This week, we've got another Letter to the Editor but with a more American twist.
Background: Donald Trump is a billionaire/businessman currently in the running to become the Republican candidate for the US Presidential Election which will take place in November 2016. The American electoral system involves a series of pre-election votes (known as primaries or caucuses) that are held in each state in order to narrow down the candidates. Essentially, citizens nominate which candidate from the two major parties they wish to represent their party prior to the official election where the two candidates go head to head. Thus far, Trump has won a majority of these primaries and caucuses leading many to assume he will be the official Republican front-runner. He has also become infamous on a global stage for his incendiary remarks and no-nonsense rhetoric regarding world issues.
The following was published in an American newspaper following Trump's victories in multiple states.
Trouble with Trump
Similar to many citizens, I dislike contemporary political campaigns. But this year one candidate has dragged the debates through a gutter.
The world about us is already burning with terrorists, mass murders, drug abuse, groups that lie in wait to invade other nations, entertainment that promotes anger, hatred, destruction of society, including dialogues with such limited language that one wonders how it could be considered a story.
Candidates were always educated and appeared to research issues impacting domestic and foreign events, and an unspoken respect for each other was evident. Donald Trump has degraded the campaign and I pray the public will wake up and ignore him.
Don't vote for him.
Instead of discussing political situations, laws, finance and domestic/foreign situations that impact our daily lives, he only offers ridicule and insults. He has yet to discuss current events, and at this time has only convinced me he seeks the office of POTUS* to satisfy his narcissistic personality. All elections are important, we need a president prepared to meet the challenges ahead, and not waste precious time with adolescent pettiness.
Eileen Corrigan-Smith, North Carolina
*Note: POTUS = President of the United States
Pieces welcome below! There's quite a bit of good language to unpack in this letter, and I might stop by later in the week to point out a few of those opportunities.
Happy writing!
billionairepfft, what's he gonna do? Build a wall around me and make the Mexicans pay for it?
Will do one tomorrow night or so, when i finish editing my LA from Week 1
In a newspaper response to the largely successful political campaign of the president candidate Donald Trump, Eileen Corrigan-Smith contends with a critical and indignant tone that Donald Trump is not an appropriate candidate for the running of president of the Unites States and if elected, may bring about negative outcomes for the future. Corrigan-Smith also advocates that the future president of the Unites States should have the capability to meet the challenges of leading a country, and not to waste time and resources.
Only just got wind of this. Am typing this on my phone, right now. So, I hope it's good enough. It's just an introduction, but if possible I'll try to make a body paragraph as soon as I get home.
There has been much attention drawn by the controversial presidential candidate, Donald Trump, as his candidacy has split U.S voters, who hold polarising views on his legitimacy in running for presidency. Corrigan-Smith condemns in a scathing commentary of the presidential campaign, Donald Trump's candidacy as a disgraceful development, yet also deeply reflective of contemporary politics. That it has devolved into a commodified franchise exempts the presidential seat as having any true objective duty, which Corrigan-Smith coerces her readers to reject. Corrigan-Smith urges the American public to ignore and put aside their votes for Donald Trump lest his presidency degrades the American public image further, as evident from the public's consideration of him as president.
Corrigan-Smith condemns in a scathing commentary of the presidential campaign, Donald Trump's candidacy as a disgraceful development, yet also deeply reflective of contemporary politics.
To convince the readers thatDonald Trumpthey should not vote for Donald Trump as the president of the United states, Corrigan-Smith portrays Trump as having a "narcissistic personality." The word narcissistic has a strong negative connotationas a selfish person,of selfishness, encouraging the readers to disapprove of Trump's personality, hence positioning them to feel as though Trump should not be the president of their country. Furthermore, Corrigan-Smith states that he only offers "ridicule and insults" instead of discussing "current events." These words are oftenconnotedassociated with "adolescent pettiness", sentence structure is a bit confusing here. Are you trying to say that the quotes: "ridicule and insults" are associated with "adolescent pettiness?" Because that second one is an actual quote, that should be the language you're explaining rather than being part of your explanation, if that makes sense. Basically rather than saying "the author says X which has connotations of "quote from the article," making readers feel..." <-- that "quote from the article" should be the focus of your discussion, not a way to supplement it presenting Trump as not sufficiently mature enough to be the president. Voters generally want someone who is a strong leader to be the head of state in the country. With Donald Trump being reduced by the writerinto (because you reduce someone TO something, not INTO something - just a minor expression thing) a selfish, uneducated bully, the readerscan only beare encouraged to view him as a weak political leader,thereby they will view him as being unsuitable for being the president.sentence is getting a bit long, and your point about him being a weak politician should suffice; you won't have to zoom all the way out to the overall contention each time - talking about the portrayal of Trump is enough in this case. Corrigan-Smith also mentions that America needs a president who is "prepared to meet the challenges ahead." Readers, after beingconvincedmight come across as a bit too definitive - perhaps use 'assured' or just make the author your focus by saying 'Thus the author, having established that Trump is a bully, attempts to persuade readers that...' that Donald Trump as being an immature bully, they are likely to view that Trump will not meet the challenges of solving issues in a variety of situations. This viewpoint highlights that Donald Trump is likely to be an incompetent persongiven that he is in the position of president,this is more of a hypothetical at the moment since he's just one of several candidates convincing them that Trump does not deserve to be the president of the United States. Also, the readers of this letter are likely to be voters in the presidential elections, so they probably would be convinced that try and swap out these kinds of expressions for ones with 'the author' as the focus. For instance 'the author is therefore able to engender their support for...' or 'hence the author evokes feelings of...' as this will stop you from sounding too definitive they should not vote for Trump as the president of the United states.
Scathingly careful with your tone + verb combinations - how exactly would you 'scathingly seek to form associations?', the North Carolina denizen this is a very 'literary' word - you'd use it in the context of 'a denizen of the valley' or 'a denizen of Medieval Europe' - it can sound a bit odd to use it in slightly more mediocre contexts like 'a denizen of some random suburb' :P seeks to form an association between the billionaire and sinister and reprehensible aspects of the world; including “terrorists, mass murderers [and] drug abuse.” Her enumerationshave the effect of overwhelmingare intended to overwhelm (some assessors might view what you've got here as being a tad too definitive, so phrasing this in a 'the author attempts to...' or 'this forms part of his intention to...' is a bit safer) the audience of American constituents whose natural inclination would have been to support Trump with just how perilous the world was not sure about your interpretation here(?). By frankly pronouncing word check. This only really works in terms of 'I pronounce my vowels in a certain way' - as in, it's about the articulation of sound rather than the expression of ideas. I can pronounce things in a French accent but I can't 'pronounce' my love of France Trump had “degraded” the political campaign and put it “through a gutter”, the writer thus intimates that to vote the presidential hopeful into the White House would be akin to exacerbating the world’s present situation good. Corrigan-Smith thus forms an association between Trump and unappealing aspects of humanity in order to make the reader less inclined to want to vote him into the position of president because their patriotism precludes them from wanting a man like Trump who purportedly represents such atrocious aspects of life in a position of authority in which he would effectively become the epitome of American civilisation; to this end, they infer that Trump’s presidency would imply America was a place where “mass murders, drug abuse… anger, hatred” and the like were rife v. long sentence, but the content is excellent - this is a great sentence linking the language through to the overall contention :).
I know this is a modified task, but always try to link between your paragraphs and imply a sense of continuity. Corrigan-Smith seeks to vilify president hopeful Donald Trump, positioning the audience to perceive the billionaire as the antithesis of the ideal leader. She juxtaposes what characteristics an ideal leader would purportedly possess with the characteristics displayed by Trump. quotes? Some evidence here would be good. By contrasting the two, the North Carolina resident accentuates the extreme disparity between these two. To this end, great phrase, but it came up at the end of your previous paragraph; don't overuse it. Heaps of synonyms for 'thus'/'ultimately'/'consequently' if you need them she intimates Trump would be a horrible choice for president because he displays no qualities commonly associated with a leader.Establishing he lacked these leadership qualities, the writer thus suggests Trump lacked the substance or credentials that would have given the impression he could be a competent leader of the American public.You've made this point already so you don't really need this sentence. That the writer should seek to depict the presidential hopeful as the antithesis of the ideal leader is supposed to manoeuvre thevieweronly use this for images - 'reader'/'readership'/'audience' are preferred, or you can get more specific in cases like this where you might say 'the American public' or 'voters' to opt against voting for him because he purportedly lacks the qualities voters would typically expect in a presidential candidate.
What sort of tone does the writer adopt? I'm particularly interesting in shifting tonality; I NEVER see them. "Scathing" and "Blunt" are like my go-to tones when I have no idea what I'm doing. LOL.Two sub-problems to this, as far as I can see:
So basically invest in a good thesaurus and one of those "tone sheets" every English teacher apparently gives out. And keeping an eye on word usage which continues to be a big problem for me.Yes indeed - the more vocabulary you have at your disposal, the more techniques and language features you're likely to find in the material. Online tonal worksheets should suffice, and I cannot for the life of me find the one I used in Year 12 but I might just type up a replacement if I get the chance.
How do you think I would best go around resolving my word usage problem? My problem is a lot of the words I do use wrong are words I thought I was using correctly but it turns out I wasn't. Short of starting a list of words to just not use in my essays, what else could I do to fix this problem?
Also: Could you please clarify what you meant by linking between paragraphs?
Side note: Could those two paragraphs have been compressed into one?
In response to the approval Donald Trump has gathered from many, Corrigan-Smith endeavours to dissuade the public from voting for him. In a forthright and scathing tone, Corrigan-Smith vilifies the presidential candidate by accentuating his disrespectful behaviour; no need for a semicolon here accusing him of having ‘degraded the campaign’ and ‘dragged [it] through a gutter.’ From this, it can be intimated that Trump has corrupted the significance of the debates as for the people - especially given his ignorance of ‘situations that impact our daily lives’ -butand has instead run simply ‘to satisfy his narcissistic personality’, which holds nuances expression is a bit odd here of a selfish ulterior motive and portrays him as unsuitable to be a political leader. Hence, not only does this undermine the authenticity of Trump’s desire to ‘make America great again’ (is this allowed?) haha, as much as this is relevant and objectively valid given the context of the situation, you're not really meant to do anything with the context of the situation and just concentrate on the language that's provided. So no, it wouldn't be "allowed" in that you won't earn any marks for it :P but also brings into doubt his motivation for following up appropriately on the responsibilities the role carries, as it seems this is okay, but rather than overusing these kinds of sentence types, try to err on the side of using 'the author' as the focus of your sentences. The whole task has to revolve around how the author uses language to persuade, so if you can reflect that focus in your sentence structure by saying 'the author highlights XYZ' instead of 'the audience may infer XYZ' or 'it would appear that XYZ,' then you'll be in a much better position. Those other types are still totally fine as interchangeable options to vary things up if you're too dependent on 'the author does suchandsuch' but still favour those authorial-intent based ones wherever possible he aims for presidency for personal reasons instead. Subsequently, these points are only further exaggerated by Corrigan-Smith’s comparison of Trump to other presidential candidates. By describing them as ‘well educated’ and holding ‘an unspoken respect for each other’, she accentuates the perks of the other candidates and thus bolsters the image of these parties in the audience’s perspective, dislodging Trump’s standing as a result v.good! Readers are consequently made more reluctant to vote for him, given this disrespectful, selfish nature that seems uncaring of catering towards the country’s true needs, and are thus more likely to consider other candidates instead.
I think it's a combination. A lot of the time, I'll be like "Oh. Used that word wrong" and then I'll consult with Lord Google and figure out how it's supposed to be used and attempt to file it away for later use (sometimes I forget though cuz some of these words I've consistently used wrong). Once I've googled it, I pick up really quickly how I'm supposed to use it. The only problem is I write it down and then totally forget the correct word usage after like a month and think of the word under SAC conditions and either
a) use it wrong again (because I forgot someone else had previously corrected my use of that word: rare but it happens) OR
b) know that my definition of it is wrong but can't remember the proper definition and am too time poor to look it up so I just use a simpler word.
Corrigan-Smith attempts to dissuade her readers from voting for Trump by asserting that he is incapable of leading a nation. From the outset, Corrigan-Smith paints a bleak picture of the world in order to hyperbolise 'exaggerate' would be the more accepted version of this the need for an effective leader. Loaded language such as "terrorists" and "drug abuse" attempts to instil fear within her readers as "terrorists' carries heavy connotations of danger, destruction and death while "drug abuse" allude to unproductivity and hopelessness. Furthermore, Corrigan-Smith's excessive use of commas within "anger, hatred, destruction..." attempts to overwhelm her readers of our avoid first person pronouns in L.A. essays troubling society as the use of semiotics you'd have to explain this more to get credit for the metalanguage here, but semiotics might be a bit too convoluted to bring up in an analysis succinctly - maybe comment on the overwhelming/cumulative effect of listing here instead create the effect of problems piling up out of control. This is likely to encourage her readers to recognise the importance of a capable president. The bleak tone shifts into a more firm, authoritative tone by "Don't vote for him", which invites her readers tackle the situation at hand logically rather than to lament to lament what exactly? Where in the language does this come from? The sharp, pithy sentence acts to inform her readers of a clear solution. ironically, this sentence is a bit short and jarring; consider linking this with what's on either side of it, or some more evidence from the material? This is furthered by the sentence standing alone as a single paragraph which when viewed through the audience's eyes physically stands out with clarity true, though perhaps not the strongest point to make. Not only this aim for a linking word like 'Furthermore' or 'Likewise;' this one comes across as a bit colloquial, reducing Trump's actions as "adolescent pettiness" Corrigan-Smith attempts to underline Trump's political ineptitude, as "adolescent" carries connotation of immaturity, unreliability and thoughtlessness <-- sentence structure gets a bit confusing here. Ultimately, Corrigan-Smith guides her readers to lose faith in Trump as a strong leader, framing him as someone incapable of dealing with social issues at hand. Thus, readers may be encouraged to vote for other more promising candidates. Your understanding of the material is excellent, and the bits of the article you've chosen to analyse are spot on! Pretty much everything I haven't mentioned here is really good, so just keep an eye on your phrasing and the connections between your analysis, and you should be fine :)
hopefully somebody can still be bothered correcting my essay.lol
With the forthcoming* United States Presidential election, Eileen Corrigan-Smith exerts her disapproval of the Republican Candidate Donald Trump by disparaginguponword usage - you dont disparage upon someth much like how you dont shout upon someth the capacity of his leadership and political mobility in the article “Trouble with Trump”not entirely sure what you mean here -- sounds impressive but lacking in clarity. From the initial sentence, common groundthis common ground stuff is too subjective. You neednto be aiming to be more objective. is established generally rule of thumb is to always use present tensewith the readers by attesting herself to be “similar to many citizens”. This serves to tune the tone of the article to display enmity whilst on a conversational level. As such, and with the inclusion of common jargon oxymoron - common jargon; do you mean cliche?like “dragged.. through a gutter”, Corrigan appeals to the audience on friendly, mutual terms. This exploits not very objectivethe readers to adopt similar stances to her try to avoid saying stuff like this as its quite similar to saying that she does it to encourage her readers to agree with her contention which is unnecessary as Corrigan portrays herself to be an incorporativecheck word usage? component of the citizens are you saying the audience targetted is the american public? (Hint: your audience is never the public)who she is beseeching to evidence to support your statement that she's beseeching?.
Saturated what do you mean by this?and connotative language is used as a vital component of Corrigan’s rhetoric to paint imagery of a dystopic USA “burning with terrorists, mass murders” and the “destruction of society”. With such copious be objective! exaggeration, the nation is portrayed to be desolatecheck word usage, and desperate for “a president prepared to meet the challenges ahead”. The imagery appeals on a visual basisoh? How so? and the flaws of Donald Trump is highlighted when Corrigan condescends his character with loaded words of “narcissist personality” and “adolescent pettiness”. Consequently, Trump’s credibility and capacity as a candidate is diminished, exposingbe objective to the audience that he does not epitomise the important characteristics needed to lead the nation, thus invalidating him as a commendable candidate.
Furthermore, the short sentence “don’t vote for him” has a stark effect where the sudden conciseness and simplicity of the sentence conveys not only and imperative command but also accentuates the importance of not electing Trump. This positions readers to profoundly revisit their perspectives on Trump, being inclined not to vote him. Also, inclusive language of “our” and “we” creates a sense of mutual responsibility, as Corrigan implies that the responsibility to not elect Trump is burdened by misused burdened; try using it like author burdens reader with the responsibility or reader is burdened with the responsibility of -- works better“the public” as well, therefore swaying readers to actively disapprove Trump rather than dwindle in passive ignorance.
Through Corrigan’s rhetoric, the readers are appealed to on a friendly ground be objectivewhich creates a climate of mutual understanding and acceptance of her arguments. In addition, loaded language beware phrases like loaded language. Teachers dont tend to like it cos they are often quite vague; instead try to specify how they are loaded.is used to create imagery which allows the contrast of Trump being a disproportionate candidate. Finally the sudden short sentence and the inclusive language sheds persuasion for readers to be actively detest Donald Trump.
*pretending I’m in the past
I started editing this but exhaustion's started to kick in despite the fact that Ive been resting all afternoon so I'm going to quit here for now; might go back and add more feedback later if I'm feeling up to it. :)Thanks, I'm just not really sure what you mean by "be objective". Thanks
Thanks, I'm just not really sure what you mean by "be objective". Thanks
Not HLS, but I think she's talking about focusing on analyzing rather than giving your opinion on the writing.