Group 3 Memos

Memo 1

Title: New Age Media Love

Date: 5/27/11

Decision: Reject

Dear Author,

Let me first start off by thanking you for giving me the opportunity to peer review you paper. After reading over your piece, I believe that the argument that you are trying to make is a good one; however the way you go about stating your argument could be worded better. You’re argument would probably be easier to defend if it was something along the lines of, “The media has the potential to change some peoples lives for the better”. You essay is relevant but I’m not sure about it’s timeliness.

It would seem that the main argument that you are trying to defend in your paper is that the media is changing everybody’s lives for the better. Then the rest of you paper is you talking about how the media has impacted your life for the better through out many stages of your life. The main problem I see with your paper is that there are place where you tend to generalize. The way I will peer edit your paper is by breaking it down paragraph by paragraph.

1. Your intro paragraph wasn’t very compelling: you didn’t do/say much to intrigue me as a reader. You need a better attention grabber. Although you did a good job leading your introduction into a preliminary thesis, I feel like you could have done a better job trying to be compelling. Maybe start the paper off by talking about some interesting television shows, or maybe start the essay off with an attention grabbing question like, “Have you ever wondered how much modern media has affected our lives?” One last thing I saw about your intro paragraph was, your thesis sounded like it generalized way too much. It seems like you made a big generalization by saying that the media can improve everybody’s lives for the better. However this may be true for you, it may not be true for everybody else in all cases.

2. In your first paragraph you talk a lot about your younger years growing up watching television. You specifically mention spongebob as a character that you watched on TV. You talked about how spongebob was a show that helped people improve their lives for the better because it teaches people to be content with the way their life is. I feel as though this is a generalization. Because, again, not all children will view spongebob in the same way that you did.

3. In your second body paragraph you talk about how during your teenage years you learned a lot through television shows on MTV and other channels similar to it. You stated that watching is responsible for making you the social person you are today. Again although this maybe true for you I doubt it will hold true for everyone else who watches TV. Also in this paragraph that parent have lives and they don’t have the time to teach their children some of the things they learn through television. I’m not sure how much I agree with this claim because it seems that most parents these days do not want their children watching television constantly.

4. In your third body paragraph you talk about how television has given you a way to be informed about what is going on in the world without hearing about a bunch of depressing things. This paragraph you seemed to lose your argument. You started out by talking about how some news channels are boring, mundane, etc. This seems to be disputing your argument on how the media improves everyone’s lives for the better. So this paragraph confused me.

5. In your conclusion you stated all of your claims again, then you made a statement about the three stooges and about the Supreme Court Justices. You said more people knew the three stooges than the Supreme Court justices. Depending on how you look at this, it could be good or bad. For your argument it is good, however most people would probably view this as a bad thing.

I believe that your essay was too generalized in the way it tried to make its arguments. My advice to you is that, if you are going to do apiece on the media make it more specific. Make it something that you can back up with more solid evidence because most of your evidence was from your personal experience.

Sincerely,

Your Peer Reviewer

Memo 2

Title: New Age Media Love

Date: 05/26/2011
Decision: Revise and Resubmit

Dear Author:

Thank you for allowing me to review this paper and work on my skills as a peer editor. It was a very insightful piece, and I appreciated the points you made. Images you painted, and your points in general were wonderful, just very argumentative with each other. The paper needs a fair amount of work, but I think that with some good revisions, this paper could definitely be the type of paper commonplace is looking for.

Your descriptive wording in the first paragraph alone made me want to read this whole paper through, but finding a clear defined thesis was difficult. Your thesis seems to be that you want people to take a look at television shows throughout the ages and try to base their life a bit off of how the characters act. Then you seem to switch to an idea that the act of watching television prepared you for life. Finally, you take a sarcastic tone with the reader, and imply that the media is a mindless tool for entertainment that too many people use for the wrong reasons. You don't clearly define what your thesis is in the opening paragraph. With that said, they are definitely two very creative ideas, and I think you supported them pretty well. I liked your use of spongebob since I still watch it occasionally to this day, and have never looked at how he takes all of his failures in stride and manages to keep his fun-loving demeanor at all times. Your arguments are all very compelling as I can see how I followed a similar path, television is always timely but, due to your changing of writing styles, I don't believe it is written in a timely manner. Tying in the viewing of television to social aspects is also relevant to the commonplace audience.

Ideas for your revision:

- I think that one thing you should do is to combine your first two paragraphs or give at least a little example of what your thesis means. As I said earlier, it was difficult to find your thesis, but with an example explaining it, I think it would be greatly enhanced.

- You might want to lose the end of the spongebob paragraph. Saying that you should be content with however you end up in your life might not be the best end to a paragraph, or even a good idea in general. That seems to say that it's taught you not to have dreams. I would potentially bring in the episode where he and patrick meet King Neptune, and have the fry-cook battle. Then include how it shows that even though being a fry-cook isn't necessarily what he always wanted to do, he dreams big in whatever career, or situation he is in.

- In your MTV and Comedy Central paragraph, you say, “if it were not for television, I would be antisocial.” I do not necessarily agree. This takes away from your credibility as it is not 100% accurate. You could learn from many different sources, so instead suggest that it facilitated your socializing. I would also not answer your question which occurs a little later in that paragraph. Leaving it as a rhetorical question might engage the reader better and make the essay hit harder.

- At the end of your third paragraph you take a more sarcastic tone which makes me wonder if the whole paper was not sarcastic. You wrote, “Letting television shows take the responsibility of rearing a child is the only logical option.” This seems like a very over the top statement, and makes me question this whole paper. If this paper is sarcastic, you need to up the levels earlier. Your examples really help your thesis, but if it is sarcastic, they very much hurt the sarcasm by proving the opposite of your point.

- By the time I finished reading this paper I almost became angry. You had a point with the first part of this paper, and changed to a sarcastic tone against television by the end. If you are going to be sarcastic, you need to do it through the entirety of the paper and over exaggerate it. I would have stopped reading this on commonplace, if I were just reading the article for fun, due to the sudden change. You need to choose, either the sarcastic or the serious route, and stick with it. Either way could be a really good paper topic, but having both with the crossover in the middle makes this a bad essay.

Sincerely,

Commonplace Editor

Memo 3

Title: New Age Media Love
Date: 05/24/2011
Decision: Revise and Resubmit

Dear author,

It is a great pleasure for me to share your insights on the positive impacts of Media Age on this new generation that you belong. You demonstrated highly developed critical thinking skills in the analysis the influences of media and how it helped shape your moral values, social skills and enabled you to become an informed but also light-hearted member of the world. As a reader, I sense your profound fondness towards media through your words. However, I cannot recommend this essay for publication on Commonplace without further revision on your part.

In this article, you recounted your own story as evidences of the positive influences of media. As you stated, growing up with “sensory-overloaded” media programs as music numbers and flashing images, you developed the ability to concentrate on multiple things at the same time. As your personal experience has illustrated, media shaped your morally as an individual, protected you from the bleak outlook of turning into an antisocial by providing you with the opportunities to “sit down with your older siblings,” and how it sorted out entertaining news from dull, insipid programs like those of C-SPAN and PBS, entertained and informed you of the “small portion of” the world, as Taylor Swift’s latest news, which you actually care about. You expressed your love for the media and yearned for more of it.

You successfully focused your discussion on a timely topic. The title of this article, “New Age Media Love”, captured your audiences immediately. Your emotional expressions and usages of words as “love”, “amazing” and “blessing” clearly demonstrated that you actually cared about what you wrote. Your ideas are fresh and informing, and you used vivid personal anecdotes to tell the different side of the story. Your unique voice stands out among the prevailing criticisms of media influence and surely intrigued resonance in your audience who, like you, grew up in the media age. Not only did you pick a topic that concerned most people, your opinions surely made contribution to the ongoing conversation of media influence.

However, there is a lot to do to transform your argument into a compelling one. The manuscript is relevant to Commonplace’s audience; as an editor, I am also confident that your work targeted the ideal audience. The largest problem with this manuscript is the lack of solid evidences.

Throughout your argument, you used your personal experiences as the only source of evidences. I am not saying that personal anecdotes are unreliable evidences, but they are not powerful ones. You failed to establish your public persona. As a reader, I see no evidence that why your love for media necessarily proved that it is influencing people positively. You argument would be more compelling if you could persuade you audience of your credibility by some objective standards, for example, how do your teachers think of you? Are you well-adjusted in your college? Do other people think you are fearless, persistent and social as you claimed to be? It’s important to convince your audience that you are a reliable source if you were going to use your personal experiences as your primary evidences.

Also, avoid stating claims that are hard to prove. There are several places that you might want to fix in your revision.

1. In your third paragraph, you stated that “one could that that, if it were not for television, I would be antisocial.” This is a bold hypothesis, yet you provided inadequate evidences to back it up. You argued that it was the “simple interactions” as “sitting down and watch television” with your siblings that spared you of the risks of becoming antisocial. Without further evidences, I am not at all convinced that you would have become antisocial if you missed such interactions. To make this claim more compelling, you might find it helpful to explain in details how interacting with your siblings improved your social skills. Maybe it helps you learn how to do small talks? Or maybe it makes it less intimidating to hang out with people that are older than you? Providing further explanations.

2. In the same paragraph, you stated that because parents were often busy working, “letting television shows take the responsibility of rearing a child is the only logical option.” This is an arbitrary claim, while there is none evidence that could support it. How do you know that this is the “only” option? Have you examine other options like hiring private tutors and day care centers? Such claims would greatly undermine you credibility as the author. To solve this problem, you might want to consider modifying the claim, or back this up with compelling evidences that qualifies the Commonplace criterions as ethos, logos and pathos.

3. In the fourth paragraph, you stated that “I may not be grasping the seriousness of the different issues at hand, but why would I take life that serious? It’s only going to end soon, according to these mainstream news networks.” It might be greatly helpful if you could specify which mainstream news networks that you got such impression from, and explain why they may suggest such information.

4. In the second paragraph, you used the example of Spongebob to illustrate how media shaped you moral values and taught you life lessons. However, you might want to provide more context of the story of Spongebob. For now, as a reader, I cannot understand how the fact that he loves working at his local burger place and cannot pass the test to het his driver’s license can inspire you to be fearless. It would be great if you can explain your statement in details so to establish your credibility.

5. In the very last paragraph, you claimed that media made it easier for us to live day after day “in the depressing world.” As I mentioned above, you might find it helpful to explain to your audience why you think so, and from what basis you establish your argument and perspectives, because many people may not find such claims convincible.

To summarize, if you want your argument to be compelling to your audience, you have to find strong evidences to support them; and to qualify your statements as strong, you have to consider ethos, pathos and logos while constructing your thesis. You did a good job in applying pathos, but to get your essay presented to wider Commonplace audience, you might want to strengthen the ethos and logos.

The topic is certainly relevant to the audience, as we all live in the media age. However, in your enthusiastic eulogy of media, you somehow did not consider how your audience may respond to your claims. First of all, you failed to establish your credible public persona, as I mentioned in the beginning. Also, your argument is supported only by your personal experience, which has mainly two negative effects:

1. It distances the audience. It is hard to intrigue resonance in them using only your story. How can you ensure that you are representative of your generation? You should state evidences to show that you really are. Otherwise, this article can only be interpreted as your personal perspectives, and not to be generalized to a wider public.

2. Apart from explaining why you are representative of your generation, you might also want to avoid another negative effect of your narration: the lack of persuasive power. You explained in details how you grew under the influence of media and how it positively influenced you. The readers might ask, so what? You should convince your readers to care about your story, which is crucial, if you want to keep your own story as primary evidences. To adjust this problem, you might want to incorporate some objective statistics and authoritative comments about the positive effects of media on your generation; it doesn’t have to be long, but you should add them to the end of your argument to convince your audience that your story is somehow connected to the large picture.

Overall, the tone of the essay is appropriate for the Commonplace audience; the conversational, casual style serves your goals of communicating perfectly, and I am sure that it does appeal to a part of your readers. However, you want to avoid such insouciance permeating the very core of your argument, which should remain serious and convincing. Again, strengthen your claims with solid evidence, avoid groundless assumption, and relate your argument to the larger social context; then your essay would be much better, and more suitable for Commonplace publication.

Good luck with your revision. I hope you find my suggestion helpful.

Hope to see your article published on Commonplace!

Sincerely,

Group 2 Memos

Group 2

Memo 1

Title: Is Nuclear Energy Safe?

Date: May 24, 2011

Decision: Revise and Resubmit

Dear Author,

Thank you for writing this paper. I did not know very much on the realities of nuclear energy and I found that you have a very interesting view on it. Your essay is timely. You have presented an actual current topic; with the earthquake in Japan being recent this issue is still on many people’s minds. Your essay is compelling in that you use statistical evidence and some textual evidence, however I would like to see more evidence that directly pertain to some of your claims. Your topic is relevant, seeing as this is a real world issue. Your topic addresses current issues, which I believe the commonplace audience will find interesting and intriguing. I truly believe your essay was relevant enough to keep my attention, and seeing as I am not extremely interested in nuclear energy, I still found it interesting and refreshing to read.

Here are some suggestions that I believe may help your paper:

· Your essay has a clear argument that is stated without doubt in your first paragraph, “As difficult as it may be to believe, nuclear energy is safe and reliable and it can provide a cleaner Earth for us to live in.” You state clearly here your opinion and claim, although it would be great if you added more introductory evidence to support this claim more in the introduction. It’s clear you are trying to convince the author on the positives of nuclear energy and I would say you had me convinced by the end of your paper.

· Although you are trying to convince your audience of the positive aspects of nuclear energy, you also want to show both sides of nuclear energy, and maybe place some negative aspects of the use of nuclear energy. Although your essay is very convincing in your claims, you also want the reader to form some opinion of their own off contrasting evidence you give, and not just nuclear energy is good and that’s all.

· Your paragraph that is explaining the Terawatt, “According to ExternE, a research project of the European Commission, energy from coal is responsible for the most deaths per Terawatt hour at 161 deaths per TWh.”, where you use statistical evidence, it may help to explain more of what the Terawatt is for the commonplace audience, because it is not a well known term. This will help your relevancy.

· On your second page you make the statement, “These statistics prove that nuclear power is one of the safest forms of energy.” Your essay is four pages long, and at this point, just after the statistical claims, I was not convinced that it was the safest form of energy, so maybe change this sentence into a more general statement, so as not to place such high claims, after simple statistics. This would help to make your essay more compelling.

· On your second page the paragraph that refers to effects on the environment that begins with, “If you are still not convinced that nuclear energy is safe you might also like to know that nuclear energy has a minimal impact on the environment.” it may be better to add some more textual evidence here that adds proof to your claims. Stating how it doesn’t give off greenhouse gases is good, but maybe you can point out other environmental aspects it doesn’t harm that other energy sources harm. Also pointing out the effects it does have on the environment would be helpful to contrast some of your ideas. This would aid in your claims how it is one of the most environmental friendly energies.

· In your conclusion paragraph you should elaborate more on the Japan nuclear energy crisis. Or maybe add a paragraph before the conclusion, stating more on what went on in Japan’s nuclear energy plant after the earthquake. “The nuclear meltdown in Japan should not worry you; there are many problems with other sources of energy that you should really worry about.” You have not placed the full length of what went on in Japan after the earthquake at the nuclear plant, and I believe this would help your essay to be compelling. You are not being credible by making this argument, and not placing enough evidence on everything that happened at the Japan nuclear plant. I believe giving more evidence of what happened would help the reader to make up their own mind on the topic. Although it may pose as a negative towards your argument, because it is not stated, it is hard for the reader to form their own personal opinion.

· I enjoyed your ending sentence; I feel as though it has a lot of claim and petition. “If you want a safer and cleaner source of energy then support the use of nuclear energy, in return of your support you will receive a cleaner Earth.”

I enjoyed reading your paper and believe if you add more evidence and length it would be helpful to your essay. Adding contrast to your claims will also allow the reader to form their own opinion. I hope all of my comments and suggestions are helpful to you, and wish you the best of luck.

Sincerely,

Memo 2

Title: Is Nuclear Energy Safe?

Date: 5/24/2011

Decision: Revise and Revisit

Dear Author,

Thank you so much for presenting a current issue in society that effects everyone around that today. The argument that nuclear power is a cleaner and safer source of energy than other sources of energy like oil, coal and even wind energy, is a compelling one. However, how you present and support your argument’s claims hurt your argument. Your argument’s relevancy to the Commonplace audience also needs work. Your essay is timely because you present a real and pressing issue in today’s society. I recommend a revise and revisit.

The argument you present in your essay that nuclear power is cleaner and safer to human life than alternate forms of energy like coal and oil is compelling; paired with society’s attitude today to clean up the earth and find alternate power sources makes your argument more compelling. Since global warming and the energy crisis has become more and more major political and global issues; your argument makes itself compelling by relying on this current issues in society’s mind. The way you further rely on the political aspect of your argument by mentioning how President Obama thinks nuclear power is the way of the future for clean energy use helps support your argument. But with that mentioned many of your claims made don’t have the same support as your main argument. Also you don’t explain how relevant this issue is to the Commonplace audience and what they should do with this information. The way you introduce your argument also could be worked on. With this said, I have a few suggestions that could improve your essay.

1. In the introduction the sentence “In a world where people are afraid of change and scared of the unknown” doesn’t make sense. Where is your support to this claim? Generalization like this can really turn people off to a topic and to include it in your introduction can really hurt the reader’s interest. Also the claim that nuclear power has been sturdy rising since 2001 isn’t supported or explained how it’s been raising.

2. Later in your essay you claim a nuclear meltdown isn’t as bad as people think. You give examples how nuclear power isn’t deadly compared to other energy sources. A nuclear power plant and nuclear bombs can be closely associated in people’s minds so you need to differentiate the two from one another. But just because something isn’t deadly doesn’t mean it isn’t harmful to people. With the assumption that all people care about is the deadliness of nuclear power makes your argument narrow minded. The examples you give about the meltdown in Japan after the earthquake doesn’t necessarily support that people are afraid to die from nuclear power but they are more afraid of the fallout of the meltdown. Focus more on how nuclear power isn’t harmful and deadly.

3. Your claims about the effects of nuclear power plant meltdowns on the health of the environment aren’t supported at all by any creditable resource. The main concern for people about nuclear power is the effects on the environment. Although you do mention the issue of the environmental effects and try to support; you don’t clearly support it with any clear creditable evidence. This can seriously hurt the creditability of your essay. I suggest finding resources to support your claims and research your subject more.

4. The relevancy of the issue of nuclear power to the Commonplace audience is loss during your essay. Although the issue is current and in the news, you don’t tie in why and how it relates to the Commonplace audience. You don’t tell what should be or could be done to help mend the problem you are trying to argue. It would help to explain why or how this issue relates to the Commonplace audience.

Again, I thank you for your insight to the current issue of nuclear power. I hope these suggestions help you write an essay that will be accepted by Commonplace.

Sincerely,

Group 1 Memos

Group 1

Memo 1

Title: The Crime of Capitalism

Date: 05/24/2011

Decision: Revise and Resubmit

First of all, I would like to thank you for writing such a compelling piece. Privatization of prison is a very big issue in the United States as we are slowly recovering from the economic recession. I found your essay to be almost worthy of a commonplace publication, but with a few suggestions, it will most surely be a commonplace essay.

First of all, your essay was timely, compelling, but was not really relevant. Your audience seems to be the taxpayer population, which is just about everyone. Your essay is about privatization of prisons, which is a very controversial issue. A huge number of people will agree with you, and a huge number of people will not. You’ve addressed the fact that it is morally wrong to profit from the labor of prison inmates, but morality may be interpreted as a different way to your audience. You’ve said that it cost about 20,000 dollars to house and take care of inmates every year in the government prison system, which is a lot of money spent on inmates. Obviously the general public wants to get rid of unnecessary spending, and inmates seem like the perfect population to use for economic growth. The majority of American people believe that inmates are evil people who don’t deserve the luxury of free housing (The prison system may be better than what they previously were in), so it doesn’t make sense to a lot of us on why prisoners deserve this after some of them may have committed horrible crimes, which may question their humanity. Companies, however morally wrong they are, cut the cost that the government is forced to pay. This alone may end your argument because some people do view the money aspect over the morality, especially when we are discussing prisoners. Even though this may be wrong to just about anyone, what other way can we cut the cost of housing, feeding, and clothing prisoners? Discuss another way we could cut the cost without losing our moral integrity by letting others profit from them. Should they work for these companies, and the profits are donated to charities?( what company would want to take that on?) Address other ways.

I am not asking for you to change your argument, but all I am asking is for you to do some more modification to it. Why, besides morality, do the American people support non-privatization of the prison system? Also, I would like to add more references on why privatization is wrong. You could refer to the amount of money these companies are making from the system, what tax breaks they may receive, etc. I think this will help strengthen your main argument, which I believe is the morality of privatization of prisons. Besides this, I would like to praise your introduction. It clearly grabbed my attention as I began reading the essay. This, coupled with your ending, helps take the focus of the negative economic effect that the state funded penitentiaries bring to the table. Also at the ending, you said something about that this is not a political debate, but it is. I think this is your way of removing some of the counter arguments from the subject, but this may backfire. But since your article relies on the morality of the issue, it may work for the population of your audience that does not identify with the political spectrum, which is great, but you’ve got to remember that many people in your audience do identify with a political group. This may create a disconnection because even if we do believe that this is morally wrong, this is an issue on the ballot. It is involved in the political spectrum, and many things are morally wrong, but we continually support them. In some cases, our troops aren’t allowed to engage when we see injustice going on around the world, particularly in Afghanistan or Iraq, which is morally wrong but that is a policy in our military.

I have said that your essay was timely and compelling, but I would like to talk about why your essay was timely and compelling. Your essay was timely because this is an issue that is widely discussed in the media, and has been a big subject matter addressed in the recent elections. It was also timely because this is something that we as a people can completely disregard as an option, or we can look to it for some financial relief. It was compelling, because you had a valid argument, and you supported it in any which way you could. Your essay definitely got me thinking, and will most definitely get the readers thinking as well. However, your essay may create a rift between your audience and you. If you wish to keep this a morality issue, I suggest you introduce the psychology against it. You do not have enough evidence to support your argument, and I’ve said before evidence such as maybe the tax breaks these companies receive or something that makes us despise these companies will definitely help. This will help you make your argument more relevant to the readers.

Sincerely,

Memo 2

Title: The Crime of Capitalism

Date: 5/24/2011

Decision: Accept with minor revisions

Dear Author:

Thank you for submitting your essay to Commonplace and allowing me the the opportunity to review your work. I found your essay on the privatization of prisons in the capitalist United States to be an interesting and thought provoking read, and it is my recommendation that your manuscript be accepted to Commonplace with minor revisions.

In your essay you are critical of capitalism and how it has influenced the privatizing of prisons in the United States. This is a timely topic because more and more prisons are going from state and federal run to being run by a private company. We hear in the news all the time about over-crowding in prisons and about the United States having the highest percentage of citizens incarcerated, so this is a topic that people should at least be somewhat familiar with.

Your essay is relevant because there are more private prisons now than ever before. If ever there is a time to start making changes then it would be now. Your essay had me intrigued from the beginning, especially with the title “The Crime of Capitalism,” because United States citizens rarely think of their own economic model as one that does wrong.

I found your essay to be compelling because you use emotional prompts to catch and hold the attention of the audience. Who would disagree with a line like “Now imagine a small number of wealthy investors getting paid huge sums to create such a tormented population. Almost makes you feel sick to your stomach, doesn't it?” The figure about Republicans' approval rating dipping below 40% for the first time since Ohio Governor Kasich's election as a result of his stance on private prisons demonstrates that perhaps the public has had enough.

ñI believe that your argument in the second to last paragraph is a great selling point for your essay and would strongly appeal to the Commonplace audience. College students are notoriously liberal, and I believe that if you added more supporting details, or elaborated a bit on why private prisons are a bad idea because they essentially try and “recruit” inmates, that you could persuade more readers to your point of view. Also, for as strong as an argument I believe you may have here, I think having it come earlier in your essay would be a good idea. You don't want the strongest argument of your to not even be read because the reader may have lost interest in your essay before this point.

ñYour conclusion contains a call to action with the line “The American people hold a strong stance on the issue and should continue to reject it in the future.” I like this line, however, I think that explicitly stating how the average American can help derail the push for private prisons would be a good addition to your paper. Some Americans believe that they don't really have a voice in such matters because of the heavy lobbying that goes on in Congress, so articulating a way for them to make an impact would help give some purpose to your essay and would be more instrumental in having the desired changes enacted.

ñIn your opening paragraph, you draw the reader in with lines like “Now imagine a small number of wealthy investors getting paid huge sums to create such a tormented population.” To me it seems like you are using global human rights to get your reader interested, but you then focus primarily on the privatizing of prisons. I'm not sure if you intended for your paper to be on the many “crimes” of capitalism, as your title suggests, or if you wanted to focus exclusively on prisons. I think your paper would be strengthened by at least touching on some other drawbacks to capitalism.

Your essay was a good read and kept me interested, and I'd like to see it accepted to Commonplace with a few alterations.

Sincerely,

Memo 3

Title: The Crime of Capitalism

Date: May 24, 2011

Decision: Revise and Resubmit

Dear Author,

Thank you for the chance to read your article on the idea of prison privatization. I have decided that this article is not ready for submission on commonplace for many reasons. Though the article is relevant and timely, the article isn’t compelling. Your credibility may also be questioned due to lack of supporting evidence to your claims.

The overall argument of your article seems to be that prison privatization is immoral and we as Americans should not allow it because of the consequences that will follow. You supported this argument in the third paragraph which states “Allowing private investors to make decisions that cut the privileges of inmates’ even further can and will lead to flagrant injustices in penitentiaries.” You also supported your argument in the fourth paragraph which states “Minimum prison sentences will be increased, minor drug offenders will be imprisoned instead of fined, and in the ultimate form of corruption innocent people will be persecuted” to show how not only prisoners but also the American public will suffer from private privatization. From this argument I understand that you are trying to convince the voting public to say no to prison privatization so that we don’t suffer from these consequences.

That said I have some suggestions that could help better you’re your article for acceptance by Commonplace.

1. Your argument is timely and relevant, I believe this idea of prison privatization is something that the Commonplace audience should hear about, given that we are voters and should be informed about current issues that could affect the country in the long run.

2. This argument though timely isn’t very compelling. In the third paragraph you state that “First and foremost, the system suggests using people against their will to gain corporate profit” but you do not cite where you got this statement from. You also make the claim that if prisons are turned over to private investment companies, they will seek to increase profits by “This means they need to run more prisons, which requires more prisoners. Essentially, this leads to private companies “recruiting” prisoners.” These statements are made with no citation of where you are getting this information so commonplace readers may have trouble finding this article as credible. This also causes the article to lack persuasion which from your introduction was a purpose of your article, to make sure we as Americans understand the consequences of prison privatization and keep it from happening.

3. Also throughout this article you make statements like “Clearly you do not know these hypothetical people. You have no knowledge of their past, their occupation, their families, or anything else. You simply know that they are people and should not be treated as though they are anything less.” It may be a good idea to leave the last sentence as an open question for your audience to answer. This will open you up more to your audience and make them feel involved in your argument.

4. In the third paragraph I suggest the first sentence of this paragraph “So what exactly is it about prison privatization that puts prisoners at risk of gross injustices?” should exclude the word and replace it with a better descriptive word like unpleasant or disgusting. The word “gross” in this sentence doesn’t seem to accurately describe the conditions at which the prisoners would be subject to if prison privatization was a reality.

5. You end almost every paragraph with a statement about Americans for example the last sentence of the third paragraph states “It’s clearly not the prospect of saving money that repulses Americans; it’s the idea of profiting from the suffering of others.” This seems to take away from the article because you are making a statement for all Americans which seem to make your article lack credibility because you are speaking for everyone, and everyone may not exactly share these exact feelings.

Sincerely,

Group Memo Sharing...Brooke, Group 3 with Alex and Adam

Title: New Age Media Love
Date: 05/24/2011 
Decision: Revise and Resubmit 

Dear author,

It is a great pleasure for me to share your insights on the positive impacts of Media Age on this new generation that you belong. You demonstrated highly developed critical thinking skills in the analysis the influences of media and how it helped shape your moral values, social skills and enabled you to become an informed but also light-hearted member of the world. As a reader, I sense your profound fondness towards media through your words. However, I cannot recommend this essay for publication on Commonplace without further revision on your part.

In this article, you recounted your own story as evidences of the positive influences of media. As you stated, growing up with “sensory-overloaded” media programs as music numbers and flashing images, you developed the ability to concentrate on multiple things at the same time. As your personal experience has illustrated, media shaped your morally as an individual, protected you from the bleak outlook of turning into an antisocial by providing you with the opportunities to “sit down with your older siblings,” and how it sorted out entertaining news from dull, insipid programs like those of C-SPAN and PBS, entertained and informed you of the “small portion of” the world, as Taylor Swift’s latest news, which you actually care about. You expressed your love for the media and yearned for more of it.

You successfully focused your discussion on a timely topic. The title of this article, “New Age Media Love”, captured your audiences immediately. Your emotional expressions and usages of words as “love”, “amazing” and “blessing” clearly demonstrated that you actually cared about what you wrote. Your ideas are fresh and informing, and you used vivid personal anecdotes to tell the different side of the story. Your unique voice stands out among the prevailing criticisms of media influence and surely intrigued resonance in your audience who, like you, grew up in the media age. Not only did you pick a topic that concerned most people, your opinions surely made contribution to the ongoing conversation of media influence.

However, there is a lot to do to transform your argument into a compelling one. The manuscript is relevant to Commonplace’s audience; as an editor, I am also confident that your work targeted the ideal audience. The largest problem with this manuscript is the lack of solid evidences.

Throughout your argument, you used your personal experiences as the only source of evidences. I am not saying that personal anecdotes are unreliable evidences, but they are not powerful ones. You failed to establish your public persona. As a reader, I see no evidence that why your love for media necessarily proved that it is influencing people positively. You argument would be more compelling if you could persuade you audience of your credibility by some objective standards, for example, how do your teachers think of you? Are you well-adjusted in your college? Do other people think you are fearless, persistent and social as you claimed to be? It’s important to convince your audience that you are a reliable source if you were going to use your personal experiences as your primary evidences.

Also, avoid stating claims that are hard to prove. There are several places that you might want to fix in your revision.

1.      In your third paragraph, you stated that “one could that that, if it were not for television, I would be antisocial.” This is a bold hypothesis, yet you provided inadequate evidences to back it up. You argued that it was the “simple interactions” as “sitting down and watch television” with your siblings that spared you of the risks of becoming antisocial. Without further evidences, I am not at all convinced that you would have become antisocial if you missed such interactions. To make this claim more compelling, you might find it helpful to explain in details how interacting with your siblings improved your social skills. Maybe it helps you learn how to do small talks? Or maybe it makes it less intimidating to hang out with people that are older than you? Providing further explanations.

2.      In the same paragraph, you stated that because parents were often busy working, “letting television shows take the responsibility of rearing a child is the only logical option.” This is an arbitrary claim, while there is none evidence that could support it. How do you know that this is the “only” option? Have you examine other options like hiring private tutors and day care centers? Such claims would greatly undermine you credibility as the author. To solve this problem, you might want to consider modifying the claim, or back this up with compelling evidences that qualifies the Commonplace criterions as ethos, logos and pathos.

3.      In the fourth paragraph, you stated that “I may not be grasping the seriousness of the different issues at hand, but why would I take life that serious? It’s only going to end soon, according to these mainstream news networks.” It might be greatly helpful if you could specify which mainstream news networks that you got such impression from, and explain why they may suggest such information.

4.      In the second paragraph, you used the example of Spongebob to illustrate how media shaped you moral values and taught you life lessons. However, you might want to provide more context of the story of Spongebob. For now, as a reader, I cannot understand how the fact that he loves working at his local burger place and cannot pass the test to het his driver’s license can inspire you to be fearless. It would be great if you can explain your statement in details so to establish your credibility.

5.      In the very last paragraph, you claimed that media made it easier for us to live day after day “in the depressing world.” As I mentioned above, you might find it helpful to explain to your audience why you think so, and from what basis you establish your argument and perspectives, because many people may not find such claims convincible.

To summarize, if you want your argument to be compelling to your audience, you have to find strong evidences to support them; and to qualify your statements as strong, you have to consider ethos, pathos and logos while constructing your thesis. You did a good job in applying pathos, but to get your essay presented to wider Commonplace audience, you might want to strengthen the ethos and logos.  

The topic is certainly relevant to the audience, as we all live in the media age. However, in your enthusiastic eulogy of media, you somehow did not consider how your audience may respond to your claims. First of all, you failed to establish your credible public persona, as I mentioned in the beginning. Also, your argument is supported only by your personal experience, which has mainly two negative effects:

1.      It distances the audience. It is hard to intrigue resonance in them using only your story. How can you ensure that you are representative of your generation? You should state evidences to show that you really are. Otherwise, this article can only be interpreted as your personal perspectives, and not to be generalized to a wider public.

2.       Apart from explaining why you are representative of your generation, you might also want to avoid another negative effect of your narration: the lack of persuasive power. You explained in details how you grew under the influence of media and how it positively influenced you. The readers might ask, so what? You should convince your readers to care about your story, which is crucial, if you want to keep your own story as primary evidences. To adjust this problem, you might want to incorporate some objective statistics and authoritative comments about the positive effects of media on your generation; it doesn’t have to be long, but you should add them to the end of your argument to convince your audience that your story is somehow connected to the large picture.

Overall, the tone of the essay is appropriate for the Commonplace audience; the conversational, casual style serves your goals of communicating perfectly, and I am sure that it does appeal to a part of your readers. However, you want to avoid such insouciance permeating the very core of your argument, which should remain serious and convincing. Again, strengthen your claims with solid evidence, avoid groundless assumption, and relate your argument to the larger social context; then your essay would be much better, and more suitable for Commonplace publication.

Good luck with your revision. I hope you find my suggestion helpful.

Hope to see your article published on Commonplace!

Sincerely,

Mohd Harish
Tech No Love
Who is the audience for Commonplace?

The audience for Commonplace is basically college students, specifically undergraduate student between the ages of 19-24 years. The audience for this specific article is college students that often busy in texting with their girlfriends and boyfriends rather face to face emotional sharing.

Create a list of characteristics that define the genre of writing on Commonplace?

People are being treated for “technology addiction,” and Facebook is now one of the only ways we socially connect with other human beings (p.1).

Jealousy, the little green monster that lives inside us, also finds home in technology.  Facebook seems to be the main culprit in this downward spiraling jealousy spree (p.4).

It would be unfair to say technology and Facebook cause relationships to crumble entirely, but they do seem to be the catalysts that cause couples to question their trust, and ultimately their relationships (p.4).

Though our means of communication must adapt to our ever growing technological world (p.6).

Expansion of technology seems to be the most easily identifiable issue in today's society (p.6).

How have writers ensured their pieces are timely, compelling, and relevant?

This article has been written on Internet addiction in adults. The writer focuses on how technologies like Facebook, texting affects our life. It covers up the argument of change in relation between boyfriend and girlfriend with evidences. 

How has the writer used ethos, logos, and pathos in composing the piece? 

Writer’s tone was pathos. Writer brought emotions by contacting the relation between personal affairs with technology. For instance, in the essay, Jealousy leads to increased surveillance of a partner's Facebook page, which results in further exposure to jealousy-provoking information.”  Speaking from experience, it’s obvious to me how damaging my daily creeper routine on my boyfriend’s Facebook can be yet so addicting.

How do the writers draw their audience into the essays in the introduction?

Writer started precisely general introduction and then narrow down to essay’s purpose. In the introduction, it talks about the way of communicate by which people in the era express their feelings.

How would you describe the style of Commonplace essays? 

The essay was a bit causal. Writer used personal tone with one external source. It was entertaining.

How are Commonplace essays similar to academic essays? How are the different?

This essay was more of personal opinion rather well researched essay. However, its style was same as academic essays because of its beginning started with general discussion to specific one.

 How has the essay published on Commonplace incorporated the work from the ARP?  Can you see what primary source the writer was working with?  How is secondary source material used?  

This essay was about technology effects on our personal.  The title was Tech No Love shows that Facebook page of boyfriend of any girl was his primary source and secondary source was Anne E. Smith from Helium.com 

Timely: The essay should be to the point and should verify claims and clear.

Compelling:  Proper connection between claims and authentic evidences with ethos, pathos and logos make the essay compelling.

Relevant: There should be precise connections between claims and evidences that with identifying the audiences of essay. For instance, in my essay, it is adults of age 19-24.    

CP QUESTIONS and quizz

Who is the audience for Commonplace?

The audience for commonplace is college students who are in some sort of academic writing course.

Create a list of characteristics that define the genre of writing on Commonplace?

Persuasive, Popular Culture, Entertainment

How have writers ensured their pieces are timely, compelling, and relevant?

They choose a topic that is interesting to them, and also what they think is interesting to college students. Next, writers ensure that their pieces have a bit of controversy included, and choose an argument that many people would like to have. 

How has the writer used ethos, logos, and pathos in composing the piece?

In my piece, I read about Tattoos. The writer used a lot of pathos, by playing on the emotions of the reader by sharing a personal story about not getting a job because of their tattoos. He uses logos by giving examples of how popular tattoos are in today's world. His ethos is the fact that he has personal experience with tattoo use, so he knows some of the repercussions of them and has a personal view towards the issue.

How do the writers draw their audience into the essays in the introduction?

The introduction is a personal anecdote, that really gives people a feeling of how the writer views the subject. Also, it is interesting to read a personal account of a time when the writer's argument is proven.

How would you describe the style of Commonplace essays?

These essays are a little bit informal, and have a very personal tone. They are usually persuading the reader of something, but more with a play on emotions than with references or other sources.

How are Commonplace essays similar to academic essays? How are the different?

These essays are persuasive, and tend to show that the author has some credibility through use of logos, pathos and ethos. However academic essays are mainly using logos, while Commonplace essays use mostly pathos.

How has the essay published on Commonplace incorporated the work from the ARP? Can you see what primary source the writer was working with? How is secondary source material used?

The writer used a complicating thesis, and he also used ethos, pathos and logos. These are all things that are important for the ARP. It is hard to know what primary source the author was working with, unless you count his personal experience as a primary source. The only secondary source material used is reference to different parts of the media that portray tattoos in a certain way.

TIMELY: present an actual argument about a topic that will be interesting to the target audience making sure an actual topic is concise and clear.

COMPELLING: the author is credible, and claimes are connected to evidence. more appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos.

RELEVANT: identifying who the ideal audience is and targeting that in your paper. public persona should match the purpose of the argument.