Herder put forward the ideathat each of us has an original way of being human: eachperson has his or her own “measure.”6
This directly applies to my research topic because it presents the central idea of democracy that everybody is "unique" and therefore each person has their own "measure" and they matter in society.
In order to examine some of the issues that have arisenhere, I’d like to take a step back, achieve a little distance, andlook first at how this discourse of recognition and identitycame to seem familiar, or at least readily understandable, tous.
Here, Taylor is placing his argument in a wider context. This adds credibility and better explains his stance.
A culture and art form founded from oppression can create significant division as well as unification. Compton, a place where poverty is the norm and danger is the culture, becomes subject to N.W.A.’s hit “Straight Outta Compton.” The first time this is heard it may seem like a cry for help, wishing to escape the madness that surrounds their home neighborhood, but in reality it is a call for attention and admiration for “Compton” redefines the meaning of being tough. N.W.A is known for profanity and potentially “threatening” word choice, this sparks the question, is this part of the art of rap culture or is this song encourage violence. With scores “Prosecutors would Rather Read Rap as a Threat than Art” and “Contesting the Mark of Criminality” I plan to discuss the violent nature of rap music and how it can be perceived in different ways.
1) The assertion made here is that rap music can be perceived in many different ways that goes beyond the idea that it is merely a threat or that rappers are merely violent criminals. This claim is sufficiently evaluative and possesses the potential scope for a well-developed essay. In this paragraph, it is hard to determine how exactly the essay will be structured, but it leaves it open for many possibilities. 2) This paragraph involves two different sources in which the sources are concisely summarized. In the beginning, you touch briefly on the context for N.W.A. as does "Mark of Criminality" and then you contrast that with the "potentially 'threatening' word choice" in reference to the "Threat or Art" article. These sources work well together as they create a tension between the two. A stronger idea, as I'm sure you will do in your actual essay, would be to quote more of the language used in both of the sources to differentiate the opposing ideas. 3) If you are arguing that the violent nature of rap music can be seen in a different light, then the paragraph does begin to effectively analyze the relationship with the two sources towards that argument. If you wish to deepen the argument, or qualify it any way, then further analysis into the sources would be required. 4) The arrangement of your sentences work well to summarize the sources and place them together in tension with one another. However, if you want to further the argument then you may need to lead with a source citation and then analyze it until it almost comes into "contact" with the other source. This might help add a closer reading of the sources and can strengthen your argument even more.
oral art binds together the highest forms of culture and themost popular
This claim may be an extension of the author's general motive, but it is also certainly an argument made from close reading. This assertion is effective in expressing the importance of music as it "binds our culture." Without close reading, it would be hard for the author to argue this level of significance of "oral art."
has started to learn that there are lots of different ways a song can be a hit, and lots ofdifferent ways that the business can benefit from it being a hit.
This claim demonstrates an effective argument based on close reading. The author is making an assertion about where the music industry is headed with evidence as to how this is so from the changing ways songs are becoming hits.
Lyric is the genre of private life: it is what we say to ourselves when we are alone.
This is a very interesting thing to notice, it is distinguishing these types of poems from other type of literature and making it much more personal.