In any field of endeavor, it is impossible to make a significant contribution without first being strongly influenced by past achievements within that field.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.
The speaker contends that it is impossible to make a significant contribution without first being strongly influenced by past achievements within that field. In several respects, it is true that reviewing the previous achievements helps us to make significant progress in any field of endeavor. However, only by emphasizing the importance of the past, the speaker ignores the roles of immediate environments and guiding needs of present and future in those innovative endeavors.
It is undeniable that the past may provide us with valuable advices and guiding information to make some contributive works. Because the past includes lots of wisdom, whether it is about success or about failure, ignoring the past would serve nothing for us, or make us start from nowhere. During the previous decade, for instance, Korean government has enacted several national construction programs. Unluckily, some of them omitted to refer the related past projects, in turn produce tons of mistakes and errors most of which could have been avoided if the planners had carefully examined the similar cases. It indicates that the past can be a good teacher for most contributive endeavors.
While the past can be a significant key for any field of endeavor, the lesson from the past alone does not account for the success of some innovative endeavors. Present social, political, and cultural conditions are also huge factors for successful efforts. With respect to the uniqueness of the contemporary society, it is not the reference to the past but the fresh and new observation to the singularity of the present that makes it possible for us to provide any meaningful contribution. The unprecedentedly intricate international financial crisis, for example, requires new paradigm of economic analysis rather than futile efforts to stick to the classics of economics. Although the great past works may give us some clues to solve the problem, they tend to be outdated and obsolete in our much complicated society.
Moreover, reviewing the past can be said to have little to do with the substantial contribution today in other meanings. With respect to the influence of the habitual ways of thinking and assumptions inherent in any field of inquiry, the meaningful contribution can be made better by being liberated from the past conventions and methodologies than by being influenced by them. It is well known that most academic disciplines could be continuously vigorous not because of the experts who dogmatically stick to the past achievements and have a vast size of knowledge about the past works but because of newcomers, beginners, or even outsiders who can put fresh ideas and perspectives into the given field. In modern sociology, for example, it is those new scholars who were trained from outside of traditional sociology who have provided new perspectives and expanded the boundary of sociology into the new areas such as ethnic dynamics, roles of gender, class theories in information economy etc. This also indicates that the true contribution is not the direct function of dogmatic adherence to the past achievements.
To sum, despite the benefit of minimization of trial and errors or sophistication given from the review of the past, both the uniqueness of the contemporary society and the fresh eyes of newcomers or outsiders tell us that the true contribution in any field of inquiry is not always a simple function of referring to the past. Taken together, I cannot fully agree to the speaker’s opinion.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Sentence: It is undeniable that the past may provide us with valuable advices and guiding information to make some contributive works.
Error: contributive Suggestion: No alternate word
Sentence: It indicates that the past can be a good teacher for most contributive endeavors.
Error: contributive Suggestion: No alternate word
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arguments: OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 565 350
No. of Characters: 2890 1500
No. of Different Words: 269 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.875 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.115 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.932 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 202 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 179 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 127 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 82 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 29.737 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.106 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.789 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.345 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.544 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.184 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'but', 'first', 'however', 'if', 'may', 'moreover', 'so', 'well', 'while', 'for example', 'for instance', 'such as', 'it is true', 'with respect to']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.224755700326 0.240241500013 94% => OK
Verbs: 0.13680781759 0.157235817809 87% => OK
Adjectives: 0.127035830619 0.0880659088768 144% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0390879478827 0.0497285424764 79% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0342019543974 0.0444667217837 77% => OK
Prepositions: 0.148208469055 0.12292977631 121% => OK
Participles: 0.0407166123779 0.0406280797675 100% => OK
Conjunctions: 3.00589339423 2.79330140395 108% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0325732899023 0.030933414821 105% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.0016655270985 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.115635179153 0.0997080785238 116% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0179153094463 0.0249443105267 72% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.00977198697068 0.0148568991511 66% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 3518.0 2732.02544248 129% => OK
No of words: 565.0 452.878318584 125% => OK
Chars per words: 6.22654867257 6.0361032391 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.87542086881 4.58838876751 106% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.364601769912 0.366273622748 100% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.325663716814 0.280924506359 116% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.244247787611 0.200843997647 122% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.162831858407 0.132149295362 123% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.00589339423 2.79330140395 108% => OK
Unique words: 277.0 219.290929204 126% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.490265486726 0.48968727796 100% => OK
Word variations: 59.4461631758 55.4138127331 107% => OK
How many sentences: 20.0 20.6194690265 97% => OK
Sentence length: 28.25 23.380412469 121% => OK
Sentence length SD: 75.1039945675 59.4972553346 126% => OK
Chars per sentence: 175.9 141.124799967 125% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.25 23.380412469 121% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.75 0.674092028746 111% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.94800884956 101% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.21349557522 0% => OK
Readability: 60.8163716814 51.4728631049 118% => OK
Elegance: 1.96899224806 1.64882698954 119% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.467980100809 0.391690518653 119% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.134405841746 0.123202303941 109% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.087029055851 0.077325440228 113% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.582229632787 0.547984918172 106% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.165782265724 0.149214159877 111% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.211950557372 0.161403998019 131% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.115762926635 0.0892212321368 130% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.569902840619 0.385218514788 148% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0807405979418 0.0692045440612 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.360219039354 0.275328986314 131% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0815719678519 0.0653680567796 125% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 10.4325221239 144% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 5.30420353982 75% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.88274336283 20% => More neutral sentences wanted.
Positive topic words: 13.0 7.22455752212 180% => OK
Negative topic words: 4.0 3.66592920354 109% => OK
Neutral topic words: 1.0 2.70907079646 37% => OK
Total topic words: 18.0 13.5995575221 132% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.