Jun. 30, 2010 - Week 2 paragraph 200701804 Shin Jeong-chul
Topic – A president I would vote for
A Man of Honesty and Generosity
The precepts my family has been sticking to for decades are honesty and generosity. Even when it comes to electing the leader of Korea, my serious consideration is given to the values. The role of the president is to lead the millions of people to one goal – the country's prosperity. As the representative of one nation, he ought to be an exemplary figure of the people to show the greatness of the people. Also, the representative is who gathers a variety of opinions of people with different backgrounds and maintains the system effectively. Listening to individuals' opinions –no matter how different they are- is one of the virtues of a president of the democratic state. If a president lacks in both values, people won't follow him and the leadership would be at the peril. It means, soon, the collapse of one society. To keep this society sound and safe, the president I'd gladly vote for next election will be a man of honesty and generosity.
Make Familiarity Unfamiliar
Have your sleep ever been disturbed by your concern about what kind of birthday gift you should prepare for your best friend? Do you want to give him something special at this time? Making familiar things unfamiliar often gives a great impression to most of people. Throwing a surprise birthday party for your friend is one of the examples. However, people misunderstand preparation for a surprise party is a challenging work. But it is not true. First of all, you and your friends make a team and lay a scheme for the surprise birthday party for your friend. The scheme should contain how many people will take part in, who will take what roles, when it will be held and what sort of dishes you are going to cook. After you finish cooking, setting the table and place everyone in the planned locations at your friend's home, draw curtains over the windows to block out the light to make it so dark that everyone can hide themselves in the darkness. Now you should make a phonecall to one of your team member, who is told to accompany the hero of the party beforehand, to bring him home. En route the house, the companion should pretend to be absolutely normal as if the day would be the same without any drama. You'd better dispatch two watchers as a small team near to the house. When the target gets to the Marginot Line, they send a message to the person in the house and inform the target is approaching. When the bell rings and the lock begins squeaking, everyone should be ready to surprise them in their positions. When the door opens, set off the firecrackers and shout out loud, "Surprise!" Your friend would be at a loss, being scared to death for a short time. Later, he will get the picture of this wonderful conspiracy and will hug you with a great smile and loud laughter. There seems too many things to prepare for the split second. However, this is investment for your friend. All you need is a good preparation for it. By making familiarity unfamiliar, you can present one of the most impressive birthday parties to your friend.
Feedback: A Man of Honesty and Generosity
ReplyDeleteI felt the paragraph was just the right length. It gets to a clear conclusion and restates the topic sentence which is something I have trouble with so found impressive. Many of the words used are great too. The paragraph is obviously about how the author would vote only for an honest and generous president. A few expressions were expressive and powerful such as “no matter how different” because it emphasises just how different individuals in one nation can be. Two words also caught my eye, “peril” and “sound”. It is important to read both within context because both words have a certain image or story to that word that a lot of people would automatically pick up on. Sound, for instance, is a word that reminds me of a campaign film I once saw about the fight against terrorism. It makes me think of young children tucked safely under their sheets. Peril makes me think of a princess trapped in a dungeon. This paragraph is great as long as these kinds of words that are descriptive all on their own are used in appropriate sentences (which they are). I did find the expression “serious consideration” unnatural in the sentence it was used in because consideration is often perceived as serious especially when talking about politics. I think it may have been unnecessary re-emphasis. One thing that would make this paragraph even better is making the second sentence simpler. There isn’t one sentence that specifies exactly what type of president the author would vote for and the reader has to put the first and second sentence together for the big picture. It is a nice effect, but a clearer sentence would have been more helpful.
Feedback: Make Familiarity Unfamiliar
Starting with a question is a great hook and fun to read as well. It is a deliberate question so it is easy to imagine what the rest of the paragraph will be about. Unfortunately, the rest of the paragraph does not talk about whatever was questioned at the beginning which is a shame. I think this was meant to be about throwing a surprise birthday party but the first sentence implies whether you’ve lost sleep over presents before. After a few goes reading, I eventually made out that the present you’ve lost sleep over should be a surprise party! This is a brilliant idea but a bit unclear in the paragraph. The expression “often gives a great impression” might be changed to something less formal like “happy surprise” so that readers can understand what sentence one and two have to do with each other. I enjoyed the part about “dispatching two watchers” because it makes the whole operation sound like something military or secretive. If I were the author I might change the title to Make the Familiar Unfamiliar because it would be simpler. The current title took a few seconds to comprehend.
1.What I like about this piece of writing is that readers can see your point of this paragraph clearly. Your main point is that you are going to vote for a leader who has two important virtues, honesty and generosity. This paragraph shows what good leaders should do for their people, such as ‘lead the millions of people to one goal’, ‘gathers a variety of opinions of people’, and etc. and I like the organized structure. But I think this writing can be improved if you describe some good examples of good leaders for readers to understand more easily. And where can I find the explanation of the ‘honesty’? I think you could have give some more details about it.
ReplyDelete2.What I like the most in this piece of writing is that you are giving very thorough and specific information to prepare a surprising party for friends. It is so detailed that anybody would be able to successfully throw a great party for their friends with these tips. I especially like the first sentence, which is a question, because it draws attention of readers. It made me interested in this paragraph. And also, I like the detailed description of situations of your writing. For example, the sentence ‘he will get the picture of this wonderful conspiracy and will hug you with a great smile and loud laughter’ was very descriptive enough for me to imagine the scene. I really like this paragraph, but I think it still could be improved in some way. Right after you said ‘but it is not true’, you start to introduce the steps. I found it a little bit awkward, so it would be better if the introduction part is extended a little bit more.
Aha! Okay. :) Thanks for the comments. You really helped me. )) Sometimes others can see what I cannot see. That's interesting. ;)
ReplyDelete