Your midterm is to write a critical analysis paper on the two topics below:
1.Summarize: You will use your own words to explain clearly what happened. If it is an event, you will describe the situation, people, and circumstances. If you are dealing with a text or a performance, you will explain the author’s thesis, purpose, and audience. Your summary is intended to help your audience understand this subject clearly and thoroughly.
2.Analyze: Next, you will explain the meaning of this event, text or performance. You will evaluate what happened and discuss whether it is good, bad or both. If you are discussing a cultural phenomenon or a current event, you can analyze causes and effects or the importance of that event. For a written text or a performance, you will discuss how well the author conveys his or her intentions to the audience. Is the author convincing? What are the weaknesses?
3.Respond: A critical analysis assignment requires you to present the summary and analysis objectively. You will also include your own point of view.
4.As effective thinkers, you must develop informed and intelligent opinions about issues.
We can analyze issues by asking:
What is the issue?
What is the evidence?
What are the arguments?
What is the verdict or outcome?
Make sure you answer all of these questions in your essays.
Topic 1: Communication differences between men and women. Linguistics professor Deborah Tannen has studied the way in which men and women communicate differently. Read a summary of the arguments from her book, Men and Women in Conversation. Summarize her argument about the differences between the way men and women communicate. Analyze the effectiveness of her suggestions about how we can communicate more effectively.
Link: http://faculty.georgetown.edu/bassr/githens/tannen…
