s.o. ? 3 pages for m exam to correct on its misuse of engl ?

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Does anyone feel like reading my three page written preparation for my oral exam?

We had to choose a topic ourself , and write down the arguments for and against it.

I would appreciate it if an english-speaking person would read it and point out the sentences that make no sence (spelling or contents comments are not necessary)

It is not an acidemical text at all, it's no essay, it's just a written preparation for the debate at the exam.

The title is " Is money always quality money?", the topic might be a little naïve but i felt like choosing a topic where i felt i could really argument about once i'll be confronted with the professor

Why not post it here and people can volunteer to cover portions of it?

ok, good idea! i'll post it in smaller parts then ...

If we have or spend money, or lot's of money, is this always a reason to be proud? Is it a sign of
happiness?
Is someone a better person when s/he earns a lot of money? Is this person better at her/his job? What is the significance of higher wages, is it better quality?

We speak of quality time, can we also speak of quality money?
And what would that be?
I notice a lot of people are quite proud when they have a well paid job. Since i've never had one myself, i'm prone to ask: "What is it they are so proud of?" Is it quality money they earn and is it quality money they spend?

Let's examine the different ways we can consider the properties of money:

1)

-money is a symbolic means to obtain products or services

-the more money someone has, the more products s/he can obtain

-money can be spend on a wide range of products and services:

- basic products : food, housing, transport,...

- luxury products : make-up, fancy accesoires, technological gadgets, swimming pool, ...

- basic services : health care, schooling, waste treatment, house maintanance, ...

- luxury services : cleaning services, tourism, gardener, ...

2) The action of exchanging products between it's manufacturor and the customer (or an

intermediary) is, of course, called 'trade'. In this form money takes on different shapes, it can be

transformed in :

production decisions

futur destiny

misuse

energy

etc.

- production decisions : the customer decides what kind of products s/he buys and determines -

consciously or not- futur production. e.g. ecological products, cheap products, exceptionally

designed products,..., cinema visits make the filmindustry grow, similar for libraries, aviation

destinies, etc.

- futur destiny : the person who is paid is in turn able to use this money her/himself depending

on how much s/he got. the same money circulates endlessly, different people get different wages

e.g. the surgeon is better paid than the cleaning woman who has cleaned the operation room, or

than the technician who fixed his equipement, or than the telephone operator who arranged the

appointment.

- misuse : a lot of people are forced to work under bad conditions in order to stay alive but they don't get enough money for their work to buy the basic products they need.

- energy : in fact money is in close relation with the energy that is used to manufacture the products or to assure the service that is being delivered. e.g. the amount of fuel, electricity, gas, water, air, iron, plastic, wood, space, human activity, time, etc.

We have to consider these different aspects in order to determine the value of money. We'll bear this in mind if we want to decide whether money is always quality money or not.

Part one : arguments in favor of the general statement : "Yes, money is always quality money."


-quality = freedom : freedom of trade, freedom of production, freedom to spend money however

one chooses to. freedom stimulates creativity, and makes dreams relativily available for

whoever is giving the best of her/him.


-people who work hard deserve to have more money, their effort translates in the quality of their

own earned money. motivated people are better placed to take desicions. the people that won't

do these efforts are probably not as motivated to work so hard and better placed to do lower

paid jobs.


-several people can put their money and their efforts together and start interesting projects (e.g.

a spaceshuttle, an art museum, hospitals, a computer, etc.) a project cannot grow enough if

you only have a bunch of unskilled poor people to support it.



-someone who has a lot of money can share it, give presents, ... and make more people happy

(e.g. the charity women, women of well known politicians or rich managers that set up charity

initiatives)


-to earn more money is an option for all of us. Western countries put a lot of money in projects

that encourage schooling programs in less developed countries, to make this a world wide

option ... (edit : i'll check the rest of the sentence and correct it )


-Someone can be proud to be able to care for her/his own family

Last edited by lemon on 05 Jan 2007, 8:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Part two : arguments against the general statement : "No, money is not always quality money"


-not everyone has the ability or the intention to use her/his freedom in a proper way. 'freedom'

may actually be used as an excuse to hide the effects of bad energy use, abuse of other's

people's labour, etc.


-it is not only the amount of labour that is delivered that makes the money more or less

valuable, in fact prices may be very decissive, hiding the real costs. ( e.g. the same product can

be made and sold at different prices when they respectively include or exclude the ecological

cost, the social cost to ensure money in case of accidents, etc.) or different persons can earn

more or less money for the same job (e.g. the one who sells coffee versus the people working in

the field)


-what makes the quality of a project? the money? (e.g. the IMF obligating countries to accept the

World Trade Organisation's rules when they lent money. these rules often cause more

economical damage to an already poor country because the prices of the local farms are too

high compared with the imported products)


-present giving out of prestige or to answer an unescapable cultural defined habit causes the

manufacturing of useless products (e.g. an electric toothbrush for someone who never brushes

her/his teeth, a gps-system for someone who hardly leaves his own place, a new barbie doll for

the kid who already got 26 other similar dolls, etc...)


-men is surely the only one to care about his own kind, no European dog has been found putting

food aside to help it's African elephant friend. but there are far too many people suffering to

justify boundless and exagerated expenses.


-taking care of one's own family is only then contributing to a positive balance if one really takes

care of all the aspects involved. 'labour' nor 'money' are values on its own, the represent a

certain activity (e.g. someone poluting earth, needs the labour of many other people to 'undo' the

negative effects of this labour in order to set the balance positive)


-CEO's, succesfull independants, or graduated people do not necessarily possess more wisdom

than any other person. They might understand the workings of a overall economic process better,

or they might be able to lead a company but this does not include they are also able to manage

any kind of responsability, someone who studies is not authomatically without evil personal

qualities like egoism for exemple, etc.

To conclude i'd like to bring forward my own personal opinion :


The quality of money cannot be determined without further looking at it's real course and its past

and futur effects.

Money has many different connotations for many different people. If our goal would be to fulfill

the basic needs of every human being, then there still is a lot of work awaitening us. Being a part

of that would make me proud, regardless of the excisting or non excisting prestige or money

that would go with it.

There should be no apostraphe in "lots." In this case, "lots" is plural, not possessive, and only possessive forms require an apostraphe (excepting possessive pronouns such as its, their, her, his, etc.).


This sentence makes no sense and has a dangling modifier and a comma splice (wherein two independant clauses are connected by only a comma without a conjunction; it is incorrect grammar). In addition, "it" has no sensical antecedant--are "higher wages" the "it?" I would rephrase this sentence to say some thing like "What significance do higher wages have? Are people with higher wages necessarily higher quality?"


Capitalize "I" in both cases. "I," be it the first person singular nominative personal pronoun or simply the letter, should always be captialized.


Is this meant to be an English paper? It feels like a mathematical proof. As a rule, one should always write in complete sentences in an English paper, and never, ever write lists in the middle of it. Paragraphs only.

EDIT: Ignore that last bit; it's absolutely fine for a debate.

thanks, yeah, it is the written preparation for a debate(but it counts for the exams), it's not the style of an essay...

Does anyone feels like correcting another part ?
Only reading the sentences and see if there is something wrong would be great actually,
if i have a few spelling mistakes that's not a problem, but i sometimes have this akward sentences that no-one understands and i fail to recognise them myself, or words that are used in a wrong context.

If you're only using these as notes and not reading it word for word, then it's great. You've obviously put a lot of time and effot into it (more than I put into my debates at any rate).
(I'm just going to pick on a few things. Don't let me get you down - I'm a nitpicker and a perfectionist, and you're perfectly within your rights to ignore me.)
If you're planning to read it word for word, you may want to make some of your bullet points into sentences. For instance

could become, Some examples of basic products include food, housing, transport, (and so on and so forth).

Also, I don't completely understand how this

relates to money. I understand what you mean about money being used in school systems, but I don't understand how the "one should better use her/his time....constructing people in our society" ties in. To me, it seems like the start of a different topic. Perhaps you can mention how money enables school to prepare children for the real world, but don't overdo it. If you can link it with something about how money therefore creates more knowledge (and knowledge is quality) then keep it.

And finally,

seems to go against everything else you've said. (If your style of debate is Lincoln-Douglass, then ignore the rest of my comments about this paragraph.) If your position is that money is always quality money then you're contradicting yourself. If you use this sentence you leave yourself open to speculation that some money is not quality money, and that helps the opposition. Even if you don't believe that all money is quality money, don't let him know that (I'm assuming that the professor is on the other side).

It's a very nice argument. If you ever come the urge to come to Ohio you can join our debate team.

If you're planning to read it word for word, you may want to make some of your bullet points into sentences.

no reading, they'll ask me questions about it and i will have to defend some of the arguments, but that won't be a problem.


Also, I don't completely understand how this

of course not, that's not what i've written, could it be possible someone changed my text in here?
i'll take a look at the original text tomorrow and correct it. strange ... ('being a fool at school..' when it's for an exam, i'd be mad to write such a thing) the rest of the text seems to be right, strange...


i don't know whether you've read it all, but there are two parts in the text: one in favor and one against, that's how we have to do it, we have to give both views and be able to defend it both ways, the 'conclusion' sentence was only to have something to conclude with.

thanks for your help ! !

i don't think i'd ever cross the ocean though ...
but maybe in the futur people will travel in a virtual way, who knows...

thanks again for both your help ! ! i'll hand it in tomorrow


i've been wondering about your debate team LadyCass, you just come together to debate? it makes me curious why someone would do that? or do you also have particular goals? just curious ...

No problem. I'll explain.
We meet once a week after school. In the very beginning we had free debates. In other words, a topic was presented - usually something unimportant, like school dress code or plastic surgery or cats vs dogs - and anyone who wanted to talk could come to the front of the room and share their opinions. Now that it's further along in the year, we paired up and each pair picked a topic. Every week one pair debates their topic. The other score each person in the pair, and whoever gets the most points wins. After every pair has gone through once, then the ones who won pair up with someone else who won. Then another set of debates. The person who won on that debate will pair up with another person. It goes like that until there are only 2 people left. Then those 2 debate and whoever wins that just...wins, I guess. It's more for fun than anything else.
We don't compete with other schools because we haven't been around long enough. Next year we hope to go against other schools.
Right now we're just finishing up the first round. 2 more pairs have to go, and then we'll pair up again. Most of the topics are serious - gay rights, death penalty, global warming. But they don't have to be - one of the officers suggested buttons vs zippers (then led a very animated free debate about it, which was funny), contacts vs glasses, that sort of thing.
So, there aren't really any goals. We just debate for the fun of it. We do it just to do it, I guess. (I'm awful at trying to explain my motivations and such.) Standing in front of everyone can be nerve wracking, but it's more or less just sharing your view on something.
Plus, arguing is something an aspie can do.

as the Res English Lit Major on here. I'd say this looked good.