Kim Keunho/Session 2 assignment/Summer session (13:00-15:00)

P24.                                                                                                  201200283 김근호

A. Writing topics

Q1. Paraphrase what Forer and/or Withers say about your birth order. Then compare what they say with how you actually see yourself. How closely do the authors' ideas match your view of yourself? Write a topic sentence that lets readers know how closely your views match those of the authors.

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B. Generating ideas: Free writing

Q2. Read what you have written. What main idea about your topic has emerged from this free writing? Write that main idea down now. Circle the parts of your free writing that support your main idea directly.

 

In "Writing topics" section, I decided to choose the first one which is to paraphrase one or two of the essays we've read and clarifying my opinion. In the previous session in page 10, I've already write down some of my ideas, but I'm still going to write something here as well. Two essays are handling a similar topic; correlation between birth order and personalities. I decided to choose the first text, which is more formal than the second one, which talks about marriage in which I'm not interested.

   First, let me briefly paraphrase what Forer, the author of the first essay stated. He (I'm quite sure that Forer is "he") tried to persuade people that birth order affects personalities of siblings. For example, the older of the sibling is generally tends to be more dependent on parents, as he or she may receive more attention for being the first child. At the same time, he or she can become more confident and feel capable because of complete trust and affairs from parents. However, as the younger sibling is born, the older becomes more parental. On the other hand, the younger of the two, shows opposite personalities, in contrast to the older one. His or her parents will already have been accustomed to taking care of child, through nurturing the older one so the younger can have more relaxed parents that can bring some positive effects in shaping personalities. Also, the younger has a peer (its older sibling) to rely on in case of parents' absence. The younger might believe that his or her older brother or sister is more capable, but it won't matter much as he or she could rely on peers in this case as well.  

  Above written was my free writing regarding the topic. Frankly speaking, as I write down about the topic and read through my writing once again, I became more assured that the article is entirely nonsense because of several reasons. In prior, I'd like to clearly state that I can't possibly answer or agree with the Q1 from A section because I have no brothers or sisters to compare my personality with. Nor can I draw circle parts that support my main idea because I completely have no view or opinion about the topic, in accordance with the author's writing. Instead, I'd like to suggest my own reasons for discrediting the entire article. At a glance, the writer seems to be talking something plausible, but in fact, his work is just based on a stereotype and probability. We can't possible assure that most siblings will exactly match what Forer described. If his essay were based on more scientific measures and manage to provide statistical evidence, I would have credited him. (e.g. randomly choosing siblings from all over the world and analyze and quantify their personalities). However, his article consists of description, based on nothing. He failed to show why there's a correlation between the birth order and siblings' personality difference.  Therefore, I must say I don't actually have much to discuss about the essay.