Iman Ahmad September 13, 2008
Prof. Arenstein
English 1000C-133- 70891
Essay 1
Writing essay one was challenging. It took me a couple days to finish the product. I definitely used my primary sources about eighty eight percent of the time. So using my primary source which was my conversation and my whole ROC1 helped very much writing this essay. I believe this essay was strong and really developed a better understanding of my object text. Disappointingly there were some weaknesses in the essay. Some of the paragraph I believe could have been stronger with additional information. But overall the essay is strong and did interpret the object text well with a deeper meaning.
Iman Ahmad
Arenstein
English 1000C-133- 70891
Essay Outline
I. Inquiry question: What economic, social, cultural, and external factors affect the overall value of my business and what role does my home office play among the factors?
II. The Development of Thesis
A. Hypothesis: Business is defective when negativity in the environment begins to cause interference.
B. Thesis: The overall value of any business decreases because factors including lack of resources, lack of business knowledge, cultural clashes, and competitors interfere with the progress made by your business through the home office.
III. Introduction
IV. Supporting Evidence Standard Business
A. Tasks of standard business
V. Supporting Evidence Consulting Business
A. Task of consulting business
VI. Supporting Evidence Negative factor
A. Lack of resources
B. Affect on object text
VII. Supporting Evidence Negative Factor
A. Cultural aspect
B. Affect on object text
VIII. Supporting Evidence Negative Factor
A. Competitors
B. Affect on object text.
IX. Important aspect needed to succeed. X. Conclusion
Iman Ahmad September 10, 2008
Prof. Arenstein
English 1000C-133- 70891
Essay 1
Inquiry question: What economic, social, cultural, and external factors affect the overall value of my business and what role does my home office play among the factors?
My Home Office, So What About It?
People come up with brilliant ideas and use their creation to collect millions of dollars. The idea turns into a fully fledged money formulating business. As the business keeps rolling, a home office begins to develop and becomes the control room. Now through the home office business owners begin to maneuver around the negative factors depleting business income. The home office is the cornerstone of business success especially if you run a consulting business. However there are many unconstructive harms that try to damage your self- accomplishment. The overall value of any business decreases because factors including lack of resources, lack of business knowledge, cultural clashes, and competitors interfere with the progress made by your business through the home office.
Any type of business is tough to run and necessitates almost all your time. In a standard business, there are many aspects the business owner needs to look at. For example you need to understand how many employees are needed to be hired in order for the business to operate efficiently. If you hire too little then, customers become unsatisfied with the slowness of the service. Now hiring too many employees you will end up losing money and money loss should be the first of your worries. Also the business owner has to be concerned with the set up of his store. An easy accessible store is always for the better. Another stress for the owner is buying the entire product supply for the store. Despite all the stresses of administrating the business, there are also many factors that affect the business from obtaining profit. Some of these factors are more harmful to a store running business and other factors are disgraceful towards a home consulting business.
A consulting business is selling your expertise of a chosen field to others in need of some guidance. A requirement for starting up a consulting business is a workplace for all the transactions, and the meeting with clients. Usually the workplace is a home office. The home office is the core, the heart and soul of the success of your business. The home office keeps the business organized and beneficial to you. Working through your home office gives you comfort and more confidence to make a good sale of advice which can generate money.
One negative factor that damages your business representation is the lack of resources. In a consulting business the legal structure most people follow is sole proprietorship. And in a sole proprietorship all the legal liabilities become personal liabilities. So the resource lacked is something other than a personal liability. The factor also affects the home office because then your business could get officially shut down. The consultant must make sure this personal liability never happens and by working in the home office can stop this cautionary act.
Another unconstructive factor could be a cultural aspect. The clients will range from anyone who needs some great advice from a consultant to get them self out of the gutter. Suppose a foreigner who came to America to develop a small business of his own and wants to incorporate his country’s flavor here, saw your advertisement and seeks your guidance. This immigrant might not speak any English, or doesn’t understand any of the American traditions. The role your home office must play is a comforting role. The home office must be a place for progress. And every time he comes back you get paid. So despite the negative aspect that is cultural, the role of the home office must be to bring back the client and develop trust.
Competitors are definitely what every consultant needs to look out for. The advertisements you put out in newspapers, or on the radio and television, must be top notch. Mentioning a comforting and helpful meeting place in each of your ads can be extremely helpful in drawing customers. The home office plays the role of aficionado. Your home office must be welcoming in order for your consultant business to soar. As long as the home office is better than your competitors then it’s one less step to further success.
An important aspect that you as a consultant must have is obviously business knowledge. Skill, experience, and knowledge in your specific field on consultation are desirable credentials. The vital credentials must be evident throughout your home office. The clients you serve must be able to have trust in your word. As long as they can see you’re qualified and capable the customers will keep coming. And all the recommendations your get from your patrons, the more likely your business will grow. As long your consulting business keeps growing the more of a chance for profit and ultimate success and self satisfaction. Therefore the home office also acts as an area for exhibiting your achievements and furthering your cliental
Overall the home office becomes a big key towards success of the set consulting business. The main role the home office plays is maneuvering your consulting business around the negative factors trying to harm the possible income in pursuit. The home office acts as a display for your achievements, the control room of all transactions, a comforter to all clients, and a source for furthering success. The center, most essential and fundamental element of your consulting business is the home office. After all the research and conversations, the home office is the make or break you part of consulting business.
Mariya Yakubova
Essay 1: Peer Review
Iman Ahmad’s Essay 1
Step 3: Marginalia
I think your essay was overall very effective in delivering the message on the significance of the home office to a small business. However, at first it seemed to me as though you were arguing two different theses: (1) the significance of the home office, and (2) the multiple factors that can hinder the success of a business. I later realized that you were using the set up of the home office as a “cure-all” to all the factors that can harm a potential business. This is a great technique, but you can make it stronger and more effective by further elaborating on the way the home office can combat the factors that hurt business, merely adding a few more sentences on how the home office will carry that out. (You elaborated more on the complicating evidence, or the “negative factors” rather than the role of the home office in combating those factors.) After each piece of complicating evidence, clearly state: “The home office can combat this negative factor by ______.” It’s just a good way to re-articulate your thesis, and maintain the focus of your essay on the thesis. Your conclusion is also very strong. Just clearly re-state the significance of the home office in ensuring a successful consulting business and its potential in combating the factors that can hurt business somewhere in the conclusion to really drive the message home.
Step 4: Peer Review Questions
1. Do you have a clear sense of the conversation into which the essay is entering, and how its thesis is significant in that conversation?
Yes, the essay is entering a conversation on the set-up of a small business. The thesis incorporates the potential harms that can hurt business, and the role of the home office in combating those harms.
2. Does this essay do 10-on-1 or 1-on-10 (it should be doing the former)?
This essay does a 10-on-1. Iman’s technique was very effective in accomplishing this. The consulting business was the “1,” and each piece of complicating evidence collectively compromised the “10.”
3. Does this essay avoid lapsing back into summary and/or description and thus achieve the objectives of a thesis-driven essay? Does the essay make a clear, strong, focused, debatable, complex claim?
There was absolutely no summarizing, each paragraph served only to support the thesis statement. The only thing that would make it even more effective would be to clearly state “The home office can combat this potential harm by _________.”
4. Can you suggest a piece of complicating evidence that this essay’s thesis has not taken into consideration? How might the thesis evolve as a result of encountering this evidence?
A really daring piece of complicating evidence (which was all the while running through my mind as I was reading the essay), would be “Do clients trust a consulting business that operates in a private home?” I mean, after seeing an ad in the paper about a consultant who operates his business in his own home, how many people would actually consult this man and trust him enough to come to his home? I don’t know if this type of complicating evidence would be worth the trouble of putting it into the essay. It’s very controversial and will probably do more to hurt the essay rather than help it.
5. Does the essay effectively analyze the evidence? That is, does it do 10-on-1 to tease out the implications? Does it proceed in a deliberate and detailed fashion, or does it feel rushed and superficial? Where could its analysis be stronger or more in-depth? Where is its analysis particularly strong? Why/how?
The strongest part of the essay was analyzing the evidence, (most of it being complicating evidence). The weaker part was combating this evidence, only because you did it in one or two sentences. To make the essay stronger, you can spend more time analyzing the effectiveness of the home office in combating each piece of complicating evidence (each “factor” harmful to your business). This also serves to re-articulate your thesis, keeping the overall purpose of each paragraph visible.
6. What is this essay’s biggest weakness? Be specific—cite a specific page(s) and passage(s).
I think the first paragraph on the last page about competition is not strong enough. It talks about how competition can hurt the consulting business, but I still don’t understand how ads mentioning the comfort of your home office will effectively keep up with the competition. I think the location of your home office will have a greater impact.
7. What is this essay’s biggest strength? Be specific—cite a specific page(s) and passage(s).
The strongest part of the essay was the “pre-conclusion,” the next-to-last paragraph. I liked the overall tonality of it; it seemed to provide some kind of hope for the business.
8. What questions/suggestions are you left with after reading this essay? (These could be about the topic, or about the essay’s handling of the topic.) How would you like the writer to address these?
I think you should consider revising your thesis statement just to make it clearer and less wordy. Not the overall message, just the phrasing. A possible example, “The home office can serve to combat the many harms that can hurt a potential consulting business.”
9. How well does this essay accomplish the specific aims and objectives listed on this assignment sheet?
This essay is well thought-out, the use of complicating evidence only serves to make the argument stronger. It demonstrates a 10-on-1 approach, offering insight and focused on analyzing rather than obtaining information.
Step 5: Further Comments and Questions
Thesis
• Arguable thesis can only benefit from re-phrasing. Otherwise, it’s on-target.
Introduction
• Starts out strong, effectively bringing the reader from the world into the essay.
• The thesis is broken up into two or three sentences, making it difficult to recognize the overall purpose/argument of the essay.
• Funnel format (raises issues to lead into the thesis).
Evidence/Body
• Great use of the thesis to combat complicating evidence.
• 10-on-1 format
• Can benefit from re-articulation of thesis after each argument that combats the complicating evidence.
Conclusion
• Effectively summarizes the overall effect/importance of the home office to a consulting business
• Lacks a distinct statement of significance.
• Graceful transition from the essay into the world
The Intangibles
• Showing-not-telling
• Can improve on level of detail, especially when illustrating the effect of the home office in each paragraph of the body
Outline & Title
• Title is aimed at being catchy rather than informative
• Outline does not provide the full evolution of the thesis (initial hypothesis, thesis, complicating evidence, revised thesis.)
• Outline doesn’t always provide enough detail/accuracy (i.e., Paragraph VII—A. Cultural Aspect–>what does this mean? Change to: A. Cultural/Language Barriers–>more specific)