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The essay-writing approach you've seen so far is mechanical. Very few people actually write an essay that goes like this:
The reasoning is clear, but the essay wouldn't be pleasing to read! This is so because such writing treats phrases like children's building blocks, crudely piling them one on top of each other without blending the raw pieces into a harmonious whole.
This is where you need to bring your prose and language skills to bear: polish the raw structure so that clear reasoning is expressed in more elegant words and phrases.
Here's an example:
Mechanical approach: I believe that I should go to the beach today. This is so because I would enjoy myself at the beach, which assumes that I should do whatever I would enjoy...
Polished version: It might seem to be a good idea for me to go to the beach today, since I would undoubtedly enjoy myself there. But if we think about this for a moment, we'll realize that such reasoning makes a major assumption, namely that I should do whatever it is that I would enjoy doing...
© Austhink 2007. Rationale Exercises version 0.1, Sep-07
Note: these exercises are undergoing continual improvement. Next time you come back they might be a bit different.
