Task 3, page 257 of Access to International English:
Evaluating essays: Go to access.cappelendamm.no to find three examples of essays – one personal, one
persuasive and one expository. Read the essays and then write a short comment on each. How well do
you think the writer has structured his or her text according to the rules for the type of essay?
1) Personal essay:
What role does friendship play in your life?
Nothing is more important to me in my life than friendship. It is the glue that keeps my life
together, the soothing medicine that helps me through the hard times and the source of fun
and activities. I do not know what I would do without friendship.
Today there are many different ideas about what a friend is. Many people talk about
having hundreds of “friends” on Facebook, while others twitter away like they were John Arne
Riise on speed. But these “friends” are not real, their contact with you is tentative, and they are
quite possibly only fair-weather friends. Their shared concern with you if you write about a bad
experience on Facebook has a false ring to it. How can they be so understanding of someone
they really don’t know? No they are not my friends because here I’m talking about the old idea
of friend: a person you can lean on for support, share your darkest secrets with, laugh and cry
together with, someone who can hold you and hug you, wipe away your tears, drink coffee with
you, go to the cinema with, walk with and talk with. This friend is ready to celebrate your
achievements with you, but is just as prepared to stick by you when you feel down in the
dumps. Your real friend is not some faceless digital connection (okay they use old photos of
themselves on Facebook), he or she is someone who is always there for you.
Perhaps the most important word that comes to mind when thinking of friends is
“trust”. A friend is someone you can trust with your secrets and your fears. I get strength from
my friends because they understand me and accept and appreciate me as I am. I don’t have to
pretend with them. I can let my hair down and be myself. In this world where image is
everything, it is especially important that I can sit with my friends and be myself.
The modern world can be a cruel place, with people being bullied by text message and
mistakes get played out to the world on YouTube. There is no better time to have a “real”
friend, someone who can comfort you and accept you for who you are. Without my real friends
sharing experiences with me, the good and the bad, life would be unbearable.
I am not very quick to join new trends, I think if left on my own I would muddle along,
blissfully unaware of the latest “in” things to do. For this I need my friends. Together we’re
dynamite and totally connected. On my own, I’m on the outside looking in. Sometimes they
need to drag me along to a party or a dumb sounding film, or to roller derby or cage football, to
name a few things. Inevitably I’m the one who ends up having the most fun, but without my
friends banging on my door and physically pushing me out the door, I would never have done
these things at all. Perhaps I would have stayed in and gone on Facebook to write about making
a cake, or watching Gossip Girl – God give me a life!
Of course here I am talking of close friends, the ones you let into your life on a very personal
level. But you also have friends you like to do things with but you still don’t share everything
with them. But these more occasional friends still beat Facebook by a mile. There is something
warm, rewarding and spontaneous about getting together and having fun in the real world.
So, to conclude, friends are everything to me. Without friends life would have little
meaning. After all, if a branch falls in the forest and no one hears it, who cares if it makes a
sound or not if you haven’t got a friend to share the moment with.