English Composition

PART I. Read the essay below, and answer the questions that follow.

The advantages of e-mail communication

The first thing most of us do when we get up in the morning is to turn on the computer and check for e-mail messages. This has become a part of our daily routine. We take it for granted that this has been an age-old practice and don’t pause to think that it is a product of recent technological revolution. It is a wonder how we ever survived without it. The advantages of e-mail communication are many, and the chief among them are its speed, low cost, and convenience.

Speed is the obvious advantage. Just as our planes, trains, and automobiles are moving ever faster, so are our modes of communication. We can send e- mail around the world in a matter of minutes with no more effort than it takes to press a few keys on the computer. It is this speed that has led to our calling regular mail “snail mail.”

E-Mail has also the advantage of being inexpensive. Many people have access to e-mail for free through their work or school. If some people may pay for e-mail through an online service, there is no increase in cost relative to the number of messages sent. It is the same price to send one message to one person as it is to send messages back and forth all day or to a hundred people. Finally, if we consider the costs saved in long-distance phone bills in addition to cost saved in postage, most e-mail users come out ahead.

There is no question that e-mail is convenient. It allows us to send the same message to many people at the same time with little more effort than it takes to send a message to one person. When sending multiple copies of a message, we avoid the trouble of photocopying the letter, printing out additional copies, addressing envelopes, and posting the mail. E-mail is also convenient because it lends itself to an informal style that makes composing a message relatively easy; in addition, readers of e-mail tolerate more mistakes than readers of conventional mail, and their tolerance saves us time.

E-Mail thus gives us the ability to send messages with convenience, speed and little expense. In not too distant a future, “snail mail” is likely to become obsolete, and one can already hear the bell toll for the US Postal Services.

Questions: 

1)What is the topic of the essay?
2)What is the position taken by the writer on the topic?
3)Does the essay have a plan of development? If so, describe the plan.
4)Imagine you are the author of the essay. Take a reader curious to know how the essay developed through the pre-writing stage of the essay.
5)What are the three parts of the essay?
6)How does the essay hook the reader?
7)What is the first supporting point? What details does the writer give in support of the point?
8)What is the second supporting point? What details does the writer give in support of the point?
9)What is the third supporting point? What details does the writer give in support of the point?
10)What method of organization does the writer use to organize the material in the essay?
11)How does the essay conclude?
12)Why doesn’t the writer discuss the disadvantages of e-mail communication in the essay?

PART 2

As a society, we are hearing more and more about how people are not ethical and that is affecting their personal life or their business life. Write a 1-2 page paper defining ethics and what it means to you. How do you take ethics into consideration on a daily basis?

  

SUMMARY: Mid-term Group Project Requirements

Write a 3-5 page essay (excluding cover page, abstract, and reference list)
Use the APA Format for citations and references.
Incorporate concepts, theories, and terms from the text and supplemental material.
Use  APA Format