Romantic Comedies Make Us Unrealistic About Relationships Article Essay
English 124 Evaluation Essay 2 Prompt
For your second paper you will be required to write an essay at least
5 pages long
Using evaluation to write a persuasive argument. Choose a topic and use an evaluation approach to
organize and create an argument about that topic. Review the Toulmin methods of organizing
arguments of value for guidance on how to structure your own essay.
How can we judge your topic based on specific criteria? What criteria should we use to judge its
value?
Where does the value criterion come from? A key element of evaluation is
convincing readers to understand and accept your method of judging your subject.
How does your judgment of the subject help up to better understand the subject as a whole?
Create your own criteria for judging your subject, and argue in your essay if your
subject either completely, partially, or doesn’t meet the standards you use.
Your essay needs to be clear and unified under your thesis. Make sure to include specific
evidence from the article you read, to show how and why you analyzed the article the way you
did in your essay.
Make sure to review the section in your textbook on proper MLA citation for
any quotes or paraphrases you use from your outside source.
What is the writer’s thesis? Quote it. Does it state the article they’ll analyze, evaluation determination if the article was fully, partially, or not persuasive and why?
Does their introduction identify the criteria that they used to analyze the article? What are they?
Does the writer explain what the most persuasive evidence was from the article and why?
Are any quotes used to support the argument? Are they all properly cited?
Which quote was most effective to support their argument? Why?
Does the writer explain how the organization of the article makes it more persuasive or less so and why?
Were you convinced of their argument overall? What was the strongest and weakest area of their argument? Why?
Grading Criteria
Successful papers will have:
1. A developed introductory paragraph, with a clear thesis. State your topic and your
judgement of it. (10 points)
2. Well-supported, unified body paragraphs with specific examples that reinforce your
thesis.
What is your evaluation system, where does it come from, and
how does your topic rate using this system? Include your original
points on how your evidence supports your argument.
(90 points)
3. Smoothly integrated quotes from an outside source. (15 points)
4. A conclusion that summarizes your main point, and offers a final thought about the value
of your argument. (5 points)
5. Your paper will also be thoroughly edited for sentence-level errors. If you have any
questions on sentence structure or grammar, visit the Writing Center, or see me in my
office. (5 points)
Total points: 125
ARTICLE:
Romantic comedies make us “unrealistic about relationships’, claim scientists
Watching romantic comedies could ruin love lives because they create unrealistic expectations of relationships, scientists claim.
Jennfier Lopez and Matthew McConaughey in The Wedding Planner Photo: COLUMBIA PICTURES
By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
4:53PM GMT 15 Dec 2008
Unlikely happy endings, improbable plots and faux philosophy are to blame, they say.
Researchers believe that the influence of Hollywood films is instilling a warped sense of the “perfect” relationship within society and providing unrealistic expectations about romance.
They are also oversimplifying the process of falling in love and wrongly giving the impression that it could and should be achieved without any effort, it is claimed.
The team at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh studied 40 top box office films released between 1995 and 2005, to establish common themes.
They then asked hundreds of people to fill out a questionnaire to describe their beliefs and expectations when it came to relationships.
The psychologists found that fans of films such as You’ve Got Mail, The Wedding Planner and While You Were Sleeping, often fail to communicate with their partners effectively, with many holding the view that if someone is meant to be with you, then they should know what you want without you needing to tell them.
Dr Bjarne Holmes, a psychologist who led the research, said: “Marriage counsellors often see couples who believe that sex should always be perfect, and if someone is meant to be with you then they will know what you want without you needing to communicate it.
“We now have some emerging evidence that suggests popular media play a role in perpetuating these ideas in people’s minds.
“The problem is that while most of us know that the idea of a perfect relationship is unrealistic, some of us are still more influenced by media portrayals than we realise.”
Dr Holmes said that the team had spent a year “thoroughly analysing” and discovered a number of common themes that were unrealistic.
They inc
