Bloody Ice, An Evaluation

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

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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.

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