In “Realistic Idealists” by Alex Williams, the author goes through different reasons why the new generation may be doing so much community service. It is Mr. Williams’ claim that the children of baby boomers are doing community service, not necessarily for good college applications, or to meet graduation requirements, but instead because they actually want to help people. Williams provides the example of Greg Becker and Michael Swirnow, who met their high school graduation requirement of 40 hours twelve and a half times, by doing 500 hours of community service.
Mr. Williams’ main warrants are simply that you must understand that no one would spend 500 hours doing community service just to look good. Even if it gets you into the college of your choice, wouldn’t two or three hundred hours have the same effect? The biggest problem I had with this essay is the lack of opposing viewpoints. Williams barely touched on anything other than his own point of view, and when he did it wasn’t refuted with any kind of detail.
1 comment:
I like your analysis of this article, and the article in general becaue it is a contrast to an article I read earlier. You give the evidence from the article that people do community service not for any type of recognition but rather for personal reasons. It is good that you state that you are not satisfied with the author for not showing opposite points of view. This would be necessary if the author wants an article that is done well and that is well respected. If the author had done a better job of showing the opposing point of view, would you have enjoyed the article more?
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