Smarthinking Tutor Response Form
Writing Strength:
You do a good job in providing a definition of "ethics" at the start of your essay. This clarifies the meaning of the word that you are referring to every time you mention it in your essay. It avoids confusion regarding your topic. Keep it up, Alexander! :D
requested that you respond to the Main Idea/Thesis:
Firstly, I notice that your essay does not effectively summarize an ethical position. In your draft, what you did is simply explain what the president should do about the global warming and climate change problem. There are no details to explain what the overall ethical issue is and what the ethical position is arguing. This means that your essay does not fulfill the assignment properly.
To fix this, you might want to start by writing a thesis statement at the end of your introduction. Your thesis statement should state the overall ethical issue, the ethical position you are summarizing, and its key points. This way, you will know what ideas your essay should consist of. Let's start with the overall ethical issue. What is the overall ethical debate that you are addressing about climate change, Alexander? Then, among the different sides of this debate, what is one ethical position that you want to discuss for your paper?
Next, for the key points, what are the main points of this ethical position? Or what are the ethical points or guidelines that this ethical position is composed of? What are the key points of your ethical position regarding climate change and the president of the US? Please enumerate them for your thesis statement. Here is a format to help you out:
This format lets you see how the ideas are connected with each other. Writing your thesis statement this way will let you know the key points that your essay should focus on.
requested that you respond to the Content Development:
Next, as mentioned before, your content does not summarize the ethical position, Alexander. Fortunately, now that you have a thesis statement, you will be able to provide the necessary information to fulfill your assignment. To do this, you might want to revise your essay by writing a paragraph for each important point listed in your thesis statement. Here is an outline to help you out:
I. Introduction of the ethical debate + Thesis statement
II. Summary of key point 1
III. Summary of key point 2
IV. Summary of key point 3
V. Conclusion
Imagine your essay as a sandwich; the top bun is the introduction which introduces the topic (the ethical debate), the meat is the body which is made up of body paragraphs that discuss your key points (the ethical position), and the bottom bun is the conclusion that sums it all up. This makes it easier to follow your ideas. Then, in each body paragraph, you might want to provide the necessary details of the summary. To do this, you might want to define this key point or aspect or guideline of the ethical position, explain what it says about the ethical issue and why it is considered more ethical than the other side of the debate, and give an example to support your explanation. As you can see, these details will let your readers know about the key points of the ethical position that you chose for the debate and why this is the more ethical side of the debate, Alexander. Following these instructions will help you fulfill the purpose of your assignment.
Sentence Structure
Lastly, I noticed that you have a lot of comma splices in your essay. A comma splice is a sentence that contains two sentences that are merged together using a comma. This is not right because a comma is not used in separating complete sentences. A comma is only used in separating the different parts of a sentence. Here is a comma splice in your draft:
• The definition of the term ethics cuts across many scopes of life, the ideal definition of this term is "the simplest system of moral principles."
You have two independent clauses or sentences in each of your sentences here. Independent clauses are groups of words that have a complete thought and can stand on their own, while dependent clauses don't have a complete thought. To fix your comma splice here, what you can do is to use a period or a semicolon to separate the sentences. Here are examples to help you:
Incorrect:
I didn't like going to the mall, it was always noisy and crowded with people.
Separating the sentences using a period:
I didn't like going to the mall. It was always noisy and crowded with people.
Connecting the sentences using a semicolon:
I didn't like going to the mall; it was always noisy and crowded with people.
Connecting the sentences using a conjunction:
I didn't like going to the mall because it was always noisy and crowded with people.
Using a period or a semicolon separates the sentences properly, Alexander. Now, it's your turn to do the same to fix your comma splices. For more information about Comma Splices and Run-ons, you can click the link to get to the Smarthinking Handbook chapter.
Summary of Next Steps: Now that I've discussed the ways in improving your essay, let's have a recap:
• Write a thesis statement at the end of your introduction.
• Revise your essay by writing a paragraph for each important point listed in your thesis statement.
• Fix comma splices.
Please look for comments [in bold and in brackets] in your essay below.
Thank you for submitting your work to Smarthinking! We hope to see you again soon.
Ethics
The definition of the term ethics cuts across many scopes of life, the ideal definition of this term is "the simplest system of moral principles." These set of principles are responsible for how we make decisions and lead our lives. The main concerns of the set of ethics are the good for the individuals living in a society and the society itself.[It would be best to place the details about the ethical debate in here instead. What is the ethical debate about the president who does not believe in climate change? What negative consequences will this have? Then, what are the different ethical positions in this debate? Why is it important to settle this debate? Answering these questions will let you properly introduce your topic.
Following the election of the new president who is a non-believer in climate change leaves the world as a whole at risk and stake. The current world is faced by the encroachment of the prevailing environmental conditions that foresee the development of adverse climate. Come to think of it, if by any chance, the president withdraws the support that the country delivers to the incentives that help to keep the environment at its level best, the world would go into a degenerative encroachment whose lasting effects would take many years to be reversed.
In as much as ethics states that it is responsible for our decisions towards how we live our lives, the decisions we make should also factor in the long-term effects on the people living around us and the world as a whole. In a bid to make the world a better place and work within the manifestos, the president should put in more effort towards environmental conservations to curb global warming which is a universal disaster even if his beliefs do not auger well with climate change.
A Decent way of approaching some of the challenges is to put the interest of others before yours; the nation is bigger than an individual. If the president fails to acknowledge climate change as a universal concern, then the damage that human activity causes to the ozone layer would increase. And the mitigation of this vice would become irreversible and even lead to flooding of the beautiful ocean-neighboring cities in the United States in case of melting of ice at the polar ice caps.[Make sure to provide the necessary details in each body paragraph about the ethical position, Alexander.]