The Importance of Every Single Sentence- Chapter 29

Chapter 29 covers everything from sentence structure to common sentence patterns, it explains how each sentence is important and plays a major role in your writing. Making a sentence memorable is important, but it's not always easy to craft a well written sentence after every period. My favorite example they used was the sentence that opened up a chapter in a dissertation, "Hazel Hernandez struck me as a honest thief". The book emphasizes what a great opening this is and how captivating it is. I couldn't agree more, the author contradicts himself by saying that a thief is "honest". This makes the reader want to continue reading to understand what exactly a "honest" thief is.
Chapter 29 taught me that each sentence matters or else you wouldn't have it in your writing. The hardest part is making the reader understand the point you are emphasizing in that sentence and this chapter lays out a few ways to emphasize that idea. There really is no such thing as a buffer sentence, because every sentence gets read by the reader, so every sentence is important to presenting your argument. After elementary school, the focus in english class switches more over to the overall paper and paragraphs rather than breaking it down sentence by sentence. This chapter reminded me how important every sentence is and how to set up every sentence properly. Also that just because it is a simple sentence, doesn't mean it isn't a great sentence and this is a problem I tend to have. I always think my sentences have to be more complex and that leads me to have more run on sentences in my papers.

Thesis for Research paper

A higher education is worth the time and money because it helps create connections for future jobs, it increases your chances of finding employment, and on average college graduates have a higher salary than people with only a high school diploma.

By going to college students widen the opportunities of jobs available to them, create connections for future careers and gain more experience in their desired career, which is why it is worth paying for a higher education.

However, in case I find more evidence leading me to change my opinion on college education:

A higher education is not worth thousands of dollars because of the poor job market limiting opportunities , it puts families in thousands of dollars of debt and students graduate in debt that they must pay off.

Chapter 26,27

It's important to "create your own look" as outlined in chapters 26 and 27. There are all different forms of writing, each piece should be unique or else it would just get boring to read. Without any differences in every authors writing, reading would just become repetitive and boring. Throughout high school i noticed that I would tend to write in a style that would impress my teachers and fit their requirements because I wanted that "A" paper. The problem with this is that my writing became to robotic and boring, I didn't express any of my thoughts in my own creative style. The article points out an important point that all writers should take note of; It says that, "It is not always better to be 'correct' than it is to be 'appropriate'". This means that you don't always have to follow the book word by word, you can take risks that don't exactly follow the rules and as long as they're appropriate, it works.

A stronger arguement

Arguing is human nature, everyday we get into disputes with peers, parents, siblings and maybe even teachers or bosses. There's vocal arguments that involve conversing back and forth, maybe yelling at some points and then there are written arguments, like the ones we write for school, work or maybe a newspaper. I've always considered myself a good arguer, but until reading this chapter I never focused on the strategies that make a good argument. In chapter 14, the book outlines specific strategies that can help strengthen an argument.
The three most important tools for arguing I found in this chapter were providing examples, reiterating your point and identifying a problem and delivering a solution. Examples help back up your argument, they give the other person evidence and show the audience that you have researched what you are arguing and know what you're talking about. Sometimes you can even provide an example with visuals, graphs, statistic charts and pictures can all contribute to your argument.
The chapter also talks about reiterating your point to provide emphasis on your argument. Lastly, stating the problem that you are arguing about is only one step of the process. Giving possible solutions is the next step, it helps show the audience that you have processed your argument and taken the time to come up with an idea on how to fix the problem.

Project Ideas?

Research papers, every college student has to do at least one throughout their college career. For me this will probably be one of many that I have to do. I haven't done a long research paper since freshman year of high school so I'm going to have to clear out the cobwebs. The first stage and honestly the hardest (for me at least) is choosing a topic. There are so many topics out there and variations of certain topics its hard to just narrow it down to one. There's also an added pressure of making the topic original so that the teacher doesn't find your paper boring to read because they already know so much about it.
So far, after taking the easy route of googling possible controversial issues to write on, I've come across four or five that stood out to me most.
"Do we pay to much for college education?"- this topic especially interests me because I'll be the one paying for my college debt in four years when i graduate and when my future kids go off to college, I'll be paying tens of thousands of dollars for their education too. So this really strikes the topic of is it worth paying a university 30-40 thousand dollars a year to attend their classes?
"Should we pay college athletes?"- Another topic that interests me. While I am not a varsity college athlete, I am a former athlete and still love playing sports. However, I don't think paying college athletes would be fair which is why researching this topic would interest me a lot.

From researching, I've also been able to eliminate some topics that I really couldn't care less about. For example, any topics related to politics or most of the environmental issues doesn't interest me as much. After running into some of these questions, I was able to eliminate them from my list of possible project ideas.

Work is a blessing

I recently read Russell Honore's story of part of his life titles "Work is a Blessing". He talks about growing up, working seven days a week as a boy, watching his father and grandfather work endless hours to make virtually no money. When he asks he father why he should work so many hours a week and receive only the bare minimum to survive his father tells him, "to work is a blessing". That stayed with Honore for the rest of his life, as he always kept in mind that it is better to have a job you don't like then to not have a job at all.
While I agree with this statement, I also believe that it is important to have a job that you enjoy. You want to be able to start a career in something you are passionate about and enjoy waking up for every morning, otherwise your life is not going to be enjoyable. Working is a necessity to survive, everyone needs to earn a income in some way so that they can afford the essentials to live. So while I agree that it is a blessing to work considering some have a lot of trouble finding jobs, I think that while you work, you should be looking for another job in a field that you enjoy, if you aren't currently working for that.
Like Russell's father, my father told me something similar. He told me that, "it is important to have a career in something that interests you, and that you enjoy. If you don't enjoy your job, then every morning is going to be miserable, and every night after work is going to be miserable". So while I agree it is a blessing to work, I also believe that you should look for a job that you truly enjoy.