Teenagers
For teens monthly
I am a teenager and I know what people think of teenagers, louts who don’t care for society and who will do anything to impress their mates; people also think they have no respect for their elders. This is the stereotyped view of teenagers in general; well I think that I can defy this view and prove that adults are just as bad. Let’s start with a very important topic which teenagers are blamed for.
Drugs, now drugs are probably offered to about three fifths of teenagers some time in there 10 years as a teen and definitely all teenagers could get hold of drugs easily enough, but how many teens actually take drugs regularly? I’d say about 1/10 probably. So this shows you that out of 100 probably 10 teens take drugs regularly. This is quite worrying, but all the same it isn’t as many as it’s projected to be by newspapers and parents and adults in general. If today’s adult population were put in our situation I think that probably exactly the same amount of people would take drugs as we do now. They say that drugs have been on the rise since the 60’s but that’s because it was never available as freely as it is now.
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Peer Reviews
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Quality of writing
The quality of writing is not so lacking as to impede meaning but it is certainly detrimental to its fluency. Inconsistencies relating to figures and numbers are exhibited throughout, as in the comparison between “1/10†and “three fifthsâ€Â. Generally speaking, the latter should be used with the exception of large numbers; writing say, four digit numbers in figures is impractical. Unfortunately, certain words are repeated throughout, such as “drugs†in paragraph two. This may be rectified via use of a thesaurus. Furthermore, expressions such as “what I am really saying†are common features of speech and so should not be used in what is designed to be a professional, written text. Instead, these fillers can be simply removed – “should we have all these exams at our age anyway†is far more effective without the preamble.
Level of analysis
A few notable statements detract from the successfulness of the response. Claims such as “definitely all teens have been offered cigarettes†and “bullying is going to happen at every school†are quite outrageous and would likely alienate many teenage readers. These are reflective of an overly colloquial tone, also shown by excessive hedging as in the heavily repeated “probably†and in particular, the oxymoronic phrase “I think that probably exactly the same…†This response could benefit from adopting a more assured and confident tone – magazine articles must represent their views confidently or the reader will never take them seriously. In addition to this, the candidate does little to dispel the “utter myth… put forward by adults†with expressions such as “the same amount of people would take drugs as they do nowâ€Â. The reader expects an article such as this to better defend the teenage image instead of adopting a ‘well you would do the same in our situation’ argument.
Response to question
The candidate has emulated an article form response and the content is clearly set out. “Drugsâ€Â, “smoking†and “bullying†are dealt with separately in each paragraph which makes the article far easier to navigate. However, in terms of exploring the issue of teenage pressures, the article turns into something of an infantile attack on adulthood, as displayed in the concluding comment “should teens change their view of adultsâ€Â. Perhaps, given the teenage audience, it would have been prudent to focus upon giving advice to the potential teenage sufferer and suggesting remedies to the above issues.
