Jasmine Ho
Mr. Hayes
English 1A17
5th
February 2013
Word Count: 1557
Essay #2
Imagine one day, a stranger came in front
of you, telling you that he knows almost everything about you from your social
networking profile – from your birthday to the food you like, from your best
friends to your favorite singer, from your address to the places you have been
a week ago. How would you feel about
it? Would you be startled, as if like
being probed by somebody else?
In recent
years, with the trend of the using smart phones, various social networking
sites became very popular. Facebook,
Youtube, Twitter, Instagram are the sites that the general public should be
very familiar with, most of the adolescents and young adults are even addicted
to them.In the meanwhile, an ongoing discussion
swirls around the harmfulness of these online communication platforms. Gordon M. Snow (“Social Networks are
Vulnerable to Crimes”), Nicole Verardi (“Teen Online Activity Can Harm Future
College
Admission and Employment”), and Mick O’Leary (“Youtube is Beneficial to
Society”) expressed their opinions towards social networking sites
respectively.
After reading the content of each of
them, though I respect how knowledgeable Snow is, concerning the various types
of online crimes or methodologies obtained by the Internet criminals, the
approach that Verardi and O’Leary adapted in writing their columns offer a more
all-round and convincing ideas in supporting their major claims. Though the articles share the same general
topic, social networking, the angles the three writers adapted in their
articles are different. Among the three
passages, Verardi’s argument stands out, mainly because her organization of
writing. The evidences and counter
arguments she brought up to the readers are responding to her claim
directly. The neat presentation of
personal opinions is the criteria, that the other two writers failed to
achieve, which to a reader, their arguments are less convincing.
The key
principle that builds up my impression towards an article is the writer’s
presentation, how they convey his or her ideas to the readers in a
comparatively attractive way. Personally,
I think that T.E.A (Thesis. Evidence. Analysis) style of writing helps writers
to develop a persuasive and convincing argumentative essay.
The
first thing to mention is the “thesis”.
Thesis is the soul of an article, which defines the position of the
writer towards a certain issue. Concerning this criteria, I think that the
three writers succeeded in making their thesis.
By simply glimpsing the three articles’ titles, readers can
approximately know the three columnists’ stances concerning the issue. The three writers make arguable theses.
However, I would like to hold up Verardi’s thesis,
“Teens Online Activity Can
Harm Future College Admission and Employment.” In my opinion, Verardi made her
thesis sound too absolute. The
assumption of Verardi towards “teen online activity” is browsing social networking websites. However, this term used turned out to be very
absolute, meaning that social networking is the only teen online activity. In this sense, Verardi’s thesis turns out to
be too broad and over-arguable at the readers’ first sight, when compared to
the other two.
“Evidences”
plays an important role in supporting the writers’ thesis and arguments
made. Reading through the three
articles, I think that the three writers succeeded in inserting relevant
evidences in consolidating their point of view respectively. Take Snow’s article as an example. Snow uses a large portion of his article making
an in-depth introduction various types of Internet frauds, like Data Mining and
Phishing Scams, in order to support “social networking is vulnerable to
crimes.” The abundant evidences shown by Snow persuade readers that his thesis
is true. Even though O’Leary narrows
down his article in the discussion of Youtube rather than social networking
websites, he is also able to give out evidences in supporting his point of
view. For example, in responding to the
illicit contents in Youtube, O’Leary mentioned that channels, like National
Geographic and C-SPAN, also regularly upload their programs to their own
channel for free, which the videos are very educational and thus benefits the
public. Furthermore, he cites examples
of the site's impact on political races, enhancement of individual creativity,
and its ability to provide users with a means to discover new and interesting
content related to their original search query.
These all evidences contribute a lot in making the arguments sound to
readers.
Simply having
thesis and evidences are not sufficient in convincing readers to support the
writer. “Analysis” is the most important
element that combines the former two elements to make an argument persuasive
and convincing. One common thing among
the three articles is that they did mention the opposite opinions to their
stance. For instance, Snow mentioned the
advantages of social networking before he started introducing different types
of Internet fraud; Verardi mentioned the positive sides of online sites in the
middle of her arguments. Readers will
develop a positive impression towards the articles with two-sided arguments. Certain approach helps showing that the
writer had considered the pros and cons of the issue they are discussing,
trying to make counter-arguments which somehow “defeat” readers’ assumptions of
opposing view point. Thus,
counter-arguments appear to the readers that the writer did make an effort in
making his or her arguments more persuasive and convincing.
However, making
counter-arguments is not the whole of “analysis.” The further elaboration by the writer using
the materials they have in hand is equally important. Without writer’s personal analysis, evidences
are simply facts, which are not able convey the arguments to the readers. Snow’s article obviously failed in achieving
the analysis part. He uses almost the
entire article to introduce each kind of Internet frauds and how the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) put and effort in minimizing the number of online
crimes recently. The expository style of
writing of the Snow’s article contains very little, almost zero, analysis based
on the long list of evidences he listed.
Without writer’s analysis on top of the evidences, readers will feel
that they are reading an official pamphlet from the FBI, rather than an argumentative
essay, which greatly lowers the persuasiveness.
In this case, readers’ impression towards the entire article is
negatively affected.
On the other
hand, in Verardi and O’Leary’s articles, readers are able to read the two
writers’ analysis in every arguments they made in the article, we can clearly
identify the flow of their arguments. The neat organization in each of their
arguments allows both of them to convey their ideas in a more in-depth and
all-round to the readers, making the arguments convincing and
persuading. Take Varardi’s article as example. She is able to further thoroughly explain and
elaborate the reasons that she thinks that the use of social networking
websites can harm college admissions and employments, with the use of her
abundant reality examples, like a lady’s job application is turned down since
her email address is partygirl@hotmail.com.
Though O’Leary did succeed in the
analysis part, his article is not as persuasive as Verardi’s. The main reason is due to the tone that O’Leary
adopts in his writing. In my opinion,
the tone in his article is too casual. Street-language
or vulgar terms can be easily found throughout the entire article. For example, “People say YouTube is a
careless jumble of junky videos haphazardly stuck on the web,” and “So you
think YouTube's content comes from brain-dead slackers with body piercings and
no jobs?” Some may say that such
informal tone used can attract readers’ attention in reading it, however, in my
point of view; such tone negatively affect the entire article’s
“reliability.” When reading the article,
readers might find that the writer’s attitude is not respectful to those who
oppose Youtube. As an argumentative
essay, what readers expect is argue rationally and intellectually. A respectful tone for such an argumentative
essay will indirectly help gaining readers’ support with the writer’s point of
view, which turns out O’Leary failed to achieve.
All in all, the three writers did a good
job in making a discussion on the issue of the use of social networking sites;
they each take a different angle in weighting the pros and cons of the
websites. Though Verardi’s thesis is too
absolute at the first sight of it, comparing the quality of content of it to
the other two, it is obvious that her organization of evidences and analysis
makes her arguments most persuasive and convincing to the readers.
Works Cited
O'Leary, Mick.
"YouTube Is Beneficial to Society." Popular Culture. Ed. David
Haugen and Susan Musser.
Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2011. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "I Love
YouTube." Information Today 25 (Dec. 2008): 33-39. Gale Opposing
Viewpoints In Context. Web. 25 Jan. 2013.
Snow, Gordon M.
"Social Networks Are Vulnerable to Crime." Policing the Internet.
Ed. Roman Espejo. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. At Issue. Rpt. from
"Statement Before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism,
and Homeland Security." www.fbi.gov. Courtesy of The Federal Bureau of
Investigation and The Department of Justice. The Federal Bureau of
Investigation and The Department of Justice, 2010. Gale Opposing Viewpoints
In Context. Web. 23 Jan. 2013.
Verardi, Nicole. "Teen
Online Activity Can Harm Future College Admissions and Employment." Teens
and Privacy. Ed. Noël Merino. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2011. Current
Controversies. Rpt. from "Social Networking and College Admission."
National Association for College Admission Counseling, 2010. Gale Opposing
Viewpoints In Context. Web. 23 Jan. 2013.
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