How to Write Better Essays

be a disgrace we would have to carry through the

rest of our lives

(iv) induces us to feel bad about ourselves – discontent

fuels consumerism

(b) appeals made to some imagined social consensus – to

‘basic’ or ‘shared’ values:

(i) that we all want the fastest car on the road

(ii) that we all want to keep up with the neighbours

(iii) that we all worry endlessly about being seen out in

last year ’s fashions

(c) myths created and sustained by the media to sell products

e.g. that housewives are paranoid about the whiteness

of their wash and the cleanliness of their floors

In the next chapter

Now that you’ve done this you will be aware not only of the

importance of working on your ideas in this sort of detail, but of the

problems it presents in first editing your ideas and then ordering them.

In the next chapter we will tackle these two problems in more detail.

Note

1 Michael Sandel, Writing in Moral Reasoning, 22: Justice(Cambridge, Mass.:

University of Harvard, 2000).

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