Example Student
Argument Analysis
[including the student argument Essay #2 analyzed]
Webpublished with Students'
Permission
Online Handout, WR 122, Winter 2002
"Analysis of 'Secondhand Smoke Is Just as
Dangerous'"
by ~ Unsigned by student analyzer's request ~ Winter
2001
...and, for your reference, the student argument Essay analyzed:
"Secondhand Smoke Is Just as
Dangerous," by Shellie Schiel Winter
2001
Example Student Argument Analysis ~ Winter 2001
Note: I have linked the student Analyzer's references to paragraphs
in Schiel's Essay #2 Argument (below) for your reference.Unsigned [by student analyzer's request]
But your MLA Header should go here!
See Student Argument Analysis Directions
And your Analysis should be double spacedAnalysis of "Secondhand Smoke Is Just as Dangerous"
by Shellie Schiel1. Summary
[The issue being argued is the] dangers and discomforts of secondhand smoke. In Shellie Schiel's "Secondhand Smoke Is Just as Dangerous," Schiel details how secondhand smoke affects nonsmokers. Schiel defines secondhand smoke and presents its many harmful effects on adults and especially children. She also states how nonsmokers must suffer from the very unpleasant smell that sticks to them, for smokers are unaware of their stick due to sensory adaptation. She talks of the problems that she and her mom have had with her dad's smoking and how it has affected their health and relationship. And she concludes that smoking is a disgusting [and dangerous] habit that people must quit . . . [to] eliminate secondhand smoke and save lives.
2. Classification
I would classify this essay as both arguing to convince and persuading to act. I believe that this essay can be classified as convincing . . . [because] it uses well-documented facts as its supporting evidence. The essay shows proof of the detrimental effects of secondhand cigarette smoke with statistics. The essay can also be classified as persuasive . . . [because] it also has an intense emotional appeal. The essay uses examples of how secondhand smoke affects children, which touches the hearts of many.
3. Structure
The introduction of the essay includes paragraph one and the first half of paragraph two. The body then starts in the middle of paragraph two and continues to [paragraph] seven. Paragraph eight is the conclusion. Paragraph one introduces us to the subject with a personal testimonial by the author about her attitude on smoking, and the introduction continues into the second paragraph as she defines what secondhand smoke is. Half of paragraph two and all of [paragraph] three are filled with statistics and numbers to lend solid evidence to the author's point. Paragraph four lends support to her argument against smoking as legislation has been passed to restrict smoking in public places, so many people must agree with her [position]. Paragraph five brings up the unpleasant stench caused by smoking, while in paragraph six and seven she brings the focus back to her life and experiences. The conclusion restates her thesis and leaves the only solution as the end to smoking.
4. Audience
Many readers know about the unhealthy aspects of smoking and secondhand smoke through a rigorous media education campaign. Readers of this article may have a large range of pre-existing views, probably depending most on whether or not they smoke and if they have children living with them. Smokers that live in a home environment that is absent of children and other non-smokers probably feel that they are harming no one and it is their decision and right to smoke, while non-smoking parents may have strong objections to their children and themselves being exposed to secondhand smoke. There is also a range of positions in between. The readers will probably be able to agree with the author about the health risks that smoking and secondhand smoke cause, especially the effects found in children. The author, though, will have a hard time convincing smokers that all buildings should be smoke free. Not all smokers will accept or identify with the criticism that they receive. A target audience for this essay would be people that, when reading this essay, see themselves harming others and . . . [Schiel hopes to] change their ways. This essay's argument would be most successful among nonsmokers, especially people that hold intensely strong feelings against smoking or have lost a loved one to smoking.
5. Types of Appeals
The author uses logos [appeals to logic and reasoning] in paragraph two and three. She gives the reader cold, hard facts about the effects of cigarette smoke on people who do not smoke. According to the author, the Surgeon General states that over 50,000 Americans die from secondhand smoke every year. Beside that statistic, she has many more to support her thesis that secondhand smoke is harmful.
In this essay, I found two emotional appeals that are sure to strike at the reader's heart. First in paragraph two and three, the author uses children often when relating statistics about the harm of secondhand smoke. Most people can read about adults suffering from the effects of secondhand smoke nonchalantly . . . [because] they think that adults have more power in the situation or have the choice to leave. With children it is a different story. Many times children have no control over their environmental situations and are not allowed the choice to leave; also there is more empathy in our hearts towards children. That is why when the author describes the horrible consequences for the kids that are around secondhand smoke, our hearts go out to them and we are affected. Another emotional appeal that the author used was at the end of paragraph seven when she is talking about a commercial on television that had "an old man telling his tale that the one person he loved most he killed with smoking." When I thought about that, I realized that would have to be the most awful thing in the world: to kill the one you loved most, especially when it was only for a cigarette. I think that anyone with a heart would be affected by these two appeals. It should make them angry with people that put other people at risk and feel pity for the people that get hurt. I believe that even people who smoke would be disturbed.
The author's introduction gives the reader a definite impression of her character. There she plainly states her attitude that she does not like being around cigarette smoke. This keeps with the tone of the essay, but is most distinct in paragraph four as she expresses little or no tolerance for smokers.
The dominant style of the essay is the personal touch it brings. The author includes her own experiences with the problem of secondhand smoke throughout the essay. This gives the essay touches of feeling and reality. In using herself as an example, the author allows readers to put themselves in her position under those circumstances.
6. Use of Sources and Treatment of Opposing Viewpoints
From an article by Henry Waxman in the EPA Journal, [Schiel] takes numbers. She uses the statistic that over 50,000 Americans die each year from secondhand smoke to help convince people [appeal to logic and reasoning] that cigarette smoke is deadly. In the beginning of paragraph seven, the author states information from an interview with Cecil Smalley. In a nutshell, Smalley believes that smoking is his choice and his livelihood and making him smoke outdoors restricts his choice and freedom. But the author opposes Smalley's belief . . . [because] now from Smalley's indoor smoking he has endangered his wife's health: she is now constantly ill from respiratory problems. This may help persuade [some] readers to smoke out of the way of other people.
7. Personal Response
I started smoking when I was sixteen. I know how addicting cigarettes are and what a pain it is when you are not allowed to smoke in a restaurant when all you want is coffee and a cigarette. But I do not smoke anymore; I have not had a cigarette for seven months. There is a whole new side to smoking that I never realized before. The smell, being in a car with people that are smoking, gives me a headache and bothers my nose terribly. I think that smoking where other people, especially children, are affected is wrong and rude. Putting other people's lives at risk for your own disgusting habit is deplorable. My opinion has not changed since reading this essay. I feel that I may be a little more tolerant of smokers than the author [Schiel], but other than that we agree on all points. I found [Schiel's] emotional appeals particularly touching and would like to use that technique. I think that the heart can help change the mind.
© Held by student: Published anonymously with Student Permission, 2001
The Student
Argument Analyzed ~ Winter 2001
Note: Paragraphs in the Student Argument below were
[numbered]
by the Student Analyzer and have been linked for your reference.
Shellie Schiel
WR 122, Prof. C. Agatucci
Essay #2 (Argument Using 3 Sources)
27 February 2001
Secondhand Smoke Is
Just as Dangerous
[1] I remember this event like it was yesterday, but it happened to me when I was about 15 years old. My dad, grandmother, and many of my parents’ friends were heavy smokers. One day my mom and dad, our neighbors and my grandparents were sitting in the kitchen visiting. I went into the kitchen to ask them a question but the air was so hazy with smoke I started coughing. I walked up to them and instead of asking my question I made the statement to my dad that when I get my own place, I will not allow smoking. My dad got extremely upset and told me to leave the house and not to come back until my attitude changed. So I left the house and walked to a friend’s house. When I cooled down and I thought my dad had cooled down, I went home. Well, my attitude has never changed; I just never brought up the subject again to my dad.
[2] What I didn’t realize back then was just how dangerous secondhand smoke was. But what exactly is secondhand smoke? The article titled “Secondhand Smoke” defines it as “a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe, or cigar, and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers” (1). What does exposure to secondhand smoke do? “It causes irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat. It can also irritate the lungs, leading to coughing, excess phlegm, chest discomfort, and reduced lung function” (1). This article also states that secondhand smoke has been classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a known cause of lung cancer in humans. Children exposed to secondhand smoke are also more likely to have reduced lung function and symptoms of respiratory irritation such as cough, excess phlegm, and wheeze. Also, secondhand smoke can lead to a buildup of fluid in the middle ear, the most common cause of hospitalization of children for an operation. It also causes thousands of non-asthmatic children to develop the condition each year. Children are more susceptible to the dangers of secondhand smoke because their lungs are still developing and growing. This really opened up my eyes and made me wonder if my allergies and asthma were caused by being around secondhand smoke since birth.
[3] During my research I was amazed at the statistics I found. “…[E]xposure to secondhand tobacco smoke is the third leading cause of premature death in the United States, killing over 50,000 Americans each year, according to the Surgeon General. Secondhand smoke is also a severe threat to children, causing hundreds of thousands of cases of bronchitis and pneumonia each year” (Waxman 1). Out of 17 million ear infections children get each year, between 354,000 and 2.2 million are linked to secondhand smoke. Annual cases of bronchitis due to secondhand smoke in children under 5 are estimated to run between 260,000 and 436,000; pneumonia, between 115,000 and 190,000 (“When Parents Puff” 22). Each year secondhand smoke causes about 3,000 lung cancer deaths in U.S. adults who don’t smoke. Secondhand smoke increases the nonsmoker’s risk for heart disease and makes worse the symptoms of adults already suffering from asthma, allergies, or bronchitis. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Services National Institutes of Health, “…each year, 434,000 people die of illnesses related to their smoking. But smokers are not the only ones whose health can suffer. Breathing their tobacco smoke can be a hazard to your health and to the health of children.” And “children are usually innocent victims -- unable to choose whether or not to be in a smoke-filled environment” (“I Mind Very Much If You Smoke” 1).
[4] The first legislative bill on this subject, the Smoke-Free Environment Act of 1993, “would guarantee all Americans a smoke-free environment by prohibiting smoking in buildings accessible to the public, except in designated, separately ventilated smoking rooms. By providing nationwide protection, the bill would eliminate countless battles for smoking restrictions at the local level” (Waxman 2). In fact two cities in Oregon (Corvallis and Lake Oswego) have gone a step further and don’t allow smoking in any public building including restaurants. But unfortunately this bill doesn’t restrict the employees in the public buildings from smoking just outside the front doors, so the public has to breathe the smoke just to get inside the public building. So, in my opinion, this bill didn’t eliminate the exposure problem.
[5] The smoke smell sticks to everything. Every time I went to visit my parents for the weekend, I would have to wash everything when I returned home because it smelled of smoke. Also, when I was pregnant I had real trouble following people walking down the hallway at work that had just come inside from a smoke break. They smelled so bad that I had to change my direction just to breathe. I wish they could smell themselves, but unfortunately due to sensory adaptation they can’t. They have been around it so long they don’t know what clean fresh air really smells like.
[6] Even a decade later when I did have my own house, I was afraid to bring up the subject of smoking to my dad. He would sit in front of an open window in my dining room and smoke. But when I got pregnant, I made the statement to mom that I didn’t want to bring the baby over and stay with them for long visits because of the smoke. I didn’t want to expose my baby to the cigarette smoke any longer than necessary. During my pregnancy, I found out that there were complications and my baby was going to have to be born prematurely and I would have to be careful, as her lungs might not be fully developed. This really scared me. So, when I explained the situation to my parents and stressed that there will be no smoking in my house by anyone, I was afraid that my dad would never come to visit. Well, my dad did come to visit and go outside to smoke, but he didn’t like it. In fact, mom came to visit several times without my dad.
[7] To this day, my dad feels that he should be able to smoke anywhere he feels like it. It is his choice, and his livelihood. Smoking is part of his life and nobody should make him go outside in public places. This restricts his choice and freedom (Smalley). Unfortunately my mom hasn’t restricted him and now she is suffering. She has a chronic cough, asthma, and gets bronchitis all the time. All she has to do is call the doctor’s office now and they will prescribe an antibiotic and cough medicine. Since my mom’s health is deteriorating, dad has started smoking outside in the garage, but smoke wanders and now it is seeping into the house. She also has to walk through it to go anywhere, as her car is parked in the garage. There was one commercial on television that really hit home, an old man telling his tale that the one person he loved the most he killed with his smoking. This advertisement really set tears to my eyes, as I felt that this is exactly what my dad is doing to my mom.
[8] As long as people continue to smoke tobacco, secondhand smoke will threaten the health of nonsmokers. I wish that my dad would realize the statistics and the harm that he has caused to my mom, sister and me. But every time any of us bring up the subject, he gets really defensive. So, please discuss smoking and the effects of secondhand smoke with your children. Hopefully, in time, we will be able to eliminate this nasty habit and save many thousands of innocent lives.
Works
Cited
“I Mind Very Much If You Smoke.” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Services National Institute of Health 93.3544 (1994): 1.
“Secondhand Smoke.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1995: 1.
Smalley, Cecil. Personal interview, 24 Feb. 2001.
Waxman, Henry A. “The View from Congress: We Can No Longer Overlook the Indoors.” EPA Journal, 19.4 (Oct-Dec 1993): 38-39.
“When Parents Puff.” U.S. News & World Report, 22 Apr. 1996, Vol. 120 Issue 16: 22.
© Shellie Schiel, 2001
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