A.

Naweed Aryan
Christina E. Gains
Expository Writing II
June 16, 2009

“Bloody Ice”: An Evaluation

In argumentative writing writers try to inform and persuade the readers of

their opinions and gain the readers’ agreement toward their points of
views. Evaluating an argumentative writing is not an easy task. The
reason is that everyone has different personal values and evaluates other
values according to his/her own. Evaluating an argumentative writing by a
reader is by no means exempt from this rule. Evaluation of an essay can
be very different from person to person. One might consider an essay a
very good essay while the other might not like it at all. Although by
considering this fact it might seem that reaching an agreement between
several reviewers about an essay or an argumentative writing is
impossible or very difficult to achieve, some standards exist that can help
the reviewers evaluate an argumentative writing. Even by considering
these standard rules personal points of views about an argument can
have a major effect on the final judgment. Some of the factors that can be
considered in order to evaluate an argument are quality and logic of
reasons, presenting strong evidences, presenting examples of personal
experiences if applicable, focus on the topic, organization and
development of the ideas.

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According to my evaluation of the essay “Bloody Ice”, by considering the
above mentioned factors I came to the conclusion that despite some
deficiencies and weaknesses the essay is all in all a good argumentative
essay. First of all the choice of the title for the essay is very impressive. By
reading the title “Bloody Ice” the reader expects that some kind of
unpleasant actions are taking place during the cold months of the year or
in the cold regions of the world. When the reader continues and learns
what the reason for “Bloody Ice” is he agrees that the choice of the title is
very appropriate and so this is the first success of the writer to attract the
reader.

The writer has also provided a very strong hook for the reader in the
beginning of the essay. By reading the hook I personally found myself on
the “Bloody Ice” and among the “steaming gutted carcasses” of the baby
seals. In his essay the author counts strongly on the emotional appeals of
the essay and introduces it beautifully by presenting “the opening scene”
of his essay. The writer then attempts to further stimulate the emotion of
the reader by saying that these dead animals are “barely six weeks old”
and then describes the “inhumane method” that is used to kill and skin
the baby seals. According to the writer these baby seals are not killed by
the gun because it would damage their valuable fur. Instead, “the sealers
use metal clubs to bludgeon the seal to death”. The writer claims that as
a result of the blow some seals would not die but merely become stunned
and as a result of this method hundreds would be skinned alive. By using
this argument the writer takes advantage of the readers emotions and
makes them agree with him.

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Another factor that makes this writing a good essay is that it presents
some scientific data. For example the author gives some survey results
from the Ocean Magazine and gives the reader a chance to check and
verify his claims about the issue. In another place the author talks about
the other problems that seals have. For example in the essay we read “
adult female seals give birth one every year but due to pollution, disease,
predation, whelping success, and malnutrition they are already slowly
dying on their own without being hunted.” Most of the readers can verify
this claim by considering global warming which would result in melting of
ice sheets of the poles and destroying the seals habitats.

The organization and development of the ideas are also good. It starts by
presenting an impressive hook, moves to stimulate the emotion of the
reader, gives some scientific data accompanied by evidences and
proposes a solution for the problem.

In conclusion by considering the above mentioned factors we can deduce

that “Bloody Ice” is somehow successful argumentative essay. Again, each
reader’s judgment can be dramatically different than the other because
one can focus only on the weak points of the essay and support his claims
by presenting some evidences.