Topic:For this assignment, you will write a fully developed, coherent, and unified paragraph (see pages 15 to 17 in EW) in response to a reading you will be given in class. Your paragraph will be evaluative. In other words, you will ask yourself whether or not the article makes a convincing argument. At some point towards the beginning of your paragraph, you should include a one-line summary of the article you have been given.

In your topic sentence, you will make a claim about the quality of the article. In the rest of your paragraph, you will defend your claim. Make sure that your points are developed and that you have smooth transitions. To develop your points make sure that you use evidence from the article. You should also draw on your own experience and observations, where relevant. You must quote at least once from the text. When you do so, you must use an introductory phrase, sometimes known as a signal phrase.

Practice Critique:

Writea critique of the following editorial.

Note: Earth Day began in 1970 and is designed to raise awareness about environmental problems.Anger believes that cow flatulence (farts) contains methane gas, a greenhouse gas.

"Earth Day is for Losers"

By Ed Anger

Time was, Earth Day was just for dirty crazy hippies. You could stay away from it if you just figured out where the bad hippy smell was coming from, then went the other way. But now Earth Day is run by big corporations and politicians and millionaires, who want you to buy their soap that doesn't clean stuff at twice the price, and those curly light bulbs with the poison inside them.

If I want a toilet that doesn't flush, I'll go back to using an outhouse - and that's not gonna happen!

Why do the same people who want to fix the environment want to hand out free condoms at the same time - isn't rubber bad for Planet Earth? I guess it's ok because rubber comes from trees. They like everything "natural" - unless it's tobacco!

I can't keep track of all this crap. Especially the thing about passing laws against cow farts. You know what's coming? A law against breathing! These jerks love the Earth - it's people they hate. They say we're overpopulated, so why don't they kill themselves. Then we'd all be happy!

I don't see the point of saving the polar bears anyhow. They don't do cute tricks like seals do. If we could train them to kill terrorists or patrol the border, that would be something useful, but otherwise they just lay around getting their pictures taken.

This Earth Day, the closest I want to get to nature is the pine tree air freshener hanging from the rear-view mirror of my big old truck.

• Parallel structures help make writing more coherent (see Chapter 29).
• Transitions such as for example and however help readers follow the progression of one idea to the next.

The same methods that you use to create coherent paragraphs can be used to link paragraphs so that a whole piece of writing flows smoothly. You can create links to previous paragraphs by repeating or paraphrasing key words and phrases and by using parallelism and transitions.

The following sample paragraph from Julia Sakowitz's research project (16f), which identifies a topic and a comment on the topic and then develops the topic with detailed evidence in support of the point, achieves unity by linking each sentence to the main topic. It also achieves coherence with a general-to-specific organization, repetition of key terms and ideas, and transitions that relate this paragraph to the preceding one and relate sentences to one another.

Transition from preceding paragraph

Topic sentence-

sticks to this main idea throughout

Supporting evidence

Repetition of key words and ideas

(highlighting)

Another equally important issue stemming from tourism is commercial gentrification, the phenomenon of large chain stores and boutiques replacing stores that serve the poor (Zukin et al. 48). Such changes have long been viewed as positive.

A low-income neighborhood often lacks necessary retail infrastructure, instead featuring businesses like used merchandise outlets, check cashing operations, liquor stores, or job training and family services (Hoffman 288). Tourism can encourage middle-class economic activity like supermarkets, commercial banks, and legal and accounting services, which are as much needed by low-income residents as wealthier ones (Hoffman 288).

But boutique stores and chain stores can replace services that might still be needed by the poor, leaving low-income residents feeling unwelcome (Zukin et al. 48). Economic gain from new businesses also bypasses most Harlem residents: Fewer than half of new retail entrepreneurs are residents, and even those entrepreneurs who are residents overwhelmingly come from the newly arrived middle class (Zukin et al. 59).