Definition of Success

Shaw-Smith

4

Student’s Name (English name if you have one)

Shaw-Smith

ENG 108—time of class

Definition Argument

Date

Definition Argument, Assignment #1

LENGTH: 3 full pages (bottom margin of page 3)

DUE DATES: See Syllabus

Invention: (5 points)

Informal Outline: (5 points)

First Draft: (10 points) To get the 10 points, you must be in class on this date and have one typed, printed copy of your draft with you. It must be the full length, three complete pages. Also, on this day, if you tell your partner something that will help him/her to improve his/her essay, you will get extra credit.

Final Draft: (100 points)

For this three-page essay, you will define a term and then show how items fit your definition or do not fit it. Many arguments are based on the definition of a term. Choose a term that you know because I do not want you to do research for this first assignment. You will give the meaning of a term or phrase and explain it further with examples and stories.

The definition argument essay should have three parts: an introduction, a body of supporting details, and a conclusion. The sentence that tells the main idea in an essay is called the thesis statement. The thesis should be the last sentence in the introduction. Each body paragraph should have a topic sentence with clear transitions and should be unified with the main idea in the thesis. NOTE: If the essay does not have a thesis statement, it will FAIL. If you plagiarize sources, the essay will fail, BUT you do NOT need to use sources for this essay.

Topic Choices: Choose one of these topics:

· Success

· Home

· Good parent (or Mother or Father)

· Effective education techniques

·

True teacher

· True friend

· Honor

· Family

· Security

· Courage/Bravery

· Vacation

· Topic of your choice as long as the essay is definition

DO NOT USE SOURCES FOR THIS ESSAY!

The Writing Process Examples—Invention (Brainstorming) and Informal Outline

INVENTION for Definition Essay—three examples

Family-mine traditional, mom, dad, brother, sisters, happy marriage.

Mine just husband, wife, no kids, happy marriage studetns who have adopted us

Not traditional family—sister, divorced, estranged form two adult knids, raised and adopted granddauthter

Success—doing what makes you happy, not making money

Not money, not fame

Happy job,

Good frieds

Good marriage

Do what wnt to in life

IBM—money and miserable, cry

Teaching, no money, not miserable, most of time, feel happy

INVENTION

Vacation—what it is to me

Who taught me that

What it is not

Examples of good vaction—Parents, scott and England, Belize

“ of bad vatation—Trevin

Passion for vactions

All states

Costa Rica, Belize, Bahamas, Mexico, Canada, Italy, France, Vatican City,

England, Scotland, Ireland—11

INFORMAL OUTLINE EXAMPLE

To me, vacation is not a time to rest, but a time to see everything I can see.

· Throughout childhood, I learned to vacation from my mom and dad.

· When I became an adult, I discovered that not all people vactioned like my family.

· I made the mistake of taking a horrible vaccaton with someone who had a very different definition of vacation than I had learned from my parents.

· Unlike this awful vacation, I have had many wonderful vacations with those who define vacation in a siilar way to me.

· As a result of my love for travel, I have been to all of the states in the United States and to amny foreign countries.

See these two files on Blackboard for examples of definition essays: definition draft vacation unedited and definition A good student.

WHAT YOU MUST TURN IN WITH THE DRAFT TO BE GRADED:

_____ Your final draft to be graded

_____ The grading rubric (which I will give you)

——— Draft that a tutor or other helper comment on (if you have one)

_____ The drafts that you partners read and their comments

_____ Your outline and thesis (that I have already graded)

______Your invention (that I have already graded)

>>>>> DO NOT USE OUTSIDE SOURCES FOR THIS ESSAY!!

PAGE

2

Shaw-Smith

Date due

ENG

Teacher’s last name

NOTE: This draft is revised but not edited!!!

Working to Travel

Vaction has different meanings to different people. For some, vacation is taking days off from wrok to just stay home and putter around the house, rest, garden, or do other hobbies. To them, vacation is not working, getting out of the daily grind, and resting. To others, vacation is not stayhing home but it is still resting. They might sit on the beach for a week doing nothing but soaking up sun, ready a fun book, drinking something with an umbrella in it that was brought to them at their lazy beach spot. However, neither of these choices would be my defininition of vacation . To me, vacation is not a time to rest, but a time to see everything I can see, to go, go, go, and I have learned that is hard to travel with people whose definition of vacation is different from my definition.

Throughout childhood, I learned to vacation from my mom and dad. My parents did not have much money, and my dad only had two weeks of vacation a year for the 30 years he worked in my hometown, so they had to vacation as well as they can under these circumstances. They did this by saving all the money they could (not getting a new car or new furniture in their whole lives) and spending it on travel. My dad did not take a few days here and there, nor did he take one week at one time, and the other week later. He always took all ten days at once, so we could travel somewhered—they called it “taking a trip.” Despite these limitations, they taught me my passion for travel. Because Dad only had two weeks off, we had to travel fast—we got up early, usually 6:00 AM, and stopped late, 11:00PM or later. We stopped and saw anything and everything that we could see. We slept very little. We ate in the car, cheap and fast. My first trip with them was when I was two, and we went to Colorado. They took my younger sister and I somewhere every summer until we were 18, and we even travelled to Disney World with my parents when my sister and I were in college. My paretns did not travel without the kids. My dad always said, “It is the kids’vacation too.” When my sister and I got our fisrt jobs, we went with my parents to Hawaii. They would rather travel than do anything, and I got that same travel passion from them.

To my surprise, unlike my family, many of my friends’ families did not go far or did not take their children with them., so they do not fit my definition of vacatioin. Many of the families in my hometown went to the same place ervery year—Lake of the Ozarks. This vacaction destination is about three hours from our town. They want boating, swimming, fishing, plaing miniature golf. It was close, familiar, and safe. My friend Roberta’s parents went further than that, but they left their kids at home. I can reamembet being surprised when her parents went to Hawaii and left all of the kids at home.

When I became an adult, I discovered, first hand, that not all people vacationed like my family. I met my husband’s family and discovered they sometimes took travel vacatios, but sometimes they took resting vacations. Since they own their own business, they have more time off, so they can even take vacation days to stay home a few days now and then. Because they have more time off and more money, they can take all of the kinds of vacations—rest at home, rest somewhere else, and travel other places. My husband and I have travelled with them thee times. The first time we made the mistake of getting one shared condo and sharing one car. Scott and I wanted to go and do things, but my inlaws only wanted to cook in the condo, lay on the baech, and rest. I learned my lasson, so my other trip with them only worked because we had separate rooms, separate transportation, and spent some time together and some time apart. I learned how to travel with people other than my parents after taking a disastrous, but educational trip with my husband’s best friend, Trevin.

I learned an important travel lessan by making the mistake of taking a horrible vaccaton with someone who had a very different definition of vacation than I had learned from my parents. A few years after my husband and I got married, Scott, his friend Trevin, and I decided to travel together. I had never travelled with anyone else other than my family and my husband, so I had no idea what to expect. Scott and Trevin had travelled together, so I thought they would be similar travelers. We had gotten together, planned the route we would drive, the many places we would see, and the chosen the places we would stay. Since we had chosen to see six national parks in two states in one week, We were going to drive from San Jose California, to six parks in Arizona and Utah. I thought we all understood that we would get up early, hit the road quickly, and see as much as we could before stopping late—the Shaw way of vacation. We rented a van, and all three travelled together, so we had no way to go our separate ways during this week. Before we left, I did the travel-by-car shopping like my mom always did. I got food, so we could have an easy breakfast in the van, snacks and drinks for the day, even food for lunch on days we might not have time to stop for lunch. I was ready to get up early and go, go, go. However, on the first day I got up at 6:00 AM and got Scott up. We tried to wake Trevin up, but he ignored us. He finally go up at 9:00. We got ready and got in the car. Then, I got the food out for breakfast, and he announced that he had to have a complete hot breakfast at restaurant when he was on vacation, so by the time we had found a place, gotten served, and eaten our breakfast (with me seething with anger), we left the first town at 11:30 AM—half the day gone. He wouldn’t eat lunch in the van either. This is how the whole week went: getting up late, eating a slow breakfast, stopping for lunch, and wasting most of our time and spending more money than Scott and I had planned. I was so angry because he had agreed to the plans for the trip before we left, and then do not do anything he had agreed to do. Therefore, we missed seeing one whole park, Capitol Reef in Utah, and parts of other parks that I really wanted to see; however, I learned my lesson. I don’t share transportation or accommodations with people whose definition of vacstion differs from my definition.

Unlike this awful vacation, I have had many wonderful vacations with those who define vacation in a similar way to me. Except for this trip, my husband and I travel well together. Fortunately, he is an early riser all the time, so I don’t have trouble waking him up to start the day early. I do sometimes drag him around for so long and so late that I about kill him. When we went to England, which was my lifelong dream trip, I had so many things to see and do that we only slept about four hours a night,definitely my definition of vaction. We would stay out late at a play in London and then get up early to catch a train to Oxford or Stratford. Also, we took busses and trains everywhere, so we walked for miles. On the last day of the trip, we needed to walk a mile from the bus to Shakespeare’s Theater. During the walk, my hisband got so tired that his legs buckled under him, and he just lay down on the sidewalk. I had about killed him. Therefore, we didn’t get to the theater on that trip. But we do travel two to three times a year, and I haven’t exhausted him on any other trips.

As a result of my love of travel, I have been to all of the states in the United States and to several foreign countries. Before I turned 18, my parents had taken me to 35 states, where we saw everything we could possibly see. After 18, I travelled with my parents, then my husband, and then my husband and my parents, and finally my husband and his parents. We have travelled to Mexico three times with my brother and sister-in-law, too. My husband and I have now visited the other 15 states that I had not been to, so I have now visited every U.S. state. With my husband, his parents, or the Education First travel groups, I have been to many countries: Bahamas, Belize, Canada (four times), China, Costa Rica, England (three times), France (twice) Italy, Japan, Mexico (three times), Scotland, and Vatican City.

Travelling is my definition of vacation. I want to see everything that I can and get no rest if I can help it. Fortunately, my parents taught me to love travel, to live for travel, to spend on travel. Even more fortunately, I found a husband who also loves to travel and who travels well with me, which is one of the reasons that we are still happily married after all of these years.

NOTE: This draft was not edited. See how badly I type!