Essay 2_Peer Critique Work Sheet_Eric

Reviewer name: Chris Kim

Workshop Author: Eric Horst

Essay Title: To the Editor: Viewpoint: College Sports and Academics, tow Giants Co exist

Peer Critique – Essay 2: Persuasive Essay with Annotated Bibliography

I. Thesis

(1) What is the subject of the essay (the issue)?

-How sports and education coexisted

(2) What is the argument of the main opinion article the author is responding to? (complaint)

- Sports can coexist with education because sports help school to classify itself from other numerous schools.

(3) Restate and characterize the author’s argument (thesis/pitch):

-The author believes that the sports could have coexisted with education not only the sports shapes school’s identity, but also sports bring other beneficial factors to student athletes.

II. Clarity, Development, and Structure

(1) Does each paragraph advance the argument with a clear transition and topic sentence? Does the topic sentence consistently present the central idea of the paragraph?

-Although the paragraphs are reasonably written and positioned, there should be clearer connection and smooth connection between paragraphs. And there should be a need to present decisive thesis in the paper.

(2) How well does each paragraph use evidence to support its claims?

-Evidences used in the essay are effective and reliable; with the factual information gathered from different articles and personal background as a student athlete provides strong support to the main argument. But in part where the author mentioned ‘Joe Paterno scandal at Penn,’ the author assumed all the readers know the incident. If the reader did not know the incident, the argument the author is making will be viewed as useless and illogical statement.

(3) How well does the author introduce/contextualize quotations and paraphrases?

-I think the author does have a strong argument and deep analysis, but the author needs to organize paragraphs that will enable to produce more efficient analysis.

(4) Does the essay consider at least one reasonable counterargument?

-Yes, the author actually writes strong counterargument in the paper, which the author refutes back later in the paper.

(5) How effectively does the essay conclude? Rather than summarizing, does it synthesize/consider counter-arguments/trace out implications or address a So What? question?

-The author concludes paper without any summary. The author shortly and strongly emphasizes the argument and ends the paper with ‘humorous’ statement.

(6) Any final thoughts?

-I think the author used strong and thorough evidences driven from personal background and factual information. But I could not find out decisive thesis until I finished reading the paper. Since the decisive thesis was not provided, it was confusing to catch what the central argument was. If clear thesis was introduced in intro, the paper would be more effective.