Evaluation of Etzioni Working at McDonalds
In Etzioni's essay, Working at McDonald's, he used many tactics to try to vindicate his opinion. The first was to state exactly what his position was. He said right from the start that working in mindless jobs can be hazardous to a teen's mental health. A place like McDonald's does impart few skills and skew the values of teenagers. But what you have to look at is, in 1986, all they had for teens to work were places like McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. As he continues in his essay, Etzioni proves that these positions can be perilous to adolescents with statistics. He also states studies done that prove the point that he is trying to justify. He talks about the Charper-Fraser study, where it sees "merit in learning teamwork and working under supervision". When he goes to argue about that, he doesn't use any statistics to back up his argument. He gives an example, but he do
Here he has evidence that working teen's struggle between working and going to school. The neighborhoods have changed along with people's lifestyles. A lot of the fast food places have changed. He goes on to say working is like sports in school. In another study, done by Montgomery County, he shows that 58 percent of seniors acknowledge the fact that working interferes with their school. They are less robotic and more into training you to become a better person at that job. The lemonade stand is outdated because neighborhoods aren't as close knit as they use to be. The fact that the kids are taking money out of the register doesn't mean that having a job is bad for them, it means that they were not ready to be out in the work field. In this part of the essay, he is not consistent. He makes his final point very clear, that school should be the most important thing. He made sure that his point got across, but he could have done a better job at the statistics. While even though this might be true, there is still no data to back up his support. When you look at the time it was written, you really couldn't compare it to today. You cannot have a newspaper route anymore unless you have a car with insurance and are over 18. As he goes along in the essay, he shares a personal story to further push his point onto his audience.
Common topics in this essay:
Montgomery County,
Fried Chicken,
McDonald's Etzioni's,
lemonade stand,
newspaper route,
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