In-Class Lab: Analyzing an Argument

Annotations, Laura Combs

Laura takes a position on raising the amount of minimum wage in America. She believes that it wouldn’t hurt anyone to try it and that people who make minimum wage, especially ones with a family deserve to make more money than they do. She includes information from the Daily Caller News Foundation by saying that Bernie Sanders is hopeful to raise the amount to $15 to “protect the least powerful members of our society from predation.” She includes efficient sources and protects her position.

1.What is the claim?

a.The main point the writer is trying to make is that the minimum wage in the United States should be raised.

b.Yes there is a clearly stated thesis, it is at the end of the first paragraph, the writer clearly says what their position is on the topic by saying “the minimum wage in this country should be raised.”

2. What support does the writer offer for the claim?

a. The reasons given to support the writer's claim is that certain people and companies have more control and power over others which really impacts where and who the money goes to and that people who are working minimum wage jobs especially who have a family deserve to make more money.

b. There are examples in the piece by having exact amounts of how much the minimum wage was and how much it has gone up before. In the piece the writer brings up how Bernie Sanders is hopeful to raise minimum wage to $15 an hour.

c.the reasons are plausible and sufficient, they are exact and include sufficient sources and people who said the examples.

3. How evenhandedly does the writer present the issues?

a.There is a counter argument about how people believe it is pointless to raise minimum wage but what is the hurt in trying.

b.The writer doesn’t have many counterarguments but they do respond to them reasonably, the writer should add in a few other counter arguments into their paper.

c.the writer does treat other arguments respectfully they say what is the hurt and doesn’t back talk what other people have to say about it.

d.their own arguments are appropriately qualified and incorporates their words in terms to not offend the other side of the position.

4.What authorities or sources of outside information does the author use?

a.each one is used by after incorporating the information puts the source in parenthesis so we can clearly tell where what the source is, also at the end of the paper cites all sources.

b.The sources seem very credible by using a Daily Caller News piece, Forbes.com and a research article.

c.the sources are recent

5.How does the writer address you as the reader?

a.the writer doesn’t seem to assume the reader knows too much about the subject, they start off the paper with saying how much the economy has changed and with the economy changing so does the minimum wage price.

b. the words the writer uses seem to include me, the writer does not say I and says words that seem to include me and want to draw me into keep reading.

c. I think the author and I both do have the same kind of beliefs because I also don’t see why it would hurt to raise the minimum wage amount I think it would be a good idea as well.

Annotations, Micah Nelson

Micah takes a position on cutting down the amount of energy we use in our daily lives. Because of fossil fuels and enormous amounts of energy usage and factories our air is getting polluted, people are getting sick and our land is deteriorating. in the paper it is stated that, “Our best weapon against global climate change is clean energy.”

1.What is the claim?

a.The main point the writer is trying to make is that we should cut back on the amount of energy we use in our daily lives.

b.there is a clearly stated thesis and it is in the first paragraph the writer lists economic issues then clearly states “all of these major complications could be avoided if we simply cut back on the amount of energy we use in our daily lives.”

2.What support does the writer offer for the claim?

a.the reasons given to support the claim is that there is many problems caused by the amount we use energy like air pollution, health problems, damage to precious land, environmental deterioration and water pollution.

b.there is evidence to support the claim, that being statistics that in 2014 the U.S. generated about 4,093 billion kb. of energy and about 67% was from fossil fuels which the gases from that makes the air polluted. There are statistics on how much people use water.

c.the reasons are plausible and sufficient

3. How evenhandedly does the writer present the issue?

a.not really any counterarguments

b.not really any counterarguments

c.treats other arguments respectively by adding in how beneficial it is to the world we live in to cut back on our energy usage

d.the writer’s own arguments are appropriately qualified, they add in lots of statistics and even pictures to really help make their position strong

4. What authorities or sources of outside information does the writer use?

a.after stating where the information was from the writer puts into parenthesis what source was used, and in the end of the paper cites all the sources they used.

b.the sources seem very credible, Association of Homebuilders, Energy and Climate Change, Energy Information Administration.

c.They are current

5. How does the writer address you as the reader?

a.the writer doesn’t really assume people know much, they give a lot of background information before stating their opinion.

b.the writer uses a lot of “I’s” and it kind of excludes me by using themself in their paper.

c.I think we share beliefs because i think it would be a great idea to cut down on energy usage and that we really should start treating our environment better.

PAPER #3 ROUGH DRAFT

Kayla DiRoma
Dr. Sonia Begert
English 101
24 November 2015
Position Paper
Eighteenth Century B.C. was the first established date of death penalty laws in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon, it then codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes. Britain influenced America’s kickoff of the death penalty more than any other country since the time when European settlers came into the new world they brought the practice of capital punishment. Does it actually make sense to kill people because they may deserve it since they killed people? Aren’t they on the death sentence for killing people in the first place, and killing is bad? The death penalty condescends itself for killing killers when they can just be kept in prison for all their lives instead with no chance of parole. There have been multiple cases of people being charged with the death penalty and even minutes before execution have been convicted of being wrongfully charged and turn out to be innocent, but also there have been cases where individuals have been found to be innocent AFTER the fact that they have already been executed. The death penalty should be abolished not only because of wrongful convictions but it is unjust and costly, and it undermines justice.
A piece written by Sean McElwee on the Huffington Post, he takes a position of the death penalty being abolished or not. Sean states, “The United States needs to 
abolish the death penalty. It’s archaic, costly, ineffective, and most importantly, unjust… The purpose of our criminal justice system is to deter crime, rehabilitate convicts, and incapacitate hardened criminals. Philosophically speaking, life in prison serves these functions better than the death penalty.” Just like Sean says, there are multiple valuable reasons the death penalty should be abolished. Some people believe that God created the death penalty because Genesis 9:6 says, “whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.”Which is really just saying that if anyone kills a man, than it would be no other than to kill the killer. But also people say God also commanded “Thou shalt not kill.” Sean McElwee also gives another good point by saying, “However, while it brings no benefits, the death penalty does seriously undermine the criminal justice system for three reasons: racism, false incrimination, and revenge.” With supermax prisons escape is no longer a stable possibility. Death is final and life in prison creates for rehabilitation, it does not mean prisoners are getting away with anything by not getting the death sentence, they still will never see out of the prison gates just like people who have to get killed while in prison. 
140 countries have abolished the death penalty and there are 196 countries in the world if you do count Taiwan, but the United States does not so you can say there are 195 countries. The United States is related with 54 other countries which have a similar commitment to death  including Iraq, Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Yemen and North Korea,that still today provides the death penalty in prisons. 

INCORPORATING SOURCES EFFECTIVELY

1. a.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sean-mcelwee/abolish-death-penalty_b_3557782.html

b.http://deathpenalty.org/section.php?id=13

c.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/09/24/pope-francis-tells-congress-the-death-penalty-should-be-abolished/

2. A piece written by Sean McElwee on the Huffington Post, he takes a position of the death penalty being abolished or not. Sean states, “The United States needs to abolish the death penalty. It's archaic, costly, ineffective, and most importantly, unjust.” (Quotation from the Huffington Post online, no page number)

3. On the website Death Penalty Focus they have written 10 facts about working for alternatives to the death penalty. The writers state that there are many reasons that the death penalty should be abolished give examples of better and more effective ways of treating the prisoners. (Paraphrase from deathpenalty.org, no page numbers)

4.(From online, Washington Post, no page numbers)

According to Pope Francis, the 266th pope of the Roman Catholic Church that was elected in March of 2013, told the congress and announced at a meeting that, “I am convinced that this way is the best, since every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes.” Pope Francis has called for an eradication of the death penalty before and “spoke out strongly against capital punishment, calling the practice “inhumane” and “unacceptable” regardless of the crime.

Works Cited

Sean, McElwee “It’s Time to Abolish the Death Penalty” Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web 8 July 2013

“Death Penalty Focus: Facts” Death Penalty Focus : Facts n.d. Web 31 May 2013

Berman, Mark. "Pope Francis Tells Congress ‘every Life Is Sacred,’ Says the Death Penalty Should Be Abolished." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 24 Sept. 2015. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.

Comparing Our Articles With Spriggs'

When we compared our articles with Spriggs’ essay we all noticed that they all relate in a clear and explicit position that they stood by the whole time. They all had responses to what other people had said about the subject. Some of the differences were that an essay by Sophia A. McClennon was that she made general assumptions of information and didn’t have much specific evidence to support her statements in attempting to argue her position. There was a “straw man” appeal in one part of her text. In an article by Sean McElwee, he took a position on abolishing the death penalty. He had good examples of both sides but had a strong opinion on abolishing the sentence because he feels it is unjust. He used statistics and facts to help him have a strong position and to help us see how he feels. He used a lot of compares/contrasts to other Countries and how there have been a number of people in prison being proven to be killed by the death sentence but they turn out to be innocent. We noticed that the essays that were most compelling were the ones that effectively utilized other sources of information other than their own opinions, and the ethos of these articles were better established by those who did “their homework”.

pg. 100, #1-4

1. I can tell that the topic really does matter to Katherine Spriggs and she has convinced me that it does matter, she has said that with how much gas emissions is going on in the world if it keeps going like this then in 2030, there will be no glaciers left in the Glacier Park. The ways that she establishes the importance is by using facts and statistics and also by using sensitive material like how we could have no glaciers left in 15 years.
2. The counterarguments that Spriggs uses in her writing is bringing points that other people say. She argues that other people say that buying local can have a negative environmental effects and she believes that their arguments about that they add important qualifiers to supporting small local farms. She believes that buying local should really be focused on buying as much as possible from the local farmers. She also counter argues that critics have said that negative effects but Spriggs believes it comes with positive also, she says by selective shopping, the people of the U.S. could demonstrate to the world a new commitment to environmentalism.
3. One of the last parts of Spriggs’ essay I think works effectively on her position. She states what other people say about how buying locally is more expensive but the only thing that makes it a little more expensive is labor costs because it is way cheaper to pay for workers in third world countries and the fruits and veggies grown in our own state are better than having them shipped. She has her own position of it still being better to buy locally even though it is a tad bit more expensive, she has background information about it, and how local farms hire local workers and bring profits to small rural communities instead of immigrant laborers or having the food from third world countries.
4. The photos in her essay help you experience what it really looks like to see both views of buying locally and not buying locally, it helps you take your own position.

ANALYZE A SHORT PIECE OF WRITING

“It’s Time to Abolish the Death Penalty”

Americans are starting to argue about if the death penalty at prisons is just or unjust. Some people believe that “killers deserve to be killed” or other things like that but a Huffington Post writer named Sean McElwee believes the opposite. McElwee believes that the death penalty needs to be abolished.

McElwee states his own explicit position of the death penalty being abolished. He brings up the fact that one of the many countries that has abolished the death penalty is Germany and that their reason was because the crimes of Nazism and how the idea or the state putting people death is too much to countenance. Germany would not reinstate the death penalty because there would be an unjust sentence of there being Jewish and Germans and who gets the death penalty, there would be a widespread accusation of racial preference if the Jewish people got a death sentence and a German did not when they commit the same crime, he says “And yet, without fail, this is the case with America’s criminal justice system.” McElwee states that the problem matters because the death penalty is costly, ineffective, archaic and most importantly unjust. He does not only bring the point that it is bad but he does say that “I used to argue, when defending the death penalty , that if someone could show me a single instance of an innocent man being executed, I would concede. I knew that this would be tough. After all, most murder investigations end when the accused is killed by the state. But there is ample evidence that we have already killed an innocent man.” He has good reasons and also good evidence of his position of abolishing the death penalty. His reasons are that race is part of the problem of who gets the death penalty and who does not, there are instances of false incrimination, and that the death penalty undermines the very purpose of our criminal justice system.

Summary & Analysis of Video 11/12

Summary & Analysis of Drinking and Driving Video

The makers of the video clip about the two young girls who died in a drinking & driving collision used a heavy emotional appeal by using sad music in the video, including close family and friends to tell how great of people they were and how they had such a bright future. Also,by using an ethical appeal by adding in “The Murphy Sisters Foundation”that has been created about having a number for teens to call when they need a ride home and also donations send teens to a driver training safety school. By using an emotional and ethical appeal to the video it hits at home to feel sorry for what happened and also to feel glad that a great foundation has been made from the terrible incident.