Sorry for the late reply, Mateyman





(this one is too powerful, but I like the idea)

Beast thanks! I think the second image is pretty accurate to my intro these big companies literally mining data

Only be careful that those are black people doing the farming, so you never know if it'll pull on any sensitivity strings of the reader

Oh shoot good catch!

So I am basically done with this paper only need to close it out, but I had a quick question, also I understand this is not an English writing forum so bare with me here haha (on the real though if you have recommendations of a forum dedicated to English writing and asking questions like these please send it my way!)

The argument just to refresh your memory, as you helped me figure out is:  How big corporations that are always seeking to mine people's data to sell a better product.

Anyways, the way I have this paper set up is I start off with a claim, "such as your data is actually being tracked and most people don't know this! "

Then I follow up this claim with evidence to back it up and research.

But I'm having an issue closing the claim by explaining my evidence back to my claim and the overall argument.

Do you have any suggestions for closing out claims by explanation evidence > tieing back to claim > tieing back to main argument?

In case you were wondering, using that example claim and example evidence above, the way I would close it is by saying something like "It is no secret that these business are actively buying and selling your data, and whats even more scary, is that we don't know who those businesses are and what kind of work they do"

I feel like closing with this, does tie to the claim I'm making that your data is in fact being sold, but I'm not sure if this ties back to main argument, I feel like it does to be honest.

Thoughts?

Don't worry, some of us are expert writers


Claim > evidence provided > significance of evidence > this suggests...

That's how all argumentative papers should to be written, regardless. So after you've explained the significance of the evidence, tell us what it suggests as it relates to the main topic of data harvesting. Without a concrete example, I could tell you if you're right or wrong.


You're editorializing the paper. Your job is to provided evidence, not feelings (i.e. whats even more scary) -- get rid of that. Also, I'm not a fan of "it's not secret".

Remember, "this suggests"... It's gold

Haha awesome!

But my question for


Since one of the requirements of this paper is to also attempt to appeal to ethos,pathos, logos, so words like "its no secret" and "more scary" was my halfassed attempt at appealing to pathos.

Finally,

I need to close out my paper, any tips?

The criteria I am given for the conclusion is

- Don't summarize everything I just said, mainly the important claims.

- Reinforce what the audience has to gain from  what I just wrote

- Connect back to something I might have mentioned in the intro like answering a question I may have asked or extending a story I have begun

- Bring in an interesting fact that I did not use in my paper yet

- Ask a rhetorical question

- Finally get the audience to envision a better future.

You don't have have to all those, just a general idea and I can finish it.

Here are some topics I brought up in my paper so you can see what I talked about

Introduction:  Kind of put context that we live in a time in history where we generating lots of data, that most people don't know their phones know where they are all time. How companies are using our data for targeted ads, credit and loan analysis etc.. And I finished the intro with my main argument which is that corporations in the 21st century are always looking to mine our data to sell us a better product.

Then I am required to provide 3-5 claims + evidence for each claim, so here is kinda of quick summary of what I talked about in my body paragraphs:

First claim, is a claim of fact, where I define what "personal data" actually means just to help build my argument

Second claim, is me proving that companies are in fact mining data of people unwillingly and unwillingly

Third claim, is a counterclaim, where I introduce an opposing view and comeback with a counterclaim, the opposing argument I used is that people often say companies taking our data, are doing it to make a better experience, and they are not doing anything shady with that. So I come back with a counterclaim that that's not the case and bring up  example of Bahrain where the government used emails with phishing software to attack its protesters and how that software tracks your chats, emails, records etc...

Again going back to the conclusion I think I just need ideas on how to answer 1) what the audience seeks to gain from my article (which I believe the purpose of my article is to make people more aware of data mining and also what things they can do on their end as a consumer such as asking the company to not sell your information etc... Unless you have a better purpose  suggestion after reading the above?) 2) Bringing in a fact/stat that I didn't use in my body paragraph and 3) getting the audience to envision a better future.

I think I have good idea for what to do for the rest of the conclusion like rhetorical question, summarizing an important claim...

The conclusion doesn't need to summarize the points you've discussed - this is not the abstract for a journal article.

Think of your favorite documentary - you'd probably hate it if all they did was end it off with an abridged version of the facts presented.

You want to give your audience a prognosis of what's to come now that they've learned the facts. Let them know that if you want to continue living a life where privacy is valued and respected, now's the time to spread awareness of this issue. Much the same way soldiers fought for our freedom in WW1 and WW2, if we don't act now, we will lose the freedom to be human. Our world is moving in direction where nearly everything has become digitized (i.e. buying groceries, booking flights, starting relationships), therefore digital privacy is more important than ever before. [After this, be cautionary here, scare the reader a little, add a little conspiracy, be hyperbolic]...

Something like that, but add to it.

Man you are just a beast!!

You don't have to answer this but i don't know if you remember, if you go to the first page of this thread, you see me asking for a claim of proposal, this is because the idea is to present an argument > support the argument > and in supporting the argument one of the many claims made needs to be a claim of proposal.

Here is what a claim of proposal is according to my professor: "Proposal claims recommend some type of action or some solution to a problem. Such claims ask an audience to do something or solve some problem. Sometimes these claims will begin with the explanation of a particular problem, and then move to the solutions that are available to the audience.  For example, “To make a difference, speak up!”  “Stop eating meat.”  “Vote and be heard.”  “Use Social Media to raise awareness about ending systemic racism.”  “One way we can protect everyday citizens is to require background checks of ANYONE purchasing a gun—or applying to.”  
Most arguments that include a claim of proposal or call to action tend to insert them towards the end of their piece so that the  reader is left to resonate on the solution presented. "

Initially, almost a month ago my thoughts was to get people to change some settings in their phone in order to stop them from tracking their movement, but now that I am almost done, I feel like I kind of need a better claim of proposal of the audience, with what I wrote above in regards to what claims I have made so far, any suggestions you have? You already gave me a nice suggestions so far
So this is one thing I can include, but then I would have to include some sort of evidence of how important this is. I would honestly include this as my claim of proposal, but I talked about lots of things not just Google, I talked about phones, many corporations, Paypal, banks, etc... I need me some sort of general proposal claim that covers all these and not just 1...

 Your suggestions have been awesome so far, so please keep em coming!

Here is  1 more example of a claim of proposal in a civic issue from my class:

Claims of proposal: Since you ARE writing about a civic issue, in closing your piece, you might make a claim of proposal that provides a solution:
 - For example, if you are arguing for stricter gun control nationwide, you might make this claim of proposal:  “A few simple steps can be taken to restrict access to guns.”  This claim of proposal would then be supported by you unfolding, let’s say, 3 steps—each of which would have evidence to support their validity. “One step would be to make background checks mandatory for every purchaser of a gun across the entire nation.” The evidence to support this might include statistics/info about the importance of background checks

What do you think about using the same formula in your conclusion? Why don't you tell the reader what you'd do, and limit it to 3 things. Do you have any suggestions? You're probably an expert at this point, technically speaking, so advise us what you'd do.

And you can be a little satirical too by saying, if you're still not confident that your privacy is being protected, ditch the smart phone, delete your social media, and start using cash over credit when purposing. Something bold...

Awesome thanks! I think I'm good for now, will close this thread in a few days after I submit just in case I got anything else to double check.

Also I was curious, the things I write on this forum, can they be picked up by college plagiarism machines like Turnitin? I am always hesitant to copy paste all my work on forums/reddit/internet in general cos I am afraid I will get flagged for plagiarism but at the same time if I don't put upload what I am working on then I can't get help online so its kinda double edged sword, but I was curious about this forum, cos I found if I copy paste something directly from any thread on this forum, it does not get picked up by Google search so I am not sure...

I've used Turnitin.com a few times in my professional career, and they do scour the web for any matches, but you haven't explicitly written anything down from your essay on here anyway. Also, our topics take a while before they're crawled and uploaded onto Google, sometimes months.

Yeah I thought just as much, that's why I prefer to upload pictures of my work in comparison to copy paste, but at the same time pictures make it near impossible for someone else who needs some help on this forum to find the answer.