Jordan Stubbs
Ms. Lehmann
English 2-1B
3 December 2019
“With Friends Like These...” Article Review
O. Henry once said, “No friendship is an accident.” Most of us have a group of friends. Some friends may be closer to us than others. The value of our friendship doesn’t change. The article “With Friends Like These...,” by Dorothy Rowe, is a fantastic read for readers who want to know more about friendships. In her article, she explains why we value our friendships the way we do.
Dorothy Rowe has a doctorate in psychology, and she has experience as a psychologist. Her main purpose for writing “With Friends Like These...” is to inform us about what she thinks of friendships and why we need and value our friends. She uses a very informal writing style, using 1st person pronouns such as “I”, “we”, and “our.” In addition, Rowe talks about her own personal experience which makes the article even more informal. To me, the article was engaging. As good of an article as it was, it lacks a bibliography. It has no outside sources. Because of this, it wouldn’t be a good article to use for a research paper or for in-depth research. The way she formatted her paper made up for it.
Rowe uses section titles to explain what she is talking about in each part of her article. These section titles were useful and practical. They helped the article flow and look organized. In her introduction, she states her main claim. The introduction drew me in because my friendships are something, I value a lot. Using the section titles, the article moved smoothly through her ideas, and there was no trouble finding what she was trying to get at. The content in her article was evident and important.
In her introduction, she stated the main claim quickly and used hooks to draw the reader in. Rowe is very straight forward with what she wants to tell you. She doesn’t try to make you guess what she is talking about. Instead, she tells you straight up. Her conclusion restates Rowe’s main claim. It also summarizes what she has been talking about. The conclusion was also very well worded and finished up her thoughts clearly, her main claim being that friendships are essential to our sense of who we are because our friends validate us and have similar ways that of looking at the world. Readers learn why we value our friendships the way we do. We need them to find out how we see the world. However, that is just her personal and professional experience.
Rowe has strengths and some weaknesses in her article. Some of the highlights were, making her article informal and relatable, using section titles to make the article easier to read, stating the main claim early, and using a good hook, as well as personal experience. There weren’t many weaknesses in “With Friends Like These...”, but the one weakness that stood out to me is that she doesn’t use any outside resources for readers who want to know more about this topic. If she used outside sources and included a bibliography, it would have been more useful to curious readers. Another thing that could be a weakness is stating her claim right away. Some readers may want to have a challenge to find the main idea instead of having it handed to them. Overall, I think this article is a good article, and people should read it if they are interested in this topic.
Work Cited
Rowe, Dorothy. "With Friends Like These..." Collections, edited by
Kylene Beers, Martha Hougen, Carol Jago, William L. McBride, Erik Palmer,
Lydia Stack, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017, pp 141-143.
Article Review Reflection
1. Explain the process you went through to write this paper. Please be specific.
2. What qualifies this paper as an informative essay? What are the requirements for a review and how did you meet them?
3. What one piece of advice would you give someone writing a review for the first time? Why?
Ms. Lehmann
English 2-1B
3 December 2019
“With Friends Like These...” Article Review
O. Henry once said, “No friendship is an accident.” Most of us have a group of friends. Some friends may be closer to us than others. The value of our friendship doesn’t change. The article “With Friends Like These...,” by Dorothy Rowe, is a fantastic read for readers who want to know more about friendships. In her article, she explains why we value our friendships the way we do.
Dorothy Rowe has a doctorate in psychology, and she has experience as a psychologist. Her main purpose for writing “With Friends Like These...” is to inform us about what she thinks of friendships and why we need and value our friends. She uses a very informal writing style, using 1st person pronouns such as “I”, “we”, and “our.” In addition, Rowe talks about her own personal experience which makes the article even more informal. To me, the article was engaging. As good of an article as it was, it lacks a bibliography. It has no outside sources. Because of this, it wouldn’t be a good article to use for a research paper or for in-depth research. The way she formatted her paper made up for it.
Rowe uses section titles to explain what she is talking about in each part of her article. These section titles were useful and practical. They helped the article flow and look organized. In her introduction, she states her main claim. The introduction drew me in because my friendships are something, I value a lot. Using the section titles, the article moved smoothly through her ideas, and there was no trouble finding what she was trying to get at. The content in her article was evident and important.
In her introduction, she stated the main claim quickly and used hooks to draw the reader in. Rowe is very straight forward with what she wants to tell you. She doesn’t try to make you guess what she is talking about. Instead, she tells you straight up. Her conclusion restates Rowe’s main claim. It also summarizes what she has been talking about. The conclusion was also very well worded and finished up her thoughts clearly, her main claim being that friendships are essential to our sense of who we are because our friends validate us and have similar ways that of looking at the world. Readers learn why we value our friendships the way we do. We need them to find out how we see the world. However, that is just her personal and professional experience.
Rowe has strengths and some weaknesses in her article. Some of the highlights were, making her article informal and relatable, using section titles to make the article easier to read, stating the main claim early, and using a good hook, as well as personal experience. There weren’t many weaknesses in “With Friends Like These...”, but the one weakness that stood out to me is that she doesn’t use any outside resources for readers who want to know more about this topic. If she used outside sources and included a bibliography, it would have been more useful to curious readers. Another thing that could be a weakness is stating her claim right away. Some readers may want to have a challenge to find the main idea instead of having it handed to them. Overall, I think this article is a good article, and people should read it if they are interested in this topic.
Work Cited
Rowe, Dorothy. "With Friends Like These..." Collections, edited by
Kylene Beers, Martha Hougen, Carol Jago, William L. McBride, Erik Palmer,
Lydia Stack, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017, pp 141-143.
Article Review Reflection
1. Explain the process you went through to write this paper. Please be specific.
- For this paper, the class went over the article and we criticized the article and used it to create an outline of the article. Using this outline, we further outlined what we were going to say and when we were going to say it. After that, we were on our own to write the paper.
2. What qualifies this paper as an informative essay? What are the requirements for a review and how did you meet them?
- Somethings that qualify this an informative essay is by telling the reader how and where I got my information, what I think of the information, and if their is something I would do differently with the information. The requirements of a review are, a background of the author, their purpose for writing the article, what style they used, and if their was any sources listed. The next requirement was, how the author formatted the article, whether or not they used section titles, and the organization of the article. The last requirement is, the content of the article, the introduction and conclusion, the summary, and the research the author did and the sources listed.
3. What one piece of advice would you give someone writing a review for the first time? Why?
- One piece of advice I would give, is to go over the article and find the strengths and weaknesses of the article and base your outline on those strengths and weaknesses. I would give this advice, because it would help the reader find the good things and bad things about the article and give them an opinion on the overall article based on those findings.