Tiara

Hi there! Would anybody mind looking over my AWA essays. These are my first ones so I would appreciate any feedback! Issue: Claim: The best way to understand the character of a society is to examine the character of the men and women that the society chooses as its heroes or its role models. Reason: Heroes and role models reveal a society's highest ideals. As a child, many of the stories that we watch, hear , or read about usually have a protagonist and an antagonist. We are conditioned to believe that the protagonist is always present or the hero always wins whatever conflict is at hand. However, this is not a realistic view of how society works and should not be a determining factor of the character of a society. When individuals hear the word hero it can be assumed that a villan trailing right behind. This suggests that there is a good side and a bad side to a person and or a society. This is not how citizens live and should not be a way to gain clarity on a community. In fact there are many people that are neither a hero nor a villain that live a very average life, living from paycheck to paycheck with no concern about the society they reside in. In reality, many adults are looking for ways to handle all responsibilities, dodge unexpected road bumps, and to make their lives less stressful. There are very few that aim to be “heroes” of their community and make it a priority to do what is best for themselves as well as the people around them. Fighting crime may look great on a television screen but many people try to remain as far away from that issue as possible. Speaking of fighting crime this statement also leaves out some of the low-income communities that have a very high crime rate. In these areas, many individuals live in fear to walk around the corner at certain times of the day knowing they could be a victim of the next crime statistic. In areas like these not even the police can serve as a hero because often time they get overlooked. So in an instance like this, these families do not have a hero to look to and too often focus on role models that are negative because that is what their point of view reflects. These communities may uplift and glorify the wrong habits and behavior of they think is normal simply because that is there reality. They may also refuse to see the normal “hero” of a policeman, or a firefighter as a person to look up to because, very few have genuine intentions and are simply passing time to do a days work. While in a great number of communities, children grow up to have role models who are TV stars, neighborhood officials, politicians, or even their parents, this does not justify they all have good character. Most of the celebrities and officials are taught to be exhibit good behavior, and to remember that there are people that look up to them. Sometimes this creates an outward appearance of perfection which causes us to want to mirror these individuals. Nevertheless this can sometimes be a front that people put on for only a portion of the day and doesn’t represent their true character. For example there are many politician that try to sway us to vote for them by doing public acts of community service, rallies, and things of that nature to show they care about their citizens and nation. However when the cameras stop filming many of these officials are liable to change their demeanor and show a completely different side that they cover up and don’t want us to see. As many PR teams do a great job of showing the audience this hero figure we want to see it does not constitute that this person is of good character. To conclude, it is unrealistic to create heroes and role models to represent an entire society. Many people grow up not having a figure like this in their life or have role models that are not of the best character. The best way to make an assumption about a society is to look at the average people that inhabit it, rather than the ones they are persuaded to love. Argument: Fifteen years ago, Omega University implemented a new procedure that encouraged students to evaluate the teaching effectiveness of all their professors. Since that time, Omega professors have begun to assign higher grades in their classes, and overall student grade averages at Omega have risen by 30 percent. Potential employers, looking at this dramatic rise in grades, believe that grades at Omega are inflated and do not accurately reflect student achievement; as a result, Omega graduates have not been as successful at getting jobs as have graduates from nearby Alpha University. To enable its graduates to secure better jobs, Omega University should terminate student evaluation of professors. The statement above gives us minute details about two Universities and their graduates. It also makes aasumptions that one piece of the academic process is affecting the employment rate of it’s graduates. We do not possess enough information on the students or the two universities to draw this conclusion. Omega University implemented a teacher effectiveness survey that encouraged students to critique their professors, which would lead to better teaching techniques by professors in the future. Fifteen years later the effectiveness of this survey, based on student employment, is being contrasted to their neighbor school Alpha University. Although employers stated seeing a dramatic rise in grades, fifteen is a very generous time to allow professors to see their mistakes, communicate this with their students and staff, and correct any problems for their future students success. On the other hand, if this survey was created fifteen years ago it might also be outdated in terms of the teaching styles, and material that is covered then. So rather than completely removing the survey from the system it may be more advantageous of the administration staff to make changes to the survey and adapt their teaching to any changes made. That way there is more evidence to prove that this survey is still effective any can pull student examples that are more recent and can be easier to prove. The statement also compares the job offers received by the Omega graduates to job offers received by the Alpha graudates. The statements says Alpha graduates secured “better jobs” than Omega graduates. However, what deems a job better than the other? There is no objective evidence statting that the jobs by Alpha graduates are with bigger companies, have better salaries, offer more benefits, etc. Nothing in the statement above elaborates on how these job offers are better than the offers Omega graduates are receiving. Even if all the assumptions before hold true, are they comparing job offers that are in the same field or just comparing jobs that are offered to all graduates. If a better job is determined by the salary it is understandable that a person graduating with a degree in Biology may receive a “better job” than a person with a degree in Liberal Arts given most careers in each field have a a dramatic difference in salaries. Not only does the statement fail to give us information on the graduates and the type of jobs they are receiving, there is no factual information about Alpha University. For example, though the school is nearby Omega University it might contain better resources to help senior students in finding a job upon graduation. It is also possible that this University may have classes or programs initiated to help seniors and graduates students gain internships in their perspective fields. If this is so, this would make Alpha graduates more competive candidates given they have more experience and knowledge in their field. In conclusion, there is not enough information given about the contrasting University to make this statement.