Preparation for Essay 2 - Case Outline

Dillon Waugh

Hayes

English 100 – 9:10

2/15/13

Case Outline: Comparing Arguments

Claim: David Burstein’s defense of the educational gap year was the most effective out of those that his, Emily Harwell’s, and Suzanne Moore’s articles present.

-          Reason:  MAIN reason – his perspective is interesting among those the matter is typically approached from: Burstein doesn’t see a gap year as a year off of education at all, but better thought of as a year to spend in not academic but independent and worldly education.

-          Reason: The reasons with which he backs his claim are basic, but no less logical.

-          - He provides examples from personal knowledge and experience of the sizable accomplishments possible in a gap year. NOTE: Harwell does the same – but less personally; one of Burstein’s example gap years is his own.

-          - Why put off spending time off a school schedule and working out how to navigate the “real world” for another two-plus years straight away after spending thirteen years bound by educational structure? NOTE: Moore’s argument.

-          Reason: Though he does not directly address skeptics’ potential arguments, he skirts and compromises with them.

-          - One could easily take a gap year after or while looking at or applying for colleges – and that’ll give them more time to refine the most appropriate educational plan for their interests and choose schools to fit into it. NOTE: Unlike Harwell’s interviewees, he fails to suggest planning for that gap year as well.

-          HOWEVER: Each of the other two columnists’ arguments includes a potent component that Burstein’s lacks.

-          - Harwell’s relies upon interviews that include the interviewees’ personal insight into why they felt so satisfied with their gap years – and what they recommend doing to ensure that a gap year goes well. THEN AGAIN: It does rely on them – who’s to say that since a gap year worked for the few interviewed, it’d work for most everyone else? That Harwell does not provide much personal analysis or offering doesn’t improve that.

-          - Moore’s opens with the arguments in Britain against gap years – and stomps them with a scoff. According to Moore, whatever a person accomplishes during their gap year, it is its own reward – whether one has the means to travel or fulfill big plans or not, whether a person’s ambitions for a free year or not, it’s a year of life experience and understanding and following one’s inclinations. THEN AGAIN: Moore’s argument, while impassioned, can be read as one long refutation. It doesn’t stray far from a single reason why taking a gap year is worth it and invalidating the single theme of the main arguments against it.

-          OVERALL: Burstein’s argument is balanced even if not focused, yet sufficiently unique.