Student Analysis - Essay Example

For Environmental Balance, Pick Up a Rifle In her response to Nicholas D. Kristof’s “For Environmental Balance, Pick Up a Rifle”, Betsy Swinton agrees that the author involves in an engaging form of writing. At the early stage, precisely in paragraph 1, she announces her stand on the issue; that she does not know much about the deer problem, which she classifies as both her problem and as Kristof’s problem. As one reads her essay, one expects a confused author, talking about a topic has little knowledge about.

This does not appear as a surprise as she entirely relies on Kristof’s arguments to make her point known; the deer problem to her is a foreign topic. I do not blame her nativity though, neither her ignorance. However, responding to a topic one has no adequate knowledge of is not a simple task. She does well though in explaining why she feels that her failure to understand the deer problem is Kristof’s fault. Despite the fact that she defends her ignorance on the deer problem by pointing out that many people are as confused as she is, she does not give enough evidence supporting this argument.

Nonetheless, she agrees that Kristof has a point that there is a problem with the deer. Swinton successfully though convinces the reader that the failure of Kristof to give solid evidence on the deer problem is the main reason for her ignorance. This is understandable, especially because of her assertion that in the short essay, Kristof did not adequately raise enough arguments to support his thesis. She agrees that he is convincing enough on the fact that the deer problem needs a solution. However, she takes a stand that there must be alternative solutions to the problem, rather than just hunting deer.

Swinton pins the problem to Kristof, leaving us with the notion that were it not for the author, she could have been well acquainted with the der problem.