Would anyone please look at this for me, and grade this for me on a 1-12 scale. I’d really, really appreciate.
The prompt was: What motivates people to change?
Change often requires a catalyst; for people, we evolve our ways or thinking because of a realization of a different approach’s merits. One can observe myriad eamples of this, including Ewing’s transition to being an abolitionist in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, my parents’ decision to compost, and the aftermath of the plagiarism controversy at the Library of Congress.
After Ewing realizes that African-Americans are just as capable and perspicacious as whites, he sees the immorality of slavery and becomes an abolitionist. After another white man robbed and poisoned Ewing, the black man in the crew intelligently saves him from the poison. Grateful and with a new friend, Ewing then advocates for an end to slavery, whereas before he was content to see the institution of slavery perpetuated. Thus, his change in mindset was prompted by a realization of the cruelty of slavery.
Another instance in which people changed was when my parents learned the benefits of composting. Before, the food waste always found itself in the trashcan, heading for landfills where it would not benefit anyone. Instead, it has a deletorous effect, filling them up and taking up space. When I told my parents how composting would improve our garden cheaply–perhaps replacing the fertilizer they paid exorbitant prices for–they immediately switched to composting. Thus, the merits of composting caused them to change their behaviors.
The Library of Congress also changed after a controversy surrounding plagiarism in a book they had recently publiched: Mark Twain’s America. As a result of this scandal, LOC suffered greatly: its reputation was besmirched and Congress threatened leadership changes and more examination on a day-to-day basis. Because they found the consequences of plagarism so large, they have since put in place more thorough measures to prevent plagiarism from being published.
Although there seems to be many different things causing change, it truly boils down to the introduction of new information causing one way to seem more favorable than another as demonstrated by Ewing’s change in beliefs, my parents’ change in rules and LOC’s change in rules.