Notes – Accomplishment and Recognition Essay

Scattered Thoughts, Tips, and Suggestion

  • FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD, USE PARAGRAPHS! AGAIN, YOU SOUND LIKE A MAN LIVING IN A BOX WHEN YOU RAMBLE ON FOR AN ENTIRE PAGE WITHOUT ANY BREAKS IN YOUR TRAIN OF THOUGHT.
  • Don’t give the reader advice. You’re writing an essay, not an advice column.
  • Don’t start your thesis with “Yes” or “No.”
  • Try not to say “I think” or “I believe” – that weakens your argument.

The Thesis

Strong Thesis Examples

  1. “I believe that someone should do things because it’s the right thing to do, not just because they want to be acknowledged.”
  2. “A person must not always be acknowledged in order to have accomplished something because many great contributors to this world are not acknowledged for the things they have done.”
  3. “People should not act merely for recognition because sometimes the heroes we don’t recognize are the most important.”
  4. “People shouldn’t do things only to be recognized because that can cause them to do bad things.”

**All of these examples take a stand, but they also embed an assertion about why that stand is correct within the thesis. That makes it more interesting and more sophisticated.

Problematic Thesis Examples

  1. “People should not try to accomplish great trials and challenges in life in order to obtain the acknowledgement of their own accomplishments by others for fame and for their success to be well known among many not because of their lives but of theirselves.”

**Very convoluted and confusing

  1. “A person can accomplish something without being acknowledged.”

**How? Why is that significant?

  1. “Doing things just to get attention is not always a bad thing in certain conditions. Being recognized for what you do can be a good thing and in certain conditions it can be bad.”

**This thesis doesn’t take a strong stand – I’m not sure what the author is planning to argue.

  1. “People shouldn’t do things just to get recognized, but for the good of their heart, the recognition they could get later, and they or someone else could benefit from it.”

**This thesis has too much going on – the ideas that come at the end would be better if they were introduced later in the essay.

  1. “One should receive recognition for their accomplishments to a certain extent, because people who strive for a better world or a common benefit to everybody is certainly worthy of recognition. However if one just does it for the sake of recognition, it should not be acknowledged.”

**Convoluted and confusing – a shorter, clearer thesis would be better

  1. “One should receive recognition for their accomplishments to a certain extent, because people who strive for a better world or a common benefit to everybody is certainly worthy of recognition. However if one just does it for the sake of recognition, it should not be acknowledged.”

**Convoluted and confusing – also, the passive voice (“it should not be acknowledged”) makes it even harder to understand

Examples

Weak Examples

  1. “Another example would be Michael Phelps. No one even recognized who we was until he won multiple gold medals for swimming in the Olympics.”
  2. “For example, Nelson Mandela didn’t help people because he had to in order to become big and famous, he did it because he wanted to. He touched the lives of many and for this reason, he became known, however that was not his goal.”

Strong Examples

All of these examples have Depth, Development, and Detail.

  1. “In the same fashion, George Washington Carver acted out of his kindness and his desires to be a beneficial contributor to society instead of working for fame and fortune. Carver invented hundreds of uses for peanuts and other crops, but did not patent or profit from most of his ideas. Instead, he freely let other people use his discoveries, saying “God gave them [Carver’s ideas] to me. How can I sell them to someone else?” This shows that helping people is more significant than trying to be a distinguished and recognized member of society. Furthermore, Carver turned down a large salary (worth about $1 million today) to continue his research on agriculture, which benefitted thousands of farmers. The epitaph on his grave was, “He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world,” implying that Carver never did things only to be recognized.”
  2. “Similarly, my father is an anesthesiologist, but if you went on the streets and asked a common pedestrian if he or she knew my father, he or she wouldn’t know. However, my father works long days at the hospital where he manages the patient’s airway passages, life support, pain control, and proper pre- and post-operative steps that are personalized for each individual’s special condition. He is the one that works behind the scenes that often go overlooked, but he saves lives. Doctors are constantly saving lives but commonly we do not even know their names. My father works countless hour at the hospital and he says that his work brings him joy.”
  3. “Writers write to get their ideas out of their heads and on paper. For many it is a necessity in order to keep their thoughts from overflowing. Stories are made for personal milestones and not a seal of approval from the society. Writers who write for profit or in hopes for a movie to be made end up being blinded by this mirage and having less skilled writing.”
  4. “During Lent one year my dad came home from work and told us that he had made a Lenten sacrifice. He bought a homeless man lunch. My mom then told him that if he hadn’t told everyone about this sacrifice, it would have been a more sincere sacrifice. By saying this she made him realize that yes, he had done a good deed, but he could have made it better by keeping it to himself.”
  5. “For instance, just three weeks ago I went to a Varsity Track and Field competition. One of the events in which I was contending was the Long Jump. I had competed in only two long jump competitions prior to this competition meaning I knew I probably wouldn’t be a ‘top contender’ or the ‘gold medalist’; the only thing I could do was try my best. In spite of the fact that I hadn’t competed in many other competitions for this particular event, I ended up receiving not only 4th place overall, but also a new personal best record. Wining 4th place meant that I wouldn’t win a medal (which is for top 3) essentially meaning I wouldn’t be recognized for my effort, hard work, or courage to compete, nevertheless, I still felt accomplished. I achieved new limits in Long Jump – an accomplishment not acknowledged by anyone but myself.”