What main things are wrong with this essay?

LuLuBB
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:28:33 +0000

Knowledge has its limits. Having a double-sided nature, knowledge can be either a burden or a benefit. Although knowledge as a benefit provides technological advances and quells curiosities, an excess in this power can lead to deleterious results. Evident in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and also in the aftermaths of wars, possessing knowledge begets inconvenience.



This first paragraph reads like “double speak” - it isn’t clear. The phrase “Although knowledge as a benefit” is odd - you could just give a clear examples of benefits and burdens w/o having to tell the reader which one you are talking about. If it’s a clear example, you shouldn’t need to tell them.

The reference of Fahrenheit 451 assumes the reader has read the book and knows exacly what you are talking about. Perhaps you shouldn’t reference the book until later in the essay. You could use the reference, but it does require some explaination - which you didn’t give until later.

The mixure of a very specific reference (Bradbury) and then a very general one (war) does not underscore or even make your point that “possessing knowledge begets inconvenience.”