Strong Opening-starbucks

Posted on March 2, 2017 by starbucks732

Gerrymandering is the practice of manipulating the shape of electoral district to benefit a specific party. At Tufts University, a professor has made a proposal to reduce it. Moon Duchin is a professor, and she noticed that a bit of her research about metric geometry could relate to gerrymandering. She felt that the best way she could do this was to train new witnesses who know the mathematical concepts applicable to gerrymandering well. She created a program at Tufts to train mathematicians to do so. She has partnered with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and hopes for people to keep signing up for this program.

This entry was posted in Open Strong, starbucks. Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to Strong Opening-starbucks

  1. davidbdale's avatar davidbdale says:
    March 3, 2017 at 10:54 am

    Starbucks, you relate plenty of important information here, but you do not create a Strong Opening. Your method, which I witnessed in your Stone Money essay also, is to break down every action into several small parts and relate each part.

    In your paragraph, the mathematician 1) is a professor, 2) notices something about her research, 3) feels that she can make a contribution, 4) identifies the best way to do so, 5) creates a program for mathematicians, 6) partners with lawyers, 7) hopes for success and growth of her program.

    If you can find a way to reduce the number of steps, your writing will gain urgency and power. Or, you may ignore this suggestion if the style does not suit you.

    What you should definitely do is increase the logical value of every sentence.

    You say

    a bit of her research about metric geometry could relate to gerrymandering.

    but miss the chance to tell readers that her research could OBLITERATE the practice of gerrymandering. That’s how they relate.

    You say she wants to

    train new witnesses who know the mathematical concepts applicable to gerrymandering well.

    but fail to tell us that the witnesses WILL CONDEMN the practice of gerrymandering IN COURT as EXPERT WITNESSES in an effort to EXPOSE GERRYMANDERING AS UNDEMOCRATIC.

    Sorry for shouting.
    I encourage you to revise for an upgrade.
    So far, 1/3.

    Reply
  2. starbucks732's avatar starbucks732 says:
    March 6, 2017 at 7:19 pm

    Thank you, I will definitely use this to help better my writing!

    Reply
    • davidbdale's avatar davidbdale says:
      March 6, 2017 at 8:54 pm

      You surprise me every time, Starbucks. I always worry that I’m over-criticizing, or that you will resist because you’re already writing as well as you want to, but then you thank me and encourage me to look for evidence that I’ve given you useful advice. I’m encouraged.

      Reply

Leave a comment