Stulman On Computers

Stulman’s essay argues that for college student’s computers are more of a distraction than a helping tool for leaning. Throughout Stulman’s essay he has a abundance of grammatical delivery errors which result in his essay being unsuccessful. Stulman’s essay is unsuccessful on how he delivered his argument such as he lacked factual evidence to back up his argument, broadly generalized his clams, as well as addressed numerous problems and did not provide any solutions to these problems. One of the primary reasons Stulman’s essay is unsuccessful is because he lacked factual evidence to back up his argument that computers are more of a distraction than an aid in learning for college students. This is shown in his example of how students are using …show more content…
He does this when he explains how the library at his college is predominately used for games instead of academic work. “Every time I walk past the library’s so-called research computers, it seems that at least half are being used to play games, chat or surf the internet aimlessly” (Stulman). This example would make his argument stronger if he didn’t just talk about only his college. One way to improve this would be to take a survey of how many people are on the computers playing games at a large portion of colleges. This could be achieved by using the computers themselves and having them monitor games through software. By doing this Stulman’s claim would be backed up by facts about all colleges making his claim not generalized increasing the chances of his essay becoming successful. Stulman also generalizes when claiming that students stay up all night chatting on the computer to other dorm mates. “Several people who live in my hall routinely stay awake all night chatting with dorm mates online” (Stulman). He would improve his claim if he provided examples that were not just from his perspective and additionally not just from his campus. He could survey students on how long they usually stay up chatting on the computer and then use that data to make an assumption on how long the average college student stay up. This would overall make his argument more successful by not just …show more content…
He does this when addressing the problem of having computers in dorm rooms. “For most students, having a computer in the dorm is more of a distraction than a learning tool” (Stulman). He could have made his essay successful by giving ways to have a computer in the dorm without it being a distraction. Such as keeping it put away in a desk out of sight when working on academic work. By providing a solution to this problem the reader would be deeper interested in the essay to see how they could solve similar problems they might have. He also brings up that students have always procrastinated but gives no solution on how students might prevent this problem. “It is true, of course, that students have always procrastinated and wasted time” (Stulman). He could have given some tips on how students could prevent procrastination. By providing solutions to these problems that he has addressed in his essay would make the reader invested in his essay and willing to believe his argument making the essay