Argumentative Essay 1

Hi all! The following essay is all mine, so please don't anyhow disseminate! Basically, I want to show you that in an argumentative essay, you not only need to select good points and have a good rebuttal, but your essay must engage with the audience and must use persuasive language that will mock the opposing view. In the essay that you will read, my comments on what I have done are within brackets, and underlined).

Question:

‘Artificial beauty should be condemned’. Do you agree?

The notion of artificial beauty only came about in recent years, with a worldwide rise in the number of people who turn to plastic surgery. The growing affordability of plastic surgery as well as people’s changing mindsets has attracted much media frenzy. As a result, the subject of artificial beauty has come under scrutiny and has led to much controversy. (I talked about the current situation) Artificial beauty encompasses altered and even enhanced beauty.(I am defining the key words here) The spate of media attention has led to many who outrightly condemn any alteration or enhancement done to the face and body. I feel that these people have been too quick to judge without truly understanding what ‘natural’ is. To condemn is surely too harsh an action, especially because they who condemn, are also, in some ways, guilty of enhancing their features. (This is my stand, but notice that I do not merely write, 'I disagree') Altering or enhancing one's looks also shows that that person is taking personal responsibility for how he or she looks and this is something laudable, and most certainly not an act to be condemned. There is also nothing wrong in doing that to increase one's self-confidence. (These is my scope. The scope is where you list in the right order, the two points that you will be talking about)

(I am starting with the rebuttal. This is OK, feel free to play around with the structure but please make sure it flows well) The main argument in favour of ‘natural’ beauty is that we should be satisfied with what God has given us, and celebrate God’s gift to us. Does that mean we should all rise from our sleep tomorrow and trudge to school with bacteria festering in our mouths and eye wax framing our eyes? Perhaps we should burn our toothbrushes and toothpastes this very instant, for these help to mask the very odour that is ‘natural’ in all of us. If we want to go in the direction of ‘natural’ beauty, should we perhaps not be hypocrites in disregarding that what we do every day without much thought, is actually defying ‘natural’ beauty? (I ask lots of questions because this is a technique to engage the audience, and to make them think. I also give lots of imagery to help the audience imagine better) Yes, perhaps by altering your looks, that is a real transgression of God’s gift to us, but even the littlest of acts, such as brushing your teeth for oral hygiene, could be construed as a transgression. God has intended for us humans to be smelly and dirty, as a result of our own biological functions. Shall we then celebrate our own smelliness and dirtiness?

I am a natural beauty.

(This is an extension of my rebuttal above. I use a different example. Please take note that you can split the paragraph up if it is too long and if you use more than 1 example. You just need to make sure they everything flows well.) Let me give you another powerful imagery to show just how skewed ‘natural’ is, in this case. Babies usually have nice skin and when they begin to develop teeth, their teeth are white and healthy. Do you see a baby on his back kicking his feet in the air with a bad case of pimples brimming with pus waiting to erupt? Do see a baby on his back kicking his feet in the air with black, decaying teeth? Do you smell the horrible aroma of rotting teeth when you tickle a baby and he laughs in your face? No, you do not. If babies do turn out to be a picture of acne and decaying teeth, it is most likely their doing, rather than God’s doing. Yet, when that person attempts to rectify her problem by perhaps going for intensive acne treatments, or simply by going to the dentist to fix her teeth, or even getting braces to align her teeth, we call her vain. Although we do not condemn her as outrightly as we would have if she had gone for plastic surgery, we still bestow the title of a “vain pot” on that person. Why? Should we accept our acne, complete with pulsating pus, and our horrible black teeth? What is wrong in wanting nice skin and teeth? Are acne and decaying teeth something that we should even be proud of? Are people with acne and decaying teeth the epitome of ‘natural’ beauty, then?

 

To my future wife: I love you, but I will not go for any acne treatment because I love to be natural. I can't wait for the next 60 years with you, baby.



(This is my first point) If the debate on what is ‘natural’ or ‘artificial’ beauty exists in the first place, it means that humans are taking personal responsibility over how they look. Braces, teeth whitening, fake lashes, hair highlights, Botox and a new nose – these are all different extremes of altering or enhancing one’s looks. If you want to condemn the new nose, you should also condemn everything else that precedes it in the list. Basically, all these just show that humans are dissatisfied with how they look and they attempt to look closer to their goal by making changes to themselves. Is this really so bad? If a man born into a poor family, works very hard to better himself, we praise him. We certainly do not encourage him to accept and celebrate, even, his state of poverty. We all love those rags to riches stories. Yet we are not as comfortable with the ugly duckling to beautiful swan stories. In both situations, however, dissatisfaction in the present condition leads to a personal goal, which in turn, results in action. Are we then, not hypocrites when we are quick to give a standing ovation to he who manages to rise above his poor lineage, but jeer he who decides to revamp how he looks?

(This is my second point) It is also an indisputable fact that our appearance plays a huge role in either boosting our confidence, or dampening it. Surely our self-confidence should take precedence over this necessity to adhere to an unyielding standard of ‘natural’ beauty? If you absolutely hate your crooked teeth, and you do nothing about it because you do not want to be labelled negatively, you will not be receiving an award certifying that you are a natural beauty anytime anyway. If you absolutely hate your flat nose, even the self-knowledge that you should not do anything about it because it is God’s will, will not stop you from wincing each time you look in the mirror. Surely your own happiness and your own self-confidence should override this silly adherence to all things natural?

(This is an extension of my second point) It really is undeniable, that artificial beauty does boost our self-confidence. If you look in the mirror and even you wince at the sight of yourself, how do you celebrate that beauty when people all around you are praising others for looking beautiful? Would you rather be deemed as the ugly duckling not worth talking about except to be made fun of or would you rather be deemed as that cute girl next door? It is not really about what you have, but how else you can enhance it. We all want to appear that bit smarter than what we actually are, we want to appear funnier than we really are. There is nothing wrong in that.

(This is my conclusion. Notice that I do not end with your usual way of 'In conclusion' or 'in a nutshell') Paul Cobra once said, “A great man is not born great. He works towards it.” (This is the right way to quote. I completely made up that guy's name and the quote) Before we decide that people who have had plastic surgery should be banished from this face of Earth, perhaps we should re-evaluate our notion of ‘natural’, and perhaps, too, we should acknowledge that these people, whom we are quick to condemn, are actually worthy of praise because they are the ones who bothered to change their circumstances instead of merely accepting everything that came their way.  

In the above essay, I have been quite experimental with my format. Usually teachers give you a particular format to make sure you write enough, but for those who are already proficient, you can be more flexible (in this case, I started off with my rebuttal). Also, I had extended elaboration, so in total, I had one rebuttal, and 2 points. I do this only because my elaboration is really in depth and covers a lot of dimensions. If yours is short, then it has to be 3 points and 1 rebuttal.

In everything that you do, you need to be very aware of your purpose. An argumentative essay is just like a debate. If you disagree with a particular statement, you need to be aware that your role is to really, really rebut that statement. In this case, I disagreed with 'artificial beauty should be condemned.' In each and every of my paragraph, I am actively rebutting why it SHOULD NOT be condemned.

I also used relevant examples that helped you to think, and the purpose is ultimately, at the end of the essay, to make you agree with me. So please be aware of your purpose, because if you are not, it shows, and therefore your argumentative essay will just seem like a discursive essay. Please re-read the essay again, to take note of everything that I have mentioned.