I want you guys to tell me how well this introduction is written and if this can be an introduction for an essay that can get 10/12
Prompt: Do we place too little value on privacy?
The presupposition that we should place too little value on privacy is a categorical fallacy. Advocates of this idea are naive critics who are too dogmatic in their provincial ideology. Three incisive and prominent archetypes that corroborate the idea of placing high value on privacy are: Charles Dickens’s novel, Great Expectations, the Indian war, and John Green’s novel, An Abundance of Katherines.
Look up how to use semicolons in a list, because your commas are making it hard to read.
It sounds like you swallowed a thesaurus. I don’t believe that you use these words regularly (esp. because you misspelled “criticize” in the title).
Yeah ofcourse I memorized a lot of vocabs in order to use them on the sat. Can you tell me how can I use semicolons here ?
And do you think I can get a 10 using an introduction similar to this one ??
@bodangles
Charles Dickens’s novel, Great Expectations; the Indian War; and John Green’s novel, An Abundance of Katherines.
(What war even is that? The American Indian Wars? The French and Indian War?)
Actually it is a fake example. I knew that you can make fake examples since the people who correct the essay have only a couple of minutes to read the essay
Maybe stop wasting your time memorizing words and focus on actually coming up with examples. Come on. History isn’t something you can make up. I, a sophomore college student, looked at that and was like “That doesn’t sound right.” Are you saying you think professional essay graders are dumber than me? And how would you come up with enough baldfaced lies ON THE SPOT to construct a well-argued paragraph?
I have done this because I know a friend that used fake information in two of his exams. How can someone who knows nothing about history will be able to include a historical event in the essay. I am a student that lacks historical knowledge, so my only way is to make fake ones. I have no other ways.
I am being totally honest with you and this is the truth.
Or you could look up examples like anyone else? I’m amazed that your first reaction is not to put in the work but to throw your hands up in the air and say I CAN’T.
Ofcourse I am not giving up. I just dont know what to do. There are millions of historical events. I dont know whether I should read some events or not. Even if I want to read, I dont know where to start.
I think you were onto a good thing with wars. Could you learn just the origins of a few major ones? If you’re from the U.S., the American Revolution, maybe. The American Civil War. World Wars I and II.
It’s not like you need a ton of examples. One historical and two literary would be fine, as in your example. Have you really never taken a history class?
I am from the middle east and I hate memorization. That is why I dont know anything about history :/. I will try to read about two or three wars. But if I wasnt able to relate them to what I was asked then I guess I should make up something. At least I tried.
@bodangles If this introduction was punctuated correctly with semicolons and supported by a real event, do you think it is considered a strong into ?
My hunch is your essay would score a 10. However, you are way overdoing it. Great – you have memorized tons of SAT vocabulary words. You will be rewarded in the CR section. You don’t need a big word every sentence. Presupposition, fallacy, corroborate, dogmatic, provincial, prominent…the list goes on. These big words, while impressive, disrupt the flow of the essay and don’t sound natural. It looks like you’re just trying to throw in big words. Don’t push it; one or two is all you need right here. And your last sentence is way too confusing for the thesis. Make things easy on the overworked SAT grader and state your points bluntly (and if they are made-up examples, make them semi-realistic).
While the punctuation, over-done vocab and made-up example are important issues that need to be addressed, the bigger problem is your thesis. While the prompt (and normally any prompt) can be answered with an easy “yes” or “no,” of course that won’t fly in an essay since it’s not convincing. Normally in an essay introduction you need to answer the prompt, which you do in your first sentence, but then you need to go on to also answer the “why?” and/or the “why do I care as a reader?” You don’t have to list your examples in a thesis, but for the sake of the SAT the formulaic example listing is fine in a timed situation. The problem is that your answer to the “why” component, based on your thesis in the second sentence, is empty and non-specific, despite its bombastic nature ;). You’re saying the reason the counterargument is a “fallacy,” which means something in the reasoning is unsound, is because those with that viewpoint aren’t considering the bigger picture or don’t realize its repercussions, etc… Alright, that can be said of any argument about anything. I would consider this an obvious statement that tells me nothing of where this essay is going. Furthermore, it will be hard to write an essay with this thesis since it isn’t focused on a particular topic and you likely will start rambling and get lost (as well as the reader) with the point you were trying to make. “Why,” specifically, is privacy something we should value? There’s no single right answer, but you do need to make this argument specific, not just state that someone taking the opposing argument is wrong (that’s assumed since you took the other side, right?). I, for example, could say I believe that privacy is, and should be, valued in our society since privacy ensures individualism and freedom of expression. I would then go on to list examples of where privacy was threatened, and in the process (or as a result), so was individualism and freedom of expression, or the inverse, that when we establish privacy, so too can people freely express themselves (anonymous message boards, anyone?) etc.
Remember that examples from history can also be recent/current events. These prompts are meant to be so open that any teenager, each with his/her varied experiences in life, should be able to come up a few examples in minutes. You don’t need to go back hundreds of years to find examples of privacy being stripped from people. We can talk about the NSA and its spying on phone calls and Internet activity for the sake of national security (this is a back and forth every society faces to some extent), or you could talk about war/security scenarios and the various laws that were passed that limited privacy in the name of protection (The Alien and Sedition Acts as a great historical example, or TSA screenings as a current example, etc.). Whatever the example, I need to make sure I tie it back in to limiting privacy which limits freedom of expression, but you can also relate privacy to a sense of personal security and comfort instead if you wanted to go in that direction.
Remember that the thesis is a roadmap, and it needs to show where the essay is going, otherwise the reader will lose interest and you yourself might get lost. Contrary to what you might think, readers don’t want to be overly surprised with what they’re reading. I’m sorry if you’re one for theatrics.