"Scandals---whether in politics, academia, or other areas---can be useful. They focus our
attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could."
Are scandals useful in calling our attention to important problems, as this statement
suggests? I agree that in many cases scandals can serve to reveal larger problems that a
community or society should address. On the other hand, scandals can sometimes distract us
from more important societal issues.
On the one hand, scandals can sometimes serve to call our attention to pervasive social or
political problems that we would otherwise neglect. Perhaps the paradigmatic modern example
is the Watergate scandal. Early in that scandal it would have been tempting to dismiss it as
involving one isolated incidence of underhanded campaign tactics. But, in retrospect the
scandal forever increased the level of scrutiny and accountability to which our public officials
are held, thereby working a significant and lasting benefit to our society. More recently, the
Clinton-Gore fundraising scandal sparked a renewed call for campaign-finance reform. In fact
the scandal might result in the passage of a congressional bill outlawing private campaign
contributions altogether, thereby rendering presidential candidates far less susceptible to
undue influence of special-interest groups. Our society would be the dear beneficiary of such
reform. Surely, no public speaker or reformer could have called our nation's collective attention
to the problem of presidential misconduct unless these two scandals had surfaced.
On the other hand, scandals can sometimes serve chiefly to distract us from more pressing
community or societal problems. At the community level, for example, several years ago the
chancellor of a university located in my city was expelled from office for misusing university
funds to renovate his posh personal residence. Every new development during the scandal
became front-page news in the campus newspaper. But did this scandal serve any useful
purpose? No. The scandal did not reveal any pervasive problem with university accounting
practices. It did not result in any sort of useful system-wide reform. Rather, it was merely one
incidence of petty misappropriation. Moreover, the scandal distracted the university community
from far more important issues, such as affirmative action and campus safety, which were
relegated to the second page of the campus newspaper during the scandal.
Even on a societal level, scandals can serve chiefly to distract us from more important
matters. For example, time will tell whether the Clinton sex scandal will benefit our political,
social, or legal system. Admittedly, the scandal did call our attention to certain issues of federal
law. It sparked a debate about the powers and duties of legal prosecutors, under the
Independent Counsel Act, vis-i-vis the chief executive while in and out of office. And the
various court rulings about executive privilege and immunity WIU serve useful legal
precedents for the furore. Even the impeachment proceedings xxhll no doubt provide useful
procedural precedent at some future time. Yet on balance, it seems to me that the deleterious
effects of the scandal in terms of the financial expense to taxpayers and the various harms to
the many individuals caught up in the legal process---outweigh these benefits. More
importantly, for more that a year the scandal served chiefly to distract us from our most
pressing national and global problems, such as the Kosovo crisis, our social-security crisis,
and health-care reform, to name just a few.
103
In sum, I agree that scandals often serve to flag important socio-political problems more
effectively than any speaker or reformer can. However, whether a scandal works more benefit
than harm to a community or society must be addressed on a case-by-case basis.
- The best way for a society to prepare its young people for leadership in government, industry, or other fields is by instilling in them a sense of cooperation, not competition.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree 54
- "The following is taken from a memo from the advertising director of the Super Screen Movie Production Company. "According to a recent report from our marketing department, during the past year, fewer people attended Super Screen-produced movies than in a 24
- The real talent of a popular musician cannot accurately be assessed until the musician has been dead for several generations, so that his or her fame does not interfere with honest assessment. 50
- The best ideas arise from a passionate interest in commonplace things.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting you 50
- All too often, companies hire outside consultants to suggest ways for the company to operate more efficiently. If companies were to spend more time listening to their own employees, such consultants would be unnecessary. 50
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 26, column 44, Rule ID: NEWS_PAPER[1]
Message: Did you mean 'newspaper'? This word sequence is usually spelled together.
Suggestion: newspaper
...egated to the second page of the campus news paper during the scandal. Even on a societal...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, however, if, moreover, second, so, while, for example, in fact, no doubt, sort of, such as, in many cases, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 9.0 19.5258426966 46% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.4196629213 121% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 14.8657303371 128% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 11.3162921348 80% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 38.0 33.0505617978 115% => OK
Preposition: 71.0 58.6224719101 121% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 12.9106741573 108% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3213.0 2235.4752809 144% => OK
No of words: 575.0 442.535393258 130% => OK
Chars per words: 5.58782608696 5.05705443957 110% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.89685180668 4.55969084622 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.01237974997 2.79657885939 108% => OK
Unique words: 290.0 215.323595506 135% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.504347826087 0.4932671777 102% => OK
syllable_count: 1000.8 704.065955056 142% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59117977528 107% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 6.24550561798 128% => OK
Article: 6.0 4.99550561798 120% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 3.10617977528 64% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.77640449438 281% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 12.0 4.38483146067 274% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 20.2370786517 143% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 23.0359550562 82% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 55.6581206757 60.3974514979 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.793103448 118.986275619 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.8275862069 23.4991977007 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.44827586207 5.21951772744 85% => OK
Paragraphs: 42.0 4.97078651685 845% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 7.80617977528 13% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 10.2758426966 68% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 22.0 5.13820224719 428% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.83258426966 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0850892953773 0.243740707755 35% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0294042331679 0.0831039109588 35% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0359388579179 0.0758088955206 47% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0231861477211 0.150359130593 15% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0363292650422 0.0667264976115 54% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.8 14.1392134831 105% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.8420337079 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.1743820225 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.14 12.1639044944 124% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.06 8.38706741573 108% => OK
difficult_words: 163.0 100.480337079 162% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 11.8971910112 71% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.2143820225 86% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.7820224719 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.