Evaluation for the English Reading Materials - Essay Example

For this evaluation essay, I have chosen to talk about two news articles and a reading from the textbook. The writings will be compared on their sources, reliability, organization and presentation. I will also give my personal opinions on their suitability for the class. Two of the news articles discussed in class were about Germany. One was about a new method to provide more food for the people while the other was about the current status of Germany’s security. Both articles have very eye-catching titles. Seeing the words Nazis and Germany in the same sentence would make anybody who has studied world history remember Adolf Hitler, the man behind the holocaust, and the horror his regime had brought to the world. People would also be curious about “Rooftop fish farms”, the title of the other article because everyone knows farms are created on the ground and not elevated. Curiously, the articles are only similar because of their interesting titles and the fact that they are both essays. Their organization, development and reliability are different. Clearly, one of the articles can be considered reliable and accurate. The article about security in Germany and neo-Nazis was written by Katya Adler and appeared on the website of BBC News. Since news companies are supposed to carry pertinent information around the world to readers, it can be said that the story came from a credible source. BBC News is well-known in the field of journalism and has established itself as a trustworthy source of information. Meanwhile, Katya Adler is a British journalist who has been with BBC from 1996. (Katya) On the other hand, the other article about rooftop fish farms does not include any writer or source. There is only a date above the title. In organization, the two articles are also dissimilar. The BBC news item starts off by saying that police in Germany are looking to arrest far-right fugitives and the state is moving to stop the far-right National Democratic Party (NDP). Supposedly, three people had made a video recording where they “boasted of the killings... describing themselves as the National Socialist Underground- echoing the national socialism (Nazism) of Hitler’s Germany.” (Adler) These people were not discovered until late November of 2012 but the killings had happened from 2000 to 2007. The news article was only a page long and was simply written. An essay usually has one main idea, found in the first paragraph, which controls all the ideas in the essay. In explaining this idea, the different supporting information may be presented in individual paragraphs where each paragraph revolves around its own topic sentence. (Marshall) This is one aspect in organization where the two articles about Germany are dissimilar. Adler’s article begins with two ideas: one is that the German government is on the look-out for far-right fugitives and the other is about its attempt to ban the National Democratic Party or NPD, Germany’s far-right political group. Curiously, from the second sentence to the fourth sentence the idea shift to the neo-Nazi group discovered in November. The group is mentioned again in the sixth sentence. The succeeding sentences then talk about how the killings were in the headlines and how intelligence agencies had been monitoring the group for a long time. After these come the only paragraph containing three questions for the government and a seemingly biased statement about the far-right group. Finally, the article ends with two more sentences about the police’s behavior and how the state is dealing with the issue. The crackdown on far-right fugitives is not mentioned anywhere else after the first sentence. There is no discussion of how Germany’s security services are doing the crackdown on fugitives. The NPD briefly appears in the fifth sentence but only in relation to the neo-Nazi group and not as to how the state is banning them. Second, Adler only had one paragraph in the whole article. Although the whole narrative appears to be broken into several paragraphs, the writer actually just put a space after every sentence. The only sentences the writer compiled in one short paragraph are the questions intended for the German security services to answer regarding the issue and the meaningful statement about the ring-wing people. As such, each sentence seems to be a topic on its own without any supporting details. Third, the title of an essay is supposed to present the audience an idea of what the article will be about. The title of Adler’s articles is “Germany’s new breed of neo-Nazis pose a threat”. (Adler) As almost everyone knows, the word Nazis was used to refer to the people who used to work for Adolf Hitler. These people had their own idealism and even their own salute. I was expecting to find out how different these new Nazis are from the ones in Hitler’s time and how these people were a danger to Germany society. The article did not contain any contrasts between the neo-Nazis and those from the past. Also, the neo-Nazis supposedly have three members – two of which have died and the remaining one already in police custody. There was no mention of neo-Nazis on the loose who might still do harm to Germans. On the other hand, the article on rooftop fish farms manages to talk about one idea, employ paragraphs and have a title which tells the reader what the article is all about. The essay starts off by explaining that farming is now in towns via “fish tanks in car parks” (Rooftop) to give food to city people. The article then goes on to describe how the fish tanks are built and how it is supposed to provide sustainable food for the growing population. As a whole, the essay does talk about how fish farms are starting to be utilized in Germany. The article describes how they are made, where they can be found, how they are put together and the benefits that can be derived from them. There are also quotes from an interview with Nicolas Leschke, the supposed co-founder of the Efficient City Farming, the company responsible for setting up the rooftop fish farms. All the statements in the essay support the idea of fish farms on rooftops and how these can help in the food supply of Germany. The second difference in organization of this article from Adler’s is the use of paragraphs. Like Adler, the writer also separated the sentences in the essay from each other, making it appear as if the whole article is composed of several paragraphs. But, the writer also combined several sentences to form two or three paragraphs. These paragraphs appear to support the statement they follow or precede. For example, the writer says: “The idea is simple. Perch swim in metal water tanks and the ammonia they excrete is used to fertilise tomatoes, salad leaves and herbs growing in a greenhouse mounted above. Aquaponic fish and vegetable farms aid to provide a self-contained system designed to provide city dwellers with organic, sustainable locally grown food.” (Rooftop) This paragraph came after a sentence telling about how the German government is trying to provide food to the population by making aquaculture on rooftops and car parks. In another part, the writer explains: “The Asta Pro system, developed by scientists at the Leibriz institute in Berlin for the Efficient team, allows aquaponic farmers more control over nitrate levels in the water to maximize the yields of fish and vegetables... Half of the global population are city dwellers, a figure the UN says will swell to almost 70% by 2050.” (Rooftop) This paragraph comes before another paragraph which described how the cost of technology is expensive but is one proven move towards providing food for the people. Lastly, unlike Adler’s, the article is aptly titled. Entitled “Rooftop fish farms to feed Germany’s sprawling urban population”, one who is yet to read the essay would be pleased to read about how Efficient City Farming is bringing the new technology to the city and how this will help produce food for the German people living in the cities. This is quite the opposite from the essay about neo-Nazis because the essay did not really talk about a newer type of Nazis or how they are a danger to the German society. I think both articles were interesting. But, I would like to say that I like the article about rooftop fish farms better than the neo-Nazis article because of the content. I was intrigued by the title of the BBC news item because the idea of Nazis in existence in this age is a bit alarmingly. Given the history of the word, the notion that these new Nazis are already a threat in Germany is very disturbing because they might become as strong as they were in Hitler’s time. Also, since the title mentioned a new breed of Nazis I was expecting this group to use more advanced weapons from the current technology of this time. I read Adler’s article, looking for all of the information above but there were none. I am inclined to say the essay about rooftop fish farms is better organized. Nevertheless, I am not sure if this is a true story because there is no source mentioned in the reading. As described earlier in this essay, there is only a date above the title of the article. As such, I would still need to do research if Efficient City Farming does exist if I wanted to believe in the new technology it is using in Germany. The next reading I have chosen to review is found in the class textbook. This is an academic paper entitled “Analysis of a simulated sprint competition in classical cross country skiing.” (Marshall) The piece is very short and is one paragraph with thirteen sentences in justified alignment. At this point, I would like to say that I did not really like this piece for two reasons. One is because I am not interested in the sport. The second is because just looking at the piece is discouraging. Unlike the two news articles, the sentences in this essay are not separated from each other. In fact, the whole article is just one big paragraph. This can be very confusing to the reader. If the reader does not have time to read the whole article, it would be hard to get the gist of it because there is no introductory paragraph or concluding paragraph which gives the summary of the whole piece. The main idea of the whole reading is also unclear. Based from the title, the reading is supposed to be an analysis. I was expecting that the authors made the analysis based on an experiment they had conducted. Upon reading the article, I discovered that this was not so. From the first to fifth sentences, sprint competitions in cross country skiing were described. The sixth sentence mentions different techniques in “special sprint training, testing and skiing techniques” (Marshall) being made. The seventh sentence tells how there is not enough published experiments on the scientific aspect of cross country skiing sprint competition. Sentences eight to thirteen discuss two studies about these scientific aspects of cross country sprint performance. I do not think the sentences were unified under one main idea. I also do not think the word simulated should be included in the title because the whole passage does not deal with imitation or duplication of sprint competition in classical cross country skiing. In fact, even the mentioned studies focused more on the predictors of cross country skiing sprint performance rather than a simulation. If so, the title should have been changed to review of existing literature on the predictors of cross country skiing spring performance. There are several things I would like to change with these articles to make them better. For the neo-Nazis essay, I would combine two to three sentences that talked about the neo-Nazi group. I would also write more about what action the German government has taken to resolve the issue of neo-Nazis and then combine these with the existing sentences. Additionally, I would re-write the first sentence of the essay to make it a summary of the whole essay and I would come up with a new title. I would probably entitle it “German security service reveals neo-Nazis existence” since the story mentions how the German government were already monitoring the group before the killings happened. I would remove the involvement of the NPD in the first and fifth sentence because the essay seems to be more focused on the Nazi group and why they were able to do what they did. For the fish farm piece, I would include a very reliable news source. This can be a name of a credible environmental magazine or newspaper company. For the academic journal reading, I would change the title and divide the whole passage into paragraphs. I think the pieces were chosen so students would have a better idea of the different ways essays can be problematic. In addition, the readings showed students that even if these are published writings, authors can still make some mistakes. The readings proved to be good examples of these errors. Works Cited: Adler, Katya. “Germany’s new breed of neo-Nazis pose a threat.” BBC News. 27 March 2012. Web. 2 December 2012. “Katya Adler.” TVNewsroom. 21 May 2009. Web. 2 December 2012. Marshall, Steve. Academic Writing: Making the transition. Ontario, Canada: Pearson Education, 2011. Print. “Rooftop fish farms to feed Germany’s sprawling urban population.” 4 June 2012. Microsoft Word file. Read More