Please critique ds12's essay on National Debt

[Clover11]

Ds12 is great at math and science, but language arts has always been his least favorite subject. This year we are going to really focus on building up his writing skills. Since it is my least favorite subject as well, I was hoping to get some suggestions here.

 

The assignment was to pick something to do an essay on. This is his first real paper (I know, I hate that I waited this long :blush:), and it's his final draft.

 

Any suggestions on grammar, punctuation, style, format, etc. would be appreciated! :001_smile:

 

ETA: We plan on using Writing Aids in a year or two. Until then we plan on working on the basics using Saxon Grammar & Writing and a few miscellaneous curricula. (I have Comprehensive Composition being mailed now.)

 

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National Debt

 

 

 

Did you know that our nation has a huge debt? Our national debt rises by 3.97 billion dollars a day. Imagine, we borrow nearly four billion dollars a day. That shows that we are definitely not being conservative with our money. The worst thing is that the government has not fixed it yet.

 

The total debt that we have right now is nearly 15 trillion dollars! We have been continually raising the debt ceiling, which is the total amount of money that we can borrow. Since 1962 we have raised the debt ceiling 74 times. This is one of the main problems because if our debt ceiling was not so high we would be forced not to borrow so much money.

 

One reason we are in so much debt, is that we spend so much money in the war. For example, just a month ago we sent 112 tomahawk missiles at 1.5 million dollars apiece to Libya. Imagine how much money we could save if we stopped spending money like that.

 

In addition, we almost went into a government shutdown. In a shutdown we cease paying for all things except for basic needs like police, firefighters, etc. The reason that we almost went into a government shutdown is that half of the government wanted to cut down on our spending. The other half wanted to borrow more money. In the end we raised the debt ceiling and started borrowing more money.

 

Now that you recognize how extensive of an issue this is I bet you want to know how to help? Well, there are pretty much only two things you can do. You can vote for government officials that want to fix this problem. You can also send letters to your representatives and ask them to do all they can to improve this.

[Clover11]

:001_smile:

[Clover11]

Anyone? You don't have to be an expert in the writing field to comment; I don't mind "regular Joe's" giving me some tips! :)

[Pata]

I think that he did a great job, especially for his first real paper ;).

 

There were a couple of places where it could have flowed better, but I'm not a grammar expert so I don't know if it's a grammatical issue or not. I was always told to read it aloud and if you got hung up while reading, something needed to change. The only other thing I would say is that he might want to mention which war he's referring to. In the previous paragraph he's referred to almost 50 years of raising the debt ceiling, so it seemed to me that it could have been any of the wars during that time, but then he says "in the war" which refers to a specific war. It left me wondering which one, but I'm guessing he means the most recent war on terror.

 

Hope that helps, at the very least it'll bump you up :).

[Clover11]

I think that he did a great job, especially for his first real paper ;).

 

There were a couple of places where it could have flowed better, but I'm not a grammar expert so I don't know if it's a grammatical issue or not. I was always told to read it aloud and if you got hung up while reading, something needed to change. The only other thing I would say is that he might want to mention which war he's referring to. In the previous paragraph he's referred to almost 50 years of raising the debt ceiling, so it seemed to me that it could have been any of the wars during that time, but then he says "in the war" which refers to a specific war. It left me wondering which one, but I'm guessing he means the most recent war on terror.

 

Hope that helps, at the very least it'll bump you up :).

 

Thank you! Great suggestions :) I'll go over those with him.

[Clover11]

Just a regular Joe ;), but this was the sentence that stood out to me as one that would benefit from rewriting. "Forced not to borrow" is awkward wording to me.

 

I think he did nicely for a first paper.

 

Thanks! :)

[Capt_Uhura]

Another average joette...... :001_smile:

 

I liked how he started w/ a question and then backed it up w/ statistics.

 

I don't see a clear topic sentence. Is it an expository piece on what has caused our national debt to rise? He states, "One reason we have so much debt..." so I expected to read about another reason. But the "In addition, ... " was not another reason but a consequence of debt and of not having enough money to support the government.

 

I'm still learning about essays, expository essays, etc. I don't feel like it has all come together in my brain just yet. :001_huh:

[Jean in CA]

Any suggestions on grammar, punctuation, style, format, etc. would be appreciated! :001_smile:

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

National Debt

 

 

 

Did you know that our nation has a huge debt? Our national debt rises by 3.97 billion dollars a day. Imagine, we borrow nearly four billion dollars a day. That shows that we are definitely not being conservative with our money. The worst thing is that the government has not fixed it yet.

 

The total debt that we have right now is nearly 15 trillion dollars! We have been continually raising the debt ceiling, which is the total amount of money that we can borrow. Since 1962 we have raised the debt ceiling 74 times. This is one of the main problems because if our debt ceiling was not so high we would be forced not to borrow so much money.

 

One reason we are in so much debt, is that we spend so much money in the war. For example, just a month ago we sent 112 tomahawk missiles at 1.5 million dollars apiece to Libya. Imagine how much money we could save if we stopped spending money like that.

 

In addition, we almost went into a government shutdown. In a shutdown we cease paying for all things except for basic needs like police, firefighters, etc. The reason that we almost went into a government shutdown is that half of the government wanted to cut down on our spending. The other half wanted to borrow more money. In the end we raised the debt ceiling and started borrowing more money.

 

Now that you recognize how extensive of an issue this is I bet you want to know how to help? Well, there are pretty much only two things you can do. You can vote for government officials that want to fix this problem. You can also send letters to your representatives and ask them to do all they can to improve this.

 

I'll take a shot at this... I have a dd13 and used to peer-tutor writing in college.

 

Your son writes in a very conversational style. I would think he would be quite good at public speaking, with his particular breezy, confident style of communication. However, the conventions of written essays are a bit different from those of oral presentations. That is, the conversational tone is a great attention getter and is appropriate for an introduction; however, the rest of the essay ought to be a bit more conservative in style. Instead of writing in the 1st and 2nd person (we, you), 3rd person would lend more fomality.

 

The most common difficulty I see in grammar/logic stage writing is narrowing down a topic. Here, the essay touches on the national debt (a huge huge topic even for an adult to write about), and it simply is too broad to be covered effectively in a few paragraphs. It touches a little bit on many sub-topics: debt ceiling, borrowing money, cost of war, effective government, government shutdown, and contacting your reps. Any single ONE of those topics is enough for its own essay.

 

So, my first suggestion is narrow down the topic. This will help focus the content and also make for easier organization. Let's say he chooses one topic only: how the debt became so high. Then he could focus on 3 or 4 reasons why.

 

Once he has mastered the informative paragraph (which is the basis of all writing), you can branch out into persuasive and essay writing which is bit more advanced. I don't have kids at this age do a lot of original writing yet. If they are still working on organization of paragraphs, sorting through what details to include, it is an added burden to have actually an opinion and intelligent solution to offer!:lol:

[thowell]

Your son writes in a very conversational style. I would think he would be quite good at public speaking, with his particular breezy, confident style of communication. However, the conventions of written essays are a bit different from those of oral presentations. That is, the conversational tone is a great attention getter and is appropriate for an introduction; however, the rest of the essay ought to be a bit more conservative in style. Instead of writing in the 1st and 2nd person (we, you), 3rd person would lend more fomality.

 

This is my dd11's main problem as well. Can you give examples of how you would correct this.

 

To the OP I think he did a really good job for his first essay. I also think you have received really good advice already so I will just add keep up the good work!

[Clover11]

 

I don't see a clear topic sentence. Is it an expository piece on what has caused our national debt to rise? He states, "One reason we have so much debt..." so I expected to read about another reason. But the "In addition, ... " was not another reason but a consequence of debt and of not having enough money to support the government.

 

 

Great points! I see what you mean.

 

 

 

 

I'll take a shot at this... I have a dd13 and used to peer-tutor writing in college.

 

Your son writes in a very conversational style. I would think he would be quite good at public speaking, with his particular breezy, confident style of communication. However, the conventions of written essays are a bit different from those of oral presentations. That is, the conversational tone is a great attention getter and is appropriate for an introduction; however, the rest of the essay ought to be a bit more conservative in style. Instead of writing in the 1st and 2nd person (we, you), 3rd person would lend more fomality.

 

The most common difficulty I see in grammar/logic stage writing is narrowing down a topic. Here, the essay touches on the national debt (a huge huge topic even for an adult to write about), and it simply is too broad to be covered effectively in a few paragraphs. It touches a little bit on many sub-topics: debt ceiling, borrowing money, cost of war, effective government, government shutdown, and contacting your reps. Any single ONE of those topics is enough for its own essay.

 

So, my first suggestion is narrow down the topic. This will help focus the content and also make for easier organization. Let's say he chooses one topic only: how the debt became so high. Then he could focus on 3 or 4 reasons why.

 

Once he has mastered the informative paragraph (which is the basis of all writing), you can branch out into persuasive and essay writing which is bit more advanced. I don't have kids at this age do a lot of original writing yet. If they are still working on organization of paragraphs, sorting through what details to include, it is an added burden to have actually an opinion and intelligent solution to offer!:lol:

 

Thank you. I think we will take some time and really work on great paragraphs for awhile.

 

 

 

This is my dd11's main problem as well. Can you give examples of how you would correct this.

 

To the OP I think he did a really good job for his first essay. I also think you have received really good advice already so I will just add keep up the good work!

 

 

:001_smile: