common essay example

时间:2024.3.27

申请本科的文书是不需要写选择某专业的原因的。很多名校的录取委员会希望从文书中看到的是申请人是一个怎样的人。而“怎样的人”这几个字包含的意义比较多,可以是性格、爱好、品质、处事方式、对大学教育和大学校园的期望、世界观、价值观、甚至是想象力等等。所以我觉得不管写哪个Essay题目,申请人都必须先学会分析自己。比如自己的性格是外向还是内向,是激进还是保守,自己的爱好是静是动,评价事物的标准是什么等等。这是因为所有这些Essay题目,都有一个关键的地方就是要看到申请人的自我分析和评价。以下是一些代表题目。

Option #1. Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.

题目的作者认为这个题目的关键词是evaluate,这是一个比describe更有深度的词,因此也要求申请人在写作时, 需要体现自己思考的深度,通过自己反省、反思、或分析,来表现申请人自我认识达到了怎样的程度。只有申请人自己对自己有深刻的认识,学校才能透过这些文字 来认识到申请人是谁。如果文字很肤浅,学校对申请人的认识自然也会很肤浅。

我自己对这个题目的看法:我觉得题目的重点是impact on you这里,而不在于申请人的经历本身,所以写作的重点,或说需要详写的内容,应该是描述这些经历对申请人的影响,而不能就事论事。还有就是对于 experience这个词的理解。所谓的经历,并不一定说是申请人主动做了件事,而还可以是申请人近两年生活中的一个片段,美国大学需要了解的是申请人的近况的,这个片段可以是在家庭里,也可以在社会上的,可以小到与一个人的相处,也可以大到像参加哈佛峰会这样的大事。在打开思路之后,最终还是得回到impact on you这里来。申请人需要写的是自己真实的感受和经历,并且这种感受,或思考,是符合一个成年人,或即将成年的人的。

Option #2. Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.

和作者的观点一样,我觉得这个题目的重点是最后那个importance to you。这是一个不太容易掌握的题目,就是因为很多人写着写着就开始就事论事,而忽略了这件事对自己的意义在哪里。在Essay中用自己的文字来分析这个意义,才是学校出题的目的。

另外,关于对concern的理解,我觉得应该理解为problem,而不只是issue。因为单纯地谈论一件事情或问题,并没有讨论想如何解决问题更重 要。或者说,这个题目应该理解为讨论申请人想如何解决一个问题,而不是单纯的谈论一个话题。这个local concern的范围也是很宽的,小到个人遇到的一些问题,大到国际问题(甚至有学生想讨论外星人的问题)。但也应该避免讨论一些诸如艾滋病、堕胎、毒品 与犯罪等这些已经被太多人讨论的过大过时的话题,而将自己的注意力放在自己身边的一些事情上来,比如商品房价格的问题、应试教育问题、外地务工子弟在京就读问题、电视节目炒作的现象、7·23事件政府没有完全公开问题等等。我相信在一些网站和论坛上,都能很容易找到一些社会上讨论的热点问题或热点新闻,而这些问题很多时候都是与大多数人密切相关的。只要申请人能在讨论这些问题时表达自己的观点,并有深度地分析这些问题,就能够让学校认识到申请人诸如价值观、世界 观、社会关注程度、待人处事等方面的特点。

Option #3. Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.

Option #4. Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work (as in art, music, science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence.

我将这两个题目放在一起,因为我觉得它们其实是相通的,总结起来就是描述一个人(真实或虚构)或事物对自己的影响。同样,题目的重点仍然是 influence on you。而describe这个词,其实应该理解为analyze和evaluate. “Dig deep and evaluate”,这是作者给申请人在写作时的建议。此外,最好不要去写N多人都写的人或事,比如自己的父母兄弟姐妹,或者各个国家在各个历史时期涌现 出来的各个历史名人,也最后不要轻易地写影视明星偶像,因为会让学校觉得申请人没有深度。

而对于influence的理解,作者提到这种影响不一定是积极的,也可以是消极的(但我觉得写这个还是很危险的,对申请人的文字掌握能力要求很高)。我认为influence不一定直愣愣地理解为影响,也就是说,文章中不需要有很明显的前后两个部分,前半部分说人和事,后半部分说影响。我觉得,可以把influence理解为潜移默化,在写作时,把自己和这些对自己产生影响的人或事之间的故事和经历说出来,让这种influence娓娓道来、自然流露。有些人写自己的父母对自己的影响,就只说“其实也没有什么重大的影响,就是有时说的一两句话总能让我觉得有道理,给我一些提示。”我觉得这样的说法是完全没有意义的,如果真没有什么写的,就换个人或事来写,或者干脆换个题目来写。

Option #5. A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.

这就是大家讨论比较多的diversity essay,就算不在common application的这个main essay这里来写,也常会在许多学校自己的essay questions中遇到这个题目。建议是,不要把diversity的涵义理解得太狭窄,不是只有种族和民族上才体现diversity。评审委员会希望招的学生是能够为college community带去多样性的。

那关于communit很多人都只能想到社会、社区这样的词。但现在我觉得,可以把这个词拆分为common和unite两个词。也就是a group of people united for common interests, characters, majors, dreams, specialties, and so on。也就是说community可以理解得很宽,只有人与人之间有共同之处(并且也是适合作为申请文书的素材),就可以组成一个community,申请人就可以写自己所具备的这一共同之处。比如对环保的参与、对摄影的爱好、对某项体育活动的爱好(体育在美国大学校园中的重要性比在中国大学中大得多)等 等。

另外,Diversity essay通常并不是为了表现申请人在各个方面都很优秀,而是表现申请人的某一个特点,或一个方面,能够为今后大学校园的diversity带去新鲜的活力。这是最需要注意的。

Option #6. Topic of your choice.

只有在确定自己要写的东西不能套用以上任何一个题目时,才选择这一题目,否则可能会给学校留下不好的印象。


第二篇:Compare and Contrast essay example


Compare and Contrast essay example

Posted by admin as Essays

Compare and Contrast essay example:

Introduction

Two great philosophers existed during the Golden Age of Greece and the

Hellenistic age, Plato and his equally famous pupil, Aristotle. Both developed structured theories and dialectic of what comprises good government and these theories were influenced by the theories of form they held. While Plato stressed that the ideal regime acts as a standard by which other regimes are

judged, Aristotle concerned himself primarily in the best form of government. In light of their differing approaches, this essay will compare and contrast their notion of rulership. Focus will be on their views of: rulership and goodness, the nature of rhetoric, and the importance of knowledge in achieving wisdom.

Aristotle was born in a small northern Greek town of Stagira in 384. He was born into a family of substantial wealth, and though his father died when he was a young boy, his uncle Proxenus, and other family members were charged with making sure the boy had an adequate educational background. At the age of seventeen, Aristotle left Stagira for Athens, to begin his studies at the Academy under the tutelage of Plato. This was a significant turning point in the thinking and life of young Aristotle.

Later in life, Aristotle would teach his own students from a school he called the Lyceum, and in many aspects, the Lyceum shared common structures with Plato’s Academy. The Academy was oriented to a more private operation, unlike the Lyceum, embracing almost an exclusive mentality, while the Lyceum attempted to embrace a public friendly orientation.

As Aristotle grew as a philosopher and public figure, other differences emerged

between the student and his teacher. While Aristotle attempted to bridge a vast educational gap, Plato’s considerations and teachings focused on the

elemental considerations of philosophical and political thought: “metaphysics, epistemology, logic, ethics, political theory” and primarily, philosophy. While

Aristotle would pursue mathematics, the scientific, social inquiry and a vast study of the cosmos, Plato’s considerations were more limited, though the teacher always respected the study of other men’s achievements in education.

Though the teacher and the student had a deep affection and respect for each other, Plato and Aristotle were divided on a number of different

considerations, especially related to their concepts of rulership and their views on the necessity of rhetoric and knowledge. Their political considerations regarding the nature of the state and their overall perspectives on leadership were points of disagreement between the two philosophers, especially in considering the impacts of rhetoric in the role of leadership. Aristotle stayed

under the educational tutelage of Plato for 20 years, even in his disagreement, until Plato’s death in 347.

In order to understand the impacts that the Academy had on Aristotle’s development as both a philosopher and a political theorist, it is necessary to consider the differences and similarities between Aristotle and Plato. Plato never expected that Aristotle would embrace every doctrine without question, but primary to Plato’s teaching was instilling in Aristotle a quest for knowledge and the capacity to pursue wisdom.

Rulership and Goodness

For Plato, one of the most essential lessons that he hoped to demonstrate was that human nature could also be morally problematic. Plato struggles with his capacity to reconcile society and necessary societal constructs with ethics and morality, two issues he often found void in politics, especially after the death of Socrates. These questions were posed in considerable length within the text of Plato’s Republic, in which Plato used the character of Socrates to design his discourse on politics, goodness and ethics.

In Book II of Republic, Socrates recognized that man exists within a developed civilization. Human character leads men into communal living situations, in which there is both a need for leadership and a need to address the welfare of the totality. In his discourse with Adeimantus, Socrates constructs a city by demonstrating the needs that men have which bring them into community. Because man have some skills, have some crafts, but most men do not have the capacity to provide for all of their needs, men live in community as a means of meeting the needs of all of the citizens. The blacksmith tools for the farmer, the farmer grows the food, and by the exchange both men are fed.

Plato valued political constructs by comparing rulership to a craft (Book I, 341c-342e) . He contended that man must demonstrate special knowledge of

leadership, just as a weaver must demonstrate special knowledge of a basket and the process by which a basket can be derived. It is not enough to determine rulership based on might, because physical strength has little to do with the necessary elements of civilization and of rulership. Just because a person a person has the reeds does not mean they can weave the basket.

Plato recognized that man’s capacity to attain goodness existed within the polis, and that man could only embrace the necessities of life, including a focus on ethics and morality, based on these social constructs. Though Plato often disagreed with the elemental premise of political action, he clearly embraced social constructs as an imperative for man’s capacity to live communally.

For Aristotle, Plato’s considerations regarding the capacity of man to achieve

goodness appeared more of a philosophical consideration than anything applicable within life in the polis. In Book I, Chapter VI of “Nicomachean Ethics”, goodness under the concept presented by Plato suggests almost an unattainable element, and

it was Aristotle’s contention that man’s greatest capacity was in embracing those things that could be attained, rather than living in pursuit of what could never be. Similarly, Aristotle also recognized that goodness in and of itself had very little

applicable or intrinsic value . Aristotle criticized Plato’s arguments based on his belief that there was little substance to recognizing something as good; instead, goodness only existed as a value determined within specific social and societal situations. While each person has the capacity to attain goodness, each person does not have the capacity to construct goodness outside of the realm of what the society as a whole embraced.

Rhetoric

Plato and Aristotle shared some similar considerations regarding the nature of

rhetoric, and the fact that it offered considerable impact within the social structure and for the leaders of the polis. But in the totality of their discourses regarding

rhetoric and leadership, the teacher and his student differed on a number of specific points.

Plato’s thoughts on rhetoric are based in his first contention: that rhetoric itself is not a part of an art or craft, but instead a habit. “The orator need have no knowledge of the truth of things; it is enough for him to have discovered a knack of convincing the ignorant that he knows more than the experts”. Rhetoric, Plato argued, was designed to direct man, to devise a means for shaping the perceptions of others, and often appears in the form of flattery.

Plato presented his thoughts regarding rhetoric through a discourse between his character of Socrates and Gorgias, a man whose life is based on the essential nature of political rhetoric. Though Plato’s intention, and therefore Socrates intention, was not to insult the profession of Gorgias, his discourse clearly presents opposition to Gorgias’ work. He states that oratory (eloquent public speech) is “a branch of something which certainly isn’t a fine or honorable pursuit. He went on to

characterize the orator as a person who is “bold of spirit” and has a “natural aptitude for dealing with men”. It was Plato’s contention that the persuasive element of oratory, based not in arguable truths but in the convincing element of the orator, related oratory to pandering, or flattery, more than to political discourse. Plato even went so far as to call it a “spurious counterfeit” of the “art of government”. In other words, it was Plato’s argument that while political discourse could be related to

philosophy if it embraces essential truths, the kind of discourse, the oration, directed by men like Gorgias, did not actually represent government.

Aristotle, on the other hand, believed that rhetoric was a necessary construct of politics, and that the discourse that Plato found so apprehensible was an essential to the society in which both men lived. While Plato reflected on the way in which rhetoric flattered and distorted the truth, Aristotle’s argument was that rhetoric should embrace logic and provide a forum within which argument could persuade through its use. Aristotle believed that effective rhetoric was the first sign of an effective leader.

Plato was clear to distinguish the essential difference between lecturing, especially lecturing that demonstrates the essential truths of philosophy and government, and the oration provided by speakers like Gorgias. While lecturing clearly supports what he considered to be the “art” or “craft” of government, a process that brings together man, oration supported the art of itself, the art of representation rather than of truth. The differences expressed by Plato and Aristotle regarding the nature of rhetoric did not prevent either man from considering their own logical discourses or allowing for the even flow of information between them. Critics of Aristotle believed that he did not truly appreciate or embrace the elements of discourse presented by Plato, but by considering each one’s position, it is easy to see that Aristotle devised his own perspective relative to the constructs presented by Plato.

Knowledge

Aristotle joined the Academy in pursuit of knowledge, and it has long been believed that he read some of the philosophical discourses of Plato prior to leaving northern Greece for the great city of Athens. Though Aristotle and Plato clearly embraced the same belief in the imperative of knowledge, they shared different perspectives on the importance of knowledge in achieving wisdom and in the way in which knowledge could be utilized in the unification of man. Some have argued that after an initial period of apprenticeship Aristotle gradually moved away from Plato and developed his own distinct philosophical approach. It was Plato’s belief that knowledge was the directive of the ruling class and that the philosophers should direct the course of the polis. In essence leadership, knowledge and wisdom should go hand in hand.

Plato constructed the “Allegory of the Cave” in Book VII of Republic as a means of bringing to light his thoughts on the necessity of knowledge and on the correlation between knowledge and wisdom. It is an effective representation of the progression from ignorance to knowledge and knowledge to wisdom. This allegory suggests Plato’s initial considerations about man’s essence: that man is elementally ignorant and would stay that way if not led away. In other words, Plato’s almost skeptical perception of the nature of man suggests that man would chose ignorance over knowledge if allowed to simply demonstrate his free will. James Wiser presents his view in the following:

This life, therefore, is one of tension; the philosopher yearns to participate in and live by the most real; yet there is also the call to remain in the cave. The pull or yearning creates the philosopher’s characteristic form; the philosopher is an existence in tension.

Plato accepted that man could be unified under ignorance or unified under knowledge and recognized the importance of societal constructs in creating an essential mode to lead men out of ignorance. But in essence, Plato never truly constructed any element of education that could lead to the fulfillment of this necessary perception. Although Plato’s characterization of Socrates in Republic provided an avenue by which Plato could suggest the necessity of state-provided education, he never actually embraced the concept of meeting the educational needs of the soldiers of Athens.

Aristotle would have argued for a more public and applicable consideration regarding man and knowledge. It is easy for a philosopher to reflect about the ignorance of all men, but harder to apply a concept of public education and of public knowledge to this belief. In Book I of “Nicomachean Ethics,” Aristotle argued that Plato’s

considerations regarding the essential necessity of knowledge and of knowledge of “good” was flawed because he lacked the focus to determine the necessary usefulness of knowledge, especially moral knowledge.

While Plato would have argued that knowledge is attainable by all men, but the application of that knowledge is the determinant of wisdom, Aristotle recognized that knowledge was an experiential process and that the young were void of the

knowledge necessary for practical wisdom. Aristotle even went so far as to argue that individuals who have theoretical knowledge do not always have the capacity for practical wisdom. Plato, on the other hand, would have argued that practical wisdom was a direct correlate of knowledge, and that man’s capacity to attain and apply knowledge was directly related to the overall perception of wisdom.

Conclusion

Though Aristotle often differed on a number of major premises, it is clear that his teacher, Plato, has a considerable impact on the life, learning and philosophical development of Aristotle. The considerations regarding

rulership and the importance of rhetoric and knowledge presented by these two philosophers reflect similar considerations based on some elemental premises. It is clear that Aristotle’s beliefs regarding rulership and the polis was dependent on an understanding of the constructs considered by Plato. It is important to understand that no instructor offers teachings and its inherent knowledge with the expectation that their students will agree without question all of the dictates taught to him/her. Plato would not have been disheartened by the

alterations that Aristotle embraced or the differences that Aristotle argued. Instead, Plato would have recognized that knowledge is an essential progression of

understanding and that Aristotle’s concepts were an extension of his capacity to learn and his desire to strive for greater knowledge and wisdom.

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