Friday, December 5, 2014
Thesis- Chikungunya
Though the Chikungunya virus originated in Africa, it has spread to various countries in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, which is a threat to global tourism; now in the Americas, Chikungunya is becoming a virus that can be contracted locally, instead of just a virus caught in a foreign land; this is a problem because it is very hard to contain mosquitos, the carriers of the virus, so the best worldwide response to the Chikungunya virus would be to try and eliminate as many mosquitos as possible.
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Good things: everything about the history, news, and international plan is all combined into one sentence that flows very well despite the semicolons. That is a particularly hard thing to do, to not make it choppy. I think that your word choice uses very strong words (even though it could be edited for clearness in some parts). Especially strong are your verbs - 'originated,' 'spread,' 'contracted,' 'contain,' and 'eliminate.' There are so many good verbs that you managed to fit in that one sentence.
ReplyDeleteStructure: focus on telling more about what the particular effects are on Latin America and globally. The only thing you mention about that topic seems to be global tourism. This is a necessary thing to talk about because that is what your HQ is asking. Also, it seems that you are not focusing on Latin America enough, but then again there is not really a good way to change that without having a super long and complex thesis that still stays within the 3-part guidelines. You should also mention the word of whichever class theme you chose (nationalism, imperialism, etc) directly in the thesis. Also, something to look into would be to see if it is grammatically correct to have 'because' and 'so' in the same sentence. The last section about international reactions is kind of three sentences joined with conjunctions. But 'so' and 'because' are opposites so they might undo each other. I am not sure.
Word choice: you say 'virus' too much, so maybe replace it with a synonym or even say 'it'. Also, it would be more formal and fancy-sounding to say 'this is problematic' instead of 'this is a problem.' Instead of saying 'is a threat to' you could replace it with 'threatens.' I would recommend that because it is more vivid to take out the be-verbs, and also it is more concise. Also, instead of "try and" you should say "try to." Or you can take out those words altogether, because you need to emphasis the eliminating of mosquitoes not the trying to eliminate. It would be useful to refer to a time period in the first part: did it spread to other continents very recently or did it happen hundreds of years ago? When you say "Chikungunya is becoming a virus that can be contracted locally" I think you could rewrite that to be clearer and with more active-voice verbs. For example, "now locals can contract Chikungunya." And also try to clarify why this just happened now: I do not understand what kept locals from contracting it in the past. Instead of "would be" (in section about international plan), say "is." I think that will make it sound more confident and trustworthy to the reader. Instead of 'the carriers of the virus' you could say 'which carry the virus' in order to add another strong verb. I think you might not need the word "now." "Hard" is kind of informal, so try "difficult."
About your international plan: By eliminate, you mean kill, right? Is that really a practical solution, because it seems that it would be too difficult to actually go around and kill enough mosquitoes to make much difference. And one thing to consider (for the counterargument) is that if you did eliminate a lot of mosquitoes, what about the food chain? This would have a negative effect on birds or other animals that eat them. Maybe there is a better option for your global response - like is there a vaccine at all? I could be interpreting this wrong because I don't know much about your topic, but if that is so then you should make sure you explain.
So overall, it is a very good thesis with especially strong verbs. There are a few suggestions for structure, and the word choice and explanation of the international plan could be improved as well.
Overall I think your thesis is strong and has good word choice, although you should try to get rid of over used words. This thesis will allow you to create an essay that fits within the requirements. You should reword your international plan, It would be very difficult to eliminate all of the mosquitoes.
ReplyDeleteYou've done a good job identifying the threat of chikungunya but need to address the news/media coverage (or lack thereof) and provide a specific recommendation for international action. Also, you'll need to condense/focus your thesis for better flow.
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