Composition tutorial series for senior high school students: Discussions must have "three degrees"

Argumentative essays are the style chosen by many candidates in their college entrance examination compositions. The core purpose of argumentative writing is to convince people with reason. The truths expressed by some candidates in their argumentative essays are unconvincing. The problems mainly lie in three aspects: lack of accuracy in asking questions, lack of strength in analysis, and lack of height in thinking.

1. Lack of accuracy in deducting questions

Lack of accuracy in deducting questions mainly manifests itself in changing topics, substituting concepts and confusing concepts.

1. Transfer the topic

The topic is the starting point for argumentative writing. Candidates must write throughout the entire text without any dodges. Some candidates went off topic at the beginning.

Essay topics In recent years, some popular words are impressive. For example: "Azhong", "Garbage Classification", "Hard Core", etc. in 2019, "Retrograde", "Cloud Supervisor", "Sa", etc. in 2020, "Strong Country Has Me", "Carbon Neutral" and "Pattern" in 2021 "wait. Looking at the buzzwords in recent years, what associations and thoughts do they trigger in you?

Some candidates wrote:

Time is fleeting, and China has gone through five thousand years. From the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors to today's "14th Five-Year Plan", the times are developing at a rapid pace, and with it, the trend of moving forward.

Trends can drive development and are the stars of progress in the times. Trends are collective and guiding, and can trigger large-scale trend movements. During the Industrial Revolution, the use of industrial machinery became a trend, and the United Kingdom and the United States responded to the trend and became world hegemons. On the contrary, the Qing Dynasty closed the country and refused to follow the trend, and in the end they were bullied.

Trends can affect social climate. Trends have strong tendencies and cause people to imitate...

The topic requires talking about the thinking caused by "buzzwords in recent years", that is, to comparatively analyze the implications of the development of buzzwords. deep social problems. The candidate did not mention "buzzwords", but started a new topic and talked about the understanding of "trends" in general, which is off-topic.

There is another situation where the central argument is in line with the meaning of the topic, but it gradually becomes farther and farther away from the central argument in the writing process. For example:

Dare to challenge common sense, requires unremitting efforts. It is common knowledge in the agricultural science community that wild rice cannot be hybridized to produce high-quality rice. But a cultivator who dared to challenge common sense used his unremitting efforts to make this common sense innovative. He was a true cultivator. When he was still a rural teacher, he already had the courage to subvert the world's authoritative common sense; when he became famous all over the world, he still continued to focus on farming. He is the father of hybrid rice - Yuan Longping. Because of his unremitting efforts, the knowledge of hybrid rice was brought forward in his hands; because of his unremitting efforts, he filled the rice bags of the people across the country.

The first sentence of this paragraph is the argument, and the middle part describes examples of Yuan Longping's "challenging common sense", which is the proof of the argument. The concluding sentence talks about the relationship between giving and innovation, and the people's rice bags, which is inconsistent with the "relationship between challenging common sense and unremitting giving" emphasized in the argument.

2. Secretly changing concepts

Whether it is viewpoints and topics, viewpoints and materials, or the process of analyzing materials, the key concepts must be consistent with the topic and cannot be discussed all at once. , let’s talk about that in a moment. For example:

Where there is a will, there is a way. Fan Zhongyan studied hard when he was young. Although life was difficult and he could only eat gruel twice a day, he set a great ambition to "worry about the world's worries first, and enjoy the world's happiness later". He worked hard and finally achieved success. A famous minister of a generation whose name will go down in history. Roosevelt rose to prominence in the political arena, but was paralyzed by polio at the age of 39. But despite his physical disability and strong will, he was elected President of the United States. Isn't his success the result of his tenacious will? "Those who established great things in ancient times not only had extraordinary talents, but also had perseverance." Please remember: those who have ambition will definitely succeed in their work.

The word "Zhi" in the viewpoint sentence "Where there is a will, there is a way" means "ambition", and "Those who accomplished great things in ancient times not only had extraordinary talents, but also perseverance." The "Zhi" in "Zhi" means "will", and the example of Roosevelt's "disabled body but strong will" also emphasizes "will". It can be seen that the connotation of "chi" in the materials and opinions are inconsistent.

3. Confusing concepts

For concepts with rich connotations, especially important concepts related to the topic, candidates should maintain clear determination when writing the essay. Sex, there must be a consistent explanation before and after. For example:

When football king Pele scored his 1,000th goal, a reporter asked him which goal was the best, and he answered "the next one." After the writer Wang Meng became famous, someone asked him which novel was the best, and he replied "the next one". An important reason why they can achieve excellent results is that they continue to make progress and strive hard.

When Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai were young, they were dissatisfied with the status quo, so they set up the grand ambition to transform old China and the old society and devoted themselves to the revolutionary struggle.

The "dissatisfaction with the status quo" in the first paragraph means unwillingness to be dissatisfied with the level reached or the achievements achieved; the "dissatisfaction with the status quo" in the second paragraph means hating the dark social reality at that time. The concept of "dissatisfaction with the status quo" mentioned in the two paragraphs before and after has inconsistent connotations.

2. The analysis lacks strength

Argumentative essays rely on reasoning to convince people, and reasoning requires analysis and explanation. In argumentative essay writing, some candidates tend to put their opinions first and then look for materials that are consistent with their opinions. They believe that as long as there are many facts and arguments, the article will be more persuasive, so they form the writing habit of "representing opinions with examples" and "accumulating materials". For example:

Not only at home, but also abroad, we can see many examples of seemingly unexpected things that are actually reasonable. Marx still wrote "Das Kapital" when he was in poverty; Marie Curie became the only female scientist in the world to win two Nobel Prizes; Newton discovered the law of energy conservation and transformation; Bohr established the world's first-class quantum physics school; Bell invented the telephone... These unexpected and fruitful achievements are inseparable from the scientific spirit of daring to question and innovate, as well as from their unremitting hard work.

This passage is a typical "celebrity meeting". Listed many examples, but did not analyze why "these unexpected and fruitful results" are inseparable from the spirit of "the courage to question, dare to innovate, and persevere in hard work", and it cannot prove that "seemingly unexpected is actually the case" It’s all within reason” perspective.

"Excellent argumentative essays are not only based on reliable evidence, but also based on analysis that uses evidence to prove arguments." (Ye Liming's "New Theory on Writing Teaching Content") Arguments are used for analysis Yes, only through analysis, by revealing the internal relationship between materials and arguments, and finding the support points and points of agreement for the arguments, can the arguments be effectively proved and be convincing; otherwise, no matter how rich and true the arguments themselves are, they are just One or more unconvincing materials. Therefore, argumentative essay writing requires arguments rather than confirmation of opinions. Otherwise, the written article will be regarded as a "proof essay" rather than an argumentative essay at best.

3. Lack of height in thought

Lack of height in thought mainly means that the purpose of the article is superficial and it demonstrates a lot, but it only stays on the surface of things, or slides from one surface to another. surface. For example:

For me, I will choose not to erase any trace of growth.

…I will not erase those moments of success and failure from my memory. Memories of success make me proud. Everyone needs self-affirmation in life, which brings people an optimistic spirit and the courage to continue to fight for their dreams despite difficulties.

"Failure is the mother of success." Similarly, everyone needs to learn lessons from certain moments in life in order to make the future life path smoother...

Similarly, It is also necessary for a nation or country to retain traces of its growth...

Similar to this "three-stage" argument from "individual" to "enterprise" to "nation and country" , is not uncommon in candidates’ argumentative writing. The ancients said: "Eternal articles have high meaning." Thought is the soul of composition. The height of thinking is the height of writing. As Yu Daizong said in "High School Argumentative Essay Writing: Examining Materials and Expanding Ideas", "The 'argument' of argumentation lies in being able to explain the various reasons for a problem, analyze the multiple possibilities of the problem, and analyze the various reasons. and possibilities, giving reasons for choosing a certain judgment. This means that the argument must analyze multiple causes and possibilities. Without analysis, it is difficult to form a persuasive argumentative essay. ”

Lack of accuracy in asking questions, lack of strength in analysis, and lack of height in thinking are the main problems that lead to low scores in candidates' argumentative writing. They directly affect the persuasiveness of the argumentative essay. To overcome these problems, candidates must work hard, read more, think more, revise more, and fundamentally master the thinking and methods of argumentative essay writing.