Compare and Contrast Essays

     In the essay “Columbus and the Moon” the author Tom Wolfe compared the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union to send an astronaut to the moon to the sea race between Spain and Portugal to create the first shipping lane to Asia. Wolfe achieved his goal by comparing the similarities of the two expeditions. Wolfe used a point by point structure, although some of the paragraphs included both sides of the comparison. While other paragraphs made a point and the comparison was made in the following paragraph.  

     In the essay “Life in a Bundle of Letters” the author Ellen Goodman compared handwritten letters to telephone calls. Goodman achieved her goal by describing her feelings of nostalgia for the handwritten letter and contrasted this to the modern telephone call. Goodman also used a point by point structure for her essay. What I noticed about her essay was that the paragraphs were between three to six sentences. They are shorter than the paragraphs that I have used in the past. Goodman contrasted her ideas quickly in each paragraph and moved on to the next idea.

     Both of these essays gave me examples of the point to point structure and different ways that I can use them when writing my essay.   

Three Different Types of High School Teachers

There are many different types of high school teachers, but I would like to discuss three types that I had during my high school years. The authoritarian teacher that I had in high school was my english teacher. She was very controlling. None of the students in her class liked her. She gave us more homework than any of our other teachers. Her expectations of us were unrealistic. The only reason we were allowed to talk in her class was to answer a question. I went to high school in northern California. We considered one of my teachers a hippy. She was an art teacher. She was very lenient in discipline. She encouraged us to talk and be social. She did not give us much homework. Everyone enjoyed her class, except when she made us listen to natural sounds like wind and waves. The third type of teacher that I had while I was in high school was a super teacher. He was my history teacher. He made learning history fun. He made all of us believe that we were smart. He always talked to us about living up to our potential. We laughed a lot in his class.  

Thee Types of Friends

There are many different kinds of friends however, I would like to discuss three different kinds. The three different kinds of friends that I would like to discuss is acquaintances, work, and best friends. Acquaintances are friends that I have had a brief interaction. Maybe they have a child that goes to the same school as mine. This is someone that I will greet if I see them and ask how they are doing, but I don’t have a lot of history with them. Work friends are friends that I either currently, or have previously worked with. These are friends that I spend a lot of time with and build history with them. I tend to be close to the friends that I work with, because I spend so much time with them. Finally, there is best friends. I have only had a few a few friends in my life that I would consider best friends. These are friends that grew from work friends to be what I would consider family. Even when we don’t see or talk to each other for a while, when I talk to them it is like we never missed a beat.   

Essay Comparison

My first essay titled, “Hard Work is the Key to Success” was a tough essay to write because, although I believed in what I was writing, it was the first time in a long time that I was required to write such an essay. Even though my first essay was tough the fact that I didn’t have to use a works cited page or in text citations made it much easier than the second essay. My background made the information that I used in my second essay titled, “Shooting a Handgun Accurately” much easier to write about. The problem that I had with my second essay was that I had knowledge to write about the topic but, I had to find the resources to support the ideas that I was writing about. In text citations are difficult because I am still a little confused about the exceptions for in text citations. Basically, you do not need to cite information that would be commonly known by your audience or could be easily verified in reference sources. I feel like that is somewhat subjective. So, I went with the policy of when I am in doubt cite the source.

When You Should Cite Information in the Text of Your Essay

When you should cite information in the text of you essay. You should cite all mentions of another author’s original ideas, statistics, studies, borrowed concepts and phrases, images, quoted material, and tables. To indicate that you are using a source’s exact phrases or sentences you need to enclose them in quotation marks. Summaries or paraphrases are a fact or idea that was not your own but has been put in your own words and must be cited unless these ideas that would be commonly known by your audience or could be easily verified in reference sources. Although, when in doubt you should cite your source.

MLA Works Cited Pages

In MLA Works Cited pages when documenting websites and parts of websites with an author or editor you are supposed to put the publisher after the title of the website, and the title of the website should be italicized. On work from a website which is defined as short works such as articles or individual web pages the title of the short work is placed in quotation marks and the title of the website is italicized. I am confused on what is the difference between the two? While researching my blog I discovered that the difference between the two is that if you are using an entire website then it would be the first example. The website title would be italicized and then you would list the publisher. If you are using work from a website you would use the second example. The title of the short work would include quotation marks around it, and the title of the website would be italicized. The other question that I had was when the author’s name is the same for two different resources in the same paper should you use three dashes in the place for the author’s name on the second resource cite? Also, do you then alphabetize by the title?

The Struggle to Find Balance Between College and Life

With the demands of work, family, and friends, college students struggle to balance school work and everyday life. The number of hours a week that a student works, or their responsibilities will determine the amount of time that a college student has for schoolwork. If you take away personal time and friends this does not allow a lot of time, even if they are not working a full-time job or have small children. A good example would be a working mother with one small child. If this mother procrastinated and did not use good time management by letting her schoolwork sit until the last minute. She would take a difficult situation and turn it into an impossible situation. At this point she would likely do poor in school or possible quit. Good time management will be the key for her to being successful in college. This is the perfect example that demonstrates the importance of going to school before you accept the responsibilities of a family.