TOEFL: Television advertising directed toward children under the age of five should not be allowed.

Television advertising directed toward children under the age of five should not be allowed.

Television advertising is one of the greatest advertising businesses in the world of marketing since there are specific advertisements dedicated to the demographic and location. Therefore, television advertising should not be directed towards children under the age of five because it will not be efficient and can obstruct children education.

As mentioned before, television marketing is a colossal marketing investment. There are specific layouts and factors which professionals scheme and predict to fully exploit the advantages of television advertising. However, five-year-old children will barely comprehend any advertisement, let alone watch the television on their own whim. Even if they do watch several television advertisements, five-year-olds are not capable of desiring or even expressing the desire to their parents. With a demographic of five-year-olds, television advertising professionals will have a difficult time imagining a short advertisement drawing attention from both the targets and parents simultaneously. There are reports of how children under the age of eight cannot differentiate commercials from programs. Indeed, an advertisement is worthless if the target cannot even comprehend what it is that they are trying to sell. Therefore, television advertising directed toward children under the age of five should not be allowed for the efficiency of advertising is not worth investing.

Although children under the age of five cannot comprehend or distinguish commercials from programs, this does not necessarily mean the children will not be influence. Letting a child sit and stare at the flashing screen for long periods will steadily change how their mind works. Like a virus propagating in the human body, these commercials will grow inside the child and as a result, the act of watching television will transform from a hobby to a tenacious habit. In effect, when these children begin their education, they will have a difficult time concentrating on classes or on their homework since their minds are already suited to concentrate on flashing images from a television instead. Hindering children's education can result to a dangerous and arduous future which is why nothing should block children's education and television commercial is no exception. In order to preserve children's education, television advertisements directed for children under the age of five should not be established.

Television commercials dedicated to five-year-old children is out of the question because it is unproductive for the market as much as harmful for children's education. (388)

Thank you in advance. Any comments are greatly appreciated.

Choose one side to discuss in the essay and completely build upon the idea. Either you talk about the inefficiency of advertising to a 5 year old or you discuss how advertising targeting children under the age of 5 affects their ability to perform academically. Those are two non-related topics for discussion and therefore should not be discussed in a single essay. Remember, you only have 30 minutes to develop a well written essay for the prompt so opting to completely develop and discuss one side rather than two will always work to your benefit. Right now, your essay gets muddled because of the way you are trying to relate two different discussions for one topic. You also need to better develop your introduction to include a more interesting hook to make the reader interested in hearing what you have to say about the issue. The conclusion is also weak because it does not properly summarize the facts in the essay. It only offers a summary of the academic effect of advertising on children, which is not what the essay is all about. Don't forget to restate the prompt in your conclusion. The essay will also be better helped if you have some sort of personal opinion on the matter that you can amply discuss towards the concluding portion of the essay.

Thank you for your opinion vangiespen, but I am confused by your statement... How are my points completely unrelated? My first point (1st body paragraph) is about how ineffective advertising to young children will be and my second point (2nd body paragraph) is about how these advertisements will obstruct children's education which is why television advertising directed toward children under the age of five should not be allowed. As for my concluding, I did point out the first point, how its unproductive for the market so I do not understand what it lacks. As for the hook, I agree, my introduction does seem dull... I'll think of something.

Dear Vangiespen, could you perhaps answer my questions and enlighten me?

Hi Kim, my apologies. I think your message to me got buried under the new posts. Thanks for the bump in the thread. Let me address the points that I referred to as disconnected.

When you read your introduction, the point you are trying to make is that advertising targets a certain demographic and location. As such, children under the age of five, who do not belong to a specific target of the advertisers should not be bombarded with advertising. In the succeeding paragraph, you continue with this line of reasoning, mentioning that children do not have the finances nor decision making process to make logical purchases. You mention marketing errors for these types of advertisements as well, pointing out the lack of ability to differentiate on the part of the children. You make a pretty compelling argument up to this point but then change your direction totally in your next paragraph where you begin to discuss the effects of advertising on the ability of a child to learn. Pointing out that children become automatons who do not really understand what they are doing and that they are now unable to actually learn and concentrate in the classroom because of the influence of advertising on their brains.

Now keep in mind that you presented marketing as your first reason for advertising not to be directed towards children under the age of 5. Then you suddenly shift, without transition or pause, to the effects of advertising on the learning ability of children. That is a definite disconnection. There was no transition paragraph to prepare the reader for this change, neither was there any statement that could have related the 2 highly different topics.

Those are the disconnections that I spoke of that I hope you will also consider when you revise your essay. Remember, in a TOEFL exam, it is better to fully discuss one reason or fact in totality, meaning completely, than it is to present 2 disconnected facts which will end up being under developed in the discussion process and could, in the end, affect the conclusion of your essay and the final grade that it receives.

Hmm. I understand what you are trying to say... And don't worry about not replying, I understand your situation. No sweat.
Indeed I agree with you about TOEFL essay's arguments needing to be coherent and practical... Now that I think about it, the sudden twist does seem off. I'll let you know if I think of a new argument. Thanks for your reply!