ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC

AND PROFESSIONAL
PURPOSES

Name: _______________________________________________________________
Grade & Section: ______________________________________________________
Contact Number: ______________________________________________________
Email Address: ________________________________________________________
Instructor: ____________________________________________________________

Prepared by:
Mark Anthony Apurado
Princess F. Layes
JBLCF-B Faculty
 How to Use this Module?
Welcome!

English for Academic and Professional Purposes (EAPP) is one of the applied subject for Senior
High School (SHS) of the Basic Education Department (BED). This course is the development
of communication skills in English for academic and professional purpose. It covers the various
aspects of Academic Writing such as reading academic texts and writing academic texts like
reaction paper, review, critique, concept paper, position paper, and reports.
This module is a self-contained and self-sufficient unit of instruction for a learner to achieve the
set of systematically organized learning opportunities and well defined objectives per unit.
There are units with compact detailed information and some where the learner has to conduct
further research through guided assessments to further his insights on the given topics.
After successfully completing each unit of this module, you should be able to acquire knowledge
of appropriate reading strategies for a better understanding of academic texts and understands the
principles and uses of reaction paper, review, critique, concept paper, position paper, and reports.
Assessment tools given at the end of every unit should be diligently accomplished to build
learner competencies and measure knowledge.
Additional resources at the end of each unit provide further definitions of key terms and
information for further reading.
Outputs shall be submitted to the instructor/facilitator for checking, evaluation and recording.
Outputs shall serve as the learner’s proof for grading. You should always review the information
sheets and be ready for duly scheduled unit quizzes and periodic examinations.
Should you need further assistance, do not hesitate to communicate your concerns to the class
instructor.
COURSE CODE & TITLE: EAPP-English for Academic and Professional Purposes
Course Intended Learning Outcomes
At the end of the course, the students shall be able to:
1. acquire knowledge of appropriate reading strategies for a better understanding of
academic texts;
2. understand the principles and uses of a reaction paper/ review/ critique,
3. understand the principles and uses of a concept paper,
4. understand the principles and uses of a position paper, and
5. understand the principles and uses of surveys, experiments and scientific observations.
Introduction

The texts you read in school are

different from the texts you read
during your leisure time. While
the texts you read for pleasure,
such as
graphic novels or magazines
can be likened to the
appeal of sweet
desserts, academic texts are
more like the heavy main
courses. More
often than not they need to be
chewed and savored for a long
time before
the meanings can be fully
digested.
The texts you read in school are
different from the texts you read
during your leisure time. While
the texts you read for pleasure,
such as
graphic novels or magazines
can be likened to the
appeal of sweet
desserts, academic texts are
more like the heavy main
courses. More
often than not they need to be
chewed and savored for a long
time before
the meanings can be fully
digested.
How many times have you been asked to write about your summer vacation or your Christmas
break? How many times have you been given a performance task of writing a book review or
reaction paper? How about a poem, a letter or a skit? Have you wondered what differences are
there between those various writing assignments given to you at school?
In this module, you will understand what Academic texts are and write various examples of these
type of texts.
Lesson Coverage
Quarter 1:
1. Nature of Academic Texts
2. Writing Reaction Paper/Review/Critique
3. Writing a Concept Paper
Quarter 2:
4. Writing a Position Paper
5. Reading and Writing a Formal Report
6. Writing a Survey Report
Pre-Test

Instruction: Choose the letter of the best answer.

1. It is a process that starts with posing a question, problematizing a concept, evaluating an

opinion, and ends in answering the question or questions posed, clarifying the problem,
and/or arguing for a stand.
a. Academic Texts c. Critical Reading
b. Academic Writing d. Critical Writing
2. A famous quote from his work called Essays says, “Read not to contradict and confute;
nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and
consider”.
a. Andrew Moody c. Grace Saqueton
b. Francis Bacon d. Max Shulman
3. This paper is designed for you to consider carefully what you think or feel about
something you've read or seen.
a. Academic Paper c. Reaction Paper
b. Concept Paper d. Research Paper
4. Identify the fallacy: “Two men are having a debate. The first one gets up and says, ‘My
opponent is a notorious liar. You can’t believe a word that he is going to say.’
a. Ad Misericordiam c. Hypothesis Contrary to Fact
b. False Analogy d. Poisoning the Well
5. This is the most challenging part of critical reading where you question the author's
purpose and intentions, as well as his/her assumptions in the claims. You also check if the
arguments are supported by evidence and if the evidence are valid and are from credible
sources.
a. Annotate the text c. Outline the text
b. Evaluate the text d. Summarize the text
6. Identify the type of fallacy: “A man applies for a job. When the boss asks him what his
qualifications are, he replies that he has a wife and six children at home, the wife is a
helpless cripple, the children have nothing to eat, no clothes to wear, no shoes on their
feet, there are no beds in the house, no coal in the cellar, and winter is coming.”
a. Ad Misericordiam c. Hypothesis Contrary to Fact
b. False Analogy d. Poisoning the Well
7. This contains paragraphs that provide support for your thesis. Each paragraph should
contain one idea that should support the thesis.
a. Attention-getter c. Conclusion
b. Body d. Thesis Statement
8. An assertion not a statement of fact that takes a stand and contains one specific point.
a. Body c. Claim
b. Thesis d. Introduction
9. It is a mode of paragraph development that answers the question: What is it? What does it
mean? What are its special features?
a. Comparing and contrasting c. Narrating
b. Defining d. Writing
10. Which is not an example of Academic text?
a. Application Papers c. Reaction Paper
b. Concept Paper d. Reports
11. This paper defines an idea and explains its essence in order to clarify the “whatness” of
that idea. It answers the questions: what is it and what about it (Dafudalza 1996:183).
 a. Academic Paper c. Reaction Paper
b. Concept Paper d. Review/Critique Paper
12. A technique where you are given a term to be defined and you define the term by giving
the class where the word/term belongs (the genus) and the characteristics that distinguish
the term from other terms, known as the differentia.
a. Extended Definition c. Definition by example
b. Formal definition d. Definition by etymology
13. What technique of definition is used: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it
does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.”
a. Formal definition c. Definition by function
b. Definition by analogy d. Definition by negation
14. A restatement of what you said in your paper that focuses on your overall reaction and
the prediction of the effects about your topic.
a. Conclusion c. Supporting Ideas
b. Introduction d. Thesis Statement
15. What technique of definition is used: The term democracy originates from the Greek
demokratia “rule of the people” which was coined from demos “people” and kratos
“power” or “rule” in the 5th century BCE to denote the political systems then existing in
Greek city-states, notably Athens.
a. Definition by analogy
b. Definition by comparison and
contrast
c. Definition by etymology
d. Definition by synonym
QUARTER I

Lesson 1 (Week 1-3)

NATURE OF ACADEMIC TEXTS

Overview
Academic writing is usually seen as a lonely and frightening endeavour. Most of the time,
students and even professionals cower when asked to hand in academic papers. They seem to
have a notion that writing academic papers requires skills that very few possess.
Learning Competencies:
At the end of the module, the learner:
1. determines the structure of a specific academic text
2. differentiates language used in academic texts from various disciplines
3. explains the specific ideas contained in various academic texts
4. uses knowledge of text structure to glean the information he/she need
5. uses various techniques in summarizing a variety of academic texts
6. states the thesis statement of an academic text
7. paraphrases/ explains a text using one’s own words
8. outlines reading texts in various disciplines,
9. summarizes the content of an academic text, and
10. writes a précise/abstract/summary of texts in the various disciplines

Performance Task:
At the end of the module, the learner:
1. produces a detailed abstract of information gathered from the various academic texts read

Academic Writing
What is academic writing?
Academic writing is a process that starts with posing a question, problematizing a
concept, evaluating an opinion, and ends in answering the question or questions posed, clarifying
the problem, and/or arguing for a stand. Just like other kinds of writing, academic writing has a
specific purpose, which is to inform, to argue a specific point, and to persuade. It also addresses
a specific audience; the audience is your teacher (for the most part), your peers who will read and
evaluate your work, and the academic community that may also read your work. The assumption
is that your audience is composed of people who are knowledgeable on the subject that you are
writing about; thus, you have to demonstrate a thorough understanding of your subject at hand.
This makes academic writing different from a personal narrative or a creative essay, or a legal
document, in which the knowledge of the writer is assumed to be greater than that of the readers.
Academic writing is thinking; you cannot just write anything that comes to your mind.
You have to abide by the set rules and practices in writing. You have to write in language that is
appropriate and formal but not too pretentious. You also have to consider the knowledge and
background of your audience. You have to make sure that you can back up your statement with a
strong and valid evidence. Writing academic papers requires deliberate, thorough, and careful
thought and that is why it involves research.
It was mentioned earlier that a formal but not pretentious language is required. It is a
misconception, however, that big and difficult words have to be used because ultimately the
purpose of writing is to engage the readers. You are not just expected to inform or to persuade
but you are also expected to engage the readers in a conversation by giving them clear ideas and
points to evaluate and question. You have to make sure that your purpose (i.e. to react to an issue
or an event, to convince readers to take your side) is clear and that your language, style, and tone
are appropriate to convey your purpose to your target readers. Your audience is varied and you
have to make sure that when you write, you keep the readers in mind.
Your audience will determine the language of your paper. For example, your audience is
a group of experts on language policies, it is acceptable that you use jargons such as vernacular,
mother tongue, first language, Englishes. If your audience, however, are your fellow students,
you have to make sure that the words you use are explained in layman’s terms.
Consider the following areas as you write:
 Content: clarity of the purpose and the thesis statement, relevance of the
supporting points to the thesis statement, knowledge on the subject matter.
 Structure: coherence and logical sequence of the ideas
 Language and style: word choice, sentence construction
 Mechanics: grammar, punctuations, capitalizations, formatting, documentation

ACTIVITY TIME 
I.
Direction: Answer the following questions in one paragraph. Each paragraph is worth ten (10)
points. The following criteria shall be used in grading your output.

Criteria Description 5 4 3 2 1
Content (5pts) Answers are comprehensive, accurate and
 complete. Key ideas are clearly stated,
explained, and well supported. 
Organization Well organized, coherently developed,
(5pts) and easy to follow
TOTAL SCORE

1. What is academic writing? What are its features?

2. What is the importance of academic writing?
3. How is academic writing different from a letter? How about from a court order?
4. Why is academic writing equated to thinking?
5. If you use the first person point of view in writing academic papers, is it still considered
academic?

II.
Directions: The text below is an example of a court order, read and understand the text and
after, answer the questions that follow.

Republic of the Philippines

REGIONAL TRIAL COURT
________, Judicial Region
Branch ____, ________ City

EX-PARTE MOTION FOR EXTENSION

TO SUBMIT COMPROMISE AGREEMENT
Defendants, by the undersigned counsel and unto the Honorable Court, respectfully state that:
(1) On 5 January 2015, the Honorable Court, in open court, directed the Parties to submit
their Compromise Agreement within ten (10) days therefrom, or on 15 January 2015.
Said day being a Sunday, the Parties have until the next working day, 16 January 2015, to
submit said Compromise Agreement.
(2) Defendant Hannah Dy is presently abroad and needs to execute a Special Power of
Attorney authorizing her brother and Co-Defendant Roland Dy to sign the Compromise
Agreement on her behalf.
(3) Thus, the Defendants respectfully pray that the Parties be given additional fifteen (15)
days from today, or until, 30 January 2015, within which to submit their Compromise
Agreement.
(4) This Motion is not intended to delay the instant proceedings but filed solely by reason of
the foregoing. Moreover, the filing of the same will not result in any injustice or
prejudice to any of the parties herein.
Guide Questions
 1. What is the text about? (subject/focus)
2. What is the writer’s goal in writing the text?
3. Who is the target reader of the text?
4. What is the point of view used in the text? (first person, second person, third person)
5. How much does the writer know of the subject? (writer’s knowledge)
6. How did the writer organize the text? (style)
7. Did the writer write in a formal or informal manner? (tone)
8. How did the writer choose the words and organize the sentences? Was the language
formal, informal, or casual?

Structure of Academic Text

Academic writing is clear, concise, focused, structured and backed up by evidence. Its purpose is
to aid the reader’s understanding.

It has a formal tone and style, but it is not complex and does not require the use of long sentences
and complicated vocabulary. It is generally quite formal, objective (impersonal) and technical.

Structure is an important feature of academic writing. A well-structured text enables the reader to
follow the argument and navigate the text.

There are two common structures in academic text:

1. three-part essay structure (basic structure that includes the Introduction, Body and
Conclusion)
2. the IMRaD structure (Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion)

III.
Directions: The text below is an example of an essay, read and understand the text and after,
answer the questions that follow.

Why Do They Say That Our English Is Bad?

(An Excerpt)
Grace M. Saqueton

English teachers in the Philippines often find themselves in a very frustrating situation –
no matter how hard they try to teach the rules of written English to their students, the students
still commit errors in word order, word choice, subject – verb agreement, tenses, prepositions,
articles, punctuations, and the like. Teachers get frustrated when they hear or read sentences
such as “They decided to got married,” “What did the students watched”?” or “Ana go to the
canteen.” It is also alarming because the rules that apply to these sentences are supposedly
simple rules that the students should have learned in grade school. Yet, here they are in college,
still committing those same errors.

Teachers and linguists alike have sought and probably are still seeking for ways and
strategies to teach English effectively especially in the light of teaching English as a second
language or as a foreing language. Different research studies have been conducted and different
theories have been used to address the situation. One of the tpics that the researchers have
explored is the recurring errors in phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and discourse of
second language learners. They believe that studying these recurring errors is necessary to
address the supposed grammar problems of the Filipino college students.

In a paper titled, “Why Does They Say That Our Sentences Is Wrong When We Knows
English? An Analysis of The ‘Common Errors’ of Freshmen Compositions,” Saqueton (2008)
identified some of the common errrors found in the essays of first year college students. She
provided explanations, using error analysis, language acquisition theories, and Fairclough’s
paradigm on the appropracy of “appropriateness,” as to what caused the “errors.” This is the
hope of helping English teachers develop teaching materials and devise teaching strategies that
are appropriate for Filipino first year college students of different linguistic backgrounds.

Saqueton (2008) found out that among the student’s essays, errors in the use of verns are
the most common, followed by errors in the use of perpositions, problems in word choice, and
problems in subject-verb agreement. There are also errors in the use of articles, conjunctions,
pronouns; spelling problems are also evident.

These “errors” are considered errors because of certain standards that language teachers
want their students to follow. These standards are the ones prescribed by grammarians.
Educators want their students to master Standard English as second language learners of English.
The problem here lies in the definition of “Standard” English. Is there really a common standard?
If there is, who uses it? Whose standard should be followed?

Answering the question would entail a lot of problems. First, there should be a clear
definition of what standard is. What kind of English is Standard English? Dr. Andrew Moody,
when asked during the International Conference on World Englishes and Second Language
Teahcing on how to maintain correctness and consistency when teaching English in the
Philippines, said that it would be honest to teach Standard English as if it exists.

That answer alone could raise a lot of issues. It only shows that the concept of standard
is problematic. According to Faikrclough (1995), there is a need for a particular standard in order
to rationalize policies on teaching of Standard English. He further stated that appropriateness
figures within dominant conceptions of language variations (234).

Is there an implied claim then that students of English as a second language or as a

foreign language speak a substandard kind of English because they do not follow the standards
of General American variety? What if they (Filipinos, for example) have accepted English and
appropriated it to fit their needs and the context of situation in their own places?

Andrew Gonzales (1985), in his paper, “When Does an Error Become a Feature of
Philippine English?” pointed out that until Philippine English is really creolized English is still a
second language in the Philippines, and he believed that in teaching any second language, one
must accept a standard. However, he also stressed that no matter how hard the English teacher
tries, a local variety will continue to develop (186).

There will always be different perspectives on this matter, especially that language issues
seem to be a highly emotional matter. Should language education then go for mutual
intelligibility rather that subscribe to a certain standard? Educators and language policy planners
could go back to Fairclough’s model of language learning. They have to decide how relevant
English is to their students, and from there they have to decide what to teach and how to teach it.
Comprehensive Questions

-o0o-

Reading Texts Critically

The previous chapter established that

writing academic papers goes hand in hand with
research. Research must be done so you can find
credible sources to support your claims in your
paper. Ever since Google and Wikipedia have
become readily accessible, hundreds of sources
have become available, too. This is where critical
reading comes into play. You have to be able to
discriminate between the valuable and not so
valuable sources if you want to write academic papers.
What You Know
Ponder on this statement of Gary Goshgarian: “Critical reading is an active process of
discovery.”
 What does it mean to read critically?
 Why did Goshgarian say that critical reading is an active process of discovery?
You can map out your answers by writing words/phrases that you associate with critical reading,
active, and process of discovery. Write as many words as you can.

CRITICAL
ACTIVE
READING
 PROCESS OF
DISCOVERY

What is Critical Reading?

Critical reading involves scrutinizing any information that you read or hear. Critical
reading means not easily believing information offered to you by a text. “Read not to contradict
and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and
consider” as Francis Bacon stated in the Essays.
Ramage, Bean, and Johnson (2006) identified the following requirements in critical
thinking:
 The ability to pose problematic questions.
 The ability to analyse a problem in all its dimensions – to define its key terms, determine
its causes, understand its history, appreciate its human dimension and its connection to
one’s own personal experience, and appreciate what makes it problematic or complex.
 The ability to find, gather, an interpret data, facts, and other information relevant to the
problem.
 The ability to imagine alternative solutions to the problem, to see different ways in which
the question might be answered and different perspectives for viewing it.
 The ability to analyse competing approaches and answers, to construct arguments for and
against alternatives, and to choose the best solution in the light of values, objectives, and
other criteria that you determine and articulate.
 The ability to write an effective argument justifying your choice while acknowledging
counter-arguments.
The following are some suggested ways to help you become a critical reader:
1. Annotate what you read. One of the ways to interact with the writer is to write on the
text. You can underline, circle, or highlight words, phrases, or sentences that contain
 important details, or you can write marginal notes asking questions or commenting on the
ideas of the writer. There are no clear and definite guidelines to annotating a text; you can
create your own style. For instance, you can circle unfamiliar words or underline ideas
that you think are questionable.

2. Outline the text. In order to fully engage in a dialogue with the text or with the writer of
the text, you need to identify the main points of the writer and list them down so you can
also identify the ideas that the writer has raised to support his/her stand. You don't
necessarily have to write a structured sentence or topic outline for this purpose you can
just write in bullet or in numbers. Look at the example below:
If we outline the essay, "Why Do They Say That Our English Is Bad?" we can come up with something
like this:

Thesis statement:

Supporting details:

Point 1:

Point 2:
Thesis statement: The concept of Standard English is problematic because there is no clear
Point 3:
definition of what standard is.

Point 1: The author gives a scenario in the Philippine classrooms in which English teachers get
frustrated because of students' grammatical errors.

Point 2: The author mentioned that research studies are being conducted in order to improve
teaching English as a second language but failed to mention what those specific studies are.

Point 3: The common errors that Filipino college students commit in their writings are mentioned.

3. Summarize the text. Aside from outlining, you can also get the main points of the text
you are reading and write its gist in your own words. This will test how much you have
understood the text and will help you evaluate it critically. A summary is usually one
paragraph long.

4. Evaluate the text. The most challenging part in critical reading is the process of
evaluating what you are reading. This is the point where the other three techniques
annotating, outlining, summarizing-will be helpful. When you evaluate a text, you
question the author's purpose and intentions, as well as his/her assumptions in the claims.
You also check if the arguments are supported by evidence and if the evidence are valid
and are from credible sources.
 These four suggested ways in reading critically are not isolated processes that are
independent of each other; they are overlapping processes that you can use simultaneously as
you engage in a dialogue with the writer of the text.
Before-Reading Activity
1. Read the story “Love is a Fallacy”, and pay close attention to its development as well as
to the contradictions and ironic twist that you may find.
2. Apply the four ways of reading critically. Annotate as you read then write a summary
after reading.
Love Is a Fallacy
Max Shulman
Max Shulman: Love is a Fallacy Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious,
acute and astute—I was all of these. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, precise as a
chemist’s scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. And—think of it!—I only eighteen. It is not often
that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey Bellows, my roommate at
the university. Same age, same background, but dumb as an ox. A nice enough fellow, you
understand, but nothing upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of all, a
faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation of reason. To be swept up in every new craze that
comes along, to surrender oneself to idiocy just because everybody else is doing it—this, to me,
is the acme of mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey. One afternoon I found Petey lying on his
bed with an expression of such distress on his face that I immediately diagnosed appendicitis.
“Don’t move,” I said, “Don’t take a laxative. I’ll get a doctor.” “Raccoon,” he mumbled thickly.
“Raccoon?” I said, pausing in my flight. “I want a raccoon coat,” he wailed. I perceived
that his trouble was not physical, but mental. “Why do you want a raccoon coat?” “I should have
known it,” he cried, pounding his temples. “I should have known they’d come back when the
Charleston came back. Like a fool I spent all my money for textbooks, and now I can’t get a
raccoon coat.” “Can you mean,” I said incredulously, “that people are actually wearing raccoon
coats again?” “All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Where’ve you been?” “In the
library,” I said, naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campus. He leaped from the bed
and paced the room. “I’ve got to have a raccoon coat,” he said passionately. “I’ve got to!”
“Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They smell bad.
They weigh too much.
They’re unsightly. They—” “You don’t understand,” he interrupted impatiently. “It’s the
thing to do. Don’t you want to be in the swim?” “No,” I said truthfully. “Well, I do,” he declared.
“I’d give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!” My brain, that precision instrument, slipped
into high gear. “Anything?” I asked, looking at him narrowly. “Anything,” he affirmed in ringing
tones. I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to get my hands on a
raccoon coat.
My father had had one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a trunk in the attic back
home. It also happened that Petey had something I wanted. He didn’t have it exactly, but at least
he had first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly Espy. I had long coveted Polly Espy. Let me
emphasize that my desire for this young woman was not emotional in nature. She was, to be sure,
a girl who excited the emotions, but I was not one to let my heart rule my head.
I wanted Polly for a shrewdly calculated, entirely cerebral reason. I was a freshman in
law school. In a few years I would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of the
right kind of wife in furthering a lawyer’s career. The successful lawyers I had observed were,
almost without exception, married to beautiful, gracious, intelligent women. With one omission,
Polly fitted these specifications perfectly. Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up
proportions, but I felt that time would supply the lack. She already had the makings. Gracious
she was.
By gracious I mean full of graces. She had an erectness of carriage, an ease of bearing, a
poise that clearly indicated the best of breeding. At table her manners were exquisite. I had seen
her at the Kozy Kampus Korner eating the specialty of the house—a sandwich that contained
scraps of pot roast, gravy, chopped nuts, and a dipper of sauerkraut— without even getting her
fingers moist. Intelligent she was not. In fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed
that under my guidance she would smarten up. At any rate, it was worth a try. It is, after all,
easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful. “Petey,” I
said, “are you in love with Polly Espy?” “I think she’s a keen kid,” he replied, “but I don’t know
if you’d call it love. Why?” “Do you,” I asked, “have any kind of formal arrangement with her? I
mean are you going steady or anything like that?” “No. We see each other quite a bit, but we
both have other dates. Why?” “Is there,” I asked, “any other man for whom she has a particular
fondness?” “Not that I know of. Why?” I nodded with satisfaction. “In other words, if you were
out of the picture, the field would be open. Is that right?” “I guess so. What are you getting at?”
“Nothing , nothing,” I said innocently, and took my suitcase out the closet. “Where are you
going?” asked Petey.
“Home for weekend.” I threw a few things into the bag. “Listen,” he said, clutching my
arm eagerly, “while you’re home, you couldn’t get some money from your old man, could you,
and lend it to me so I can buy a raccoon coat?” “I may do better than that,” I said with a
mysterious wink and closed my bag and left. “Look,” I said to Petey when I got back Monday
morning. I threw open the suitcase and revealed the huge, hairy, gamy object that my father had
worn in his Stutz Bearcat in 1925. “Holy Toledo!” said Petey reverently.
He plunged his hands into the raccoon coat and then his face. “Holy Toledo!” he repeated
fifteen or twenty times. “Would you like it?” I asked. “Oh yes!” he cried, clutching the greasy
pelt to him. Then a canny look came into his eyes. “What do you want for it?” “Your girl.” I
said, mincing no words. “Polly?” he said in a horrified whisper. “You want Polly?” “That’s
right.” He flung the coat from him. “Never,” he said stoutly. I shrugged. “Okay. If you don’t
want to be in the swim, I guess it’s your business.” I sat down in a chair and pretended to read a
book, but out of the corner of my eye I kept watching Petey. He was a torn man. First he looked
at the coat with the expression of a waif at a bakery window.
 Then he turned away and set his jaw resolutely. Then he looked back at the coat, with
even more longing in his face. Then he turned away, but with not so much resolution this time.
Back and forth his head swiveled, desire waxing, resolution waning. Finally he didn’t turn away
at all; he just stood and stared with mad lust at the coat. “It isn’t as though I was in love with
Polly,” he said thickly. “Or going steady or anything like that.” “That’s right,” I murmured.
“What’s Polly to me, or me to Polly?” “Not a thing,” said I. “It’s just been a casual kick—just a
few laughs, that’s all.” “Try on the coat,” said I. He complied.
The coat bunched high over his ears and dropped all the way down to his shoe tops. He
looked like a mound of dead raccoons. “Fits fine,” he said happily. I rose from my chair. “Is it a
deal?” I asked, extending my hand. He swallowed. “It’s a deal,” he said and shook my hand. I
had my first date with Polly the following evening. This was in the nature of a survey; I wanted
to find out just how much work I had to do to get her mind up to the standard I required. I took
her first to dinner. “Gee, that was a delish dinner,” she said as we left the restaurant. Then I took
her to a movie. “Gee, that was a marvy movie,” she said as we left the theatre. And then I took
her home. “Gee, I had a sensaysh time,” she said as she bade me good night.
I went back to my room with a heavy heart. I had gravely underestimated the size of my
task. This girl’s lack of information was terrifying. Nor would it be enough merely to supply her
with information. First she had to be taught to think. This loomed as a project of no small
dimensions, and at first I was tempted to give her back to Petey. But then I got to thinking about
her abundant physical charms and about the way she entered a room and the way she handled a
knife and fork, and I decided to make an effort. I went about it, as in all things, systematically. I
gave her a course in logic. It happened that I, as a law student, was taking a course in logic
myself, so I had all the facts at my fingertips. “Poll’,” I said to her when I picked her up on our
next date, “tonight we are going over to the Knoll and talk.” “Oo, terrif,” she replied. One thing I
will say for this girl: you would go far to find another so agreeable. We went to the Knoll, the
campus trysting place, and we sat down under an old oak, and she looked at me expectantly.
“What are we going to talk about?” she asked. “Logic.” She thought this over for a minute and
decided she liked it. “Magnif,” she said. “Logic,” I said, clearing my throat, “is the science of
thinking. Before we can think correctly, we must first learn to recognize the common fallacies of
logic. These we will take up tonight.” “Wow-dow!” she cried, clapping her hands delightedly.
I winced, but went bravely on. “First let us examine the fallacy called Dicto Simpliciter.”
“By all means,” she urged, batting her lashes eagerly. “Dicto Simpliciter means an argument
based on an unqualified generalization. For example: Exercise is good. Therefore everybody
should exercise.” “I agree,” said Polly earnestly. “I mean exercise is wonderful. I mean it builds
the body and everything.” “Polly,” I said gently, “the argument is a fallacy. Exercise is good is
an unqualified generalization. For instance, if you have heart disease, exercise is bad, not good.
Many people are ordered by their doctors not to exercise. You must qualify the generalization.
You must say exercise is usually good, or exercise is good for most people. Otherwise you have
committed a Dicto Simpliciter. Do you see?” “No,” she confessed. “But this is marvy. Do more!
Do more!” “It will be better if you stop tugging at my sleeve,” I told her, and when she desisted,
I continued.
 “Next we take up a fallacy called Hasty Generalization. Listen carefully: You can’t speak
French. Petey Bellows can’t speak French. I must therefore conclude that nobody at the
University of Minnesota can speak French.” “Really?” said Polly, amazed. “Nobody?” I hid my
exasperation. “Polly, it’s a fallacy. The generalization is reached too hastily. There are too few
instances to support such a conclusion.” “Know any more fallacies?” she asked breathlessly.
“This is more fun than dancing even.” I fought off a wave of despair. I was getting nowhere with
this girl, absolutely nowhere. Still, I am nothing if not persistent. I continued. “Next comes Post
Hoc. Listen to this: Let’s not take Bill on our picnic. Every time we take him out with us, it
rains.” “I know somebody just like that,” she exclaimed. “A girl back home—Eula Becker, her
name is. It never fails. Every single time we take her on a picnic—” “Polly,” I said sharply, “it’s
a fallacy.
Eula Becker doesn’t cause the rain. She has no connection with the rain. You are guilty
of Post Hoc if you blame Eula Becker.” “I’ll never do it again,” she promised contritely. “Are
you mad at me?” I sighed. “No, Polly, I’m not mad.” “Then tell me some more fallacies.” “All
right. Let’s try Contradictory Premises.” “Yes, let’s,” she chirped, blinking her eyes happily. I
frowned, but plunged ahead. “Here’s an example of Contradictory Premises: If God can do
anything, can He make a stone so heavy that He won’t be able to lift it?” “Of course,” she replied
promptly. “But if He can do anything, He can lift the stone,” I pointed out. “Yeah,” she said
thoughtfully. “Well, then I guess He can’t make the stone.” “But He can do anything,” I
reminded her. She scratched her pretty, empty head. “I’m all confused,” she admitted. “Of course
you are. Because when the premises of an argument contradict each other, there can be no
argument.
If there is an irresistible force, there can be no immovable object. If there is an
immovable object, there can be no irresistible force. Get it?” “Tell me more of this keen stuff,”
she said eagerly. I consulted my watch. “I think we’d better call it a night. I’ll take you home
now, and you go over all the things you’ve learned. We’ll have another session tomorrow night.”
I deposited her at the girls’ dormitory, where she assured me that she had had a perfectly terrif
evening, and I went glumly home to my room. Petey lay snoring in his bed, the raccoon coat
huddled like a great hairy beast at his feet. For a moment I considered waking him and telling
him that he could have his girl back. It seemed clear that my project was doomed to failure.
The girl simply had a logic-proof head. But then I reconsidered. I had wasted one
evening; I might as well waste another. Who knew? Maybe somewhere in the extinct crater of
her mind a few members still smoldered. Maybe somehow I could fan them into flame.
Admittedly it was not a prospect fraught with hope, but I decided to give it one more try. Seated
under the oak the next evening I said, “Our first fallacy tonight is called Ad Misericordiam.” She
quivered with delight. “Listen closely,” I said. “A man applies for a job. When the boss asks him
what his qualifications are, he replies that he has a wife and six children at home, the wife is a
helpless cripple, the children have nothing to eat, no clothes to wear, no shoes on their feet, there
are no beds in the house, no coal in the cellar, and winter is coming.” A tear rolled down each of
Polly’s pink cheeks. “Oh, this is awful, awful,” she sobbed. “Yes, it’s awful,” I agreed, “but it’s
no argument. The man never answered the boss’s question about his qualifications. Instead he
appealed to the boss’s sympathy. He committed the fallacy of Ad Misericordiam. Do you
understand?” “Have you got a handkerchief?” she blubbered. I handed her a handkerchief and
tried to keep from screaming while she wiped her eyes. “Next,” I said in a carefully controlled
tone, “we will discuss False Analogy.
Here is an example: Students should be allowed to look at their textbooks during
examinations. After all, surgeons have X-rays to guide them during an operation, lawyers have
briefs to guide them during a trial, and carpenters have blueprints to guide them when they are
building a house. Why, then, shouldn’t students be allowed to look at their textbooks during an
examination?” “There now,” she said enthusiastically, “is the most marvy idea I’ve heard in
years.” “Polly,” I said testily, “the argument is all wrong. Doctors, lawyers, and carpenters aren’t
taking a test to see how much they have learned, but students are.
The situations are altogether different, and you can’t make an analogy between them.” “I
still think it’s a good idea,” said Polly. “Nuts,” I muttered. Doggedly I pressed on. “Next we’ll
try Hypothesis Contrary to Fact.” “Sounds yummy,” was Polly’s reaction. “Listen: If Madame
Curie had not happened to leave a photographic plate in a drawer with a chunk of pitchblende,
the world today would not know about radium.” “True, true,” said Polly, nodding her head “Did
you see the movie? Oh, it just knocked me out. That Walter Pidgeon is so dreamy. I mean he
fractures me.” “If you can forget Mr. Pidgeon for a moment,” I said coldly, “I would like to point
out that statement is a fallacy. Maybe Madame Curie would have discovered radium at some
later date. Maybe somebody else would have discovered it.
Maybe any number of things would have happened. You can’t start with a hypothesis that
is not true and then draw any supportable conclusions from it.” “They ought to put Walter
Pidgeon in more pictures,” said Polly, “I hardly ever see him anymore.” One more chance, I
decided. But just one more. There is a limit to what flesh and blood can bear. “The next fallacy is
called Poisoning the Well.” “How cute!” she gurgled. “Two men are having a debate. The first
one gets up and says, ‘My opponent is a notorious liar. You can’t believe a word that he is going
to say.’ … Now, Polly, think. Think hard. What’s wrong?” I watched her closely as she knit her
creamy brow in concentration. Suddenly a glimmer of intelligence—the first I had seen—came
into her eyes. “It’s not fair,” she said with indignation. “It’s not a bit fair. What chance has the
second man got if the first man calls him a liar before he even begins talking?” “Right!” I cried
exultantly. “One hundred per cent right. It’s not fair.
The first man has poisoned the well before anybody could drink from it. He has
hamstrung his opponent before he could even start … Polly, I’m proud of you.” “Pshaws,” she
murmured, blushing with pleasure. “You see, my dear, these things aren’t so hard. All you have
to do is concentrate. Think— examine—evaluate. Come now, let’s review everything we have
learned.” “Fire away,” she said with an airy wave of her hand. Heartened by the knowledge that
Polly was not altogether a cretin, I began a long, patient review of all I had told her. Over and
over and over again I cited instances, pointed out flaws, kept hammering away without let-up. It
was like digging a tunnel.
 At first, everything was work, sweat, and darkness. I had no idea when I would reach the
light, or even if I would. But I persisted. I pounded and clawed and scraped, and finally I was
rewarded. I saw a chink of light. And then the chink got bigger and the sun came pouring in and
all was bright. Five gruelling nights with this took, but it was worth it. I had made a logician out
of Polly; I had taught her to think. My job was done. She was worthy of me, at last. She was a fit
wife for me, a proper hostess for my many mansions, and a suitable mother for my well-heeled
children. It must not be thought that I was without love for this girl.
Quite the contrary. Just as Pygmalion loved the perfect woman he had fashioned, so I
loved mine. I decided to acquaint her with my feelings at our very next meeting. The time had
come to change our relationship from academic to romantic. “Polly,” I said when next we sat
beneath our oak, “tonight we will not discuss fallacies.” “Aw, gee,” she said, disappointed. “My
dear,” I said, favoring her with a smile, “we have now spent five evenings together. We have
gotten along splendidly. It is clear that we are well matched.” “Hasty Generalization,” said Polly
brightly. “I beg your pardon,” said I. “Hasty Generalization,” she repeated. “How can you say
that we are well matched on the basis of only five dates?” I chuckled with amusement. The dear
child had learned her lessons well. “My dear,” I said, patting her hand in a tolerant manner, “five
dates is plenty. After all, you don’t have to eat a whole cake to know that it’s good.” “False
Analogy,” said Polly promptly. “I’m not a cake. I’m a girl.” I chuckled with somewhat less
amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons perhaps too well. I decided to change tactics.
Obviously the best approach was a simple, strong, direct declaration of love.
I paused for a moment while my massive brain chose the proper word. Then I began:
“Polly, I love you. You are the whole world to me, the moon and the stars and the constellations
of outer space. Please, my darling, say that you will go steady with me, for if you will not, life
will be meaningless. I will languish. I will refuse my meals. I will wander the face of the earth, a
shambling, hollow-eyed hulk.” There, I thought, folding my arms that ought to do it. “Ad
Misericordiam,” said Polly. I ground my teeth. I was not Pygmalion; I was Frankenstein, and my
monster had me by the throat. Frantically I fought back the tide of panic surging through me; at
all costs I had to keep cool. “Well, Polly,” I said, forcing a smile, “you certainly have learned
your fallacies.” “You’re darn right,” she said with a vigorous nod. “And who taught them to you,
Polly?” “You did.” “That’s right. So you do owe me something, don’t you, my dear? If I hadn’t
come along you never would have learned about fallacies.” “Hypothesis Contrary to Fact,” she
said instantly. I dashed perspiration from my brow. “Polly,” I croaked, “you mustn’t take all
these things so literally. I mean this is just classroom stuff. You know that the things you learn in
school don’t have anything to do with life.” “Dicto Simpliciter,” she said, wagging her finger at
me playfully.
That did it. I leaped to my feet, bellowing like a bull. “Will you or will you not go steady
with me?” “I will not,” she replied. “Why not?” I demanded. “Because this afternoon I promised
Petey Bellows that I would go steady with him.” I reeled back, overcome with the infamy of it.
After he promised, after he made a deal, after he shook my hand! “The rat!” I shrieked, kicking
up great chunks of turf. “You can’t go with him, Polly. He’s a liar. He’s a cheat. He’s a rat.”
“Poisoning the Well ,” said Polly, “and stop shouting. I think shouting must be a fallacy too.”
With an immense effort of will, I modulated my voice. “All right,” I said. “You’re a logician.
Let’s look at this thing logically. How could you choose Petey Bellows over me? Look at me—a
brilliant student, a tremendous intellectual, a man with an assured future. Look at Petey—a
knothead, a jitterbug, a guy who’ll never know where his next meal is coming from. Can you
give me one logical reason why you should go steady with Petey Bellows?” “I certainly can,”
declared Polly. “He’s got a raccoon coat.”
Comprehension Questions

-o0o-

Lesson 2 (Week 4-6)

WRITING THE REACTION PAPER/REVIEW/ CRITIQUE

Overview
Writing is hard, simply because one hopes to write using the best possible words to
articulate the best possible thoughts in the most creative way imaginable. Despite this fact,
writing a reaction paper seems not that different from a status message in Facebook. In practice,
the reaction paper is an informed and insightful perspective on art, popular culture, and the
world. Think about the millions of voices clamouring to be heard and read on the internet, and
you come to know how to deal with the challenge of sounding original and insightful. In the end,
the reaction paper is a reasoned and reasonable response to the world; the best response can
either be intelligent, humorous, wise, or all of the above.
Learning Competencies
At the end of the module, the learner:
1. forms opinions based on facts,
2. cites specific sources to support claims,
3. presents ideas convincingly,
4. uses the appropriate language for a specific discipline,
5. raises legitimate, contrary views in an appropriate manner,
6. uses appropriate critical approaches* in writing a critique such as formalism, feminism,
etc.,
7. applies the principles of writing effective reviews and critiques, and
8. writes an objective/balanced review or critique of a work of art, an event or a program.
Performance Task:
At the end of the module, the learner:
 1. produces an objective assessment of an event, a person, a place or a thing.
2. writes a comprehensive review /reaction paper (Performance Arts, Play, Dance, Sports,
etc. Film Participation in a religious or community festival and Art Exhibit )
3. critiques designs such as industrial design objects or craft objects, furniture, fashion
designs based on a set criteria
4. critiques graphic design communication materials such as posters, billboards,
commercials, digital and other media

What is a reaction paper?

Reaction or response papers are designed so that you'll consider carefully what you think or
feel about something you've read or seen.

Instructions
Read or view whatever you've been asked to respond to read or view. While reading or viewing
think about the following questions:
 How do you feel about what you are reading (seeing)?
 With what do you agree or disagree?
 Can you identify with the situation?
 What would be the best way to evaluate what you read or see?

Pre-writing for Your Reaction Paper

Keeping your responses to these questions in mind, complete as many statements as possible
about what you read or saw.

1. I think that
2. I see that
3. I feel that
4. Its seems that
5. In my opinion
6. Because
7. A good quote is
8. In addition
9. For example
10. Moreover
11. However
12. Consequently
13. Finally
14. In conclusion

The above statements become your rough draft. Now it needs to be organized. Your paper
should have:
 An introduction (no more than two paragraphs),
 A body, and
 A conclusion.
 I. Introduction
 Sentence 1 should include pertinent information such as author, title, and publication or
presenter, title, and place.
 Sentence 2, 3, and 4 should give a summary or overview.
 Sentence 5 should be your thesis (i.e., you agree, disagree, identify with, or evaluate)

NOTE: A thesis statement is an assertion, not a statement of fact. A thesis should take
a stand, contain one main point, and be sufficiently specific and narrow.
NON-EXAMPLE: Students write many papers in college courses.
EXAMPLE: Students write papers in college to advance their knowledge of certain
subjects.

II. Body
 The body should contain paragraphs that provide support for your thesis.
 Each paragraph should contain one idea.
 The topic sentence of each paragraph should support the thesis.
 The final sentence of each paragraph should lead into the next paragraph.

III. Conclusion
The conclusion can be:
 A restatement of what you said in your paper,
 A comment that focuses your overall reaction, or
 A prediction of the effects about your topic.

Note: your conclusion should include no new information.

Reading Text:

Read “The Reaction Paper: A measured Response to the World” and answer the comprehensive
questions.

"The Reaction Paper: A Measured Response to the World"

Marikit Tara Alto Uychoco
(1) The world can be a chaotic place. Often, there seems to be no rhyme or reason in the events
that happen to us. Oftentimes, people despair, and the modern alienation articulated by Henry
Thoreau may be true for many----"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
(2) In order to make sense of the world, people write. In order to create a semblance of order and
understanding of one's experiences people write. Often enough, they write a measured response
to what has happened to them. This takes on various forms, but for the purpose of this textbook,
the forms, but for the purpose of this textbook, the forms we will explore are the review and the
reaction paper.
(3) Of course, some may consider a diary entry to be a reaction paper to the world. However,
diary entries are personal in their significance, while the reaction paper's significance os societal.
The reaction paper is written for the enlightenment of one's fellow human beings; a diary entry is
written for the enlightenment of the self. Both have their significance, however, only the reaction
paper is considered significantly valuable for the academe.
(4) There is also a difference in form: the reaction paper is more formal, more descriptive, and
often uses the rhetorical devices of description and narration in order to prove a point; while the
diary entry is less formal, less descriptive, and does not endeavor to persuade or to make another
person understand; hence, there is no real effort in using rhetorical devices. Oftentimes, the diary
entry is a way to rage against petty insults and grievances.
(5) When one reads a reaction paper, one expects to be informed and amused. Reaction papers
help us in our everyday decisions: from what movie we should watch, to the clothing that we
should wear, and the causes that we should believe in. It tells us that we are not alone in
experiencing the world, and that there are others before us who care to tell us what to watch out
for, and how to best experience what we are about to go through.
(6) Modern interactions of the reaction paper are the movie, review, gadget review, trip advisor
post, and other travel reviews, restaurant reviews, and essays that discuss a social phenomenon
or a common experience. Many editorials can be considered reaction papers, if not, position
papers. Many of them are written in newspapers, magazines, and weblogs.
(7) Although the modern world can be a lonely and alienating place, the reaction paper can reach
out and tell us that we are not alone. It helps to know that the other person is going through the
same experience as well, and that this person has something to tell you about how to survive,
what to avoid, and where to seek pleasure. A reaction paper, when done right, can help us
process our own experience, and help us see things that we weren't able to see on our own.
(8) In today's multimedia world, this stretches across countries and over territorial borders, where
a housewife from Manila can tell a tourist from Tokyo how to best survive Manila's hot summer.
We reach out to one another, in order to make the world a better place, by mapping the world for
others, and letting them know where beauty and darkness reside.

Comprehension Questions
1. What is the difference between a diary entry and a reaction paper?
2. According to the text, what is the importance of the reaction paper to society?
3. Why does the academe value the reaction paper?
4. What do you think makes a good reaction paper?
5. Did the text change the way you look at the reaction papers? Why or why not?
-
Reading Text:
Read the review about O. Henry and answer the comprehensive questions.

There are two opinions concerning O. Henry. The middle class views him as the
impersonation of vigor and brilliancy; part of the higher criticism sees in him little but sensation
and persiflage. Between these views there is a natural relation; the gods of the heathens are ipso
facto the demons of Christianity. Unmixed assertions, however, are commonly mixtures of truth
and falsehood; there is room to-day for an estimate which shall respect both opinions and adopt
neither.
There is one literary trait in which I am unable to name any writer of tales in any
literature who surpasses O. Henry. 1 It is not primary or even secondary among literary merits; it
is less a value per se than the condition or foundation of values. But its utility is manifest, and it
is rare among men: Chaucer and Shakespeare prove the possibility of its absence in masters of
that very branch of art in which its presence would seem to be imperative. I refer to the designing
of stories—not to the primary intuition or to skill in development, in both of which finer phases
of invention O. Henry has been largely and frequently surpassed, but to the disposition of
masses, to the blocking-out of plots. That a half educated American provincial should have been
original in a field in which original men have been copyists is enough of itself to make his
personality observable.
Illustration, even of conceded truth, is rarely superfluous. I supply two instances. Two
lads, parting in New York, agree to meet “After Twenty Years” at a specified hour, date, and
corner. Both are faithful; but the years in which their relation has slept in mutual silence and
ignorance have turned the one into a dashing criminal, the other into a sober officer of the law.
Behind the picturesque and captivating rendezvous lurks a powerful dramatic situation and a
moral problem of arresting gravity. This is dealt with in six pages of the “Four Million.” The
“Furnished Room,” two stories further on, occupies twelve pages. Through the wilderness of
apartments on the lower West Side a man trails a woman. Chance leads him to the very room in
which the woman ended her life the week before. Between him and the truth the avarice of a
sordid landlady interposes the curtain of a lie. In the bed in which the girl slept and died, the man
sleeps and dies, and the entrance of the deadly fumes into his nostrils shuts the sinister and
mournful coincidence forever from the knowledge of mankind. O. Henry gave these tales neither
extension nor prominence; so far as I know, they were received without bravos or salvos. The
distinction of a body of work in which such specimens are undistinguished hardly requires
comment.
A few types among these stories may be specified. There are the Sydney Cartonisms,
defined in the name; love-stories in which divided hearts, or simply divided persons, are brought
together by the strategy of chance; hoax stories—deft pictures of smiling roguery; “prince and
pauper” stories, in which wealth and poverty face each other, sometimes enact each other;
disguise stories, in which the wrong clothes often draw the wrong bullets; complemental stories,
in which Jim sacrifices his beloved watch to buy combs for Della, who, meanwhile, has
sacrificed her beloved hair to buy a chain for Jim.
This imperfect list is eloquent in its way; it smoothens our path to the assertion that O.
Henry’s specialty is the enlistment of original method in the service of traditional appeals. The
ends are the ends of fifty years ago; O. Henry transports us by aeroplane the old homestead.
Criticism of O. Henry falls into those superlatives and antitheses in which his own
faculty delighted. In mechanical invention he is almost the leader of his race. In a related quality
—a defect—his leadership is even more conspicuous. I doubt if the sense of the probable, or,
more precisely, of the available in the improbable, ever became equally weakened or deadened in
a man who made his living by its exercise. The improbable, even the impossible, has its place in
art, though that place is relatively low; and it is curious that works such as the “Arabian Nights”
and Grimm’s fairy tales, whose stock-in-trade is the incredible, are the works which give almost
no trouble on the score of verisimilitude. The truth is that we reject not what it is impossible to
prove, or even what it is possible to disprove, but what it is impossible to imagine. O. Henry asks
us to imagine the unimaginable—that is his crime.
The right and wrong improbabilities may be illustrated from two burglar stories. “Sixes
and Sevens” contains an excellent tale of a burglar and a citizen who fraternize, in a comic
midnight interview, on the score of their common sufferings from rheumatism. This feeling in
practice would not triumph over fear and greed; but the feeling is natural, and everybody with a
grain of nature in him can imagine its triumph. Nature tends towards that impossibility, and art,
lifting, so to speak, the lid which fact drops upon nature, reveals nature in belying fact. In
another story, in “Whirligigs,” a nocturnal interview takes place in which a burglar and a small
boy discuss the etiquette of their mutual relation by formulas derived from short stories with
which both are amazingly conversant. This is the wrong use of improbable. Even an imagination
inured to the virtues of burglars and the maturity of small boys will have naught to do with this
insanity.
But O. Henry can go further yet. There are inventions in his tales the very utterance of
which—not the mere substance but the utterance—on the part of a man not writing from Bedlam
or for Bedlam impresses the reader as incredible. In a “Comedy in Rubber,” two persons become
so used to spectatorship at transactions in the street that they drift into the part of spectators when
the transaction is their own wedding. Can human daring or human folly go further? O. Henry is
on the spot to prove that they can. In the “Romance of a Busy Broker,” a busy and forgetful man,
in a freak of absent-mindedness, offers his hand to the stenographer whom he had married the
night before.
The other day, in the journal of the Goncourts, I came upon the following sentence:
“Never will the imagination approach the improbabilities and the antitheses of truth” (II, 9). This
is dated February 21, 1862. Truth had still the advantage. O. Henry was not born till September
of the same year.
Passing on to style, we are still in the land of antithesis. The style is gross—and fine. Of
the plenitude of its stimulus, there can be no question. In “Sixes and Sevens,” a young man
sinking under accidental morphia, is kept awake and alive by shouts, kicks, and blows. O.
Henry’s public seems imaged in that young man. But I draw a sharp distinction between the tone
of the style and its pattern. The tone is brazen, or, better perhaps, brassy; its self-advertisement is
incorrigible; it reeks with that air of performance which is opposed to real efficiency. But the
pattern is another matter. The South rounds its periods like its vowels; O. Henry has read, not
widely, but wisely, in his boyhood. His sentences are built—a rare thing in the best writers of to-
day. In conciseness, that Spartan virtue, he was strong, though it must be confessed that the tale-
teller was now and then hustled from the rostrum by his rival and enemy, the talker. He can
introduce a felicity with a noiselessness that numbers him for a flying second among the
sovereigns of English. “In one of the second-floor front windows Mrs. McCaskey awaited her
husband. Supper was cooling on the table. Its heat went into Mrs. McCaskey.”
I regret the tomfoolery; I wince at the slang. Yet even for these levities with which his
pages are so liberally besprinkled or bedaubed, some half-apology may be circumspectly urged.
In nonsense his ease is consummate. A horseman who should dismount to pick up a bauble
would be childish; O. Henry picks it up without dismounting. Slang, again, is most pardonable in
the man with whom its use is least exclusive and least necessary. There are men who, going for a
walk, take their dogs with them; there are other men who give a walk to their dogs. Substitute
slang for the dog, and the superiority of the first class to the second will exactly illustrate the
superiority of O. Henry to the abject traffickers in slang.
In the “Pendulum” Katy has a new patch in her crazy quilt which the ice man cut from
the end of his four-in-hand. In the “Day We Celebrate,” threading the mazes of a banana grove is
compared to “paging the palm room of a New York hotel for a man named Smith.” O. Henry’s is
the type of mind to which images like this four-in-hand and this palm room are presented in
exhaustless abundance and unflagging continuity. There was hardly an object in the merry-go-
round of civilized life that had not offered at least an end or an edge to the avidity of his
consuming eyes. Nothing escapes from the besom of his allusiveness, and the style is streaked
and pied, almost to monotony, by the accumulation of lively details
If O. Henry’s style was crude, it was also rare; but it is part of the grimness of the bargain
that destiny drives with us that the mixture of the crude and the rare should be a crude mixture,
as the sons of whites and negroes are numbered with the blacks. In the kingdom of style O.
Henry’s estates were princely, but, to pay his debts, he must have sold them all.
Thus far in our inquiry extraordinary merits have been offset by extraordinary defects. To
lift our author out of the class of brilliant and skilful entertainers, more is needed. Is more
forthcoming? I should answer, yes. In O. Henry, above the knowledge of setting, which is clear
and first-hand, but subsidiary, above the order of events, which is, generally speaking, fantastic,
above the emotions, which are sound and warm, but almost purely derivative, there is a rather
small, but impressive body of first-hand perspicacities and reactions. On these his endurance
may hinge.
I name, first of all, O. Henry’s feeling for New York. With the exception of his New
Orleans, I care little for his South and West, which are a boyish South and West, and as little, or
even less, for his Spanish-American communities. My objection to his operabouffe republics is,
not that they are inadequate as republics (for that we were entirely prepared), but that they are
inadequate as opera. He lets us see his show from the coulisses. The pretense lacks standing even
among pretenses, and a faith must be induced before its removal can enliven us. But his New
York has quality. It is of the family of Dickens’s London and Hugo’s Paris, though it is plainly a
cadet in the family. Mr. Howells, in his profound and valuable study of the metropolis in a
“Hazard of New Fortunes,” is penetrating; O. Henry, on the other hand, is penetrated. His New
York is intimate and clinging; it is caught in the mesh of the imagination.
 O. Henry had rare but precious insights into human destiny and human nature. In these
pictures he is not formally accurate; he could never or seldom set his truth before us in that
moderation and proportion which truths acquire in the stringencies of actuality. He was apt to
present his insight in a sort of parable or allegory, to upraise it before the eyes of mankind on the
mast or flagpole of some vehement exaggeration. Epigram shows us truth in the embrace of a lie,
and tales which are dramatized epigrams are subject to a like constraint. The force, however, is
real. I could scarcely name anywhere a more powerful exposition of fatality than “Roads of
Destiny,” the initial story in the volume which appropriates its title. It wanted only the skilled
romantic touch of a Gautier or Stevenson to enroll this tale among the masterpieces of its kind in
contemporary letters.
Now and then the ingredient of parable is hardly perceptible; we draw close to the bare
fact. O. Henry, fortunate in plots, is peculiarly fortunate in his renunciation of plot. If contrivance
is lucrative, it is also costly. There is an admirable little story called the “Pendulum” (in the
“Trimmed Lamp”), the simplicity of whose fable would have satisfied Coppée or Hawthorne. A
man in a flat, by force of custom, has come to regard his wife as a piece of furniture. She departs
for a few hours, and, by the break in usage, is restored, in his consciousness, to womanhood. She
comes back, and relapses into furniture. That is all. O. Henry could not have given us less—or
more. Farcical, clownish, if you will, the story resembles those clowns who carry daggers under
their motley. When John Perkins takes up that inauspicious hat, the reader smiles, and quails. I
will mention a few other examples of insights with the proviso that they are not specially
commended to the man whose quest in the short story is the electrifying or the calorific. They
include the “Social Triangle,” the “Making of a New Yorker,” and the “Foreign Policy of
Company 99,” all in the “Trimmed Lamp,” the “Brief Début of Tildy” in the “Four Million,” and
the “Complete Life of John Hopkins” in the “Voice of the City.” I cannot close this summary of
good points without a passing reference to the not unsuggestive portrayal of humane and cheerful
scoundrels in the “Gentle Grafter.” The picture, if false to species, is faithful to genus.
O. Henry’s egregiousness, on the superficial side, both in merits and defects, reminds us
of those park benches so characteristic of his tales which are occupied by a millionaire at one end
and a mendicant at the other. But, to complete the image, we must add as a casual visitor to that
bench a seer or a student, who, sitting down between the previous comers and suspending the
flamboyancies of their dialogue, should gaze with the pensive eye of Goldsmith or Addison upon
the passing crowd.
In O. Henry American journalism and the Victorian tradition meet. His mind, quick to
don the guise of modernity, was impervious to its spirit. The specifically modern movements, the
scientific awakening, the religious upheaval and subsidence, the socialistic gospel, the
enfranchisement of women—these never interfered with his artless and joyous pursuit of the old
romantic motives of love, hate, wealth, poverty, gentility, disguise, and crime. On two points a
moral record which, in his literature, is everywhere sound and stainless, and rises almost to
nobility. In an age when sexual excitement had become available and permissible, this worshiper
of stimulus never touched with so much as a fingertip that insidious and meretricious fruit. The
second point is his feeling for underpaid working-girls. His passionate concern for this wrong
derives a peculiar emphasis from the general refusal of his books to bestow countenance or
notice of philanthropy in its collective forms. When, in his dream of Heaven, he is asked: “Are
you one of the bunch?” (meaning one of the bunch of grasping and grinding employers), the
response, through all its slang, is soul-stirring. “‘Not on your immortality,’ said I. ‘I’m only the
fellow that set fire to an orphan asylum and murdered a blind man for his pennies.’” The author
of that retort may have some difficulty with the sentries that watch the entrance of Parnassus; he
will have none with the gatekeeper of the New Jerusalem.
Comprehension Questions
1. Do you like O. Henry’s stories? Why or why not?
2. Why do you think some reviewers did not like O. Henry’s work?
3. What do you think of the way the text reviewed O. Henry’s stories?
4. What is the text’s point about O. Henry and New York?
5. Was it important to summarize the short stories? Why or why not?
6. Does the text explain the craftsmanship behind O. Henry’s work? Is this necessary?
7. What do you think of the language used in the text?
8. What does the text conclude regarding O. Henry?
9. Did the review satisfy you? Why or why not?
10. What do you look for in reviews?

Activity Time 
-o0o-
Lesson 3 (Week 7-10)
WRITING A CONCEPT PAPER

Overview
In the previous chapter, you were introduced to the reaction paper and you learned that
writing a reaction paper involves considerable thought and deliberation, and is not a careless
comment to an issue. In this chapter, you will be introduced to the concept paper and how it is
similar or different to a reaction paper.
Learning Competencies
At the end of the module, the learner:
1. defines what a concept paper is
2. determines the ways a writer can elucidate on a concept by definition, explication and
clarification,
3. identifies situations in which a concept paper may be effectively used to improve our
society,
 4. comprehends various kinds of concept papers
5. explains and clarifies concepts in fields such as:
a. art
b. business
c. law
d. philosophy
e. politics
f. religion
g. science
h. sports
i. techvoc
i.1. home economics
i.2. agri fishery
i.3. IA
i.4. ICT
6. presents a novel concept or project with accompanying visuals/ graphic aids.
Performance Task:
At the end of the module, the learner:
1. produces a well-balanced concept paper in a specific discipline

The Art of Defining

Definition is a mode of paragraph development that answers the question: What is it?
What does it mean? What are its special features? The word to be defined may be an object, a
concept, a person, a place, or a phenomenon.
Definition is important because it clarifies the meaning of a word or a concept and it also
limits the scope of that particular word or concept. Limiting the scope controls and avoid
misinterpretations, vague notions, and/or broad ideas, as what was presented in the introduction
to this chapter.
There are different techniques of defining. The most common is the formal definition in
which you are given a term to be defined and you define the term by giving the class where the
word/term belongs (the genus) and the characteristics that distinguish the term from other terms,
known as the differentia. For example:

Term Genus Differentia

That answers the questions:
A mode of paragraph
Definition What is it, what does it mean,
development
or what is its special features.
 In the example, definition, the term to be defined, belongs to the genus mode of
paragraph development. What distinguishes it from other modes of paragraph development like
narration, description, etc. is that it answers the specific questions, what it is, what does it mean,
or what are its special features.
However, not all words or concepts can be defined using the formal definition. For
instance, words like love, equality, and democracy cannot be defined by giving their genus and
differentia. You cannot say that love is an emotion that all human beings feel because that
definition would be too vague.
An extended definition is needed to define abstract concepts. It allows you to broaden
your definition by using analogy, metaphors, comparison and contrast, descriptions, analysis,
functions, etymology, and semantic origin.
Below is a sample definition of democracy. Notice how the formal definition is first used
and expanded with the use of different techniques of defining.
(1) “Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens participate equally –
either directly or through elected representatives – in the proposal, development, and
creation of laws.
(2) It encompasses social, economic, and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal
practice of political self-determination.
(3) The term originates from the Greek demokratia “rule of the people” which was coined
from demos “people” and kratos “power” or “rule” in the 5th century BCE to denote the
political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Athens.
(4) The term is antonym to aristokratia “rule of an elite”.
(5) While theoretically these definitions are in opposition, in practice, the distinction has
been blurred historically.
(6) The political system of Classical Athens, for example, granted democratic citizenship to
an elite class of free men and excluded slaves and women from political participation.
(7) In virtually all democratic governments throughout ancient and modern history,
democratic citizenships consisted of an elite class until full enfranchisement was won for
all adult citizens in most modern democracies through the suffrage movements of the 19 th
and 20th centuries.
Democracy was first given a formal definition – a term that belongs to the class, “form of
government." What distinguishes it from other forms of government is that "all eligible citizens
participate equally-either directly or through elected representatives in the proposal,
development, and creation of laws." The definition was further extended using analysis by saying
that "[democracy] encompasses social, economic, and cultural conditions that enable the free and
equal practice of political self-determination."
To make the definition even clearer, the origin of the word was traced in sentence 3:"The
term originates from the Greek ônuoKpaTía (dëmokratía) "rule of the people," which was coined
from onuoç (dêmos) "people" and KpáTOC (kratos) "power" or "rule" in the 5th century BCE to
denote the political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Athens." This is what you
call definition by etymology. In sentences 4 and 5, the word is defined by the use of opposites,
also called as definition by contrast. The contrast is further established in sentences 6 and 7 by
giving examples or called definition by example.
Aside from the formal definition, you have added definition by etymology, definition by
analysis, definition by contrast, and definition by example to your reservoir of knowledge.
Other techniques of defining include definition by synonym (using a similar word or
phrase to define a word); definition by function (stating what the term is for); definition by
analogy (comparing the term to another object/concept/idea that shares the same characteristic as
the term being defined; definition by comparison and contrast; and definition by negation
(defining the term by stating what it is not). These other techniques will be explored in the
sample essay in the next reading text.
Expanding Your Knowledge
What are the techniques of defining that you have identified from the three concepts that were
defined?
Term to be defined Technique used in defining

The Art of Defining a Concept

In the previous lesson, you were introduced to the art

of defining. You also learned that there are words
(such as love, justice, equality) that cannot be defined
using the formal definition because the words are
abstract.
In this lesson, you will learn that when you define a
concept, you are dealing not just with definitions but
with explanations and examples, as well. You will
find out more about this is the essay that you will read later.
Ponder On It!
Identify a male celebrity whom you think exudes manhood/manliness. List down at least
five reasons to support your choice. You may draw/sketch the celebrity or use your gadget
(mobile phone, tablet, or laptop).
Answer the following questions based on your answers and descriptions:
1. What are the different ideas on manhood/manliness?
2. What is/are the dominant notion(s) of manhood/manliness? Why do you think so?
Reading Text
Read “Being a Man” by Paul Theroux as part of your Small Task.

Being a Man
Paul Theroux
(1) There is a pathetic sentence in the chapter "Fetishism" in Dr. Norman Cameron's book
Personality Development and Psychopathology. It goes, "Fetishists are nearly always
men; and their commonest fetish is a woman's shoe." I cannot read that sentence
without thinking that it is just one more awful thing about being a man—and perhaps it
is an important thing to know about us.

(2) I have always disliked being a man. The whole idea of manhood in America is pitiful,
in my opinion. This version of masculinity is a little like having to wear an ill-fitting
coat for one's entire life (by contrast, I imagine femininity to be an oppressive sense of
nakedness). Even the expression "Be a man!" strikes me as insulting and abusive. It
means: Be stupid, be unfeeling, obedient, soldierly, and stop thinking. Man means
"manly"—how can one think about men without considering the terrible ambition of
manliness? And yet it is part of every man's life. It is a hideous and crippling lie; it not
only insists on difference and connives at superiority, it is also by its very nature
destructive—emotionally damaging and socially harmful.

(3) The youth who is subverted, as most are, into believing in the masculine ideal is
effectively separated from women and he spends the rest of his life finding women a
riddle and a nuisance. Of course, there is a female version of this male affliction. It
begins with mothers encouraging little girls to say (to other adults) "Do you like my
new dress?" In a sense, little girls are traditionally urged to please adults with a kind of
coquettishness, while boys are enjoined to behave like monkeys towards each other.
The nine-year-old coquette proceeds to become womanish in a subtle power game in
which she learns to be sexually indispensable, socially decorative and always alert to a
man's sense of inadequacy.

(4) Femininity—being lady-like—implies needing a man as witness and seducer; but

masculinity celebrates the exclusive company of men. That is why it is so grotesque;
and that is also why there is no manliness without inadequacy—because it denies men
the natural friendship of women.

(5) It is very hard to imagine any concept of manliness that does not belittle women, and it
begins very early. At an age when I wanted to meet girls—let's say the treacherous
years of thirteen to sixteen—I was told to take up a sport, get more fresh air, join the
Boy Scouts, and I was urged not to read so much. It was the 1950s and if you asked too
 many questions about sex you were sent to camp—boy's camp, of course: the
nightmare. Nothing is more unnatural or prison-like than a boy's camp, but if it were
not for them we would have no Elks' Lodges, no pool rooms, no boxing matches, no
Marines.

(6) And perhaps no sports as we know them. Everyone is aware of how few in number are
the athletes who behave like gentlemen. Just as high school basketball teaches you how
to be a poor loser, the manly attitude towards sports seems to be little more than a
recipe for creating bad marriages, social misfits, moral degenerates, sadists, latent
rapists and just plain louts. I regard high school sports as a drug far worse than
marijuana, and it is the reason that the average tennis champion, say, is a pathetic oaf.

(7) Any objective study would find the quest for manliness essentially right-wing,
puritanical, cowardly, neurotic and fueled largely by a fear of women. It is also certainly
philistine. There is no book-hater like a Little League coach. But indeed all the creative
arts are obnoxious to the manly ideal, because at their best the arts are pursued by
uncompetitive and essentially solitary people. It makes it very hard for a creative
youngster, for any boy who expresses the desire to be alone seems to be saying that
there is something wrong with him.

(8) It ought to be clear by now that I have something of an objection to the way we turn
boys into men. It does not surprise me that when the President of the United States has
his customary weekend off he dresses like a cowboy—it is both a measure of his
insecurity and his willingness to please. In many ways, American culture does little
more for a man than prepare him for modeling clothes in the L. L. Bean catalogue. I take
this as a personal insult because for many years I found it impossible to admit to myself
that I wanted to be a writer. It was my guilty secret, because being a writer was
incompatible with being a man.
(9) There are people who might deny this, but that is because the American writer, typically,
has been so at pains to prove his manliness that we have come to see literariness and
manliness as mingled qualities. But first there was a fear that writing was not a manly
profession— indeed, not a profession at all. (The paradox in American letters is that it
has always been easier for a woman to write and for a man to be published.

(10) Growing up, I had thought of sports as wasteful and humiliating, and the idea of
manliness was a bore. My wanting to become a writer was not a flight from that
oppressive role-playing, but I quickly saw that it was at odds with it. Everything in
stereotyped manliness goes against the life of the mind. The Hemingway personality is
too tedious to go into here, and in any case his exertions are well-known, but certainly it
was not until this aberrant behavior was examined by feminists in the 1960s that any
male writer dared question the pugnacity in Hemingway's fiction. All the bullfighting
and arm wrestling and elephant shooting diminished Hemingway as a writer, but it is
consistent with a prevailing attitude in American writing: one cannot be a male writer
without first proving that one is a man
 (11) It is normal in America for a man to be dismissive or even somewhat apologetic about
being a writer. Various factors make it easier. There is a heartiness about journalism that
makes it acceptable—journalism is the manliest form of American writing and,
therefore, the profession the most independent-minded women seek (yes, it is an
illusion, but that is my point). Fiction-writing is equated with a kind of dispirited failure
and is only manly when it produces wealth—money is masculinity. So is drinking.
Being a drunkard is another assertion, if misplaced, of manliness. The American male
writer is traditionally proud of his heavy drinking. But we are also a very literal-minded
people. A man proves his manhood in America in old-fashioned ways. He kills lions,
like Hemingway; or he hunts ducks, like Nathanael West; or he makes pronouncements
like, "A man should carry enough knife to defend himself with," as James Jones once
said to a Life interviewer. Or he says he can drink you under the table. But even tiny
drunken William Faulkner loved to mount a horse and go fox hunting, and Jack Kerouac
roistered up and down Manhattan in a lumberjack shirt (and spent every night of The
Subterraneans with his mother in Queens). And we are familiar with the lengths to
which Norman Mailer is prepared, in his endearing way, to prove that he is just as much
a monster as the next man.

(12) When the novelist John Irving was revealed as a wrestler, people took him to be a very
serious writer; and even a bubble reputation like Eric (Love Story) Segal's was enhanced
by the news that he ran the marathon in a respectable time. How surprised we would be
if Joyce Carol Oates were revealed as a sumo wrestler or Joan Didion active in pumping
iron. "Lives in New York City with her three children" is the typical woman writer's
biographical note, for just as the male writer must prove he has achieved a sort of
muscular manhood, the woman writer—or rather her publicists—must prove her
motherhood.

(13) There would be no point in saying any of this if it were not generally accepted that to be
a man is somehow—even now in feminist-influenced America—a privilege. It is on the
contrary an unmerciful and punishing burden. Being a man is bad enough; being manly is
appalling (in this sense, women's lib has done much more for men than for women). It is
the sinister silliness of men's fashions, and a clubby attitude in the arts. It is the
subversion of good students. It is the so-called "Dress Code" of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in
Boston, and it is the institutionalized cheating in college sports. It is the most primitive
insecurity

(14) And this is also why men often object to feminism but are afraid to explain why: of
course women have a justified grievance, but most men believe—and with reason—that
their lives are just as bad.

Small Task
 The Art of Writing a Concept Paper

Motivation
1. Outline Paul Theroux’s essay. Outlining can help you come up with a definition or an
explanation of what a concept paper is.

Thesis Statement: __________________________________________________________

I. ___________________________________________________________________

A. ________________________________________________________________

B. ________________________________________________________________

II. ___________________________________________________________________

A. ________________________________________________________________

1. _____________________________________________________________

2. _____________________________________________________________

B. ________________________________________________________________

C. ________________________________________________________________

III. ___________________________________________________________________

What is your idea of a concept paper? Based on Theroux’s essay, infer what a concept is – its
nature, purpose, and characteristics. Write your initial observations on this table.

Purpose Content Qualities

 Defining a Concept Paper
The concept paper defines an idea or a concept and explains its essence in order to clarify
the “whatness” of that idea or concept. It answers the questions: what is it and what about it
(Dafudalza 1996:183). A concept paper starts with a definition, either formal or informal, of the
term or the concept and proceeds with an expanded definition and an analytic description of the
aspects of the concept.
For instance, in Paul Theroux’s essay, he started by giving his own definition of manhood
in America by using an analogy. He then expanded his main definition by citing different
examples and by providing some historical background. Take note, however, that his definitions
of manhood are mostly based on the stereotypes of manhood during that time in the context of
America. His references, especially to the male American writers, are limiting in such a way that
other people who may not be familiar with his context will not understand them.
That is another purpose of a concept – to stipulate the meaning of a term by limiting,
extending, or redirecting the reference or sense in which the term is commonly understood or to
use in a special way a term borrowed from another field in which it is made to apply (Dadufalza
1996:184). In this sense, a concept paper can be subjective because the writer can choose what
areas to emphasize, what explanations and analyses to include and exclude, and what complex
ideas have to be simplified.
You have to remember, however, that in the earlier lesson, we said that a clear definition
of words and ideas is important to make sense of language and in order to address the differences
in the perception of people, especially in dealing with abstract concepts. Thus, even if the
concept paper tends to be subjective, the writer still has to make sure that concepts are clarified
and explained in such a way that the readers can understand and make sense of the connections.

Let’s read another sample concept paper and see how the definition of the concept is developed.

I Want a Wife”
I belong to that classification of people known as wives. I am A Wife. And, not
altogether incidentally, I am a mother.
Not too long ago a male friend of mine appeared on the scene fresh from a recent divorce.
He had one child, who is, of course, with his ex-wife. He is obviously looking for another wife.
As I thought about him while I was ironing one evening, it suddenly occurred to me that I, too,
would like to have a wife. Why do I want a wife?
I would like to go back to school so that I can become economically independent, support
myself, and, if need be, support those dependent upon me. I want a wife who will work and send
me to school. And while I am going to school I want a wife to take care of my children. I want a
wife to keep track of the children’s doctor and dentist appointments. And to keep track of mine,
too. I want a wife to make sure my children eat properly and are kept clean. I want a wife who
will wash the children’s clothes and keep them mended. I want a wife who is a good nurturant
attendant to my children, who arranges for their schooling, makes sure that they have an
adequate social life with their peers, takes them to the park, the zoo, etc. I want a wife who takes
care of the children when they are sick, a wife who arranges to be around when the children need
special care, because, of course, I cannot miss classes at school. My wife must arrange to lose
time at work and not lose the job. It may mean a small cut in my wife’s income from time to
time, but I guess I can tolerate that. Needless to say, my wife will arrange and pay for the care of
the children while my wife is working.
I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs. I want a wife who will keep my
house clean. A wife who will pick up after me. I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean,
ironed, mended, replaced when need be, and who will see to it that my personal things are kept
in their proper place so that I can find what I need the minute I need it. I want a wife who cooks
the meals, a wife who is a good cook. I want a wife who will plan the menus, do the necessary
grocery shopping, prepare the meals, serve them pleasantly, and then do the cleaning up while I
do my studying. I want a wife who will care for me when I am sick and sympathize with my pain
and loss of time from school. I want a wife to go along when our family takes a vacation so that
someone can continue to care for me and my children when I need a rest and change of scene.
I want a wife who will not bother me with r ambling complaints about a wife’s duties.
But I want a wife who will listen to me when I feel the need to explain a rather difficult point I
have come across in my course of studies. And I want a wife who will type my papers for me
when I have written them.
I want a wife who will take care of the details of my social life. When my wife and I are
invited out by my friends, I want a wife who will take care of the babysitting arrangements.
When I meet people at school that I like and want to entertain, I want a wife who will have the
house clean, will prepare a special meal, serve it to me and my friends, and not interrupt when I
talk about things that interest me and my friends. I want a wife who will have arranged that the
children are fed and ready for bed before my guests arrive so that the children do not bother us.
And I want a wife who knows that sometimes I need a night out by myself.
I want a wife who is sensitive to my sexual needs, a wife who makes love passionately
and eagerly when I feel like it, a wife who makes sure that I am satisfied. And, of course, I want
a wife who will not demand sexual attention when I am not in the mood for it. I want a wife who
assumes the complete responsibility for birth control, because I do not want more children. I
want a wife who will remain sexually faithful to me so that I do not have to clutter up my
intellectual life with jealousies. And I want a wife who understands that my sexual needs may
entail more than strict adherence to monogamy. I must, after all, be able to relate to people as
fully as possible.
If, by chance, I find another person more suitable as a wife than the wife I already have, I
want the liberty to replace my present wife with another one. Naturally, I will expect a fresh, new
life; my wife will take the children and be solely responsible for them so that I am left free.
When I am through with school and have a job, I want my wife to quit working and
remain at home so that my wife can more fully and completely take care of a wife’s duties.
My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?
………

Post-Test

References:
Saqueton, G. & Uychoco, M. T. (2016) English for Academic and Professional Purposes (2016
Edition).Quezon City, Philippines, Rex Bookstore Inc.
https://www.studocu.com/de/document/university-of-perpetual-help-system-jonelta/technical-
writing/mitschriften/admodule-shs-eapp-by-lagumen-first-draft/9137602/view
https://lnu.se/en/library/Writing-and-referencing/the-structure-of-academic-texts/#:~:text=The
%20three%2Dpart%20essay%20structure%20is%20a%20basic%20structure%20that,these
%20sections%20can%20be%20appropriate
http://web.mnstate.edu/robertsb/313/Reaction%20paper%201.pdf
https://www.scribd.com/document/382935829/The-Concept-Paper

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