Reflect on Your Essay

      Recently in the College Research and Essay Writing class, we’re doing persuasive essay, and my topic is abolishing school uniforms. Throughout the process of composing a complete essay, I find what’s particularly easy is thinking about supporting arguments. What’s particularly hard is coming up with mild opposing point of views because I don’t want my supporting points fail to defend thus seem weak and can’t persuade my audience.

        Writing a persuasive essay better uses a combination of logical, emotional, and ethical appeals in body paragraphs. For me, the appeal that’s easiest to make is emotional, because I try to use connotative words that rouse people’s emotions. Also, the most difficult one to make is logical appeal since I don’t have lots of data, statistics, examples, or facts.

        When looking at opposing viewpoints, although they make sense, I still can’t change my position. So, my position didn’t really change at all. In the end, I believe my own arguments, and I have to do so. Nobody would want to listen to your essay and it loses the power to persuade if you don’t even believe in yourself.

        There’s no perfection for everything, so my essay does has some holes in my arguments that an opponent might be able to exploit. In my essay, there’s an opposing point saying that schools shouldn’t abolish uniforms because students would waste too much time on doing outfit, and seniors especially can’t have any time to waste. I think this argument is pretty strong, and it’s hard to refute it. Writing a persuasive essay allows me to learn to think about both sides of opinions, and the technique of using different kinds of appeals.

Reason Sits Firm

   Reasoning is by using facts and logic to persuade your audience into believing or doing something. Thus, using reasons is a logical appeal. Chasm is like large crack on the ground. By saying “not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms,” the author was suggesting that reason, which was firm and wouldn’t need to worry about being defeated, didn’t allow feelings to take over. Heathens were non-Christians, but it also meant uncultured, wild people in the 18^th century. The author was trying to say that although wild emotions might run the things, it’s the logical judgment that had the final say in the end.

     In my opinion, I don’t really agree with the author’s point of view that reason eventually rules over emotion. I think it’s vice versa. I remembered one time I went shopping alone at my favorite store near the Mega 21 department store, and I bought nearly to $10,000. I had about ten new items because I hadn’t been there for about a month, and I didn’t want to lose any latest product, so I told the salesperson that I would like to have all new clothes, pants, and accessories. Although my wallet was already empty, I still had few more clothes that I hadn’t bought yet, so I rushed back home and asked my brother to lend me some money. Because of my feeling of wanting to have every latest product, my heart tells me to buy them all rather than stop buying. Thus, this is an example showing that for me, emotion usually rules over brain.

Persuade Me

    Three more months later I will officially be eighteen years old, and by that time I can finally drive car and ride motorcycle. After school ends in a month, my goal is to learn how to ride a motorcycle. I’m always jealous when seeing my friends riding their motorcycles and go to places wherever they want at any time. Not knowing how to ride a motorcycle limits my shopping area only within walking distances. However, the goal is not easy to achieve because my parents don’t even allow me to learn. They think riding a motorcycle is too dangerous, especially hearing that one of our nurse’s mom died due to a car accident. Moreover, I don’t know how to ride a bike, so it’s harder for me to learn motorcycle. Nevertheless, I’m trying hard to persuade my parents that they should let me learn how to ride a motorcycle.

    First, a motorcycle is more convenient than a car when buying food at traditional markets. If I drive a car to the markets, then I not only have to worry about where to park, but also need to concern whether it will be taken away by toll truck. Moreover, a motorcycle is easier than a car in finding parking place because by moving other motorcycles, there will always be spaces squeezed out. Second, when encountering heavy traffic, a motorcycle, can move freely between cars, which are stuck. Third, buying a motorcycle is way cheaper than buying a car. Seeing all these advantages of a motorcycle, I hope that my parents can change their minds and willing to let me learn.

Free Write!

     Today the basketball team practice is pretty relaxing because we only play 3 on 3 and 5 on 5 games. In addition, there isn’t any physical training afterwards. After the practice ends, it’s time to take pictures for the yearbook. Just few days ago, the seniors wore the gown and took the graduation pictures at the park across the school. Having the gown on makes me feel strongly that we’re going to graduate! Moreover, there’s a sense of sadness coming toward my heart. I can’t believe that three years have just gone so fast, and the seniors are going to depart the country and enter the new journey in life within two more months. As for result, I want to keep lots of memories of my last year at high school by asking Angel to take as many pictures for me as possible on the court today.

     The girls basketball team has three seniors, and I don’t whether the team will still exist next year, so I really cherish every practice time that I have with my teammates, with the coach. One more month later the seniors don’t have to come to school anymore. At first, this sounds pretty exciting. But, after thinking about it for a while, this is rather sad because we won’t be able to see our friends as often anymore. In the end of the group shots, the three seniors come up with many poses and ask Angel to help taking pictures. I think we spend about forty minutes on shooting the pictures, which is a long time. However, everything is worthy because this memory is so valuable and meaningful to us. Most importantly, we have to thank Angel for spending such a long time and taking pictures for us.

Spring Break

        During the Spring Break, the seniors and the 8^th graders all went to Bali Club Med for the graduation trip. As soon as I got to Bali, I could feel the heat coming toward me, so I started to sweat. The enjoyable time in Bali was memorable and fun and we tried lots of activities. For sea activities, we did snorkeling, wind surfing, sailing, parachute. While doing snorkeling, our group was lucky because the weather was well, and we got a chance to see lots of fishes. Wind surfing, probably the hardest thing that I tried of this trip, made my muscle grow. It was so difficult to get balance on the sea, and I think I only stayed about 0.5 seconds while standing on the board. When doing parachute, I saw the beauty of Bali while high on the sky and I was impressed. Other than those sea activities, we also did rafting, which was extremely interesting. I shouted to motivate my group to get ahead of others and although I nearly lost my voice, we still got the second place.

At night, the seniors didn’t just go back to bed and sleep. Rather, we played in the swimming pool at midnight with drinks and enjoying the sky, which was so clear that we could see stars. Besides swimming, we also played badminton, basketball at night, and I never had this kind of experience before. Not only the drinks are nice, but also the food. The buffet was amazing, and it served international food, which contained both Asian and Western kind. In addition than the main course, the desserts were really delicious that everyone missed them when we got back to Taiwan.

Other than missing these fun activities, we also missed the G.O.s there. They were so passionate that they sometimes would come and eat with us. Moreover, they could sing and dance well, which could be seen at shows every night. Not only they can entertain the audience, but also everyone can speak at least 3 different kinds of languages. The last night in Bali everyone was hyper, and it was funny that most of the seniors played majong for the whole night. I was drinking crazily that I got drunk and needed others to get me back into my room. After arriving at Taiwan, I bet all the seniors must feel that we want to go back to the great vacation time in Bali Club Med.

Unconvincing Argument

   We may encounter many arguments, however, not all of the arguments have the abilities to convince us successfully. I think that reasons that make an argument unconvincing could be lacking of evidences and appeals. When someone is trying to “sell me something,” I could feel that he or she is not talking truthfully and he or she just keep on talking to see whether he or she has chances to let me buy his or her products.

    I remembered an instance when I was shopping at downtown, a person came to me and asked me whether I want to buy his handmade bag, which cost $150. Moreover, he told me that the money was for fundraising his university’s club. At that point, I directly told myself that I refused to buy the bag not only because it was too expensive which made me feel I was cheated, but also the person was talking insincerely. When I looked through his eyes, he seemed unconfident, which made his attempt at persuasion not work on me. In addition, he just kept on rambling without having any pause. I think he was just trying to make consumers had no time to think, yet he failed.

    I also had experience of convincing someone but were unsuccessful, which was the time when I was doing on street toothbrush selling for Eden Charity. Even though my feel were sore and my back was totally wet, me and Caroline only sold forty something toothbrushes out of 100 ones. I realized that the art of talking is high class, and it was so difficult to make people move. Moreover, Caroline sold most of the toothbrushes, and I was impressed. The reason I think I was unsuccessful was I didn’t talk proudly about my subject and I should be more confident to show all kinds of benefits and the purpose for selling toothbrushes.

       

Evaluating an Argument

   I don’t believe in everything I read or hear because I think people should be skeptical. We should doubt things rather than putting in all our trust, or else we would only result in getting deceived easily. Throughout our lives, we have heard about lots of things, and everyone determines what and what not to believe by own standard. For me, when encountering statements that are too boastful, exaggerated, or beyond normal human capabilities, I choose not to believe until my eyes really see what happened.

    In evaluating the effectiveness of an attempt at persuasion, I generally go on a “gut” instinct about an argument. To me, feeling matters more than logic, so it’s the emotion that’s guiding me rather than the brain. When hearing upon arguments, I would first see whether an argument fits my taste. If I like an argument, then I would go into the process of breaking it down and thinking about its reason to make sure it has good and strong support that wouldn’t be defeated easily. After digesting all arguments that I like, I would go back to other arguments that I didn’t pick at first. Then, I would think about these arguments and check if their reasoning is firm enough. In the end, I would compare and contrast between arguments I prefer and don’t prefer, and this is the time when logic comes in. My brain would then help me to determine what’s believable or trustworthy and what’s not.

    Knowing how to evaluate an argument can help me to construct one of my own because by tearing down the argument piece by piece, I would then know what are the supportive points and reasons that defense well. In addition, I would know what to avoid in order not to get ruthless attacks over and over.