Do you agree with a boycott of the Olympics? Discuss.

Topic - Sports
Issue - Whether a boycott of the Olympics is appropriate
Context - Anytime
Keywords - Boycott - cancel, call off
Stand - No, do not agree


Topic sentences
1)Boycotting of the Olympics is not fair for athletes who participating.
2)Olympics should carry on regardless of any situation.
3)Boycotting of the Olympics would not solve the problem.
4)Solutions to the tension in Tibet should be thought of instead of boycotting.

Point - Boycotting of the Olympics is not fair for athletes who are participating.

Elaboration - Olympics is a prestigious competition in the world. It is for athletes who are good in certain sports to participate, bring glory to their country or even family. However it is not something that could be taken lightly and boycotted anytime we like.

Explanation - Athletes who are participating have spent alot of time to practise, to sharpen their skill in order to win a medal in the Olympics competition. The Olympics could be said to be their dreams which are so important to them. Thus by calling off the Olympics, it would be very unfair to the athletes as their time and efforts would be gone to drains. Moreover, Olympics is held only once every four years and their skills are most likely to deprove as they grow older.

Evidence - China gymnasts who took part in past Olympics gymnastics competition have trained since young at the age of 3 on average. Next scientific research shows that one's flexibility, needed in gymnastics, would deprove as he or she gets older.

Link - Thus boycotting of the Olympics should not happen as it will be very unfair for the athletes.


ShanGui

Do you agree with the boycott of Olympics? Discuss.

Topic: Sports and Politics
Issue: Is it all right to boycott Olympics?
Context: Anytime, Anywhere
Keywords: Boycott - Abstain from something/ Stop doing something
Stand: Disagree

Topic Sentences:

1) Boycotting of the Olympics will only cause matters to get worse.
2) Boycotting of the Olympics will only result in a loss of chance for athletes to prove themselves.
3) Olympics is a well regarded event and boycotting it would be a wrong thing to do.
4) Politics and Sports are two different issues that cannot be mixed together.

Point: Olympics is a well regarded event and boycotting it would be a wrong thing to do.

Elaboration: People from all over the world are anticipating for the start of the Olympics. It is a popular event for everyone, also a stage for athletes to show everyone what they are worth of. Hence, if it were to be boycotted, lots of grievances and problems might arise.

Example: The 1980s Summer Olympics that is boycotted by US and other countries was held in Moscow. This has led to a huge controversy being formed.

Evaluation: Boycotting of the Olympics would only cause more troubles and misconception. This might even lead to greater issues in which countries get into deeper misunderstanding, escalating into fights or wars. By then, it would be too late to salvage the situation. Hence, we should solve the problem while it’s still early.

Link: Therefore, it is only right to save all the troubles and just get the Olympics going.

louis

Do you agree with the boycott of the olympics.

Question analysis.

Topic:olympics and politics
Issue: countries Boycotting the olympics
Context:past, present, future, global.
Keywords:Boycott-reusing to do something by getting a whole group to do so.
Stand: I do not agree.

Topic sentence 1:
Boycotting , not just in the olympics, is wrong by itself.

Topic sentence 2:
Boycotting the olympics does not solve anything.

Topic sentence 3:
the olympics was made for sports, not for boycott.

Topic sentence 4.
Boycotts of the olympics did not work in the past.

topic sentence 3 chosen.

point:
The olympics were made for sports, not for boycott.

elaboration:
Countries are using the olympics as a chance to express their unhappiness among each other, and boycotting it seems to be their soultion. However they forget that the true essence of the olympics is for atheletes to compete with each other, not to bring politics in and settle disputes. It would be unfair to the atheletes if they had been training very hard for the event and yet their own counrty does not allow them to participate due to some conlifct between the two countries. It will also lead to nothing but the worsening of the conflict.

example.:though there was boycott of the moscow olympics, the event still went on as well and there were even more new world records made there.

evulation:
thus, even though there may be unwilling parties to join the olympics, the event would still go on as many other countries would still participate. thus this would greatly affect those atheletes who were training for the event and yet were not allowed to go. the conflict among them would also still worsen. the olympics was only made for sports, and adding politics will only make the conflict even worse.

Link:
thus we can see that by mixing politics with the olympics would create greater conflict not only among the countries, but also among the atheletes and the government of the country as well. thus i do not agree to the boycott of the olympics.

kenneth

Do you agree with a boycott of the Olympics?

Question Analysis
Topic: Sports and Politics
Issue: Whether there should be a boycott of the Olympics
Context: Present
Key-words: Boycott - to abstain from participating
Stand: I do not agree.

Topic Sentence 1: Sports and Politics should never be mixed together, which in this case, it apparantly did so.

Topic Sentence 2: A boycott of the Olympics will deal a tremendous blow to the innocent athletes participating in it.

Topic Sentence 3: By boycotting the Olympics, it would only strain those countries' ties with China, a growing power whose force cannot be underestimated.

Topic Sentence 4: By supporting the boycott of the Olympics, it would only mean that the activists have achieved their goal.

Topic sentence chosen: Sports and Politics should never be mixed together, which in this case, it apparantly did so.

Point: Sports and Politics should never be mixed together, which in this case, it apparantly did so.

Elaboration: Sports and Politics are two entirely different story, and they should never be mixed together. Rational people would most likely comprehend but however, the activists that aim to deal a severe blow to China by encouraging the boycott due to the Tibet's unrest, are oblivious to that and tried to stir up anti-China feelings among the people. By doing so, it only shows the immaturity of those people, and whatever they do, we all know well that the Olympics can never be stopped.

Evidence: Over the past few decades, we have all seen that acts of boycotting the Olympics were never successful and the Olympics proceeded on even without the participation of several countries.

Evaluation: The boycott will never be successful and it would only stain the reputation of those who support the boycott, and shows their level of maturity in handling such situations.

Link: Therefore, i do not agree to the boycott of the Olympics as eventually, Sports is sports, Politics is politics, these two should never be mixed together.

-Edmund

Do you agree with a boycott of the Olympics? Discuss.

Topic: Olympics

Issue: Boycotting the Olympics

Context:

Time – Not specified
Place – Worldwide

Keywords:

Boycott - Banning; Refusal to participate in the games
Olympics - Global event with long history; great and extensive media emphasis;

Important for host country
Discuss - Personal views; Two-sided arguments
Stand: Definite yes or no ( As seen from ‘Do You Agree’)

My Stand: Do not agree

Topic Sentences:

1. Boycotting the Olympics is not necessary as it may not be effective in improving the situation.

2. Boycotting may imply a lack of respect to the host country of the Olympic Games, hence leading or extending to strains in relationship between the two countries in the future.

3. Countries should not focus too much on politics but instead emphasize on the true spirit and purpose behind the Olympics.

4. Boycotting may result in the intensive preparations done by the athletes to go to waste, hence causing a great setback to them.

Content Paragraph

Point: I believe that boycotting is not necessary, as it may not be effective in resolving the conflict.

Elaboration: The fact that it is not necessary is because the solution does not depend solely on threats. Instead, it is more important that the parties involved understand and realize the importance to change their mentality or wrongdoings, in an attempt to rebuild peace and harmony between the two parties. This would then act as a catalyst to resolve the conflict, much more quickly and effectively. Though boycotting often provides a faster and more direct way to solve the problem, there may also be an equal amount of possibility that it backfires and instead, results in a negative impact.

Example: Take for example the recent boycott threat on the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The European Union is one such country who attempts to use boycotting as a means to resolve the conflict between China and Tibet. Through it, they intend to force China to improve its attitude and treatment towards the Tibetans.

Evaluation: However by boycotting the Olympics, it may spark off anger in the Chinese, due to the fact that their hard work spend on making the 2008 Olympics a success will be put to waste, as well as posing a great negative impact on their reputation. This may lead to the arise of rebellious attitudes which may worsen China’s treatment towards the Tibetans and their level of respect towards human rights.

Link: Hence this makes it more difficult for a peaceful solution to be reached.

Justin

(1996 - mass media)The media can be largely blamed for the world-wide increase in violence.' to what extent do u agree?

Topic - Media
Issue - Media can be largely blamed for the world-wide increase in violence to what extent?
Context - Global, present
Keywords - Violence - riots, strikes, Increase - comparison should be made
Stand - Media can indeed be largely blamed

4 Topic Sentences -

1)The media, by reporting on sensitive issues, may unintentionally start up a confront.

2)Media is a form of propagation, as violent scences are repeated, people tend to be influenced by it.

3)The media, by portraying the explicit details and scenes on violence, has no doubt influenced people to take part in it as well, leading to world-wide increase in violence.

4)Due to its far reaching capabilities, the media by reporting on certain violence incidences, can help rally the support of other affected people, and thus fuel the rise of the violence.

Chosen topic sentence - The media, by portraying the explicit details and scenes on violence, has no doubt influenced people to take part in it as well, leading to world-wide increase in violence.

Paragraph for chosen topic sentence-

The media, by portraying the explicit details and scenes on violence, has no doubt influenced people to take part in it as well, leading to world-wide increase in violence. Media is everywhere, ever since its commercialisation in the 19th century, it had since had a great impact in the lives of many. One major influence which it brought about is violence. This often arises through movies, tv shows, articles, as well as pictures and reported articles. By reporting on certain violence related issues, it may fuel the anger in some people, causing them to develop hatred and eventually participating in the violence situation. An example is the recent unrest in Tibet, where the riots, which eventually evolved to violent confronts with the authorities, have fueled the anger in many people due to the vast media reports, spurring them to engage in the current situation as well. Thus, the media, definitely have the ability to increase world-wide violence.

Group effort.

Is the Environment suffering?

The environment is indeed suffering. Increasing release of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide has led to an increase in the average global temperature over the years, from 1880 to present. The most worrying now is that the average temperature is expected to continue rising with the increasing amount of greenhouse gases released now.

The rise in temperature of the atmosphere has brought about serious consequences. Firstly, it has caused the vast ice caps at North and South Poles to melt which in turn caused the sea level to rise. Though the impact of rising sea level is not so visible, however in time to come, low lying areas will be submerged in water. In other words, lives would be lost and financial cost would be iccurred. The rapid melting of ice caps would also result in the extinction of life in Artic or Antartica, polar bears and penguins. This is because they would be confined to small standing grounds and extincted if the ice caps were to be completely melted. Next, rising temperatures would cause famine. This is due to the changes in the temperature of soil. Every crop would grow best in different soil temperature. Thus by increasing the temperature of soil due to rising atmospheric temperature, crops would not grow optimally causing insufficient food supply, famine. Lastly, the rise in temperature would affect the weather. As such, more natural disaster would be more frequently seen, such as hurricanes and tornadoes.

Release of carbon dioxide gas to the atmosphere comes mostly from exhaust pipes in vehicles' engines. Moreover the usage of cars has increased over the years due to increasing demand for luxury good as people now have greater purchasing power compared to the past. One should in fact take transport such as trains or buses instead of driving cars as this would significantly decrease amount of carbon dioxide being released should everyone be environment conscious.

ShanGui

is the environment suffering?

Not only is our world already ageing and no longer as healthy as before, but her population is speeding up the ageing process by suffocating it with a perfume called pollution.

The effects do not seem prominent just yet, but it is as real as ever. Just by looking at a simple global temperature chart as above, we can easily realize that what we are doing actually does harm to the already dying earth. Deforestation, land, water, air pollution, global warming, do we still need any evidence that the environment is suffering? Many of us do not think so due to the very fact that they do not feel the impact yet. Only when they experience some major catastrophe do the people of the earth declare it the end of days.

In the long run, perhaps not in the near future, the damage to the environment will slowly build up, and by then, earth will take its revenge on us by no longer protecting us from the elements. There is just so much the earth can hold onto our constant abuse to her, and when it finally snaps, I do not even want to think what would happen to us.

At the sacrifice of the environment to make life better for ourselves, mankind is ultimately destroying himself. Be wise, stop while its still safe to turn back.

kenneth

Is the environment suffering???

There is no doubt about this. Forest are fell each day to satisfy the amount of land needed for construction of newer and better infrastructures. Tons of fossil fuels are burned each day to generate electricity so that we can live even better. Cars are used so often that the amount of waste gases are enough to choke millions to death. However, few have made the effort to save our environment. One excellent evidence about the earth suffering is the 'fever' its having every single day. Global temperature has been on the increase for the past 100 years. This will have significant effects if we continue to ignore it. Ice caps are melting, water levels are rising, even the chance of lowlands being flooded has increased. Large amount of greenhouse gases are released into the air each day. Even the simple use of aerosol canspray can lead to the addition of these gases. Our 'protector', the ozone layer, is getting thinner and thinner with more and more holes in it. Right above Australia is one big hole letting in lots of harmful UV rays, causing skin cancer and illness. From this, we can see that not only is the environment suffering, we, the inhabitant will suffer too if we continue to neglect it. Another example is pollution, it can take the form of air, land, water and even noise. The emission of giant clouds of smoke from the power station might seem rather cool, but its actually harming the environment, even though there are scrubbers to lessen the dirt and chemicals. Therefore we must look for an alternative source of energy which is cheap and durable. In conclusion, our environment is definitely suffering, however, what we can do is to help lessen the impact we are giving to the earth. No matter is it by using less paper to using alternative sources of energy, we must save our environment to save ourselves.

Louis

Is Environment Suffering?

http://www.africanconservancy.org/about/documents/Facts.pdf

Extinction of Species
· Every 20 minutes, the world adds another 3,500 human lives but loses one or more entire species of animal or plant life - at
least 27,000 species per year. (Source: PBS)
· At the present rates of extinction, as many as 20% of the world's 7-15 million species could be gone in the next 30 years.
This rate of extinction has been unprecedented since the disappearance of dinosaurs 65 million years ago (Source: WWF).

The Iraq War, bird flu, US economy crisis, conflict in Tibet, rise in food prices, the escape of Mas Selamat… These are just some of the many events that are currently happening somewhere in this world. People sacrifice their utmost concern and attention while countries spend large amount of money as well as deploying thousands of pairs of hands and legs just for these events. Though these events are worth one’s time and effort, many often overlook the most fundamental and critical problem that is currently going on. This problem concerns all parts of the world and nations, regardless of the level of development. Yes, the topic I am talking about here is Environmental Destruction.

Being stewards of the Earth, our main responsibility is to look after it, make sure that it is ‘fine and healthy’ and to ensure that it is able to sustain the lives of our future generations. However the fact that the Earth is currently in bad shape shows that we are not doing our job, at least not good enough.

One very good evidence to show the extent and severity of environmental destruction, implicated on our Mother Earth, is the extinction of species. From the information above, the writings claimed that ‘we are losing at least 27,000 species per year, which also means that ‘as many as 20% of the world’s 7 to 15 million species could become extinct in the next 30 years. In addition, it even mentioned that this rate of extinction is unprecedented or in other words, such a phenomenon has never happened before! These figures are alarming and worrying. Furthermore, the graph above also shows a steep increase in the number of extinct animals from 1 in 1900 to about 600 in 2000.

One of the main causes of this is deforestation. Deforestation has affected the rainforest of many countries around the globe, especially tropical rainforests in Southeast Asia. With the clearing of these densely populated forests to meet the increasing demand for timber and paper, the habitat of hundreds and thousands of animals are sacrificed. As these animals fail to adapt to these changes, they give in to the elements of nature and die.

Deforestation is also related to air pollution. As technology and economy improve, the increasing number of cars on the road and its usage result in large quantities of pollutive gases released into the atmosphere. As some of these gases, such as sulphur dioxide, dissolves in the rainwater, acid rain is created. Acid rain is a well known solvent for the killing of plants, thus contributes to deforestation. Besides this, air pollution also results in global warming and the greenhouse effect, which causes ice-caps to melt and sea levels to rise as well as many other destructive consequences.

Water pollution is also another example of environmental suffering. Common examples are oil spills and littering. These not only destroy the beauty of the coasts lining these water bodies, but also kill marine plants and animals, thus contributing to their extinction.

Back on land, natural resources are fast depleting as their demand increases, which is in turn caused by technological improvements. Such resources include crude oil, barren land, metal ores, timber, etc/

Thus with all these harmful impact, I can confidently say that the environment is suffering. Therefore we need to do something and we need to do it fast. In fact, we are already experiencing some of the effects such as more frequent and devastating weather conditions worldwide, spreading of deserts and the rise in global temperatures. There is no time to waste. We need to save MOTHER EARTH!!


Justin

Is Environment ''Suffering''?

There is no doubt that environment is indeed ''suffering''. One can easily prove this by flipping open the newspaper, and there would most likely be at least one certain article concerning environment, be it oil spills, deforestation, ice caps melting, global warming issues, etc. All these are actually repercussions from the selfish acts of mankind, compromising our environment for the benefits of ourselves. For an instance, the countless amount of paper generated each day for our use, have sacrificed a significant amount of trees from the environment, stripping bare some of the rainforests in some countries. This act of deforestation, sparked off a chain reaction, causing environmental problems such as global warming, which results in increased temperature, and leads to ice caps melting in the polar regions, which in turn causes flooding that deluge low-lying lands, taking away innocent lives and also in a way damaging the environment due to the loss of land.

One can also take a look around ourselves. How often can we see greeneries and mother nature beauties in our modern society? High rise buildings and structures, high class restaurants, sport facilities, have all replaced the forests initially there, causing environmentalists to protest, urging policymakers to initiate a ban on cutting down more forests and destroying our natural environment.

Furthermore, even the food that we obtain for consumption have resulted in environmental problems indirectly, such as desertification. To meet our overwhelming demand for food supply, farmers have intensively used their land to increase outputs, causing the soil to be exhausted, resulting in the land being barren. Overtime, the land is being abandoned for use and gradually turns into a desert by several other factors.

To sum it all up, it is true that the environment is ''suffering''. This is certainly due to our selfish acts, thereby causing permanent damage to our surrounding environment for the sake of our own benefits. Mankind should really start to do something about this before the consequences become too severe for us to handle.

-Edmund