3 Responses to causal argument — gymrat

1. davidbdale says:

   March 13, 2024 at 8:35 am

   Hey, Gymrat!
   I appreciate your request for Feedback and will respond to it in the order I hear back from the six students I have not yet served.
   You didn’t specify a time limit for me, but I hope you will.
   As you know, I expect you to spend as much time revising your work as I spend providing feedback.
   So . . . care to set a limit, or prescribe what sort of feedback you’d most like to receive, or . . . just take your chances?
   Thanks! (I hope you’re enjoying your Spring Break!)
   —DSH

   LikeLike

   Reply
2. davidbdale says:

   March 15, 2024 at 12:05 pm

   OK, Gymrat. You haven’t responded to my question, but I don’t want to waste the time we have to get you on track, so I’m going to start with some quick feedback and encourage you to revise on the basis of a bit of advice.

   I plan to spend 30 minutes on this feedback, and I think the best way to proceed will be paragraph by paragraph. I won’t have time to say everything I observe, but it will get us started.

   Adolescent self-image around the world keeps deteriorating because of social media. Over time with the growing influence social media has been having on adolescents today and even the younger generation who have been growing up with phones, it has been seen that those kids have harsher self-criticism about body image. With this continuing and the younger generation being born with phones, society will start depending on false reality of what they are meant to look like; as well as increasing metal health disorders.

   —It’s hard to reconcile all the claims you’re HINTING AT here, but maybe that’s a strategy on your part, to lay out VERY BRIEFLY all the topics you plan to cover.
   —That’s not a terrible strategy, but it has to be razor-sharp, AND it has to attract reader interest. This paragraph does neither.
   —”Born with phones” is the best line.
   —”harsher self-criticism about body image” means “hating their bodies.” Why not say so?
   —Please be sure that the SUBJECT OF YOUR IDEA is the SUBJECT OF YOUR SENTENCE.
   —Your Sentence Subjects are: Self-Image / Social Media / It / Kids / Society.
   —May I make a suggestion for a replacement for this paragraph?

   Today’s adolescents hate their bodies because they can never emulate the unreal body images posted by the “social media influencers” they idolize.

   —Try to keep your language clear and plain—but direct—unless you have technical evidence to present.
   —That might be enough for an opening paragraph, but you could add a sentence about WHY kids keep looking at images that do them harm. I don’t see anything about motivation in your essay.
   —We know what motivates the influencers: they just want followers. But why would an adolescent steep herself in images that cause her anguish?
   —That’s the real causal question.

   The adolescent stage of a person’s life is the most vulnerable. With social media now being a part of the everyday world and society it has made it easier for adolescents to gain body image issues. One of the problems with this is the amount being consumed. The article, Reducing Social Media Use Significantly Improves Body Image in Teens, Young Adults stated, “Youth are spending, on average, between six to eight hours per day on screens, much of it on social media.” Constant scrolling for hours leads people to see those whom they follow, “celebrities and fashion or fitness models, which we know leads to an internalization of beauty ideals that are unattainable for almost everyone.” Not only are adolescents getting pounded on a day-to-day basis with seeing these people on their social media and wanting to look like them, but they are also being lied to and they still believe it. This is what leads to mental health issues and eating disorders.

   —Well . . . by now we probably don’t need to be told that kids spend their lives online, so that could be communicated in a few words and taken for granted by your readers.
   —You don’t get to your actual subject until the last few lines: they’re “being lied to,” and “that’s what leads to mental health issues.”
   —I don’t see how that logic holds true.
   —Wouldn’t their dysmorphia be exactly the same even if the photos HADN’T BEEN ALTERED?
   —I’m not condoning the photo manipulation influencers use, but it’s no different than
   “food stylists” making perfect images of souffles for a cooking magazine.
   —EXCEPT that nobody ever made herself literally sick from cooking too many eggs in pursuit of fluffiness.
   —What I mean is “being lied to” IS NOT “what leads to disorders.”
   —Trying to achieve the unattainable at all costs is what drives dysmorphia.
   —Anorexics, to take an extreme example, aren’t even pursuing an ideal. Their perceptions are so skewed that they think their skeletal frames are still “fat.”
   —How are influencers responsible for that?

   Social media first has to affect the brain in order to start affecting the teenagers body image, which is why mental health and body image have a strong correlation. The article, Influence of Social Media on Teenagers’ Body Image, talks about how social media has “the added pressure…on influencing body image for adolescents heightened by the content.” The pressure comes from the “influencers” teenagers watch and see the way they look and live and want the lifestyle. Body image dissatisfaction can range from extreme thinness, large breasts, V shapes, 6 packs, toned arms, and so much more. Teenagers are basically prayed upon by social media because they continue to scroll with the desire of wanting to look like their idol still being present. Often times with unrealistic bodies that are nowhere near healthy but because it looks “good” it becomes a desire.

   —I don’t have a clue what your first couple sentences are supposed to mean.
   —But you’re starting to grapple with the “why they keep scrolling” question in the second half. This needs study and good ideas.

   Growing up at a day an age where social media is accessible to anyone no matter the age is already going to take a big toll on peoples appearance. In an article published by Psych Central, How Does Social Media Affect Body Image, state another big issue comparison and competition, when in reality it is all fake. The article states, “many people tend to post only their best photos, which may not be representative of their everyday appearance.” Which is true a majority of the time. To add Photoshop, filter, posing, and lighting all play a huge role on how a picture will look and make your body look. This leading people to start believing in unrealistic beauty standards, without realizing the pictures are not even natural.

   —PLEASE find a source that “pulls back the curtain” on a photo shoot for a body image influencer, by a body image influencer . . . something tangible to DEMONSTRATE the practice of manipulating camera angles, lighting, makeup, “sprayed-on attributes,” costuming, filters, and photo manipulation.

   There are “positives” that comes with social media and body image as well. Recently there has been seen a lot of health and fitness inspiration. Psychcentral states, “Social media can provide inspiration for leading a healthy and active lifestyle.” Having community, support, and body positivity groups. community and support are groups for “people working through body image disorders.” A great way to find others that are like you in the sense of not loving the body you have and learning to love yourself. Body positivity groups lead to more self love and acceptance as well. With the groups there was a study done in 0221 where 233 females participated and found that, “Participants who observed positive social media either with or without caption experienced improvemnts in body satisfaction.” This itself can all be seen as a positive because of the sound of it, but it comes with negatives. With health and fitness inspiration could lead to people with leaner builds be disatisfied with their bodies because thhey do not eat or look like those who lafre more physically active. With community and support it can be a positive for the people to meet others like them, but also a negative because people tend to feed off of one another. If one person shres their disorder another person does and ithere is a bomding experience with the disorder. Nothing in reality is being done there is just more of an understanding and acceptance of how there is no self love to potentially lead to self love. Body positive groups sound great, until the wrong person gets access to the post and becomes greatly critical of their body.

   —The number of typos (and the general sloppiness of the text) make it clear that this paragraph is a very rough first draft that you needed to hit your word count.
   —The “positives” are completely irrelevant to your argument.
   —The “I went to a positivity site and ended up getting slammed” material has promise, but it needs to be leaner and more specific.

   Adolescents should not be spending six to eight hours of their day mindlessly scrolling; just to end up in a worst position from where they started. Posts deceive everyda, not everything seen on social media is real. everyone posts the best pictures of themselves because it is the best version. Social media is deteriorating teenagers minds with crushing their body image slowly. Even though there are some things seen as positive it all depends on perception. However we want to see soemthing it will be seen in our point of view. Looking at mental health and the usage of social media it can be seen that social media does not have a positive outlook.

   —Not much here, Gymrat.

   First drafts are notoriously shreddable. And deserve to be shredded. But that doesn’t take the sting out of being shredded. I am sorry about that. You chose a topic on which there are few surprises left to discover, Gymrat. So, you’ll have to revise in one of two ways.
   1. Find surprisingly compelling evidence, OR
   2. Share surprising CAUSAL insights.

   It’s a popular conclusion to blame the purveyors of altered images for the mental health problems of the youth who consume the images, but . . .

   I’m looking at the cover of a magazine devoted to my little town here on which a family photo shows a mom and a dad and two kids all in love with themselves and their families and their lives. You can bet it was selected and perhaps manipulated to display an ideal—perhaps an unattainable ideal. Several reactions are possible:
   1. I see these perfect people and I want to kill myself because I will never be perfect.
   2. The photo makes me wonder how far this family’s reality is from this ideal pose.
   3. I recognize that the picture is staged and that my own family could look just as perfect if we had the right photographer and took a whole bunch of pictures.

   Maybe what’s different is the mind of an adolescent. Do kids look at pictures differently than adults?

   Sorry. I spent an hour. You could have told me to restrict myself to 30 minutes, but you didn’t. Now you owe me at least 60 minutes of Revision Time before you qualify for more feedback or a Regrade.

   Provisionally graded on Canvas. Regrades are always available following significant improvement.

   LikeLike

   Reply
3. davidbdale says:

   March 15, 2024 at 12:07 pm

   READ THIS BEFORE DOING ANY REVISIONS:

   MAKE NO CHANGES TO THIS POST

   Instead:

   1. Copy and paste its contents into your new Causal Rewrite—Gymrat.
   2. If you require no Feedback, that completes your assignment. You will receive no Feedback, but you could still revise your work without feedback and receive a Regrade.
   3. Remember, your complete Portfolio MUST CONTAIN evidence of Feedback and Revision for two of your three short arguments, Definition / Causal / Rebuttal. If you receive no feedback for THIS assignment, you’ll need Feedback on the other two.
   4. If you DO want feedback following your first draft grade, put your Rewrite in to Feedback Please.
   5. THAT’S NOT THE LAST STEP.
   6. The last step is to leave a Reply on your Rewrite post instructing me how much time you want me to spend on your Feedback. For every hour I spend, you’ll owe me an hour of Revision Time.

   LikeLike

   Reply