“Grade Inflation: It’s Time to Face the Facts”

In the writing “Grade Inflation: It’s Time to Face the Facts” written by Harvey C. Mansfield he discusses the inflation in grades that are given at the prestigious college of Harvard. Mansfield start off his essay strong with “ This term I decided to experiment with the grading of my political-philosophy course at Harvard.” Within that sentence Mansfield demonstrated a case of ethos by laying out his credentials for the readers letting them know that he is valid to write a topic about grade inflation since him himself is a teacher at one of the most prestigious colleges in the nation. The writer also uses good evidence by using his own class as an experiment and used them as the sample subject to prove that people in private schools do not deserve the high grades in which they earn, it is just mandatory for him to give out those grades according to school policy. “Moreover, everyone knows that C is an average grade, whereas a B+ is next to the top. Mere recalibration does not address the real problem: the raising of grades way beyond what students deserve.” In this section he uses logos because he points out a known fact that C is an average grade. But in this section he also says that EVERYONE KNOWS THAT C IS AN AVERAGE GRADE which is considered a logical fallacy because some people consider a C a more that average grade in some classes. Mansfield argument was well developed because he used his own class as an example and there is no true way to argue against that because it is a fact. Mansfield paper was well developed and was interesting enough to keep me focused on the writing.

Violent Media is Good for Kids

When I was a child I was always pushed away from watching shows that had intense visual brutality by my parents, but I am not sure if that was the best way for my parents to raise me. I was sheltered away from the real world, what I would be facing when I was older. In this writing “Violent Media is Good for Kids” the author explains that sheltering kids away from feelings that they may have in the future is not a good way to raise them, and I most certainly do agree.  My mom did a fantastic job raising me as a child but I think she should have showed me the violent actions that would happen throughout the world and explain to me if they are a good or bad action to take part in. For example, throughout elementary school and middle school I was made fun of and harassed because I did not know what certain profanity words were. So one day when I came home from school I dropped the “F-bomb” that I herd from one of my friends, I was unaware of what that word meant and did not know the effect that it would have on my family for saying it. Thirty minutes and a soapy tongue latter I knew that it was not a word to say aloud to my family and not a word to use. Gerard Jones does a very good job in his writing by keeping the reader entertained. He starts with personal stories how his parents sheltered him from the violent media and it kept me wanting to read more. He also uses a more relaxed and understanding tone in his writings making it easier to read because it didn’t feel like his ideas were being forced into my head without them wanting to be there. I do feel like his writings could have more statistical evidence so he could back up his ideas with facts but overall it was a good piece of writing.