Derrick

Hi. I've written the first paragraph of an essay paper I have to turn in on May 8 to my Government teacher. Obviously its brief, so just give me some initial thoughts on this. No comments on how I should improve it please.

"The Great Depression"

Our world is immersed in both cosmos and chaos equally, one cannot exist without the other. At least that's what society wants you to believe, because there was a time when everything was tattered in ruin. What began as a disease, eventually evolved into a worldwide cancer that ultimately turned our world into a sickly death, civilization collapsed into abomination. It was like the intense split second of a sandstorm's climax, except this particular moment droned on for several years. Imagine a world where the air is corrupted in dirt, the streets abundant with starving beggars, the sky stained in deep gray above our dejected heads. Time has come to an abrupt hault, it seems like nothing will rejuvenate its rhythmic, forever changing essence. We've become these abysmal vessels, evident of who we are, and at the same time unsure of what we deserve. Blinded by our own naivete, we cannot see the price that has to be paid at the expense of those whose thoughts control the lawless and lawful. If there could be something we deserve, it could be anything at all....

rosenthalpiano

Not once in your topic paragraph is the Great Depression mentioned. If the title was taken away, your reader would have the impression that you're talking about some sort of deadly plague. I don't think that's what you want. You want to introduce your topic (the Great Depression) and the points you will be discussing about that topic within your body paragraphs. Extra points for your evocative use of language though, but just remember that your government teacher probably is not looking for creative writing.

__________________
If you add a little to a little, and then do it again, soon that little shall be much. - Hesiod

If I critique you, please return the favor.

Prologue: In The Tower
Chapter One: Feathers in a Hat
Chapter Two: A Wooden Box
Chapter Three: Her Majesty

fowldarr

ummm so what do you want us to do? My initial thought is the the same as rose...If it wasn't for the title we would have no idea what you were talking about. You lose me on the cosmos and chaos line, because I have never felt that society wanted me to believe that. (we want to structure everything, it's in our nature)

And if I'm following you, you're saying that things never got better after the great depression, instead they spread world wide (you might want to talk to somebody that lived during the depression and see how they feel about that, people will tell you that things are better now)

So with your supporting arguments you will have to give a lot of support. Remember in a typical essay style paper you should immediately say what your thesis is and work on it from there, it is ok to have an attention getter first which is what I think you are going for here, just make sure you can support it.

Derrick

Wow. I actually appreciate the comments. I purposely wrote the first paragraph to set the mood for the reader, opening the paper with bare facts seemed strange to me. By the start of the second paragraph, I then go into the technical things like dates, places and happenings. I just don't want my paper to read like a textbook containing no actual emotion (considering the subject matter), because what I'm addressing also had a lot to do with people's personal feelings. I did add the topic into what I was talking about later in the paper, because obviously my teacher doesn't want to read something self-indulged. But I already know about all that jazz you two mentioned, but my primary focus is writing it in a way that my teacher will want to keep reading without getting bored.

americanwriter

Derrick,

I think you've created some good imagery here and I wouldn't discard it entirely. You know your audience, so consider whether or not you may be writing outside the philosophical and creative ability of most people to understand. You could rephrase your sentences, make them shorter and more direct, and still maintain your imagery. Here's a rewrite to consider.

The world is cosmos and chaos. One cannot exist without the other, or at least society wants you to believe that. There was a time, however, when everything was tattered and in ruin. The Great Depression began as a disease, evolved into a worldwide cancer, and turned into sickly death. Civilization collapsed into abomination. What should have been a sandstorm with limited effect turned into a maelstrom that lasted years. The air was corrupted with dirt, the streets abundant with beggars, the sky a deep gray over dejected souls. Time came to an abrupt hault and it was as if nothing would rejuvenate life's rhythmic forever-changing essence. People were abysmal vessels, wearing their true selves more openly on tattered and thread-bare shirt sleeves, deserving of better but unable to attain it, paying the price of prior decades of social naiveté, self-indulgence, and lack of forethought.

Just a suggestion. You may want to visit this site for some facts and figures. You'll find it interesting. http://www.shambhala.org/business/go...n/causdep.html

__________________
To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying "Amen" to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive -- Robert Louis Stevenson

http://oneamericanlife.blogspot.com

Derrick

americanwriter: Well, I agree with you on one thing. Its good to be succinct and direct with the paper because you don't want to make the teacher go into process overload or anything. I read your re-write, and I only like the ending phase of it. I'll say the other half seems a bit watered-down, it feels like it needs more meat to it. You did a good job of maintaining my imagery, but I also said not to recommend anyway to improve it. Do you want to know why I asked that? Its because as a writer, I want things to be challenging....having other people suggesting what I should do is like giving cheat codes or something. I also looked at the website you offered, and I will use that as my third works cited. Still, your opinion is valid enough here though.

tigerstyle

I'm not sure what standards your teacher applies to academic writing, but an introduction like this would get torn to pieces at uni. I'll start with specific problems and then go on to a more general critique.

This is a run-on sentence.

As far as I know, our world is neither soaking in a tub filled with "cosmos and chaos" nor engrossed in "cosmos and chaos." Either way, your choice of words is nonsensical. Also, is imagery really necessary here anyway? Finally, you're not really saying anything particularly profound: all this sentence tells me is that harmony and disorder exist in equal quantities in the universe.

The clause beginning with "because" and ending with "...tattered in ruin" does not make grammatical sense.

From this sentence, you tell me that the world isn't always characterized by order and disorder, and any belief I hold to the contrary is the result of "society" pulling wool over my eyes. For one, that just doesn't seem to be true. For another, why do you need to impute conspiratorial motives to "society" at all?

Grammar, again.

So far, this reads like the beginning of a bad science fiction novel. Yes, the Great Depression was a horrible thing; no, you don't need to describe it as melodramatically as possible, especially in an academic paper -- unless, of course, your prompt is to tell a story. Florid imagery might work in fiction, but it definitely doesn't work in academic prose.

Also, at this point the reader thinks he's reading about some horrific pandemic, not the Great Depression. You don't want your introduction to muddy the water more than it has to.

"Corrupted in dirt" makes no sense. "Abundant with starving beggars" is an awkward construction because "abundant" is the wrong verb. "Stained...heads" is awkward as well.

Again, cut the melodrama. Your attempts to evoke the hardscrabble life many Americans lived comes off as trite and artificial.

Another run-on sentence. It's "halt," not "hault."

Your imagery doesn't make much sense: if time is forever changing, isn't it constantly rejuvenating its essence? What the hell does rejuvenating essence entail, anyway?

"Evident of who we are" misuses "evident." "Those whose thoughts control the lawless and lawful" makes no sense, unless this is supposed to be an oblique invocation of God/gods. "If there...all" misuses the subjunctive.

None of this has anything to do with the Great Depression. To tell you the truth, I have no idea what any of this means, let alone how it applies to the topic of your essay. It doesn't make sense taken independently, either.

* * *

Drawing from experience, an introduction to any piece of academic writing must generally serve several purposes.

1) Identifying and limiting your subject. At the end of this introduction, the reader has no idea what you're talking about. You mention the Great Depression a grand total of zero times, and your images are so vague that they could describe any horrid situation under the sun. Instead, tell us what your paper is going to deal with and LIMIT your discussion to arguments provable in however number of pages your teacher has told you to write.

2) Presenting your thesis. Your introduction doesn't have arguments, facts, or anything else that could possibly set up the transition to your thesis. After reading it, I don't know what you intend to argue, or whether you even have an argument in mind.

3) Engaging the reader's attention. I have a feeling you're trying to do this already. However, vague abstraction does not an interesting introduction make. If your paper explores the difficulties of living during the Great Depression, try using an anecdote from a first-hand account. If you're talking about governmental policy, try citing a speech by FDR. Grab my attention with something that relates to the topic at hand, not nonsensical blather masquerading as philosophy.

Along these lines, make sure to avoid formulaic openings like the "history-of-the-world," which goes something like "From the dawn of time..." These tend to signal a lack of deep understanding, which is definitely not a perception you want to foster.

This isn't the be-all end-all list of Things That Belong In Introductions, of course, but they are definitely things to keep in mind.

__________________
nothing beside remains: round the decay
of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
the lone and level sands stretch far away

Derrick

tigerstyle: I just said NOT to post any comments on how it should be improved or how YOU think it should be written. A long-winded, unnecessary, systematic and technical meltdown of what you think I executed wrong is the last thing I need. The only thing you said in that entire senseless tirade that I agree with was that I had no facts about the Depression. You are using constructive criticism in the wrong context, and it clearly shows. This criticism belongs in the poetry board, or in any thread where the creator asks for constructive criticism.Your problem my friend, is that you are looking at this too hard under the microscope, RELAX. Take a step back from what I'm saying and view it through a clear mind that isn't riddle with things that you want to objectify about.

tigerstyle

I was under the impression that this board was for "Critique and Advice," but my eyes have been known to deceive me in the past. Besides, isn't it a little short-sighted to ignore concrete suggestions that are freely offered to you by other writers? Having been teaching academic writing for some time, I wanted to offer you a couple of constructive suggestions to help you polish your essay. Whether or not you choose to take them is your decision, but there's no way to improve as a writer if you refuse to even listen to advice.

To avoid offending your sensibilities, here's a general point about academic writing that you might find useful that deals only obliquely with your paper: in academic writing, the goal is not to put something together that appeals to you and you alone. Instead, your goal is to present your argument in as clear and as precise a manner as you can so as to persuade your reader of its validity. That's true to some extent in high school, but it's definitely the rule in college and beyond. Impress your readers with the quality of your ideas, not the breadth of your vocabulary. It's a daunting task, but that's the way academic writing works.

__________________
nothing beside remains: round the decay
of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
the lone and level sands stretch far away

Derrick

tigerstyle: So now its my vocab and not my ideas that you're worried about? This is was not a demonstration of my vocabulary intelligence by any means. In fact, the prose that you just saw was my writing style in general, but its not like I had a thesaurus on hand as I was writing. The words just come to mind without hard thinking, and personally this is nothing compared to the onslaughts I usually write. I would say my intensity with word play here is mediocre of my full potential, so consider yourself lucky that your eyes did not pop out from complex prose. Have you ever heard of "purple prose"? That's exactly,.......EXACTLY the way I write. It means that the words themselves seem to have much more emphasis and execution than the subject matter itself. Its almost as if the subject doesn't even matter.....which is what you were basically saying in your critique, correct? Well, consider me a purple prose writer.........

rosenthalpiano

Far best is he who is himself all-wise,
And he, too, good who listens to wise words;
But whoso is not wise or lays to heart
Another's wisdom is a useless man.

__________________
If you add a little to a little, and then do it again, soon that little shall be much. - Hesiod

If I critique you, please return the favor.

Prologue: In The Tower
Chapter One: Feathers in a Hat
Chapter Two: A Wooden Box
Chapter Three: Her Majesty

americanwriter

Derrick,

In the Critique and Advice section of the forums it is expected that a work posted there will be commented on, and it is expected that recommendations for improvement will be made.

If no validation or critique of your work is believed to be needed to improve, then why bother posting it?

The piece of writing you submitted, as submitted, is colorful but vague. It uses many phrases that people with an average education will not find easy to read or follow. When most people hear "cosmos" they think of Carl Sagan, pictures of stars and planets -- they do not relate "cosmos" to its rarer defintion of "harmony and order."

I would take some time to study tigerstyle's recommendations. Academic pieces can be as entertaining as they can be informative in the hands of a good writer, and creative imagery can help your reader visualize your point as well as hear it in your words. Say as much as possible with as few words as possible and let your imagery be subtle yet engaging.

__________________
To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying "Amen" to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive -- Robert Louis Stevenson

http://oneamericanlife.blogspot.com

Derrick

americanwriter: You are right. What's the point of posting my work if I only intend to have initial thoughts? Well, I don't know, I post because I need other opinions than the few people I usually speak to. As I said before, this is a perfect example of purple prose, the words overwrite the subject matter. I'm very aware that for my age, I'm definitely an accomplished writer as compared to those in my own age group. So because of that, I agree that most teenagers aren't on the same page as me, which is something I'm actually grateful for. I usually write things vaguely because I want the reader to have some type of challenge to keep them interested in the writing. I just don't click well when I write completely "clear", it feels like something is missing......

americanwriter

Well, I wish you luck with this form of writing. Try your purple prose in the following contest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulwer-...iction_Contest (Bulwer-Lytton, the original purple prose tutelary, author of the famous line . . . It was a dark and stormy night . . .")

__________________
To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying "Amen" to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive -- Robert Louis Stevenson

http://oneamericanlife.blogspot.com

Destroyer

If you don't want any criticism on your work, you shouldn't really put it in this section.

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Ricochet - Faith No More

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