Fix this paper. Rhetoric analysis

Reviews, other than summarizing the content of a resource, also cite its weaknesses and strengths both in approach, structure and design and validity. This essay is poised to review an article entitled “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses.” The essay, taking the ground of a rhetoric review seeks to evaluate this resource, breaking it down into its parts, hence enhancing a better understand of the whole. The primary mission of all the colleges is to improve the skills of the scholars and better prepare them for duties. However, there is less offered at the institutions to complete this mission, and so the colleges have and are still failing at their most basic mission. This article “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses” draws the evidence, which illustrates this premise.

I chose to explore whether colleges fulfill their most core mission or not. I have a keen interest in the role that these institutions are playing shaping and preparing the youths and other relevant personnel for their future responsibilities in the various domains of life like in economics, law, agriculture and politics among others. My interest in this topic has enabled me develop a wider perspective on the issue and has also increased my knowledge base through which I will be able to handle this paper.

From my point of view, not only colleges but also other institutions, irrespective of the industry and boundaries in which they operate, should, at least, be able to achieve their primary mission or goal. Accordingly, failure to this process renders irrelevant and useless the existence and or operation of these organizations.

In just an overview, numerous students commence to colleges on an annual basis irrespective of the high and soaring tuition costs. A bachelor’s degree one of the key requirements for entry into a developing number of professions. And some parents commence planning for the cost of taking their children to college right when they are born. Almost all the people strive to go, yet virtually no one inquires the rudimentary question posed by Academically Adrift: are undergraduates learning anything once they get there?

For a large quotient of students, Arum and Roksa, in the “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses” give a definitive no answer to this question. In just an overview, their extensive study draws on transcript survey data, responses, and, for the initial time, the state-of-the-art Collegiate Learning Assessment, which is a standardized test taken by students in their first semester and over again at the conclusion of their second one. According to their assessment, “ Approximately 2,300 undergrads at 24 colleges, 45 % of these scholars exhibited no significant transformation and advance in a range of skills, among them complex reasoning, critical thinking and writing in the course of their first two college academic years. 30% replied yes while the rest were not sure.” As worrisome as their observations are, Arum and Roksa reason that for numerous administrators and faculty they will come as no surprise, instead, they are the anticipated result of a scholar body distracted by socialization or working and an organizational culture, which puts the learning of the undergraduate close to the priority list's bottom line.

As such, the “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses” holds serious lessons for faculty, students, policy makers and administrators alongside the parents and other stakeholders all of whom are concerned with promoting or, at least, disregarding the current campus culture. The reality is that higher education encounters crises on several fronts. However, as demonstrates Arum and Roksa, colleges have and are still failing at their most basic mission.

A close look at this paper in both approach and principle portrays it as a reformist article. In simple words, “Academically Adrift” exposes the issue it is addressing so that amends are considered. As such, Arum & Roksa were addressing the parties, which are concerned with higher education and colleges in particular. These people start from students themselves then stretches to the policy makers. The administrators and faculty are also targeted by this article.

Although “Academically Adrift” explores the college issue on a professional platform, it uses a simple language, which is accessible to the ordinary civilian and even the people from other fields that are not concerned with higher education. However, as a research project, there is little that Arum & Roksa could do to eliminate or rather simplify the technical terms, which are usually part of studies like the “Collegiate Learning Assessment” Data analysis and their methodologies are technical things, and so the paper could not avoid such intricate terms “per-pupil expenditure levels.”

Considering the audience and discourse of this essay, “Academically Adrift” treats its audience in a different way as compared to that, which other resources on the same topic or related ones does. Let us consider Perez & Ponce’s “Success and Failures-the Bilingual Student in Higher Education: Community-Junior Colleges at the Crossroad.” While “Academically Adrift” cares, even for people of the lowest academic level, this article, “Success and Failures-the Bilingual Student in Higher Education” is strictly limited to professionals and particularly those in the domain of higher education. For a case in point, it also talks about the “Collegiate Learning Assessment” but unlike “Academically Adrift” it does not elaborate on it. It also uses tied academic terms like semesters and comrades.

Generally, “Academically Adrift” escapes most aspects, which would expose it to criticism. It is valid in contending and employs the right procedure, mechanisms and principle. However, it also suffers a few drawbacks. For instance, its conclusion about the fulfillment of the colleges of their primary mission might be questionable as it was based on only a few institutions of the world. The study only evaluated 2,300 undergrads at 24 colleges.

Work Cited

Arum, Richard, and Josipa Roksa. Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2014. Print.

Perez, Ponce J. M. Success and Failures-the Bilingual Student in Higher Education: Community-Junior Colleges at the Crossroad. El Congresso Nacional de Asuntos Colegiales, 1978. Print.