Who wrote the better essay and why?

Jane Citizen's essay entitled "Beyond the Gloss: The Challenge of Flight Attendant Rosters" (Citizen, 2014) is the better essay when compared with John Doe's "The Challenges of the Airline Industry" (Doe, 2014). My reasons for this opinion are as follows:

Jane Citizen’s essay has a logical structure using a deductive approach (Lehman, et al., 2013, p. 84).  In using the deductive approach, Citizen lays out the main idea initially, and then backs it up with relevant information. There is a distinct introduction in which she informs the reader of the topic of the piece; and a body in which she makes points to back up her topic. John Doe’s essay has no structure and rambles on without any focus on a particular topic.

Correct referencing is used in Jane Citizen’s essay. In-text references are clear and concise, and these are followed up with a comprehensive reference list. John Doe’s essay has a few in-text citations, but these are not correctly formatted. One of his references is to Wikipedia which is not considered to be a reliable source. His reference list is a bibliography format, and this is not done to any format or in alphabetical order.

Jane Citizen’s essay is well written and does not contain any personal pronouns. Her claims are based on verifiable facts, and not her personal opinion. John Doe’s essay on the other hand is more of an opinion piece with many personal pronouns, and facts which are unable to be verified as one of his sources is his cousin “who must remain anonymous” (Doe, 2014).

From a visual enhancement point of view, Jane Citizen’s essay has clearly demarcated paragraphs. The publishing term for this is “chunking” and comprises the breaking down of information into smaller pieces (Lehman, et al., 2013, p. 153). John Doe’s essay is in one large piece making it tiresome to read.

Lehman et al., (2013, p. 146) states that “Well-developed sentences help readers understand the message clearly and react favourably to the writer or speaker.” While Jane Citizen makes good use of language, grammar and punctuation, John Doe is inclined to  use incorrect sentence structure (for example: “Airlines are under pressure these days to make money.”), mixes tenses (for example: “…were often delayed or even flights are sometimes cancelled”), spelling errors (for example: “one that suffers” should read ‘ones that suffer’, and the use of clichés (for example: “whether you liked it or not”) (Doe, 2014).

In conclusion, John Doe’s essay lacks a logical structure, correct referencing, good grammar, and verifiable facts. In addition he does not break his writing up into easy to read paragraphs, makes inappropriate use of personal pronouns, uses incorrect structure, has spelling errors and uses clichés. For these reasons, Jane Citizen’s essay is better.

References

Citizen, J. (2014). Beyond the Gloss: The Challenge of Flight Attendant Rosters. Topic 4. Charles Sturt University ITC105.

Doe, J. (2014). The Challenges of the Airline Industry. Topic 4. Charles Sturt University ITC105.

Lehman, C. M., DuFrene, D. D., Cameron-Dow, J., Barrett, M., Murphy, W., Ellen, M., & Guffey, D. L. (2013). ITC105 Communication and Information Management. South Melbourne: Cengage.

Greetings from Brisbane

It's a beautiful morning in Brisbane. My day started at 5.15am and a balmy 20 degrees - heading for a Bikram hot yoga session in a sweaty 38 degree room. What a great way to start the day!
And now, after a much needed shower and breakfast, I face the day at my computer, ready to take on my Uni tasks and watch the world go by my window in glorious sunshine!

Later today I'll be heading up the Sunshine Coast to Mooloolaba in preparation for the swim leg of the Mooloolaba triathlon on Sunday, although I've been calling my swim the "drowning leg", and I hope I'm only joking. Weather predictions are 34 degrees, and a huge ocean swell so contingency plans are in place to move the swim into the local canals. I'm hoping the sharks will prefer the swell and stay out of the canals.

This time of year is my favourite in Brisbane - the days are warm, but the humidity is lowering and the nights are somewhat cooler, but still no need for a doona. We have some rain, but it mainly consists of a few showers or thunderstorms which serve to clear the air and freshen things up a little. It's still easy to get up early to exercise with sunrise at about 5.45am. My swimming training which starts at 5.30am is starting to feel a little too early as the first few laps are swum in the dark - not sure how I'll cope swimming through winter as this is my first swim season.

Winters are awful! Relative to winter anywhere else in the world, Brisbane winters are mild. From my personal point of view, however,  I would happily live without winter! The days here are perfect with average temperatures around 24 degrees and beautiful sunshine. Because of the cloudless sky, night time temperatures can drop to around 6 degrees. Queensland houses are designed and constructed for heat and humidity, with the result that there is not much between us and the outdoors on cold days - a one inch floor board is often all there is! Getting up then to go for a run is very hard, but watching the sunrise over the horse paddocks and surrounding hills is just glorious and well worth the early morning pain.

Have a beautiful weekend!