Draft Workshop for Rakjoon

1.The paper does recommend the Kerry’s idea for making more alliances, but a stronger thesis is definitely needed. I felt like he argued a strong point about what was wrong with America, but didn’t spend enough time talking about fixing it. The evidence was good and some quotes were used, but that could be further explored to strengthen the argument (using statistics-specifically Iraqi death rates “How many Iraqi civilians were killed when Americans were trying to take Saddam out? More than those that died on 9.11 to be sure.”-make sure to prove this with the statistic.) I really liked the idea that our terrorists may be their heroes-the Korea example was excellent.
2.He doesn't really have a thesis statement- he does say “My point is that while Americans may think they are helping [the] Iraqi [people] and keeping peace, the Iraqi point of view may be different” in the 2nd paragraph and then in the conclusion, “America must make many allies, nobody can be alone,” but he doesn’t clearly state this together and doesn’t introduce it in the beginning of his paper. The paper should probably shift its focus to the solution instead of the problem to better answer the question and specifically address both of these things clearly an directly at the beginning of the paper.
3.He utilizes Ethos through his confident tone and makes it seem like he put a lot of thought into the ideas behind his paper-he made it seem like he feels very strongly about the issue. Also, providing examples from his home country made him seem more credible because he could prove that he understands the situation because he’s been through it also. He could have tried to be more “fair” by addressing counterarguments more thoroughly-like say why an imperialistic country might be imperialistic… Pathos is shown by his use of stories (Korean hero) and use of Korean proverb (Revenge calls revenge). Logos is used very well because he provides a lot of examples (Korean newspaper editorial). However, more facts and stats could have been used.
4.I thought his argument was convincing-America needs to make more, stronger alliances. However, I thought he should have gone into more detail explaining how to do this-yes, I agree alliances are good, but how to we achieve them? He very clearly showed that “our terrorists could be their heroes” but use of examples (Korean hero story) and gave evidence to Bush weakening alliances (Korean editorial). It might be a good idea to stray away from purely Korean examples though, for example use more from the website, because it kind of seemed like he was more focused on Korea then on Bush vs. Kerry plans of action.