check and fix 2 essays

Boyao Li

Professor Erin

ENG 0711 course

December 3, 2015

“Sex Difference” is more convincing than “women talk too much”

Janet Holmes is a professor of sociolinguistics at the Victoria University of Wellington. She wrote an essay “women talk too much” tries to prove that man actually talk much than woman, men always want to dominate the talking time in many situations. She wants to against the widespread belief that women talk much than man. Another author, Ronald Macaulay is a professor of linguistics at Pitzer College. He wrote an essay “Sex differences”. He thinks man and woman speak isn’t in different way. It is actually similar. He tries to convince people that in fact are fiction and novels created the man and women speak in different ways. That’s actually not true. Comparing the “Women Talk Too Much” and “Sex Difference”. I think Ronald Macaulay’s essay “Sex Difference” is more convincing to me by his claims, evidence, and organization of essay.

After compared these two essays, I recognized that Ronald Macaulay’s most obvious advantage is organization of the essay. In the first place, Janet Holmes uses some old proverb from different culture like “ When both husband and wife wear pants it is not difficult to tell them apart----he is the one who is listening----American”(Holmes 299). She tries to use some proverbs to makes her essay more convincing and more attractive. But that isn’t a good choice. Because generally proverbs from some old and not academic source. It cannot make people trust that author’s point. And some of proverbs are a little bit obscure, not clear enough .It’s may make reader feel confuse. By contrast, Ronald Macaulay obviously has a better beginning. He points that at beginning “Jespersen has a chapter entitled ‘The Woman’ in which he manages to include every stereotype about women that was current at the time.” (Macaulay 308).It shows us directly what the author tries to tell the reader. He tries to say something about women is stereotype. It is pretty clear to make reader understand what he will trying to say. Even if he doesn’t tell us the main point clearly, but it is still a better beginning organization than Janet Holmes.

Ronald Macaulay also has better evidence than Janet Holmes. He uses two groups of vocabulary that often used in novel to introduce men’s or women’s speech like “ MEN: said firmly, said bluntly, said coldly, said smugly. WOMEN: said quietly, asked innocently echoed obediently…….”(Macaulay 309). It is generally in novels. It just a vocabulary list but because of we usually read about it, it can make reader feel surprised immediately. Than he points this “the surprising part is that the two lists are totally distinct. No doubt the novelists intended to be realistic in describing two very different styles of speech” (Macaulay 309). It is stronger evidence, he use common things from normal novel to make reader feel surprise and start to thinking. Then he just writes his point out that man and woman speech in different way actually is novelist write it deliberately. It’s not true. He is really good at convincing reader and his evidence is pretty strong. in comparison, Janet Holmes’ evidence are pretty weakness. For example. in her essay “women talk too much”. She points that “Evidence collected by American, British, and New Zealand researchers shows that men dominate the talking time in committee meetings, staff meetings, seminars and task-oriented decision-making groups”(Holmes 302). She tries to use this evidence to prove that men actually want to dominate the talking time in most meetings. Even if she said “Evidence collected by American, British, and New Zealand researchers” but it is still not persuasive evidence. She isn’t telling us how they did this research. who is the object of research? What the exactly identity of these researchers .She just put the result here. It cannot convince anyone with this kind of evidence. So Ronald Macaulay has many better evidence than Janet Holmes.

Even though Macaulay has better essay organization and evidence than Janet Holmes .But Janet Holmes have a persuasive tone just like Macaulay. Holmes uses fair and neutral tone in her essay , for example “We have now reached the conclusion that the question ‘ Do Women talk more than man?’ can’t be answered with a straight ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The answer is rather”(Holmes 304). She isn’t uses definitely words or sentence to support her own point that man actually talk much than women. Those kinds of tone give reader some space to think about the author’s point. It’s make her essay more persuasive. In the same way , Macaulay also has a neutral and gentle tone for his essay “I am not sure whether the writer considered himself a scientist, but if his writing is an example of intellectual rigor, then give me the subtlety of the humanities any day”(Macaulay 311).Macaulay’s tone also makes his essay more persuasive.

To sum up, Although Janet Holmes also have a persuasive tone just like Ronald Macaulay. But her essay “women talk to much” organization and evidence is not good. Macaulay’s essay “Sex Difference” obviously is a more persuasive and more convinced essay. Therefore, Ronald Macaulay does a better job to write the essay making reader convincing than Janet Holmes .

Work cited

Holmes, Janet. “Women Talk Too Much.” Exploring Language. Ed. Gary

Goshgarian. 11th ed. New York: Longman, 2007. 299-305. Print.