【Issue136】谁帮我看看呀...都发到第三篇了都没有人帮忙改...太杯具了

yxwang1988UID: 2735195

TOPIC: ISSUE136 - "The absence of choiceis a circumstance that is very, very rare."
WORDS: 557
TIME: 00:45:00
DATE:12/27/2009 2:07:55 PM

I totally agree with the writer's point of view that thereis always a choice. The many circumstances where people assert "I don'thave a choice" is in fact, not the case, as we will explore later. Also,the number of choices available to a person is highly correlated to his/herability to think outside the box. Furthermore, we will see from various exampleof the psychological effect of the fear to make mistakes affect people'sattitude and behaviors towards choices. Fortunately, there are a few usefulscientific and analytical methods that assist people in making good choices. Wewill discuss their pros and cons at the very end of this essay.

Language is tricky sometimes. What people say in many cases doesnot have the sentence's literal meaning. 'I don't have a choice' for example,is a vague term which virtually means, 'other choices are so unappealing that Idon't even consider them at all'. Whenever a politician said he was forced todo something, he had in fact searched for and evaluated all other alternativesand drew the conclusion that this action is optimal. George W Bush, forinstance, declared war against Iraq using all sorts of diplomatic terms toexpress his reluctance, but in fact, his supporting rate skyrocketed tounprecedented height after the this announcement, which directly resulted inhis second term of presidency. Under the disguise of obligation, this is indeeda very good choice for him and his party.

Sometimes, there are alternatives that are not readilyavailable or apparent to people making decisions. They think it is the onlyway, but there are other smarter ways to handle the same situation. Creativepeople can often come up with novel solutions. To do this, one needs to be ableto abstain the mundane way of thinking and think outside the box. Observing thematter from a different perspective will usually help. In chess, there is amove called 'backhand', which literally means to drop the current conflictpoint and focus on a broader view. This is the same in mathematics when certainalgorithms will be trapped in local optimum and failed to reach globaloptimality. Experience, knowledge and critical thinking skills help individualto see all facets of the issue. There is almost always a whole new horizonwithin every seemingly dilemma we faced in daily life.

Sadly, people are usually not comfortable with choices. Thisweird phenomenon is inherited from the fear of making mistakes. The most commonexample is university. When students are offered opportunities to choose theirown courses to take, majors to go in and specializations to stream to, they panic.We do not know how to choose, we do not know whether the subject we like nowwill still be attractive after we go deeper. We are afraid of making wrongdecisions and make our university study a total failure. Deeply within, we hopeto have some wise man choosing for us. Maybe this is except for those extremelyahead of the crowd who knows exactly what he or she wants, they will become leadersand risk takers in the future. Others common ones prefer to deny the existenceof other options and live a safe and boring life.

Fortunately, given sufficient information, there aretechniques and method to help us discover and make better decisions. Amongthem, operations research, statistics and economy are the most important tools.All of them use mathematics and other scientific method to abstract the problemand try to find an optimal solution analytically. It can be proved that thereexists an optimal solution. However, it may not always be practical to adoptthese methods in real life. The complexity of finding it maybe too high or itis too expensive that the initial purpose of efficiency is defeated. There maybe simply not enough time to think the issue through. Specifically, peopleoften express the choice made in these situations of urgency and difficulty as'no choice'. Even worse, people tends to conclude there is no other choiceswhen one of the solution is exceedingly obviously and attractive, giving afalse impression that no choice scenario occurs all the time.

All in all, the real 'no choice' situation is indeed veryrare, while oppositely the broader 'no choice' case is very common. Linguisticexpressions modified the meaning of "no choice" and that hiddenmeaning is what people refer to after an obvious and difficult choice makingprocess. Knowledge, creativity and many scientific approaches enable people todiscover alternatives and make better decisions but may sometimes be toocumbersome to do. Furthermore, majority of the people enjoy having external forcesto make decision for them. This originates directly from people's fear of uncertainties.Finally, it is the concept that there is always a choice and the ability to comfortablydeal with them that differentiate the outstanding from mundane.

fancywwUID: 2583671

TOPIC: ISSUE136 - "The absence of choice is a circumstance that is very, very rare."
WORDS: 557
TIME: 00:45:00
DATE:12/27/2009 2:07:55 PM

I totally agree with the writer's point of view that there is always a choice. The many circumstances where people assert "I don'thave a choice" is in fact, not the case, as we will explore later. Also,the number of choices available to a person is highly correlated to his/her ability to think outside the box. Furthermore, we will see from various example of the psychological effect of the fear to make mistakes affect people'sattitude and behaviors towards choices. Fortunately, there are a few useful scientific and analytical methods that assist people in making good choices. We will discuss their pros and cons at the very end of this essay.  这个开头...太长了...像是一个论证段落，个人觉得没有必要把分论点一一摆在这里

Language is tricky sometimes. What people say in many cases does not have the sentence's literal meaning. 'I don't have a choice' for example,is a vague term which virtually means, 'other choices are so unappealing that I don't even consider them at all'. Whenever a politician said he was forced to do something, he had in fact searched for and evaluated all other alternatives and drew the conclusion that this action is optimal. George W Bush, for instance, declared war against Iraq using all sorts of diplomatic terms to express his reluctance, but in fact, his supporting rate skyrocketed to unprecedented height after the this announcement, which directly resulted in his second term of presidency. Under the disguise of obligation, this is indeed a very good choice for him and his party. （最好在段首有个主题句。BUSH的例子没太看懂如何支持这一论点的）

Sometimes, there are alternatives that are not readily available， or apparent to （enough for）people to make making decisions. They think it is the only way, but there are other smarter ways to handle the same situation. Creative people can often come up with novel solutions. To do this, one needs to be able to abstain the mundane way of thinking and think outside the box. Observing the matter from a different perspective will usually help. In chess, there is amove called 'backhand', which literally means to drop the current conflictpoint and focus on a broader view. This is the same in mathematics when certain algorithms will be trapped in local optimum and failed to reach global optimality. Experience, knowledge and critical thinking skills help individual to see all facets of the issue. There is almost always a whole new horizonwithin every seemingly dilemma we faced in daily life.

Sadly, people are usually not comfortable with choices. This weird phenomenon is inherited from the fear of making mistakes. The most common example is university. When students are offered opportunities to choose their own courses to take, majors to go in and specializations to stream to, they panic.We (最统一人称)do not know how to choose, we do not know whether the subject we like now will still be attractive after we go deeper. We are afraid of making wrong decisions and make our university study a total failure. Deeply within, we hope to have some wise man choosing for us. Maybe this is except for those extremely ahead of the crowd who knows exactly what he or she wants, they will become leaders and risk takers in the future. Others common ones prefer to deny the existence of other options and live a safe and boring life.

Fortunately, given sufficient information, there are techniques and method to help us discover and make better decisions. Among them, operations research, statistics and economy are the most important tools.All of them use mathematics and other scientific method to abstract the problem and try to find an optimal solution analytically. It can be proved that there exists an optimal solution.（这里应该有个实例吧，不然前面讲的太理论太空了） However, it may not always be practical to adopt these methods in real life. The complexity of finding it maybe too high or it is too expensive that the initial purpose of efficiency is defeated. (为什么又自己否定了呢？还以为这里是在提建议了呢)There maybe simply not enough time to think the issue through. 【Specifically, people often express the choice made in these situations of urgency and difficulty as'no choice'. Even worse, people tends to conclude there is no other choices when one of the solution is exceedingly obviously and attractive, giving a false impression that no choice scenario occurs all the time.】这里和第一个论证点重复了

All in all, the real 'no choice' situation is indeed very rare, while oppositely the broader 'no choice' case is very common. Linguisticexpressions modified the meaning of "no choice" and that hiddenmeaning is what people refer to after an obvious and difficult choice makingprocess. Knowledge, creativity and many scientific approaches enable people todiscover alternatives and make better decisions but may sometimes be toocumbersome to do. Furthermore, majority of the people enjoy having external forcesto make decision for them. This originates directly from people's fear of uncertainties.Finally, it is the concept that there is always a choice and the ability to comfortablydeal with them that differentiate the outstanding from mundane.

第一点：when people think "I don't have a choice", it acutally means that "other choices are so unappealing that I don't even consider them at all'
第二点：Being creative and thinking outside the box will help people find new and better solutions in dilemma which seems to have no choice.
第三点：Sometimes, people feel difficult about making choices, because they cannot ger rid of the fear of taking responsibility for the consequence the choice may bring.
第四点：Fortunately, given sufficient information, there are techniques and method to help us discover and make better decisions.

可见，文章的一、三点在揭示有些人觉得“没有选择”的本质并不是只有一个选择。第二、四点是偏向于建议人们如何面对选择，以避免陷入无从选择的困境。
或许你第二点的本意是想写，有创造性的人就不会遇上“没有选择”的情况。但是这也就等于说，对于没有创造力的人来讲就有可能“没有选择”，那就和文章的主题相反了，因为主题是要讲“没有选择的情况少之又少”，毕竟生活中缺乏创造力的人处处可见，那对于这些人来讲就的确没得选择的情况很多了。
而你的第四点，貌似在给出建议，但however后面又在否定前面了。
所以像上面那样整理一下，意思是不是稍微清楚一些呢？
接下来再把一、三点放在前面，二、四点合并一下作为第三点，这样三个分论点就比较明确了：先揭示“没有选择”其实是种幻觉或误解，再告诉人们如何走出这种困境。
另外，开头结尾我觉得没必要重复分论点，可以写一些比较有意义的话。
再另外，主题句最好在第一段结尾出现。

dingyi0311UID: 2627919

例子好像没有很好的支持论点

yxwang1988UID: 2735195

太感谢了fancyww同学！
写的时候很多想表达的没有表达出来，思路也没有理顺，现在看你一改觉得清晰了很多


一从语言学上讲no choice不是真的no choice。应区分开strict definition of "no choice" and broad definition of "no choice"。说明其实不是没有Choice，只是表述上的字面意义这么讲。 (Bush的例子不太好又没有说清...原来是想说他对公众说我们“被迫”宣战其实不是"被迫"(no choice)而是从众多的选择中挑出了对他个人和党派的利益最大化的那个)


二是从另外一个角度说很多选择不是不存在而是没有被发现。fancyww说这段论证了相反的观点——对没有创造力的人来说"no choice"很常见。其实这里我的本意是将其他的选择作为客观存在的事实表述出来，而不是说的对有无创造力的两种人主观感知上的选择有无。再一次，我词不达意了...顺着思路一直写到帮助人们发现新的选择的能力(experience knowledge and critical thinking skill)。这句的出现完整地使本段的重心出现偏离。


--------------到这里为止关于no choice是否rare的问题讨论结束，结论是要么是语言表达上的偏差, 要么是没有发现，反正都不是不存在----------------------------


三 从人的心理层面讲一般人对uncertainty的不适，导致一种self-denial的情绪。(这段原本不是想说出现 no choice的原因，而是进一步讨论不同人对多重选择的不同态度，大多数人们更希望没有选择一路走到头。)
   这一段既没有证明no choice case is very rare, 也没有阐述人们平时所说的"No choice"情况发生的原因，而是在另外一个层面让步，讨论即便给你选择，你喜欢吗？总结起来就是说人们对待choice 的 attitude。 当时只是觉得有必要深入一步直接讨论choice和人性的关系以加深对问题的理解(哪知道中文说起来都不容易讲清楚)。严格上讲，这段也许算跑题吧...)


四 写的时候没时间了...确实应该有实例的。这一段实际上解决的是 三 里的问题，和 一 二 段没有关系。也就是说给你足够数量的选择，怎么样挑选最好的。提出complexity的问题，这样找虽然一定能找到最优解却不一定能保证在有效时限内找到。所以可能现实中不好使，还得用蒙的。这时候应该加入一个胆量与气度，风险与回报的例子，讲在这种时候就要随机应变了。
这里又是没有回归"no choice"是否常见的题意, 貌似继续跑题。最后重复累赘了一下第一段，很不应该。试着把论题拉回来来着。


再次感谢fancyww的评论，我觉得改过之后的逻辑思路更切题。要是照那个写就好多了。

2# fancyww