Building a Short Persuasive Essay Around a Paraphrase
Using one of your best paraphrases from this week's round paraphrasing practice or from the first formal writing assignment, write a short persuasive essay of exactly one page with one inch margins using 12 pt Times New Roman font. You must hit the one page mark exactly. For a model of this assignment, click at the link at the bottom of the page.
This essay must:
Be exactly one page, single-spaced using 12 pt. Times New Roman font
Have name and appropriate class info in upper left corner [see model of finished work linked at bottom of this page]
Have an intriguing title
Be free of grammar and mechanical problems and read coherently
Follow the formula laid out in the following scheme
The scheme for this essay
Quote the original passage with lead-in and quote marks
Paraphrase
the original passage
Elaborate on the idea in the quote and paraphrase
What's
being suggested by the author, expand on the author's idea, explore the
consequences of the author's idea
Offer an Analogy
Examples
Find at least three example of how this idea works out in real-life. An example from your personal life can begin the series of example but examples from the world at large should definitely end the piece.
Conclusion
Offer
a very brief statement of your overall conclusion about the subject.
Here's how I tried to accomplish the goal. [see finished and formatted piece by clicking on the link at the end of the page.]
The Original Quote with Lead-in: Lord Acton told us that “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
My Paraphrase of the Quote: To me this says that those who have some control over others will abuse whatever authority they have to get what they want, but those who have complete control over everybody will abuse viciously use all means, no matter how cruel to gain what they want.
My Elaboration of the Quote: Of course, this is not a pretty picture of human nature. Lord Acton's universal political rule leaves no one out, condemns all humans to the basest of instincts and desires, and tells us that if given enough strength, even you and I will sink to cruelty and violence to satisfy those instincts and desires. However, even thought Acton may have had you and I in mind with this political maxim, he is most concerned with the power of governments and their security forces have over our economic lives and their ability to dominate our bodies and its labor. If, in other words, the powers -- government and corporate -- can take our money and our house, it will; if the government can reduce us to wage slaves, paying us a pittance for our efforts, they will.. They can take our lives and our livelihood on a whim and to their own gain. And the more power they have, the more often they will do it.
Offer an Analogy: If this is true, it means we live in a dog-eat-dog world in which we all cower under a dominant alpha wolf who gets to eat first, choose his females at will, and decide whether we live or die. We're reduced to no more than animals seeking pleasure and comfort at the expense of weaker dogs.
Example #1: For instance, my boss's small power to hire and fire me gives him some control over me, enough perhaps, to make sexual advances in exchange for the job itself. And for my own economic survival and the well-being of my kids, I might feel compelled to submit to his corrupt advances. Not such an uncommon event as you might think.
Example #2:
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Notice how the Examples move from the small, personal experiences to the large and most socially significant. Try to imitate this movement in your own work. Also, notice my use of transitional words throughout: For example, however, nevertheless, of course, if this is true. Use transitions to keep the reader directed and on track. |
Perhaps the reason that children are so frequently abused is that they are completely and totally dominated and dependent on adults, and the adult's feelings dominance, when in all other areas or life the adult him or herself has no control, this rare pleasure of being able to dominate the child, corrupts relationship and brings out the worst in the parent.
Example #3: Nevertheless, even though Lord Acton's rule applies universally, he obviously worries most about the power of governments. I looked on the internet and found our that he even wrote about the destruction of Native American culture, detailing out how the technological superiority of the invading Europeans seemed to encourage feelings that God had given them the right to decimate the Native culture. In these high feelings of intellectual and moral superiority, the Europeans, the Nazis, the Huttu, the Sudanese Arabs, the Bathist Iraqis, humans reach their most corrupt low moral state.
Conclusion: I don’t like to think this about us, but I certainly have to admit that there’s plenty of evidence to support what Acton says about us. In these high feelings of intellectual and moral superiority, that we reach their most corrupt low moral state.
Click here to find the revised and finished piece