Monday, October 11, 2010
Week 8: The closers
Not just a show on the USA network, the closer in an essay is key to an essays success ... or its failure. So, look for awesome closing (or near the end) lines. How does the author tie everything together? share an a-ha moment? conclude? make a call to action? Does the author come back to something mentioned at the start? Or maybe the author ends with a completely new idea? Share what works and what does not.
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"But the larger truth is that contemporary illegal immigration has turned us all into a nation of hypocrites."-Gregory Rogriguez
His ending did a good job or wrapping up all of his ideas. He made every reader feel like a hypocrite when it came to "illegal" immigration. He wrote the article relatable to everyone and showed how America has become a hypocrite when it comes to immigration. I think this was one of his best articles.
Final Line: “We can wait to solve this problem as long as we want,” says Nate Lewis, an energy chemist at the California Institute of Technology: “But Nature is balancing its books every day. It was a record 113 degrees in Los Angeles the other day. There are laws of politics and laws of physics. Only the latter can’t be repealed.”
Thomas Friedman ends his essay about the corruption of Prop 23 by quoting another source to reinforce his argument. He quotes Nate Lewis, saying that despite the fact that we can change our policies, physics cannot be repealed, and we cannot control the effects of global warming. By ending with this idea, Friedman reminds his readers of the desperate state of the environment, giving his readers a reason to vote against Prop 23.
So it's another one-and-done for the USA. The Pavin purple reign is finished and, presumably, Davis Love III, a vice captain here, will take over. Maybe he can get the Ryder Cup back in American hands.
In my opinion, this is a great closing line. Without even reading the full article it is easy to decipher what the article was about (the Ryder Cup again). There is kind of a somber tone to this sentence which is a good way to close out a more negative than positive article, but he does give the americans hope for the next cup.
And yes, the point of this little quiz is that religion is more complicated than it sometimes seems, and that we should be wary of rushing to inflammatory conclusions about any faith, especially based on cherry-picking texts. The most crucial element is perhaps not what is in our scriptures, but what is in our hearts.
This closing line comes after a quiz on religion. The article introduces with some statistics about how some people do not know a lot about their own religion. It is a quiz about the general knowledge of religion, which i partook in. My results 3/13. This ending indeed is very good because it does bring illuminate one's knowing of the bible, old testament, koran, or any other sacred text. In general This ending really affects people's judgement on a person because of their religion. Sometimes their own morals are influenced by their religion instead of reading the text and just automatically judging it.
I came away with one important new insight about getting rich quick: An easy way to do it is to dole out fortune-cookie maxims at get-rich-quick seminars.
This article was about prominent figures (mainly republican politicians) giving advice to the public on how to make money. Maureen Dowd uses the article to make fun of their ideas, such as Rudy Giuliani saying “You have got to have a computer.” Her ultimate point was that the "advice" was useless, and this quote at the end did a good job wrapping up her points, while still poking fun at the people whom she quoted in her article.
It would seem as never before that the White House should hire a special prosecutor. Ferguson's movie, which the president and his economic team had best watch -- and soon -- could use a sequel: "The Perp Walk."
Kathleen Parker ends her column about a new documentary, called the Inside Job, with these lines. The documentary explores the evolution of the recent economic crisis and in her column, Parker discusses how angry she felt at politicians and economists after watching the documentary. I wasn't a big fan of the ending line because it did not feel as clear on the sentence level as the rest of her column. But the fact that she tied it back to her anger by suggesting a "Perp walk" (when police parade and arrested person through a public area, usually to humiliate them), is a good strategy for ending an essay/column (making sure it connects to the rest of the writing).
"One thing is for sure: What we’re doing now isn’t working. And pretending that things are O.K. won’t convince anyone."-Krugman, (The Mortgage Morass)
Krugman did a good job wrapping up his essay and finding a conclusion. It is clear after the final sentence that his main point is not to tell people what ideas are good and how to fix the problem, but what we're doing right now is not and never will work. Krugman is able to take a lot of complex theories and speculation and condense it down into one idea near the end so that the argument of the essay is not lost upon the reader or the reader misinterprets the meaning of his piece.
"We have a choice to make: pay a little now or a lot later. Seems like a clear choice to me. But I’m not in Washington where they view clarity as an affliction of the weak." --Charles M. Blow, "High Cost of Crime"
Oooh, a nice little zinger from Charles M. Blow this week! In his essay, he discusses the staggering amounts of money crimes cost the American people every year, and how that cost could be remedied--both fiscally and emotionally--through better education and social services. By making the last sentence universal, the conclusion serves as a critique of both this issue and others, since it is obviously meant to relate to others as well. Furthermore, by ending the essay rather pointedly, he makes his passion for the position quite clear, and an author's strong assertion of his ideas often makes them stay in the readers' minds all the more.
"Undoubtedly, life will get a foothold," he said. "The question is how different it will be." David Brown
This closing statement is to an article about the BP oil leak in the gulf and the long term effects it will have on the environment. The article compares this leak to Exxon Valdez disaster that happened some time ago and it estimates how long it will take for the ecosystem to recover from this spill. The last line doesn't clearly sum up all of this, but it does leave the reader with something to think about and a sense of uncertainty. This is a little ominous, but it is fitting becuase the oil spill was an awful event that should not be overlooked becuase it will have lasting effects.
"A pardon or commutation of sentence — some form of relief that would release Jamie and Gladys Scott from the hideous shackles of a lifetime in prison — is not just desirable, it’s absolutely essential." Bob Herbert, "So Utterly Inhumane"
I think that Herbert really ends this powerfully, because not only does it conclude the article by tying ends together, but he also adds some personal opinion through words, such as "hideous shackles," and through ideas, like "is not just desirable, it's absolutely essential."
"No one knows what impact, if any, the NFL's investigation had on Favre's performance on Monday. No one knows where this investigation could lead, or the damage it might do to his family. Tiger Woods, though, might have some idea."
Jemele's ending leaves the reader with an option to think of their own interpretation of what will happen in the case against Brett Favre. Instead of stamping her own opinions on what should or could happen, she leaves it very open and hints at maybe future articles on this topic. By saying no one knows where it could lead, also leaves space for her to come back and write again on what does eventually end up happening. By her not putting in her own opinion (like: this will ruin his career) there's no way for anyone to come back to this article and say she was in correct. The very last sentence was a little "ha ha ha" moment because she connected the Favre case to that of the Wood's case with humor.
"If any diehard rationalists still believe that voters are driven by logic more than emotion, Nov. 2 should set them straight." - Sharon Begley
I like this conclusion because it ties the article together with a very strong statement. This article was one of the most opinionated articles that Begley has written, and she does not shy away from letting the reader see exactly what her opinion is. The article was about how people who are emotional tend to vote, relying on their emotions more than logic and when the public gets emotional, there tends to be more people who vote. this ending sentence sums up the article, and states in one sentence, the point the author was trying to get across to the reader.
"We shouldn’t be surprised that this year even a state as seemingly well-mannered as Connecticut has produced a senatorial candidate best known for marching into a wrestling ring to gratuitously kick a man in the groin." -- Frank Rich, "The Rage Won't End On Election Day".
Here, the author is wrapping up by restating a point central to his thesis. But instead of restating the point in a bland, straightforward way, he leaves the reader with some colorful humor. I think this is particularly effective because it accurately illustrates an event he was previously discussing in a very memorable way. As a reader, I am curious what happens next.
"Tonight, they were just a hair better than us. We just need to get to work and do our thing. Nothing's going to rattle us. We still like where we're at."--"Loss to Giants a 'reality check' for Phillie vets"by Bruce Jenkins
Jenkins' ending did a great job of summarizing the main points of the article. I liked that he used a quote to end the article because it proved more powerful than if he were to summarize the Phillies loss to the Giants using his own words. Also it is ironic that the closer of the Phillies, Brad Lidge, closes out this piece with his quotes. However, I do not know if Bruce Jenkins did this intentionally.
"At the story’s outset, he accidentally joins the circus after his relatives die in a freak auto accident, which leads to the loss of his home to predatory Depression-era bankers. All of which, it now seems to me, was inevitable, or at the very least, predictable and probably foretold."
Aaron Bloom connected his ending not only to the first few lines of the essay but also to the entire sotry of the article as a whole. He begins the essay talking about how 2008 was a depressing year for him and all these bad things happen. In the first line of the ending he explains how this character in a movie goes through the same series of events he went through. The essay is all about how he dealt with these events and where that leads him to (this movie), which is why he says that the movie is predictable because it all happened to him. An ending that is not only humorous but also closes up his point well.
"Comfort's academic rigor is also on display in an infamous YouTube in which he shows Cameron how the banana is concrete evidence for divine creation: the hand-friendly structure of the banana, with its peel packaging, includes ridges allegedly corresponding to the grooves where our fingers flex. (Alert the Nobel committee.) I'm waiting for the video where Comfort talks about the coconut, the nutritious seed clearly designed by God to be opened with an entire Sears Craftman tool set." - Steve Mirsky, from "Scientific American" in his essay "Greenhouse Bananas"
Oh sweet, sweet satire... In this essay, Mirsky discusses several extremely conservative public figures and the creationist views and opinions that they hold and are trying to infect the rest of the world with. I believe that he closes his essay in a really creative and very funny way in which he wittily mocks the claims of an antievolution activist named Ray Comfort (Mirsky mentions in the essay that Comfort also went so far as to rewrite the introduction of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species," explaining why Darwin was "a bigot, a misogynist, [and] Hitler's dad," among other things... All of which I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Darwin was not.) By completely contrasting Comfort's ideas about the banana with the example of the coconut, Mirsky does two things: He very solidly refutes Comfort's creationist view, and he also makes his own claim about the existence of a God and the theory of evolution. By making his stand on the subject very clear, he makes a much stronger argument than Comfort does, and this makes the reader all the more convinced that he, the author, is right.
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