Rodriguez 1

Katherine Rodriguez
ENC 1101
Andrew Golden
November 10, 2014

Response to MacAulay's Essay

K ate MacAulay used the two articles “The Irrationality and Rationality: Traffic Jams on

Those ‘Happy Trails,’” and “Who Am We” to help bring in ideas that would answer the question her english class had been focusing on, which was “What effect is technology having on discussions about the quality of life in the twenty­first century?”. There were many effective points that were used throughout this essay. The thesis statement MacAulay wrote is particularly effective because it shows how both of the articles she choose identify problems that can help answer the overall question, but also describes how both authors of the articles have their own perspective on the question. During the analytical and elaborations some very strong points directly from the articles were made such as the “the disintegration of the family” in Ritzer’s article while she focused on the idea of people being “impressed by the screen” in Turkle’s. To make her writing more effective MacAulay wrote her essay writing with and against the grain.
She was able to write about the articles individual points of views while incorporating her individual thoughts as well, and doing so showed her knowledge of the subject and allowed her to thoroughly synthesis the writing.
The organization of a synthesis essay is very important to the understanding of the reader of what your are writing about. The Kate MacAulay used Framework 1 to write her essay. Frame
1 is the standard synthesis essay where you introduce and summarize both texts, analyze the points at hand, synthesis the sections, and lastly add a concluding paragraph that puts together all your new insights. Even though Framework 1 follows a specific rule MacAulay deviated from it a little to make her points more effective. She starts off with a strong introduction automatically introducing the question that needs to be answered, then she goes on to introducing the texts being analysed and synthesised.