasonable” message.
Begin by identifying your chosen controversy or problem, perhaps demonstrate its importance or
the need for action, and then state your claim. Follow with your support. Conclude by discussing
the implications of your argument, the implementation of your proposals, or what the future holds.
That part of your writing that sends your second message, “You can believe what I’m saying,“ will
be expressed by your careful use of source materials, accurate quotations, and thorough
documentation of your sources. (For more or the use of source materials and effective
documentation, see The Ready Reference Handbook, Chaps. 50-57.)
Profes sional and “real-world” arguments. Arguments that you write for your job or to
express personal concerns may be shorter than academic arguments, but usually you’ll need to
send all three messages to be successful: “What I’m saying is reasonable” (your argument); “You
can believe what I’m saying” (your credentials or whatever makes you trustworthy to your
readers); and “You’ll feel good if you accept my position” (the emotional appeals that will urge
your readers’ support or rouse them to action).

In your introduction, focus on yourself and your credentials or write about your topic in such a
way that you sound like someone trustworthy to your readers (see The Ready Reference
Handbook, 59b). For example, listen to student Eric Martínez begin an essay on overcrowding in
US national parks:
What a disappointment! For months my friend Peter and I

had been planning a trip to US national parks in Utah and
Colorado. Our high point was to be Rocky Mountain National
Park and Trail Ridge Road winding across the summit of the
Rockies at over 12,000 feet. The air might be thin and the
weather chill, but what views! Snowy peaks. Subalpine
valleys. Forests and streams. Arctic tundra. Wildlife. What
we didn’t anticipate was how many others had the same plans.
Trail Ridge Road was jammed bumper to bumper with cars
and RVs. Medicine Bow Curve, the visitor center at Fall
River Pass, and the Gore Range Overlook might as well have
been New York City at rush hour. I could see the mountains,
all right--through a forest of other people’s heads, elbows,
and camera straps. Peter and I ended up as two of the 3.4
million visitors who yearly stand where we stood and like
us, probably, wondered whether there were more people than
trees in these mountains. One of my keenest memories is of
two park workers straining to lift a barrel of garbage into
their truck as the wind sent candy wrappers and hamburger
bags scudding in an ugly blizzard across the snow fields.
This was the high point of my vacation? Next year I’m doing
something different.
Now, I’m no hermit. People and the pace of city life
suit me fine. But from time to time I want something under
foot besides concrete, long for the wind in trees, wild
flowers, colors that are not dyed, the feel of rock and leaf
and moss, the sight of animals not tamed into pets. And,
like most people these days, I consider myself an
environmentalist and believe with Henry David Thoreau that
“in wildness is the preservation of the world.”
So my disappointment at Rocky Mountain National Park
comes from more than irritation that I wasn’t first in line
at the sightseeing overlook. . . .
See how Martínez establishes himself as an expert witness--he’s been to the parks and experienced
the crowds. Note, too, that he provides personal information to show his suburban and urban
readers that he shares their values. His readers have two reasons to trust what he will say.
In the conclusion to a persuasive argument, you will probably use description, examples,
anecdotes, or even emotionally charged language to make your case attractive to your readers and
your opinion easy to accept (see The Ready Reference Handbook, 59c and the sample student
essay in 59d). Watch how writer Eric Martínez encourages his student readers to accept his
proposal to find new nature places for their vacations, giving advice, information, and a moving
anecdote to make his advice appealing:

The next time I plan a vacation, I’m going to leave
national parks out of my plans--at least the most popular,
most crowded ones during their most popular seasons. I urge
you to do the same. I say, give the harried park staff, the
trampled landscape, and the threatened wildlife a rest. With
reduced pollution and use, the air will clear, the scars
will heal themselves, the plants will regenerate, the
animals return. Where to go instead? Consider state parks,
Bureau of Land Management Lands, or National Forests. Any
good map, atlas, or travel guide will identify them. Better
yet, go to the Internet and check out the “Best of the Best
State Parks” Web site. Instead of the Great Smoky Mountains,
there is the Joyce Kilmer Wilderness in North Carolina. In
Arizona, instead of Grand Canyon, there are Red Rock and
Tonto Natural Bridge state parks. In Alaska, instead of
Denali National Park and Preserve, consider Denali State
Park, 324,240 acres, with a great trail system, abundant
wildlife, and wonderful views of the Alaska range. There’s
the important point. Most alternative vacation spots offer
their own attractive vistas and activities made more so
without all those other vacationers to block the view or
clog roads and trails. What will you find off the beaten
track? Here’s an example.
This summer, after nearly a week of weaving through
crowds at Utah’s Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks, my
friend Peter and I headed across Utah toward Arches National
Park. Along the way, east of Escalante, we happened upon Dry
Hollow, the tiny town of Boulder (population 65), and
Boulder Mountain. Before we arrived, they were just names on
a map, unremarked by us and most other vacationers. But
surprise! This became the best part of our trip. Except for
the welcoming residents of Boulder glad for two new faces,
we were alone, away from the crowds, the enticements of un-
natural “theme park” activities, and the souvenir stands
packed with trinkets stamped out who knows where.
Over two days a wonderful experience opened to us. The
cliffs of the hollow were as sheer and deeply red as Zion or
Bryce, the textures of rock as sharp to the touch and the
eye, the rush of wind as constant, the road even steeper in
its hairpin turns dropping to the canyon floor. On the floor
of the hollow, not dry at all, rippled a muscular ribbon of
creek flowing into the Escalante River. Everywhere were
flowers: desert marigold, thornapple, Sego lily, desert
paintbrush, blue flax, Tahoka daisy, and wild rose. Up on
Boulder mountain, aspens shimmered, streams sang, snow
glistened. And there was this: in purple dusk, in the middle
of Boulder, deer bounded in silent arcs from the playground
of the one-room school, across a meadow, over a fence, and
into the evening. Above them in the distance, like sentinels
watching over our two-days’ travel, stood the Henry

Mountains. To be in such a place and have such experiences
was, in the words of Chief Luther Standing Bear of the
Oglala Sioux, to live “surrounded with the blessing of the
Great Mystery.” The pleasure of this mystery is there for
you, too, out there somewhere along a road less traveled.
3. Planning a Trustworthy Persona
To make yourself sound trustworthy, at the beginning of your writing and throughout your
argument, present yourself as someone who is fair, knows your subject, speaks your reader’s
language, and cares more for their benefit and the common good than your own. Answer the
following questions and see The Ready Reference Handbook, 59b.
 What credentials can I give to establish my authority with my readers? Consider your
knowledge, research, experiences, and background.
 Which of my interests, values, or experiences can I share with my readers to make them
comfortable with me?

5d. Writing and Revising Argument and Persuasion
While drafting an argument or persuasion, listen for an emotional tone right for your subject and
readers. In academic writing, you should sound objective and informed, almost like a reporter. In
public, “real-world” writing, you may express concern, hope, anger, indignation, irony, and
sarcasm to rouse readers and enlist their support. But be careful; you don’t want to sound naive,
insincere, strident, or unfair.
2. Creating a Persuasive style: Words and Sentences
Given the emphasis on logic and information in most academic writing, you’ll choose words
precise in meaning and, generally, neutral or subtle in emotional associations (see The Ready
Reference Handbook, Chap. 25). In “real-world” public writing, however, you may use more
words that have clear emotional meanings. You may also use repeated words and sentence patterns
for their emotional effect (see The Ready Reference Handbook, 20c, d, and e). Reread the
conclusion to Eric Martínez’s persuasive essay. Consider his use of vivid concrete language and
the pleasant feelings expressed by his description. Who wouldn’t want to visit the scenes he
describes? Such frank emotional appeal is appropriate in most persuasive writing. As creatures of
reason and feeling, readers want to know what is right and to feel its rightness.
 Study your paragraphs carefully to be sure they contain the topic sentences that link
them to your central claim and that introduce the supporting evidence in the body of
your paragraph. Such informative paragraphs are an important way to build logic into
your argument and to create the “path of least resistance” leading to reader acceptance of
your position.
 Consider the individual assertions of your argument to see whether you’ve written any
fallacies, errors in reasoning (for a list of common fallacies, see The Ready Reference
Handbook, 58e).
Examine your words for undue bias that will make you sound unfair or untrustworthy to
your readers.

4. Questions for Peer Reviewers of Arguments and Persuasions
paragraphs to make your writing easy to discuss. Then make a brief introduction:
2. Describe your intentions. “In my writing I’m trying to tell/show. . . .”
they’re helpful, but remember, this is your writing. It should say what you want.
Peer reviewers: To help this writer see his/her writing clearly and begin planning revisions,
answer the questions in the “How to Revise and Edit Persuasive Writing” box in 59c of The Ready
Reference Handbook.

5e. Student Examples—Writing Argument and
Persuasion
1. Considering Children? Start Earlier, Finish Earlier!
ASSIGNMENT: Persuade us to accept a claim about which you have considerable conviction.
Considering Children? Start Earlier, Finish Earlier!
by Mary Jo Mayerck
The following scenes are based on actual conversations I have had with high school
friends.
Flashback, ten years ago. The scene is a local bar:

“Hey, you guys made it! Found a babysitter this time, huh?”
“Yeah, and none of the kids got sick at the last minute either – what a miracle!”
Present day. Girl’s night out:

“I wish my kids were old enough to drive themselves back and forth to school and
activities and friends’ houses; I’m ready to put the meter in my car and start charging for rides.”
“It really does free up a lot of time. I have time now to do stuff for myself, like taking
classes at Harper, and even simple things like actually reading a whole magazine at one sitting.”
The future, ten years from now. Telephone conversation:

“You two just got back from a weekend away! Where are you going this time? We’d join
you but you know how it is to have teenagers; for them to go anywhere with their parents would
be the ultimate in boredom, and we certainly can’t leave them home alone for a weekend!”
“I remember those days. Hang in there, they’ll be over soon!”
As this fictional dialogue suggests, the events of my life have followed quite a different
course than that of my peers. While a young adult, I made one major decision that determined
that alternate course: I decided to begin having children while I was still in my twenties. Over
the years, there were many times when I questioned and even regretted that choice. But now,
when I weigh the pros and cons, I believe my decision was a good one. And I suggest that all
young couples consider the now radical idea of starting a family when they are in their twenties
rather than postponing this part of their lives until later.

Ten years ago, unlike most of my peers, I was changing diapers, chasing preschoolers,
and going to T-ball games. My husband and I, in our twenties, were young and energetic enough
to deal with the challenges of having young children around the house without exhausting
ourselves or our fun-loving attitude. Many of my friends, who waited until their mid-to-late
thirties to begin a family, now have toddlers and children in elementary school. They feel the
physical demands of parenting young children much more than we did.
When kids reach the older child/preteen years, their worlds expand, and so, too, the
physical demands on parents expand. These are some of the busiest years of a child’s life; I have
survived endless baseball practices and games, music lessons, trips to the mall, homework
assignments and school functions, all of which required one or both parents to be involved.
Many of my peers are just now beginning to be swept up in the whirlwind of activities of this age
group. They have little time or energy to indulge any interests of their own and can only rarely
break away for a dinner out with friends.
In my household, the children have advanced to their teenage years; they are constantly
planning outings with their friends; they are newly licensed or soon-to-be licensed drivers; they
are beginning to think of post-high school options. They need to be as closely monitored as
young children. But since the energy expended by parents is less physical and time consuming
and more mental at this stage in a child’s life, the parents are able to pursue other interests and
continue their education at a stage in their own lives when they can truly appreciate that
opportunity. Many in my age group did not take seriously the chance to attend college after high
school; we either dropped out or used the college years as a chance to further our social skills.
Some who did earn a bachelor’s or master’s degree worked for a few years, and are now home
raising young children. I was one of the few who had children while still in my twenties and now
finally have another opportunity to continue my education. I bring to my studies life experience,
appreciation, and attentiveness that were absent twenty years ago. Other advantages of this

delayed educational fulfillment directly involve my kids: we help each other with homework; we
cheer each other for good grades; we motivate each other to continue learning at any age.
Another beneficial consequence for couples who have children earlier is that the children
will be more likely to have a longer and closer relationship with their grandparents. And if we
look further into the future, these couples will more likely have the same relationship with their
own grandchildren. In my own family, my parents (who had all five of their children before age
35) have been able to join us on family vacations and keep up with the kids in activities such as
mountain climbing, biking, and canoeing. My three children have wonderful memories of those
experiences with their grandparents. I hope to be able to do the same with my grandchildren;
even if my oldest waits until age 30 to have children, I’ll only be 51!
A more serious issue in favor of having children before age 35 involves the risk factors of
pregnancy and childbirth, all clearly pointed out by The Johns Hopkins University in an
electronic posting titled, “Pregnancy After 35.” Women waiting until after 35 to become
pregnant may have a difficult time conceiving since there is a general decrease in fertility
beginning in the early thirties, and there is a higher risk of miscarriage than for women aged 20
to 35 years. During pregnancy, women over 35 have an increased risk of developing high blood
pressure, diabetes, placental and bleeding problems, and cardiovascular problems. When the
time comes to deliver the baby, first-time mothers over age 30 typically have harder labor with
more fetal distress and are twice as likely as younger women to deliver by cesarean section. And
finally, pregnancies of older women have a much higher risk of producing babies with genetic
disorders, most commonly Down Syndrome. The chance of having a child with Down
Syndrome increases steadily from one in 1,250 at age 25 to one in 106 at age 40. One-fourth of
the cases of Down Syndrome are attributed to the advanced age of the baby’s father, making this
a consideration for dads-to-be also. Obviously, these should be serious considerations for
couples planning their families.

The most compelling argument against couples beginning their families before age thirty
is financial. My husband and I sometimes struggle to and sometimes simply cannot provide our
children with non-essential items they want. It may have been much more practical for both of
us, after completing college, to devote our time and energy to earning as much money as we
could to prepare financially for raising a family. I have to agree that it is much easier to save for
a house and contribute to long-range savings plans when there are no expenses involving
children to account for. But in my observations, some parents carry this thinking too far. Does a
newborn baby really need a home with four bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, and a three-car
garage? Does a toddler really need designer duds and a pint-size electric-powered SUV? And
do elementary school age children really need all the latest state-of-the-art video games and
birthday parties at the arcade with fifty of their closest friends? I think it might be good for kids
these days to experience a world with financial limits; it would temper their exposure to the
negative influences of advanced technology, encourage more imaginative and physically active
play, and force them to take a look at the most natural things in the world around them.
I have experienced one other negative effect from my choice to have children earlier than
have my high school friends. Because our lives were progressing on such different paths, there
were times over the years, especially when we were in our twenties, when I felt we could not
relate to each other; my peers and I were essentially living on two separate planets. But we
remained friends, and now they understand what I was doing and I understand what they are
going through. The mutual recognition of parental pitfalls makes for some interesting and
amusing discussion on our occasional, much-needed, kid-free outings.
The decision to commit to a relationship and have children is, of course, one that requires
much thought and planning. To marry and begin a family too soon could be disastrous for a
young adult; for committed couples, delaying this stage of life could also produce unfavorable
consequences. I believe that for parents and children alike, the personal, developmental,

familial, and physical benefits of having children before age 35 outweigh the economic
challenges and minor social frustrations. I recommend that young people give this idea serious
consideration when planning their future.
WORKS CITED
“Pregnancy After 35.” The Johns Hopkins University. <http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH>.

2. Cinder Block vs. Supercomputer (a persuasive value judgment essay)
ASSIGNMENT: Write a persuasive value judgment essay.
Cinder Block vs. Supercomputer

By Bryan Clodfelter
One of my pet peeves afflicts me whenever I visit my dad’s office or friends’ homes,
walk through school labs, and cross college campuses. On the vast majority of desks sit
Windows computers. This can’t be right! I grew up watching my dad working on an original
128k Macintosh, and learned at an early age how to open things up, type, and play games (I
loved the original MS Flight Simulator and KidPix—a kiddy drawing program). Since I grew up
using a Mac, some people might say that I’m biased. But I’m not. My dad worked on PCs in his
office, and I grew to know the ins and outs of Windows almost as well as the Mac OS.
Minesweeper was a fun game that the Mac didn’t have, and I liked the way the Start menu—in
later versions of Windows—gave me access to all of the applications without having to go
through folders. About the only thing that I don’t know how to do on Windows is to network
two computers together. That said, let’s talk about the strengths and weaknesses of each system,
and see which would be a better choice for most users.
The answer that I get when I ask, “Why do you have a PC instead of a Mac?” is almost
always the same. “There’s no software for the Mac. All the applications I need to run are only
for Windows.” This is simply not true. While certain applications designed specifically for
certain fields are written for the PC and never make it to the Mac, almost all mainstream
software that is on the PC is also on the Mac. At the moment, there are over 16,000 Mac
applications available! Although many of them are ported (copied from one computer format to
another) from the PC, the porting process insures that Mac users get only the best applications
because the companies who port them must look at the program and decide which programs are
most likely to sell. Mac users have all of the important mainstream apps, and they don’t have to
wade through stacks of look-alikes and cheap copies. Who cares if the PC has 80,000
applications; you don’t need 50 different versions of Bob’s Word Processor 3 and Joe’s Super

Spreadsheet when you have Microsoft Office—the superior office productivity application! You
simply don’t need 80,000 apps. With the Mac, it is simpler to choose between software
packages.
Another complaint that PC users often voice is how terribly expensive the Mac is. A
comparable Mac costs about twice as much as a PC, they claim. All I can say is that they’re
right about the cost of acquisition. My Mac cost $2,600, while my friend bought a comparable
PC with a monitor for about $1,400. Looking down the road, however, I will pay next to nothing
to maintain my computer, while my friend will be constantly paying for updates and replacing
hardware as things go bad on his Dell. Thus, the total cost of ownership evens out as I save time
and money by not troubleshooting and restarting my computer after every crash. The UNIX
underpinning of the Mac OS system deserves much of the credit for this stability. According to
Compuworld Magazine, Mac OS X has an “extremely stable kernel that's almost impossible to
kill” (Thompson 72).
The reason I pay more for a Mac is that Apple Computer builds every Mac in-house.
Apple has control over every aspect of each machine’s construction, and thus it can be perfectly
integrated with the Mac OS X operating system. Obviously, the main reason PCs are unstable
(and cheaper), is that computer manufacturer A—who has no control over Windows—makes a
case for the computer, then buys a processor from Intel or AMD, the memory from manufacturer
B, the hard drive from C, and so on for every component. Nearly every piece of every PC is
made by a different manufacturer and mixed together with an OS (Windows) that has to make
large compromises to run on all sorts of different machines. The result is the chaos that
Windows users know all too well as they enjoy the benefits of erratic system behavior. Naming
these problems has become an art; “plug and pray,” the “blue screen of death,” and “system
clog” (the odd tendency of Windows to slow down over time for seemingly no reason at all) are
some of the humorous terms for Windows errors!
To sum up with a comparison: you pay less for a Chevy or Honda, but if you really want
a great machine, you spend more and get a Cadillac. Since you’ve bought a better car, you enjoy

it more, and it lasts longer. In the long run you save money! For example, my dad’s original
“128k” Mac from 1984 still works fine! Most PCs last only 4-5 years, and by the third year
they’re often unstable and fussy. If his (and my) computing needs didn’t grow more demanding
every year, we could have saved at least $10,000 by refusing to purchase another computer!
Although the cost of acquisition may be lower for the PC, the stable, higher quality Mac evens
out the total cost of ownership over the course of a few years.
But the holiest of holy wars in the computing world has raged over whose GUI (GUI
stands for graphical user interface—pronounced “gooey”) is the most stable and easiest to use.
Apple has always had the advantage (and curse) of a vocal, fanatical user base that debates every
feature and shortcoming of the Mac OS. Microsoft is notorious for disregarding its customers’
requests—if it needs to innovate, it simply looks toward Apple for new inspiration. Although the
line between Mac OS X and Microsoft XP is narrower than it was in the early days of Windows,
there are still key differences that make the Mac OS X GUI the clear winner. Windows is still
subject to certain oddities, such as crashes (even when nothing is running), startup freezes, sound
glitches, and even random hard drive corruption! It still spews incomprehensible error messages,
and its various controls are in odd places. Even though some praise the mandatory organization
of files and documents on the PC, the ability on the Mac to clutter your computer and desktop
with all sorts of files pushes the clutter from your head into the computer, allowing you to work
more efficiently. One of the major headaches of Windows is that there are drivers for
everything—even the mouse and keyboard! In Windows before you can plug in a mouse,
printer, scanner, or a digital camera, and expect it to work with the computer, you have to first
insert a CD and run through the driver installation. Although Microsoft claims that you can
“plug and play” with many devices, I still save my work, and cringe as I plug-in anything to my
laptop for fear that I’ll have to restart the computer and repair damage to my files.
On my Mac, I confidently plug and unplug everything that I can lay my hands on,
whether or not it was designed with the Mac in mind. Such random plugging and unplugging of
devices would wreak havoc on a PC, even if the proper drivers were already installed. But I

don’t even need to bother with them. It’s practically impossible to overload a Mac. A while
back I simultaneously plugged in two modems, a PC Firewire hard drive, a USB Compactflash
card reader, a game controller, scanner, two printers, and an Ethernet crossover cable connected
to another Mac, and the whole thing ran fine while I surfed the net, downloaded new system
software, and burned a CD. Years ago, Microsoft became a laughing stock when its version of
plug-and-play horribly backfired with Windows 95. It even crashed (the world’s introduction to
the blue screen of death) during Bill Gate’s demo! Users who tried to plug-in devices without
installing drivers were greeted with the blue screen of death, lost documents, and worse,
corrupted system files—requiring them to reinstall Windows 95. Mac users dubbed the process
“plug and pray”! Many business users stubbornly stuck with Windows 3.1, citing Windows 95’s
instability. Fortunately for me, my Mac hums along, calmly mounting and un-mounting devices
with nary a hitch. The worst thing I’ve experienced is a PC scanner that refused to mount. No
crashes, reboots, or reinstalls! I love it!
As the Mac works, it does so with unsurpassed style. The beige box of the PC looks
horribly boring compared to the sculpted crystal, chrome, and silver of the new Mac G5s. Apple
Powerbook G4 laptops are encased in titanium and crowned with 15.2” widescreen displays.
The new iMac looks like a snow and chrome easel. Adorning Mac OS X’s Aqua interface are
gently throbbing buttons, slightly transparent fade-away menus, and the flashy Dock. One of the
smallest—yet most pleasing—features of the Mac OS is anti-aliased text. Words can’t describe
seeing web pages and word documents in smooth sculpted text; it makes reading articles and
documents a joy, not an eyestrain. All of this flash would be nothing without function, however!
Stability is the keyword of the Mac OS X operating system—its foundation is laid on the UNIX
operating system on which most universities, governments, and Fortune 500 companies base
their servers. I’ve had my new Mac (running Mac OS X 10.2.2) for a year now and I’ve only
experienced two crashes (both of which occurred in the original version of OS X). What about
my friend with the Windows XP Dell? His computer crashes at least two times a week! My
two-year-old Windows 98 laptop crashes about twice a day. Honestly, how can you work at

your best when your computer robs you of your energy and creativity? It’s a well-known fact
that people who use Macs dominate the creative field of filmmaking, digital photography, and
art. Many professionals have high praise for the Mac.
“I've run every Unix GUI that's ever shipped -- for about 30 minutes. I hate
them all,” says Chuck Goolsbee, vice president of technical operations at
Digital Forest Inc., a Bothell, Wash.-based application service provider with
400 Macintosh servers in its data center. His conclusion: “Apple has done a
great job with the GUI.” (Hall 30)
Even if you’re not a creative artist, the creative power that the Mac can unleash in you
can be extraordinary. If you switch to the Mac, you’ll experience an unbelievable amount of
mental relief from having a computer that works for you, instead of against you. Windows
crashes too often for you to really be able to concentrate, and its interface raises the stress level
of most users without their even realizing it! Working on a PC often gives me a headache.
When that happens, I run to my Mac! Even though I don’t particularly look forward writing to
long essays, I’m having fun writing this essay on my Mac, while blasting John Williams’ “March
of the Ewoks.” It’s impossible to have fun with an unstable, uncreative computer!
Nothing represents America’s history of tinkering better than the history of the Mac.
Back in the late 1970s, two college students, Steve Jobs and Steven Wozniak, dropped out of
college and got jobs at Atari and HP. Working together, they started Apple Computer in 1976
with the Apple I. Back then DOS was the only computing standard—no one ever dreamed of a
better way to run computers. Soon after the first Macintosh was released in 1984, Microsoft,
headed by Bill Gates, copied the Mac OS and called it Windows, simply changing the names of
objects. The trash can became the “Recycling Bin,” and the Macintosh HD became “My
Computer.” Of course, it took them three versions to get it working. People still call Windows
3.1 “Mac ’84.” Bill Gates copied the Mac and is rich because of it—not because he’s creative;
he just recognized a great product and had a big enough company beforehand to mass-produce it
and swamp all competition with its overwhelming marketing clout.
Some people might argue that Microsoft is maintaining fair business practices and is
allowing competition. I need to incorporate Bill Cosby’s favorite sarcastic remark here:

“Riiiiiiight!” Apple lives simply because Microsoft allows it to live. There’s always been the
dream that Apple will grow and unseat Microsoft from its throne. If Apple Computer ever did
threaten Microsoft’s market share, Bill Gates would instantly squash Apple. So why doesn’t
Microsoft kill Apple right now while it only has a 5% market share? If Apple didn’t exist, the
Feds would cry, “Monopoly!” and Microsoft would be broken up. So for the time being,
Microsoft needs Apple to keep up its pretence of a fair market. It is interesting to note that Steve
Jobs, the CEO and co-founder of Apple, has a voluntary annual salary of $1! A businessman
like Steve Jobs would never do that unless he loves the cause. Contrast that with Bill Gates, who
has earned an average annual salary of about $2 billion per year! That’s about $63.80 per
second. Who loves the computer, and who loves the money? It’s not going to make you a bad
person if you go out today and buy a Windows PC, but you should support Apple’s creative
inspiration and its tinkering spirit which makes it and so many inventors before it great, instead
of the inferior, megalith copy-cat.
With these comparisons, we see that the Mac is clearly the superior machine. Although
Windows users claim more titles, Mac users have all of the important ones—without the hassle
of going through tons of extra applications of dubious quality. Since the Mac works better and
longer, since you don’t waste time dealing with crashes, the total cost of ownership is about
equal that of the PC. Mac OS X is clearly the smarter and more stable option of GUIs. Mac
users take for granted abilities and conveniences that PC users only dream about. Finally, the
Mac works with unsurpassed style. I want people to see my computer—hiding my Mac beneath
my desk seems to be an insult to its painstaking design. If you want a computer that looks like a
cinder block, stifles innovation, ruins your work, and funnels your money into Microsoft, buy a
Windows PC. The makers of Advil and Tylenol will love you. If you want a computer that
looks like a 22nd century supercomputer, pushes you to your creative limit, and gives you extra
time to do what you wanted to do in the first place (play games, watch movies, socialize), buy a
Mac—and get on with your life. Friends don’t let friends do Windows. Don’t you either.

WORKS CITED
Hall, Mark. “Xserve Grabs the Spotlight.” Computerworld 36.27 (2002): 30.
Thompson, Tom. “Under the Hood with Mac OS X.” Computerworld 36.3 (2000): 72.

Guide To Everyday Writing Assignments

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Guide to

Everyday Writing Assignments

1a. Developing a Perspective on Autobiography

2a. Developing a Perspective on Reports

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3a. Developing a Perspective on Essays

4. WRITING CRITIQUES AND REVIEWS

4a. Developing a Perspective on Critiques and Reviews

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5. WRITING ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION

5a. Developing a Perspective on Argument and Persuasion

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Listen to this writer describing the experience of losing his job:

Walking to the company parking lot that bright spring

2. Assignments: The Autobiographer’s Options

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Blue skies It’s all an act Take this job and

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3. Focusing Your Autobiography

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 What really happened was . . .

 What I discovered was . . .

 The point of it all is . . .

 My dominant impression of [my subject] is . . .

 What people can’t see about [my subject] is . . .

 The main thing I want my readers to see is . . .

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1. Creating Your Persona (Your Voice)

Walking to the company parking lot that bright spring

Picture a little girl, four years old, standing in her

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You’ll probably organize your autobiography in chronological order--in time sequence--like a

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To create your “story line,” do the following:

 List events or scenes in the order you want to cover them.

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Behind us, a quarter mile away, shimmering in the

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1. Identify your audience (name yourself or your intended readers).

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1. Time to Say Goodbye (a personal experience essay)

Time to Say Goodbye

enough time to prepare to visit someone about to die?

gentleman, and hide the way my heart is breaking?

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My ears tune into the conversation.

hallway is longer than I ever remember it being. I trip over my trepidation.

“Honey,” my aunt says, “you have visitors!”

school. I am reminded of what he told me when I, unsure of my choice, decided to return to

I dream of going to. He encourages me to pursue my goal of studying abroad, suggesting

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some unspoken training. A moment later his eyes close. Is he dead?

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On the Border in Borders

become a part of us, and we ourselves become a part of them.

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was not so vulnerable and unprotected from reality.

one rhyme which burned me from within:

O is it the parson they want, with white hair,

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to myself, but every time I found myself returning.