Please grade this essay!

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1

<p>//p.513 “Can knowledge be a burden rather than a benefit?”</p>

<p>::
The modern world was built from the ground up on a foundation of knowledge. Knowledge has broken down the previously oppressive walls of impossibility and pushed us farther in our quest to understand the unknown. Nevertheless, staying true to the axiom, “innocence is bliss,” our thirst for knowledge has formed more problems than it has solved.</p>

<p>Knowledge has created technology such as the automobile which has had a tremendous impact on our lives. On one hand, cars expedite travel and make commuting to and from work practical. However, the pervasiveness of cars has introduced a whole host of problems. Despite efforts to reduce emissions, cars continue to pump exorbitant amounts of toxic pollutants into the air. These particles include sulfur dioxide, a component of acid rain, and carbon dioxide, a “greenhouse” gas that contributes to global warming. Cars are also a main contributor in human death tolls; each year, more than a million people in the United States alone are killed in car accidents. Teenagers are even more susceptible to automobile accidents, making cars the most lethal factor of an adolescent’s everyday life. In this case, knowledge can be seen as a burden because it has created a killing machine that we willingly sit in, daily.</p>

<p>Additionally, Annie Dillard shows us in her memoir, An American Childhood, that knowledge is detrimental. As she grows from a small, innocent, and naive girl into an independent and rebellious teenager, she becomes corrupted by knowledge. Her sister, Molly, is always complaisant towards their parents while Dillard is outright hostile. Her knowledge acquired through school, from friends, and by reading has changed her disposition from calm to tumultuous. One instance of when knowledge becomes a burden for Dillard is when she becomes an iconoclast and questions the ideas of the church. She gets into a heated argument with her mother and escalates to physical violence, cracking her mother’s eyeglasses. Dillard ends up quitting the church and associating with a group of disrespectful teens who use illegal substances, which upsets her parents greatly.</p>

<p>Indeed, the cons of knowledge outweigh the pros. In history and literature, knowledge has shown itself to be a “blade of sugar,” that entices us with its “sweet” advantages while it slices at us with its downfalls. We can only hope that the power granted by knowledge is enough to free us of its burdens.
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2

<p>This is a four, primarily because the first body paragraph is mainly a treatise on technology rather than a discussion of the burdensome nature of knowledge.</p>

<p>Read your Dillard paragraph. Then read your technology paragraph. Maybe you’ll see what I mean.</p>

<p>The technology paragraph is about 90% fact. That’s not gonna cut it. I could find this kind of stuff in a research paper. Unfortunately, this isn’t intended to be a research paper.</p>

<p>In other words, your first body paragraph is a three and your second one is a borderline five.</p>

3

<p>Maybe this will clarify things a bit…</p>

<p>The stuff in bold shows insight. The underlined words are the problem.</p>

<p>The modern world was built from the ground up on a foundation of knowledge. Knowledge has broken down the previously oppressive walls of impossibility and pushed us farther in our quest to understand the unknown. Nevertheless, staying true to the axiom, “innocence is bliss,” our thirst for knowledge has formed more problems than it has solved.</p>

<p>Knowledge has created technology such as the automobile which has had a tremendous impact on our lives. On one hand, cars expedite travel and make commuting to and from work practical. However, the pervasiveness of cars has introduced a whole host of problems. Despite efforts to reduce emissions, cars continue to pump exorbitant amounts of toxic pollutants into the air. These particles include sulfur dioxide, a component of acid rain, and carbon dioxide, a “greenhouse” gas that contributes to global warming. Cars are also a main contributor in human death tolls; each year, more than a million people in the United States alone are killed in car accidents. Teenagers are even more susceptible to automobile accidents, making cars the most lethal factor of an adolescent’s everyday life. In this case, knowledge can be seen as a burden because it has created a killing machine that we willingly sit in, daily.</p>

<p>Additionally, Annie Dillard shows us in her memoir, An American Childhood, that knowledge is detrimental. As she grows from a small, innocent, and naive girl into an independent and rebellious teenager, she becomes corrupted by knowledge. Her sister, Molly, is always complaisant towards their parents while Dillard is outright hostile. Her knowledge acquired through school, from friends, and by reading has changed her disposition from calm to tumultuous. One instance of when knowledge becomes a burden for Dillard is when she becomes an iconoclast and questions the ideas of the church. She gets into a heated argument with her mother and escalates to physical violence, cracking her mother’s eyeglasses. Dillard ends up quitting the church and associating with a group of disrespectful teens who use illegal substances, which upsets her parents greatly.</p>

<p>Indeed, the cons of knowledge outweigh the pros. In history and literature, knowledge has shown itself to be a “blade of sugar,” that entices us with its “sweet” advantages while it slices at us with its downfalls. We can only hope that the power granted by knowledge is enough to free us of its burdens.</p>

4

<p>I agree, the first body paragraph feels too much like an exposition rather than an analysis. </p>

<p>Do you have any tips on how to improve that paragraph? I think it is a solid example in terms of supporting my stance, but I would greatly appreciate it if you could guide me in the right direction.</p>

<p>Edit: I have a revision that I would like you to look over. I think it has more analysis woven between the facts and sounds less “research-paper-ish.”</p>

<p>::
Knowledge has created technology such as the automobile which has had a tremendous impact on our lives. On one hand, cars expedite travel and make commuting to and from work practical. However, the pervasiveness of cars has introduced a whole host of problems. Despite efforts to reduce emissions, cars continue to pump exorbitant amounts of toxic pollutants into the air. While many people fawn over cars and admire them as marvels of human innovation, environmentalists face the burden of lobbying manufacturers to reduce pollution and create “greener” machines. Cars are also a main contributor in human death tolls. In this case, knowledge has forced us to make the difficult compromise between speed and safety. Even as one of the pinnacles of human achievement, this application of knowledge has resulted in a slew of deleterious byproducts.
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5

<p>I have lots of “tips” as to how to improve any paragraph. Generally, I save them for my own students at my own site (which, in the interest of Internet protocol, I won’t publicize on these forums).</p>

<p>HOWEVER, I’ll say this…</p>

<p>If you’d like to discuss the burden of technology, focus on its emotional toll.</p>