| Write a 3
to 4 page essay addressing the following-
Evaluate Didion’s article "On Self-Respect."
To recognize the strengths and weaknesses of Didion's
approach to defining self-respect and to give you a standard of
comparison on which you can base your judgment, you will want to
compare her to Douglass, Rose, Rodriguez, Walker, King, or
Murray, all of whom view self-respect from varying dimensions.
You may also use your personal knowledge of self-respect
as a basis of comparison.
Do you agree with her that self-respect is more important
than reputation? Why or why not?
1. To decode this assignment,
separate it into the following:
- Evaluate Didion’s article "On Self-Respect."
- To recognize the strengths and weaknesses of Didion's
approach to defining self-respect and to give you a standard of
comparison on which you can base your judgment, you will want to
compare her to Douglass, Rose, Rodriguez, Walker, King, or
Murray, all of whom view self-respect from varying dimensions.
-
You may also use your personal knowledge of self-respect
as a basis of comparison.
- Do you agree with her that self-respect is more important
than reputation? Why or why not?
Now take some of
the key words from the assignment and look them up in a dictionary. Do this step even if you already know
the meanings of the key words. This may help you to
focus your ideas later on.
-
What does "evaluate" knowledge mean?
-
What does "standard" mean?
-
What does "comparison" mean?
-
What does "judgment" mean?
-
What does "agree" mean?
-
What does "self-respect" mean?
-
What does "reputation" mean?
Characteristics of Evaluative Writing
People form opinions about movies, television programs, books,
magazines, computer games, music albums, concerts, plays,
dances, performances, an actor's performance, or a player's
performance after they have had a chance to watch or read
them. Such opinions are called evaluations. In this type
of writing, you are to persuade by argumentation by
applying appropriate standards of value to Didion's essay and by
providing readers with a convincing argument that supports your
evaluation. You want your readers to agree with your evaluation.
In short, you should aim to
-
Thoroughly present the subject
-
Make a clear, authoritative judgment
-
Use appropriate reasons and plausible
support
-
Include a counterargument
1. To thoroughly present the subject,
you will need to annotate and take inventory of Didion's
essay On Self-Respect.
Read the essay as a believer in that you try to
see the concept of self-respect through the author's eyes.
Temporarily suspend your own biases so you can
hear what the writer is saying.
Sketch an outline of how self-respect is
defined by the author.
Read the essay now as a skeptic by
questioning what is NOT in Didion's argument.
Is there anything unexplained or left out?
At this point of your annotating, you should
add marginal comments demanding proof, doubting evidence,
challenging the author's assumptions, and values.
As you continue your analysis of Didion's essay,
you should consider the rhetorical context of the argument and
also its genre. Genre refers to a recurring pattern of argument
such as a letter to an editor, a scholarly journal article, or
in this case a personal experience scholarly essay. The
rhetorical context refers to the topic about which the writer is
writing and about the writer's credentials, purpose, audience,
and motivation. To examine the rhetorical context and genre of
Didion's argument, consider the following questions:
Who is Didion?
To what audience is she writing?
What motivating occasion prompted this
writing?
What is Didion's purpose in writing this
essay?
How do the conventions of this writing genre
determine the depth and complexity of her argument?
2. To make a clear, authoritative
judgment, you need to make a judgment about Didion by
looking at her argument and her writing style. To
evaluate her argument, consider the following questions:
Does her argumentative essay follow a logical
structure?
Is her essay convincing?
Do you accept her definition of
self-respect?
Does she give appropriate reasons to support
her view?
How does Didion's writing style and her
defining what self-respect is compare to other writers such as
Douglass, Rose, Rodriguez, Walker, King, or Murray? How
does it compare to your personal knowledge of what
self-respect is?
To prevent from having a flawed argument in your
writing, make sure that you base your evaluation on standards of
value that readers are likely to agree are appropriate for
judging that kind of subject. For example, if you are writing an
evaluation of why the Terminator trilogy is good and base
your judgment on the fact that Star Trek and Star Wars
movies do not display the level of violence necessary to
meaningfully engage the audience, you will have a flawed
argument in your reasoning, for you are not comparing subjects
of the same class. Star Trek and Star Wars, both
PG rated movies, are constrained by the level of violence that
can be shown, whereas Terminator, rated R and aimed at a
more mature audience, is able to display that kind of graphic
violence. A better comparison upon which the writer can base his
judgment might be Bladerunner, which is also rated R and
also represents a movie of the science fiction
genre.
To make a judgment of Didion's writing style,
you must settle on criteria that is generally agreed upon as
being good writing. There are four areas for which you
might look to help you make a solid judgment about Didion's
writing style: structure, tone, clarity, and overall effect.
Does the essay have appropriate structure?
In analyzing this, you should look at what purpose the pieces
(beginning, middle, and end) of Didion's writing serve.
How does each part of her writing work in conjunction with
other parts of her writing to create a meaningful whole?
Determining the shape of Didion's writing, structure controls
the order in which you receive certain pieces of information,
perhaps inspiring you or enlightening you in some way.
Flashbacks and recurring themes in movies and books are
examples of structure.
Does the essay have appropriate tone?
Similar to the tone in a piece of music, writing also has a
tone, resembling the feel of the overall piece of
writing. Tones can vary from being sophisticated as in a
sad story, down-to-earth as in a political speech, or
eloquent. Being more than just emotion, tone is seen as the
consistent manner in which every single construction is
created, executed, and therefore received in a piece of
writing. Put another way, tone is Didion's overall attitude
toward her subject.
Does the essay have clarity? The
ease with which you understand the meaning of writing, clarity
is dependent upon the definiteness or directness of the
writer's ideas and the extent to which the author follows
standard grammatical and mechanical
conventions.
What is the overall effect? A harmonious combination of
structure, tone, and clarity create an overall effect.
You must judge the singularity of Didion's essay. Does her
essay leave you with a single, overwhelming emotion or
idea? If so, what is it? Do you feel that the writing
has accomplished its purpose? Are you left with several
different ideas and emotions, without anything particularly
powerful or interesting? If so, your judgment may be
that the writing lacks singularity. Whether the writing is to
inform, entertain, solicit, or argue, the writing needs to
accomplish its purpose.
3. You will need to use appropriate
reasons and plausible support to support your evaluation of
Didion's essay.
4. Without waffling on a clearly stated
judgment, you will also need to present a counterargument.
Not all readers are likely to agree with the
way you evaluate Didion's essay, so you should anticipate
opposing arguments and explain what you think is wrong with
them. Whether you present your counterargument after
stating your thesis and before developing your own arguments
or whether you anticipate objections as you develop your
evaluation paragraph by paragraph, you should do your best to
refute them. Show that these counterarguments are
flawed or that your arguments have greater weight.
Moreover, it is wise to establish some common ground with the
reader by showing that you share some of the readers' values;
consequently, those who disagree with your view may be more
likely to switch to your position without feeling that they
have given up too much.
Characteristics of Taking a Position Writing
Another form of
argumentative writing, taking a position is the last part of
this writing assignment: Do you agree with her that self-respect is more important
than reputation? Why or why not? This need not
be dealt with in the same depth as the evaluative part of the
assignment. Nonetheless, you should state whether you agree or
disagree that self-respect is more important than
reputation.
Decide which position you want to take.
List reasons in support of your position.
List opposing view points and refute them.
Consider how you can transition this part of
the essay with the evaluative part.
Choosing the right focus.
Write a sentence justifying the appropriateness
of your topic.
If you have any doubts about your topic,
consider discussing your choice with me (1) by E-mail at mbuckhoff@aol.com
, (2) during class at the appropriate time, or (3) at my
office. It is much less painful to refocus your
topic at this stage of the writing assignment since you do yet not have a complete, highly polished draft.
Once you have generated 6-8 pages in
this stage of your writing, you are ready to move on to the
planning and drafting stage.
|