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Hey, I have attached three files: the feedback and your previous submission of the first draft. I think you’re actually supposed to use the Varun Soni article and create the RAE essay based on it. Please review the feedback first and then modify (rewrite) the essay.
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OPINION
Op-Ed: There’s a loneliness crisis on college
campuses
A person bikes March 12 across USC’s campus.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
By VARUN SONI
JULY 14, 2019
When I arrived at USC 11 years ago as dean of religious life, my pastoral
conversations with students mostly focused on their quests for meaning and purpose.
They were striving to translate values into action, cultivate joy and gratitude, live
extraordinary lives.
But over the last several years, these conversations have taken a devastating turn.
Whereas students used to ask “How should I live?” they are now more likely to ask
“Why should I live?” Where they used to talk about hope and meaning; now they
grapple with hopelessness and meaninglessness. Every year, it seems, I encounter
more stress, anxiety, and depression, and more students in crisis on campus.
My colleagues at other universities say they are seeing the same distressing trend, and
research backs up our observations.
1
I never got the question in my first five years at USC that I now get almost daily from
students: “How do I make friends?”
According to the Center for Collegiate Mental Health, the increase in utilization rates
for counseling centers across the country over the last five years has greatly outpaced
the increase in student enrollment, and as a result, schools have trouble hiring enough
mental health counselors to keep up with growing demand. The most recent Healthy
Minds Survey, an annual report on mental health on college and university
campuses, found that one-third of undergraduate students in the United States wrestle
with some kind of mental health issue, while more than 10% struggle with thoughts of
suicide. The Cooperative Institutional Research Program’s large annual survey of
college freshmen has noted a marked and steady downward trend in the self-reported
emotional health of students along with a large uptick in self-reported feelings of
being overwhelmed.
What I have noticed in my work with students is that many of them face the same
hidden root challenge: loneliness. According to a recent survey by the global health
service company Cigna, the loneliest generation in the United States today is not the
oldest Americans but the youngest, specifically young adults between 18 and 22 years
old.
I never got the question in my first five years at USC that I now get almost daily from
students: “How do I make friends?” Students may have thousands of friends online,
but few in real life; they may be experts at talking with their thumbs, but not so much
with their tongues. As a result, many feel as though they don’t have a tribe or a sense
of belonging. They feel disconnected from what it means to be human.
While it is now fashionable to refer to this cohort of college and university students as
a coddled generation of “snowflakes,” the reality is they face unprecedented
challenges and circumstances. They are entering a world in which many of the career
paths of their parents’ generation no longer exist or have changed drastically. They
face escalating tuition costs with little sense of whether their future opportunities
justify the outlay. They have participated in active shooter trainings and campus
lockdown drills for most of their lives. And according to the Pew Research Center’s
Forum on Religion and Public Life, more than one-third of young adults are now
disaffiliated with religion, marking a dramatic generational shift away from religion
and from the comfort and community that it can provide.
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The convergence of these factors and realities has directly contributed to a crippling
sense of anxiety and alienation in students across the country.
But today’s students are also creative and courageous, engaged and empathetic,
diverse and inclusive. They are hardworking and goal-oriented. It needs to be the job
of colleges and universities to help students develop resources that enable them to
thrive and flourish mentally, emotionally and spiritually, so that they may fulfill their
academic aspirations and achieve their professional goals.
At USC, we’re trying a variety of things, including a dedicated mindfulness training
app and free mindfulness programs that reach more than 7,000 people a year. A new,
for-credit freshman course called Thrive focuses on emotional intelligence, healthy
relationships, self-care, resiliency and human flourishing. In the fall, we will debut our
new artificial intelligence well-being assistant, named Ari, which will guide students
to appropriate support resources and communities on campus.
We also offer and host yoga classes, drum circles, friendship courses, community teas,
coloring sessions, laughing groups, sleep classes, connection workshops, meditation
retreats, campfire conversations and primal scream opportunities. We’ve recently
appointed our first director of belonging, while our full-time wellness dog, Professor
Beauregard Tirebiter (affectionately known as “Beau”) strolls the campus daily.
Colleges and universities have always had a responsibility to develop the whole
student so that our young people are able to make not just a living, but a life. Today,
that means examining a new range of challenges that students face and developing a
new approach to well-being on campus. By doing so, colleges and universities can
help empower students to transform the world by transforming themselves.
Varun Soni is dean of religious life at USC, where he also serves as vice provost of
campus wellness and crisis intervention.
3
1
Introduction
Is a college scholarship sufficient to make up for the millions of dollars the NCAA pays
out to athletes each year? Paying collegiate athletes has long been a problem, particularly for
football and basketball players. Compensation for college athletes is controversial among
athletes, students, spectators, NCAA analysts, and authoritative individuals. The issue of whether
or not collegiate athletes should be compensated is more popular than it has ever been. After
carefully analyzing the content and arguments made in “Permitting Student-Athletes to Accept
Endorsement Deals: A Solution to the Financial Corruption of College Athletics Created by
Unethical Sports Agents Generating Scheme,” I advise against publishing this particular piece as
I believe it fails to make a robust and well-rounded case that would resonate well with our UTA
student audience. While the subject is certainly relevant to our readers, this article’s lack of
depth, nuance, and authoritative perspective means it would likely miss the mark and come
across as underbaked.
For our newspaper to maintain credibility and meet the high standards expected by UTA
students and the broader community, we need to exercise reasonable editorial judgment.
Publishing shoddy or logically flawed arguments, even on topical issues, ultimately does a
disservice to our readers and damages the Shorthorn’s reputation as an insightful, trustworthy
source of information. This piece, in its current form, represents a missed opportunity to elevate
the critical debate around compensating college athletes in a thoughtful, multi-dimensional way.
Central Claim
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The central claim made by the author is that college athletes should be allowed to profit
off their name, image, and likeness while playing for their school’s team. Their three main
reasons supporting this thesis are: first that athletes already generate enormous revenue for
universities through television contracts, ticket sales, and merchandising; second, that the current
NCAA rules restricting endorsement deals for amateur players is a violation of their rights; and
third, that giving athletes the ability to earn endorsement money provides an incentive for them
to stay in school longer instead of leaving early for professional sports.
While the overarching idea of finding ways to compensate college athletes seems
pragmatic given the billions generated by the sports industry, the UTA audience may have issues
with how simplistically and one-sidedly the author approaches this complex, nuanced topic.
Students may want to see more balance and acknowledgment of potential drawbacks before
endorsing such a major philosophical shift to pay-for-play in collegiate athletics.
Reasons
The author’s first reason in support of allowing college athlete endorsement deals is that
elite sports programs already generate immense revenues for universities. As the author states, ”
Additionally, as wage earners of the universities, student-athletes would probably still fall under
the classification of university employees.” While it’s true that lucrative TV contracts and
merchandising make major programs hugely profitable, the author overly simplifies the
argument. They fail to unpack how those revenues get distributed, what percentage goes towards
supporting the student-athletes themselves, and whether high coaching salaries or facility
extravagances are prudent uses of money. The UTA community, including many athletes
themselves, may want more transparency and context addressing these complexities before
agreeing that current financial practices are invalid justification for endorsement restrictions.
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The second reason provided is that NCAA amateurism rules prohibiting college athletes
from earning endorsement money are outdated and hypocritical. Initially, the NCAA did not
have a clear definition of amateurism for athletes. However, member institutions were prohibited
from offering any payment to students for playing on sports teams, such as scholarships. While
they make a fair point about the apparent hypocrisy of this specific NCAA regulation, the blanket
dismissal ignores plausible drawbacks that could accompany unrestricted name/image/likeness
(NIL) deals. UTA students may wonder about potential impacts on recruiting imbalances, gender
equity issues, prioritizing athletics over academics, or fracturing team chemistry. More fleshing
out of these angles is needed for the argument to resonate fully.
For the third reason, the author posits that endorsement earnings could incentivize elite
players to remain in school longer rather than departing early for professional ranks, arguing that
This paradigm encourages student-athletes to remain in school instead of entering professional
professions early due to financial constraints. However, the author provides no data or examples
to back up this claim as a legitimate motivator for top recruits who likely have their sights set on
going pro as soon as possible for the bigger paydays. While possible in theory, the suggestion
seems speculative. UTA’s audience would expect more robust evidence substantiating it as a
meaningful reason for allowing endorsements.
Pathos
In terms of pathos, the author relies heavily on emotive language and paints a
sympathetic picture of the “exploited” college athlete to stir outrage against the allegedly unjust
NCAA rules. Athletic departments’ selfishness and crass exploitation are criticized for portraying
universities as corrupt institutions exploiting and depriving the workers who generate their
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wealth. The author attempts to evoke anger and moral indignation by framing it as an us vs. them
issue of defenseless, hardworking students being mistreated by a merciless institutional machine.
For example, one particularly charged quote reads: ” The NCAA’s current revenuesharing model is flawed and does not adequately compensate student-athletes for their
contributions to the industry.” With this type of hyperbolic language depicting self-sacrificing
martyrs being cruelly exploited for profit, the author seems to be going for an emotional gut
punch to persuade readers.
However, this excessive stridency and lack of subtlety or alternative perspectives could
come across as overly preachy, immature, and off-putting to a UTA audience looking for a more
objective, nuanced treatment of the issues. While billion-dollar revenues certainly raise ethical
questions, the lack of acknowledgment that universities make substantial investments in
providing advanced coaching, training, medical support, etc., for athlete success undermines the
rant as an unfair personal attack. UTA’s community of students, faculty, and alumni may not be
as receptive to such a relentlessly one-sided anti-university debate framing.
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Reference
Corgan, Michael A. “Permitting student-athletes to accept endorsement deals: A solution to the
financial corruption of college athletics created by unethical sports agents and the
NCAA’s revenue-generating scheme.” Vill. Sports & Ent. LJ 19 (2012): 371.
Hiya,
While I’d initially intended for my spring break to be almost entirely sleep and writing
feedback for you, life had other plans for me. My mother had some surgeries and I had a couple
of friends with minor crises. My personalized notes for you this time around will be brief, sadly.
To that end, I have included all of my generic feedback below the personalized feedback – I’ll
try to highlight anything that I think will help. I also feel like Nick’s RAE Notes and the Build
An RAE are pretty good resources to revise from.
Bipul,
I think I see a reasonable attempt at all the RAE elements… however… you’re not using
the article I provided for you? See if you can shift towards using Soni’s “There’s a loneliness
crisis on college campuses” that I provided you on Canvas. If you’re struggling with the
identifications, there are some hints on Nick’s RAE Notes. I’d follow this same template that
you’ve built for yourself, but address the provided article. Sorry! Once you’ve shifted to
discussing Soni’s article, you can look through the generic feedback below to check yourself.
Feel free to email me any questions you develop. Good luck in your revisions!
Assignment Criteria Issues:
– You’re off the mark on what the assignment is asking of you.
o Prompt: pretend you work at the Shorthorn (student paper). Your boss has asked
you to review an article. They want to know whether they should publish it or not.
o You’re looking at 9 paragraphs – Introduction, Central Claim, Reasons/Evidence
(1-3), Naysayer, Ethos, Pathos, Conclusion.
o Double check Nick’s RAE Notes for recommendations on how to construct each
paragraph! Alternatively, you can check Build-a-Rhetorical-Analysis-Essay for
additions!
Formatting:
• Make sure everything is Times New Roman 12! (including title/heading)
• Make sure you’re double-spaced.
• Get rid of the breaks between paragraphs.
• Occasional odd capitalization choices.
• Limited surface errors – consider checking for red and blue squiggles in Word.
• Definitely need paragraphs here – block text makes it extremely difficult to see when one
element ends and another begins.
• Make sure you have a heading.
•
•
•
•
•
Use the “Tab” key to indent your paragraphs.
Make sure your heading is left aligned, your title is centered, and your text is left aligned
(not also centered)
Quoting issues:
◦ First time you reference the author – full name. After that, last name only is fine.
◦ Article title in quotation marks! – “Title”
Quotes inside punctuation!
◦ Good: “I like dogs.”
◦ Bad: “I like dogs”.
Publications are italicized – Shorthorn
Introduction:
–
–
–
–
–
◦ Don’t include the introduction element names (“I say” etc)
“they say”
o Could be better. Try to work in two things:
▪ Acknowledging your boss’s request to review the article
▪ The broader conversation in society surrounding your topic
“I say”
o Could be more explicit/obvious – you definitely want a sentence that says
“publish it” or “don’t publish it” or something like that!
“who cares?”
o One definitely and one more broadly:
▪ Your boss! You should try to work in a word like “boss” or “editor” into
your introduction to make this really clear!
▪ Future readers – they have a stake in this!
“so what?”
o Maybe work on this a bit – if your boss and future readers have something to gain
or lose from the publication of this piece… what is it? What do they get out of it?
Super simple intro (you’d want more/better than this, but if this helps…)
o Boss, I got your request to review the article “There’s a loneliness crisis on
college campuses” by Varun Soni. After reading it and thinking about it, I think
you should publish it. Our readers need to hear what he’s got to say about mental
health. It could help them in their own lives. It could also make the paper look
good – we can show how much we care about our fellow students.
–
Central Claim:
–
Claim –
o I think your central claim is off – double check Nick’s RAE Notes to see if you
can find it!
–
–
–
–
Reasons preview –
o I probably wouldn’t use quotes here. I think you’re looking for a sentence in your
own words about what you think the author’s reasons are – if you’re unsure,
check back with the article and Nick’s RAE Notes!
o Consider numbering/labeling these – think “The author’s first reason is…”
“Second, they argued…” “Finally, they pointed out that…”
Brief analysis –
o Consider 1-2 sentences here of analysis for the audience – will they agree with the
broad points? Disagree? Do they believe this is a real problem?
Soni:
o Central claim: there’s a mental health crisis on college campuses and universities
have a responsibility to do something about it.
o Reasons: the downward trend in reported well-being, things he thinks cause the
problem, and the solution (double check Nick’s RAE Notes and the article to flesh
these out a bit)
General:
o Tell us what the central claim is. Then consider numbering/labeling the reasons as
you put them into your own words. Finally, add maybe a sentence or two about
how you think the UTA audience will respond to the argument as a whole.
o
Reasons and Evidence Paragraphs
1. Reason 1-3
a. Topic Sentence
– Could use a stronger topic sentence. If you numbered/labeled these in the Central Claim
paragraph, you should have an easy time of this!
b. Your setup
– I’d really like a little setup in your own words before you launch into the quote. Lead into
it, if you can!
c. Quoting/Paraphrasing for Reason
– Double check Nick’s RAE Notes (purple) for an explanation of how to quote things more
effectively!
d. Explanation of above/how it advances your argument
– After your quote, it’d really help if you could explain why it’s there – either explain the
significance of the quote to the overall article or tell us why it’s a point in favor of your “I
say”/thesis!
e. Quoting/Paraphrasing for Evidence
– Consider double checking what evidence the author offers for this reason. Nick’s RAE
Notes should help you track it down. Can you work in a quote or reference something in
the article (such as a source, statistic, or something like that)?
f. Explanation of above/how it advances your argument
–
–
–
–
Explain the significance of the evidence. Does it make the reason stronger/more
believable?
g. Analysis for audience
While you can weave this in throughout, I might round out each paragraph with an
analysis of how future readers of this article at UTA would respond. Would we agree
with their reasons/evidence?
If you’re struggling for things to say here, try to guess how students, professors, and
administrators would respond. That should at least give you three things to say and add a
little nuance to your analysis!
Return sentence – round out your paragraph with something like, “As the audience would
think X about this reason, I think we should (publish/not publish) this article.”
Much like the first – maybe give a little setup first, introduce the reason, explain it, show
the evidence, explain it, and then move into the analysis.
Naysayer
–
–
–
–
Topic Sentence – see if you can signal that you’re about to talk about someone that the
author of the article disagreed with. “Not everyone agrees with…” or “The way [author]
handles a counterargument is…”
Your setup
o A brief explanation of the opponent’s position in your own words would be nice.
Quoting/Paraphrasing
o Try to show us either the disagreement or refutation or both – or paraphrase them!
Explanation of above
o Explain how the disagreement got resolved. Think “The author refuted their
points by explaining…” and/or “This shows that…”
Analysis for audience
o Need some analysis here. How would the UTA audience respond? Were they fair
and well-reasoned? Were they dismissive or mean? Did they successfully win the
argument in our hearts and minds or could they have gone further?
o If you’re struggling for things to say here, try to guess how students, professors,
and administrators would respond. That should at least give you three things to
say and add a little nuance to your analysis!
Soni:
Think “snowflake.” Some think this generation is weak. Soni says the world has changed
– would students appreciate being defended by Soni? Would professors change the way
they treat students if they were told about things that have changed?
o
Ethos
–
–
–
–
–
Topic Sentence
o Try to signal, if you can, that you’re about to talk about the author’s character,
credibility, or credentials!
Your setup
o Talk about how you received the author just a bit before you show evidence of it
with a quote/paraphrasing something from the article.
Quoting/Paraphrasing
o Give us a quote or paraphrase something
Explanation of above
o How does that show their character/credibility/credentials? What do they mean?
Here’s where you give us an informed opinion!
Analysis for audience
o Would the UTA audience respect them? Why? What values do we have that make
you think so?
Expansion/General:
o This is a good start. Couple of things to expand on: why would our audience value
statistics and good sourcing? Why do we care about learning? (Hint: we’re an
institution of higher learning, yeah?)
–
Pathos
–
–
–
–
–
–
General idea (Soni):
Think about the kinds of emotions Soni wants to get out of his audience. What are they?
Can you show us what made you think so? Try to name a couple of emotions he was
trying to evoke. Then tell us if the UTA audience would feel those things. Is that an
effective use of emotional language?
Topic Sentence
o Try to signal, if you can, that you’re about to talk about the author’s emotional
impact.
Your setup
o Talk about how you received the author’s emotional appeals just a bit before you
show evidence of it with a quote/paraphrasing something from the article.
Quoting/Paraphrasing
o Show us how they tried to tap into the audience’s emotions with something from
the article.
Explanation of above
o How does that show their emotional effectiveness? How does it hit? Try to tell us
what specific emotions they’re trying to get out of the audience and whether you
think they succeed or fail.
Analysis for audience
–
o How’s the UTA audience going to feel reading this?
o If you’re struggling for things to say here, try to guess how students, professors,
and administrators would respond. That should at least give you three things to
say and add a little nuance to your analysis!
If you’re struggling for things to say in the analysis portion of each paragraph, try to
guess how students, professors, and administrators would respond. That should at least
give you three things to say and add a little nuance to your analysis!
Conclusion:
–
–
I think I’d try to summarize your analysis here – “Their reasons were good because… As
for their credibility and emotional impact, … The way they handled someone that
disagreed with them showed…” then move into a strong restatement of “I say”/“so
what?” – “For all these reasons, boss, I have to tell you that I think we should… The
paper will… Our audience will respond…”
Rather than summarizing the article again, I think it might be good to summarize your
analysis. The last two sentences are definitely on point though – strong restatement of
thesis and why it matters!
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