Writing Task 2: Reasoned Opinions

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Writing Assignment: Write a reasoned opinion in 100 or 200 words. The word count does not include the title. Deadline: first week of December. You can also hand it in before, at the end of November, along with your monthly Learning Info.

A reasoned opinion is explaining your views on a chosen topic. You need to focus on this: explaining why you believe something.

Learning to write: Notice how I organize the content structure, notice the opening / topic sentences and the transitions. Although my register is not too formal, I avoid contractions and slang, and try to find more elaborate synonyms for high frequency words in everyday language, e.g. “can be traced” instead of “is seen/found”.

Example of a reasoned opinion in 100 words (99 words), with comments on content structure:

About Respect: Different Everyday Life Schedules

Our cultural rejection of diversity can be traced in all kinds of human affairs. [Opening line, general idea that relates a “trivial topic” to a great human question] One of them relates to our everyday schedules. [Topic sentence: my chosen topic to illustrate a case in the general idea] People getting up at midday and staying up all night make us feel wary, even if they sleep the same amount of hours as early risers. [Developing the topic: posing the social problem] How can this possibly be? [Posing my critical question — transition to my answer to the problem in the next paragraph] 

In my view, developing respect for different lifestyles involves we stop judging those lifestyles we fail to understand. [My general point for solving the problem] Asking first and making an effort to walk in people’s shoes is a humanizing effort [A more specific wording for that]-– the bottom line being a world where we can all live together. [The final aim, great ending]

As you might sense, this chosen topic has a humorous tone, because it relates an apparently unimportant matter to a relevant human question.

If I had to write 300 words, a word count that resembles that of articles, I’d include cases pointing at the lack of respect towards people with more of a night life in everyday life! 😀 Like how silent people working in the wee hours of the day tend to be, in order not to wake up neighbors/neighbours, and how “legitimately noisy” early risers are because it’s “decent” to wake up early! 😀

Example of a reasoned opinion on a controversial issue in 200 words (192 words):

On Reproductive Rights: Against Her Will

I cannot understand why a human being can force another to get pregnant, develop a pregnancy, bear a child, and become a mother against her will; or make her undergo an abortion against her will. In my view, both are forms of torture, and no human being should be subject to torture. However, my culture, patriarchal society, is insensitive to women’s human rights.

In patriarchy, women are considered inferior — ethically speaking, too… Patriarchal Law and Custom establish women cannot possibly have a say about developing a human being inside their wombs. Society, even allowing Man to rape, torture and kill to protect His people, considers a woman deciding to interrupt the development of a zygote, an embryo or a fetus is a baby murderer.

Abortion is banned or irrationally restricted in most countries. In our planet, every day a distressing number of women die for this reason. Women deciding to risk their lives and die a horrible death should be an indicator of the brutality of unwanted pregnancies. Underprivileged women in jail because they refused to bring a child to a life of suffering and hardship should be released, compensated, and respected.