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sat essay: should all people's opinions opinions be valued equally?


kimuratakuya 10 / 32  
Apr 11, 2012   #1
informed opinions be taken seriously?

John Chafee once said:' opinions are valuable only when they're backed by thorough knowledge of the subject' .Though the words seem justified, they are wrong sometimes.When the experts give flippant opinions withouy careful thinking and thorough research,rather than following them, we should pay attention to others' opinions as well.

In the case of Dust Bowl, the informed Federal Agriculture Depatment made a tremendous mistake. In the Great Plain region, because the climate is dry there, the soil is vulnerable to wind erosion. To preserve the soil, farmers oftern limited plowing. However, from 1930 to 1935, the region rained untypically affluently.Thus, without any scientific research, the FAD concluded that the climate in the Great Plain had changed permanetly and encouraged farmers to increase plowing.Beliving in the FAD, farmers doubled the sizes of plowing. However, in 1936, the weather became extremely dry again and nearly 1/3 of the soil, extremely loose after over plowing ,was driven away,resulting in the Dust Bowl destroying 2/3 of the farmlands in Ohio and Kansas. In this case, even thogh FAD was more informed, it did not consider carefully and gave a rather flippant and absurd suggestion. Instead,the farmers, though not so informed, had developed a suitable work method. Had they adhered to their own idea rather than following informed FAD, they would not have suffered so much. Thus, this case showed the necessity of valuing the ideas of people not so informed.

In Pavolva's case, the authority gave fallible opinion again. Anna Pavolva, an inovative Russian ballerina, modified her shoes to save energy .However, many critics, esapecially Nicolas, the editor of 'ballet world' ,disproved her adaptation, arguing that her adaptation would not be accepted because it reduced the sophistication and loftness of ballet. Despite such critism, Pavolva persisted her adaption. Finally, out of critics' anticipation, Pavolva's adaptation was commonly applauded because with less energy consumed, she can dance more elegantly. In 1908, Pavolva became so popular that 18 coutries invited her to perform.In the case above, though the critics were probably more informed, they did not give a correct idea because instead of reliable research ,they based their ideas on the unsubstantiated assertion that audience only valued' sophisticated actions'. Fortuanetly, Pavolva persisted her right dea and gained success. Thus, we can see from Pavolva's success that sometimes we should question the authorities' ideas.

Even though experts gave fallible opinions in the cases above, when they presented their ideas after careful thinking, such ideas should be more emphasized than others. For example, after months' debate, many informed people such as Jefferson, Madison produced the Constitutio of US, proved to be a treasure for democacy. Arguably,the informed are more likely to give right ideas, but they can also make mistake without careful thinking. Thus, we should value all people's opinions when the informed gives flippant opinions.
basawang 10 / 76  
Apr 11, 2012   #2
Hi,

1. Your prompt is unclear because you did not finish your sentence, which makes me feel confused.
2. You did not properly structure your essay. More specifically, the structure of your paragraph is problematic. I suggest you state the main idea of each paragraph first, then provide examples or supporting evidences. Do not put examples in the beginning of a paragraph.

Sincerely,
OP kimuratakuya 10 / 32  
Apr 11, 2012   #3
Perhaps you do not know much about sat essay. In sat essay, we often give the claim in the first paragraph and the bodu paragraph just give example and analysis to support the claim. I need not develop any points in the body part. Your idea more suits tofel and ielts, but not sat . If you want to help me, please see whether ihave thought critically or whether i support the claim made in body paragraph well.My claim is put in the first paragraph and the prompt is just before my article.

Several days ago, I have advised one to use specific data, and joked that he or she could even fabricate some statistics and my comment was criticized by you. Here i will defend myself. I do not mean to encourage cheating in academic area. I just mean it id not important to care about the accuracy of specific data.In IELTS, tofel and sat, you do not need to express your academic integrity, instead, you should show your ability to support your claims with examples and analysis.

Thank yuo very much.
peterc 14 / 52  
Apr 11, 2012   #4
Hi kimuratakuya,

I think the essay is very well written. The examples and explanations makes the claim very justifiable. Maybe part of the reason I like this article is that I do agree that we, in most of time, should not believe in experts easily. There are too many so-called experts nowadays.

Actually I understand about your point about your defense and I respect that. It's just not my style to put statistics in the essay, as I am not good at it. Simply bad. :)
basawang 10 / 76  
Apr 11, 2012   #5
Hi,

1. You are right. I am not familiar with SAT. I am sorry to give you useless comments.

2. There is a significant difference between inaccuracy and fabrication. In these English proficient tests, inaccuracy may be understandable because of the limited time and resources. However, fabrication is fabrication. Besides ethical issues, fabricating data did not benefit your essay. Because we are not native speakers, it is usually so obvious when we lie in English. Examiners can easily discover your examples are faked unless you can fake up a story that is so real.

My question is how do you define the word "informed"?

Informed, according to Longman dictionary, is defined as a decision/choice/judgement etc that is based on knowledge of a subject or situation. So could an "informed opinion" also be a flippant one? If no, then you misunderstood the prompt. The prompt did not ask you should we take seriously about the flippant opinions made by experts?

Moreover, how do you decide who are experts? In Pavolva's case, clearly Anna Pavolva is proficient in ballet. Therefore I did not surprise that her opinions are informed.

I apologize again. I really want to help you.

Sincerely,
OP kimuratakuya 10 / 32  
Apr 12, 2012   #6
You do not need to apologize. Your comment help me think further about mu essay.
For the word informed, i agree with your explantion that a informed idea is based on a lot knowlege, but it may also be flippant. For the person giving informed ideas,though they are more experienced and erudite, they may also make many ordinary mistakes, such as basing their claim just on arbitrary assumptions and not thinking so carefully, so the inormed idea they produced can be understood as flippant sometimes.

In the Pavolva's case, i think she is not much an expert as the critics. In certain area, even though someone can not do the work proficiently, they indeed have a lot of knowlege. For example, many basketball coaches can not play as well as the athletes, nonethless they are experts. However, I appreciate your suggestion because it help me find the flaw of this example. I will change it to another one.

P.S.: you are really honest, i want to make friends with you. May you give me your email address. Futhermore, we once lived very near, perhaps. I come from Hongkong.
basawang 10 / 76  
Apr 12, 2012   #7
Hi,

I must dissent from your explanation. When someone meticulously think about one thing according to considerable knowledge of facts, then offer his or her opinion. This is an informed opinion.

An informed opinion is not necessarily given by an expert. Anyone who is serious about something can give informed opinions; in contrast, those who is flippant about something cannot provide informed opinion.

Please visit the following websites. You can find the definition of "informed opinion"

word-crafter.net/CompII/InformedOpinion.html
uwc.wikispaces.com/Academic+Terms

Perhaps I am the one who misunderstood the meaning of "informed opinion". But based on what I read, I think I am right. I hope moderators or other EssayForum members can kindly give us a hint.

Best regards,
OP kimuratakuya 10 / 32  
Apr 13, 2012   #8
You really make a good point. But i think the word can just be defined in many different ways. I define it according to the prompt of this topic, now i will give it.

Are people entitled to have their own opinions? Yes and no. People can have virtually all opinion, no matter how foolish, uninformed and illogical. But this does not mean that they are entitled to have their uniformed opinions taken seriously or that their uniformed opinions taken seriously . Opinions are valuable only when they are backed by enough knowlege of the subject.

The ptompt did not refer to anything such as careful thinking, so i think my definition is justified. But konw i think that i should use more appropriate examples.

Thank you.


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