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Why Do Ex-Convicts Deserve A Second Chance

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Do ex-convicts deserve a second chance? Ernest Martinez believes that for some convicts their crime was “a matter of poor judgment rather than of faulty character.” Martinez wrote an essay targeted at Hispanic business owner to persuade them to hire or give a second chance to ex-convicts. Martinez’ fails to create a compelling essay because of his use of the word ‘people’ in the title, his use of diction, and his extreme disconnect between paragraphs. Martinez does not make use of the word ex-convict in the title of his essay, even though his essay is based around that specific concept. Instead, Martinez utilises the word ‘people’ which creates a general and broad concept area. The essay could have been titled Giving Ex-Convicts a Second Chance, which would have prevented Martinez from straying away from the main idea in paragraph four. However, he does return to the main idea of …show more content…

This failure to tie ideas together confuses the reader as to why paragraph four is relevant to the essay. If paragraph four were to be removed, it would give the essay a less jerky flow because paragraphs three and five contain similar ideas. However, in paragraph four Martinez introduces the idea that people are a company’s greatest asset. He fails to establish a connection to previous ideas with his quote from Dr. Peter Drucker. Another fault is that he continues to move right now after his quote without properly explaining his thinking. Martinez makes use of a Spanish metaphor which, when thinking of his audience makes sense why he would try to use it. Martinez does provide the English translation in both a literal and metaphorical sense for his audience, but he fails to connect the Spanish phrase to Dr. Drucker’s quote or any of the paragraph four. However, it is ineffective because he does not explain it. It is as if he just threw it in there because he refused to remove it to make the essay

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