Can you guys please give me score on my ANALYZE ARGUMENT essay!
An international development organization, in response to a vitamin A deficiency among people in the impoverished nation of Tagus, has engineered a new breed of millet high in vitamin A. While seeds for this new type of millet cost more, farmers will be paid subsidies for farming the new variety of millet. Since millet is already a staple food in Tagus, people will readily adopt the new variety. To combat vitamin A deficiency, the government of Tagus should do everything it can to promote this new type of millet. Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
Though this recommendation is backed by very selfless as well as altruistic motives, the pith of the argument needs to be evaluated on all ends in order to ensure that this proposal would be likely to have the predicted result. Both external as well as internal factors of the poverty-stricken nation of Tagus would have to be considered when evaluating this request. Three major questions that need to be answered to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result would be the issue of agriculture, rainfall, and the price of this new variety of millet.
First and foremost, the practice and value of agriculture in Tagus needs to be understood before this recommendation can even be expected. Will the long, established practices of agriculture be able to support this new variety of millet or will the new millet not be able to grow? How hard is it for farmers to utilize agricultural practices to grow millet in the first place? Furthermore, what is the effect of promoting this new variety of millet on agricultural practices as well as can this genetically-engineered millet coincide peacefully with a non-genetically engineered millet. Additionally, the issue of whether people will readily accept a genetically-modified crop into their homes and onto their plates needs to be understood. There is a possibility that the population of Tagus only consume organic crops and despise genetically-modified foods, thus rendering this variety to have no effect on vitamin A deficiency.
Second, the topic of annual rainfall in Tagus needs to be addressed as well as quantified. Is the amount of rainfall too little to support the growth of these new varieties of millet? Also, the historical patterns of rainfall need to be studied as well to evaluate this issue. If rainfall is known to be heaviest in the first two years of a rain cycle but lagging in the subsequent years, will the new millet variety be able to be sustained in decreasing vitamin A deficiency in the people of Tagus.
Third, the price of the new millet variety needs to be considered in evaluating this recommendation. How much generally does the public pay for millet? Additionally, if the seeds for this new type of millet cost more, then wouldn't the prices at the marketplace for this new millet be more than the old version? The issue of how much income households in Tagus bring in will determine whether pricing the new millet variety at a cheaper price than its cost will designate it as a low-profit crop, thus eliminating it from the marketplace.
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- sravi4
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- tommywallach
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Re: Feedback on MY ANALYZE ARGUMENT ESSAY
Hey SRavi,
The important thing to remember about the argument essay is that you should be discussing the ARGUMENT, not the TOPIC. You stray dangerously close to focusing on the issues here, as they relate to growing things. That's not to say you did a bad job at all; you hit most of the right points. But make sure you WORD it in terms of an argument.
Start out by thinking of the flaws in the reasoning. To my view, there are four main ones here, though you'd only need to hit three:
#1: Just because this millet idea works doesn't mean the government should focus on it to fight Vitamin A deficiency. There could be BETTER/CHEAPER ways to fight that deficiency.
#2: They say that people will pick up the new breed readily because they eat usual millet. But there's no reason to believe that. It could be that the new millet tastes bad, or people don't like GMO crops (you hit that point, which is great).
#3: The money issue isn't resolved definitively. Subsidies are great, but will they be enough to cover the extra cost of the seeds? And if not, will those prices be passed on to the impoverished consumers (you made that point very well).
#4: Will the new seeds grow as well as the old ones. This is my least favorite flaw, and it's the one you focus the most on. I don't love it because engineering a new breed more or less implies that it actually works (grows), or else this is all very silly. So if it were my essay, I'd actually skip this one.
Again, notice that you hit a lot of the right points. But your wording should focus slightly more on how the argument is poorly reasoned, and the exact flaws you see the author making. Also, please dedicate one sentence in each paragraph to how the author could fix the problem (i.e. For my second flaw above: The author would need to provide evidence that the two breeds of millet are indistinguishable in terms of taste and appearance, and that the people of Tagus have been quick to adopt genetically engineered crops in the past.)
Let me know if you have more questions!
-t
The important thing to remember about the argument essay is that you should be discussing the ARGUMENT, not the TOPIC. You stray dangerously close to focusing on the issues here, as they relate to growing things. That's not to say you did a bad job at all; you hit most of the right points. But make sure you WORD it in terms of an argument.
Start out by thinking of the flaws in the reasoning. To my view, there are four main ones here, though you'd only need to hit three:
#1: Just because this millet idea works doesn't mean the government should focus on it to fight Vitamin A deficiency. There could be BETTER/CHEAPER ways to fight that deficiency.
#2: They say that people will pick up the new breed readily because they eat usual millet. But there's no reason to believe that. It could be that the new millet tastes bad, or people don't like GMO crops (you hit that point, which is great).
#3: The money issue isn't resolved definitively. Subsidies are great, but will they be enough to cover the extra cost of the seeds? And if not, will those prices be passed on to the impoverished consumers (you made that point very well).
#4: Will the new seeds grow as well as the old ones. This is my least favorite flaw, and it's the one you focus the most on. I don't love it because engineering a new breed more or less implies that it actually works (grows), or else this is all very silly. So if it were my essay, I'd actually skip this one.
Again, notice that you hit a lot of the right points. But your wording should focus slightly more on how the argument is poorly reasoned, and the exact flaws you see the author making. Also, please dedicate one sentence in each paragraph to how the author could fix the problem (i.e. For my second flaw above: The author would need to provide evidence that the two breeds of millet are indistinguishable in terms of taste and appearance, and that the people of Tagus have been quick to adopt genetically engineered crops in the past.)
Let me know if you have more questions!
-t
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