critique 2.0

   Although the article entitled ‘ It is still beauty before brains’ by Chok Suat Ling makes sense, but the first  paragraph doesn’t fit with the last paragraph. The first paragraph talks about the 50th National Women Day celebration, whereas the last paragraph talks whether beauty is a blessing or curse which does not seems to be compatible.

         Furthermore, I think the author should see this problem not just from one side but from others' point of view as well.  Rather than making her own assumption that everyone considers beauty first, she should realise the existence of certain people who give more importance for brain than beauty.

        Besides that, I definitely would say that the author fails to define certain hard words. One such example would be 'corpus collasum'. I am very sure only people of medical or scientific background will understand this term, as it is not an English word but a medical term.  I think the article would be more interesting to read if we know what we are reading. So, it would have been best if the author was to give the definition of the term, 'corpus collasum'.

          In a nutshell, this article needs to be polished a lot more but definitely is able to create an awareness among the readers about discrimination towards women by judging them based on their physical appearance.

critique 1.0

  The article entitled ‘ It is still beauty before brains’ by Chok Suat Ling is very clear,  that is the words used are common and easily understood. The choice of words used in the article makes the readers to have a clear understanding about the article. But ambiguity arises  among readers when scientific term is used . For example, the usage of the word ‘corpus collasum’ certainly will create a confusion in readers’ minds.

          Moreover, this article certainly needs further elaboration. The examples given are not illustrated in detail. Furthermore , personally I think that the examples given are not reliable. It would have been more reliable if the author was to give the details of the source from where she gathered those information. For instance, she must have stated the name of the women magazine and the date the magazine was published. By this we can conclude that this article is not very accurate in providing the examples.

          The article is also not precise. Throughout the article, the settings such as time and place are not stated.  For example, the author stated that there was once only 10% of women undergraduates, but didn’t state the year and place. 

        In short, this article lacks many aspects but definitely induces the readers' mind to think of the issue that is being discussed.

Critique 2.0

                The article “It is still beauty before brains”  depicts about the prejudiced judgement of women nowadays due to their appearances rather than their competency.

                The language used by the author is simple and well-expressed. Why do I say so? Readers can’t and won’t understand what “corpus callosum” means even if the author did manage to define it. Rather than confusing readers about the meaning of the aforementioned word, the author chose an indirect way to express her ideas without giving rise to misconceptions amongst the readers. She used the word directly and expressed it by saying “wired” differently in order to give readers an indirect clue as to what the word means.

            The author sounds cynical when she brings out the matter of beauty pageant. She argues that the contest is mostly based on beauty and beauty alone. However, she’s not being well-grounded as beauty pageant contests nowadays do have many criteria besides beauty, they do take many other talents and skills into account. Moreover, she mentioned that beauty seems increasingly more a curse, this particularly harsh tone indicates her extreme disapproval of beauty and its impact on women nowadays. Therefore I thoroughly believe that the author was biased towards beauty itself and regards beauty as a subject of her distaste. However, she managed to give the readers an insight on how this might lead to negative consequences to the society if nothing is being done about it.

            Hence, I believe that the author did what she thought was right by giving readers awareness on negative impacts of judgement by looks and appearances alone. She gave the society a sound message and pleads for the audience to stand up and take action before matters get out of hand. 

Critique

The author is clearly biased and judgmental towards a certain sex. While the author is busy mesmerizing in her way of stereotyping men by thinking that all men judge women by their beauty instead of skills and potential, she failed to comprehend and think further in many aspects of her own points.

First, women population has grown to close the gender gap. Even if men used to create a perception of "beauty equals to everything", that time is long gone. Since no sex has the majority, everyone has equal control over certain "thinking and traditions" and can opt to make beauty judgement obsolete. 

Second, women can opt for revolution to disregard beauty judgement. From the first point it is clear no sex have an advantage over another. Obviously females don't need men beauty judgement to survive in this world. But no revolution shown (NATO No Action Talk Only) shows no urgency in this issue, and it also shows that the judgement is not only important for men (to continue judging), but also as equal importance for women (to indulge, for the pretty ones).

The author clearly cannot represent the female community to mock the males, by one, her stereotyping and two, her inability to disregard the tradition of beauty judgement.

Critique 1.0 (Facebook)

     The article,"Downside Of Facebook" composed by Mary Schneider discusses mainly about the disadvantages of facebook in the point of view of the author.As a whole,I believe the author has not well organised her points as it is mostly scrambled up. Her points are not directly stated but are more probing based.For instance, "Like,Why not?Why would having a spliff(joint) stop you from getting on Facebook or sending your friends a text message,or vice versa?",this sentence does not clarify her point.

     Besides that, the evidence provided by the author to substantiate her points is not well supported.She has not provided information on the source of her evidence.This can be seen in the following sentences,"According to a recent report,less and less young people in the UK are turning to drugs,partly because they are too busy on Facebook or sending text messages" and "It could be ,if they are on Blackberry all the time ,that that's the way they socialise and communicate:you don't want to be doing that and having a spliff at the same time.Or so an expert said recently".

     Moreover,certain part of the article does not clearly convey the author's stand on the issue.The inaccurate usage of words makes it even more complicated.The part is as follows,"Of coure,after all that faffing around you might get online only to forget what it was that you wanted to sayon facebook.Then your bladder might take charge ,so all you get to write is,'Going for a pee,be back in a sec'."

     Hence,I believe that the author should get her facts straight and find the best method to convey her message before she publish an article out of it.

Critique 2 : “It is still beauty before brains” by Chok Suat Ling

   In the article “It is still beauty before brains” by Chok Suat Ling, the writer discusses about the unfair treatment that is received by females based on their appearance rather than their intelligence.

    The writer takes a strong stand in her article that women are being judged by their beauty, and it is unfair. Therefore, this perception should be changed.

      In this article, the writer chose to use the title “It is still beauty before brains”. The title is not very appropriate as the writer did not discuss much between the importance of beauty and intelligence. The writer also fail to state why intelligence should be highly regarded compared to beauty. Instead, the writer chose to talk about all aspect of women development but did no comparison between the importance of all those aspects and the importance of beauty itself.

     Other than that the language used in this article is simple and is well suited for general audience. Since the article is posted on New Straits Times, the language used is appropriate. This is because newspaper should be able to reach a wide audience by using simple and general terms in their language. However, some of the sentences used in the articles, for example: (So, why do we need men again?) are a bit harsh and may send a wrong message to the community. 

        Overall, the writer is elaborating about how women are being judged by their looks and how that is unfair. The language used in the article is simple and suitable for a wide audience. 

          The article entitled ‘ It is still beauty before brains’ by Chok Suat Ling is very clear,  that is the words used are common and easily understood. The choice of words used in the article makes the readers to have a clear understanding about the article. But ambiguity arises  among readers when scientific term is used . For example, the usage of the word ‘corpus collasum’ certainly will create a confusion in readers’ minds.

          Moreover, this article certainly needs further elaboration. The examples given are not illustrated in detail. Furthermore , personally I think that the examples given are not reliable. It would have been reliable if the author was to give the details of the source from where she gathered those information. For instance, she must have stated the name of the women magazine and the date the magazine was published. By this we can conclude that this article is not very accurate in providing the examples.

          The article is also not precise. Throughout the article, the settings such as time and place are not stated.  For example, the author stated that there was once only 10% of women undergraduates, but didn’t state the year and place.  Although the article makes sense, but the first  paragraph doesn’t fit with the last paragraph.

          In a nutshell, this article needs to be polished a lot more but definitely is able to create an awareness among the readers about discrimination towards women by judging them based on their physical appearance.

Critique 2 – It is still beauty before brains

            The article ‘It is still beauty before brains’ by Chok Suat Ling is a very brainstorming article that raise up the issue of physical appearance judgment directed to female.

Speaking of the structure and organization of the article, the article is well-organized in the sense that it guides the readers to understand the issue step by step, exposing the readers slowly to the issue from the surface issue-the abilities of women illustrated by the awards that women received- to the core topic. The author starts the article with the relentless match forward and remarkable achievements of female in various fields. In my opinion, it is of utmost importance that the readers acquire some before hand knowledge on the achievements before they further analyze the author’s stand of female should not be judged by their physical appearance. The author then exposed the readers with all the evidence that female, including the athletes, are judged by their outlooks. The flaw present in this article is that though the evidence and examples provided in the article are plenty but some of the evidences are of unknown source. For example, the author had extracted the statistics from a women magazine which stated that being attractive helps in getting and the overweight people are often being discriminated. However, the name of the magazine is not stated. This will make the readers question the extent of credibility of the evidence. The tone of this article is accusatory in which male are accused to have the responsibility over the effect resulted from physical appearance judgment. The strong opinion and the choice of word used by the author – ‘so, why do we need men again?’ may lead to the arise of another controversial issue of stereotyping.

In general, this article is a mind-triggering article that is worth reading.

Conclusion from David

“It is still beauty before brains” by Chok Suat Ling is a simple article with lots of example. However, the author is strayed away from her main objectives of writing this article.

For this article, its main purpose is to make the society realize that we are on the wrong path and we are doing something bad - that is we are judging the women based on their appearance more than their ability and knowledge. Besides, she should have to increase the awareness of the society that this issue will lead to what problem and there is a need that we need to solve this problem RIGHT NOW.

However, the author had only manage to achieve one of the three objectives. She successfully make the reader realize that we are discriminating the women by judging them based on their appearance more than their knowledge. Although there are a lot of question popping up in the reader's mind when reading the article, but she manage to bring this message to reader that we are now having this phenomena.

But, the author fail to give us an illustration of how bad this phenomena is. How bad its affect the women and  the effect of this to the women will affect the men and also the society. Will it affect only the women or it will cause a bad cycle that it eventually affect the whole development of the nation. Due to this failure, the author are not able to rise up the feeling of the reader that they need to stop this phenomena. The reader will not feel that this is a bad thing and it give a lot of problem and it need to be solved immediately.

In conclusion, the article does not give any impact toward the reader. It does not create ripple in dead water of the heart of the reader. I have to admit that it is a failure. I would like to suggest the author to give some suggestion to solve this issue.

Chok Suat Ling :D

Chok Suat Ling, the author of the article ‘It is still beauty before brains’ mentions that in the current modernized era, women are still being judged by their looks and not for who they are. The author has a high command of the English Language because she uses lofty verbosity in her article which can only be understood by readers who are on same wavelength as the author.

She has substantially elaborated her article with reliable evidences. For example, she cites a survey by a woman’s magazine that shows how appearance can help women thrive in their careers. She also quoted Fiona Bruce on how female newsreaders are judged on their complexion but their men counterparts are void of their looks.

The main factor that causes this issue to be enigmatic is the mentality of women who place significance on their appearance. Women are obsessed with their looks to attract men and to have better careers as well and are willing to undergo all kinds of treatments to beautify themselves. The younger generation of girls nurtured to look beautiful further excruciates the problem.

The author of this article asserts that women can live without the prejudice of men on their appearance. She mentions about few role models who have gone against the typical woman mentality and achieved greatness in the eyes of the public without the influence of men in their lives. However, as she gave further examples, they are no evidence such as statistics or citations to prove that women have achieved all that she mentioned in her article.

Critique No.2

     “It is still beauty before brains” by Chok Suat Ling highlights the issue of less attractive women being shunted despite their intelligence, skills and talents.

     Since the writer is overall biased towards women, she tends to make the assumption that people are more judgmental towards the physical appearance of women compared to men. She instilled the idea that unlike men, women are always being scrutinized by their looks through a statement from the well-known British presenter Fiona Bruce, who admits that female newsreaders were often judged on their appearance in a way that their male counterparts were not. The writer not only emphasizes on the fact that women were being judged by their looks but also tried to impose the idea that women are being discriminated throughout the years and had to strive hard to earn the respect of the society through the examples given. The writer took for granted that in real, everyone, that is both men and women, are constantly being judged by the modern society.

     Overall, the writer should not be too biased towards a certain group of people. The examples given are mainly from a female’s point of view. Opinions from other groups of people, like the men should be included so that there is a balanced contribution of ideas from both sides and the actual situation at hand can be fully understood.  

Hi!
Sorry I could not post any postings earlier. I hope that all of you are happy and healthy. Judging from the discussion thread, it seems that you are on the right track. Kindly respond to each other. React to the thought of your classmates. Interactivity is also given marks.

Good luck for your mid semester exam

Critique No.1

  “It is still beauty before brains” by Chok Suat Ling is regarding the widespread biasness towards women who have an appealing appearance despite their weaker skills, talents and knowledge.

     The writer is not very clear in elaborating the examples given and some of them may be irrelevant. She stated that usually women with an appealing appearance tend to get better jobs compared to obese women. However, she failed to elaborate on whether the women who were more attractive fulfill the job requirements better than the obese women. The example regarding the British swimmer Rebecca Adlington and the weightlifter Zoe Smith who had insults thrown at them due to their physical appearance does not necessarily mean that the people discriminate them. Since they are able to make the team to represent their country in the Olympics, it just shows that they are selected based on their skills, talents and athletic knowledge and not their appearance. Therefore, the example given is not in coherence to the title “It is still beauty before brains”.

     Overall, the examples given are not clear enough and some do not illustrate the central idea of the writer, that is, women are being judged mainly by their looks. The examples given tend to spark ambiguity among readers regarding the issue. Thus, solid examples that are from reliable sources and relevant to the issue should be included to strengthen the idea that is trying to be delivered by the writer.

Critique 2 (:

In this article "It is still beauty before brains", I think the choice of words is good enough in conveying the message to the readers.

Generally, the words are easy to understand. The writer is also able to describe and elaborate her opinion interestingly. For instance, I like how the writer uses “…a thicker corpus callosum…” to describe women being smarter. Although many say that the word choice is inappropriate as general, common readers will not be able to understand, I don’t think a writer should just simply use simple words in his or her writing. It does not matter if the words are a little hard. I would prefer an article with more difficult and unfamiliar words, because that is where I can learn new words and where I can improve my language. Although there is also some sensitive choice of word, like “So, why do we need men again?”, the writer managed to pique the interest of readers and make us think deeply on the fact that women nowadays indeed have proven themselves to be equally, or maybe even more capable than men.

Everyone has his or her own preference. In conclusion, I would like to say that I think the writer has done a good job in writing this article because I have learnt a few new vocabularies, which I am sure I won’t be able to learn if the writer chooses to use simple layman terms for the sake of the readers’ convenience.

Critique 1 : "It is still beauty before brains"

The article "It is still beauty before brains" by Choi Suat Ling highlights the author's disappointment in the way women are still being judged by their looks and not their competency.

Firstly, we can identify an obvious bias towards women when the author mentioned “Women are wired differently and are thus better than men in many respects. (So, why do we need men again?)” If we take it in a different perspective, men are also being judged by their appearances too. This shows that the author lacked breadth in the matter.

Moreover, the abundance of examples which are not elaborated clearly contributed to the ambiguity faced by the audience. The author did not provide clear and reliable sources from which she cited her statistics or evidences. For instance, she mentioned that “78 per cent of respondents agrees that being attractive helped them to get better in their jobs”, but did not mention the name and date of the woman’s magazine in which the statistics were taken from.

Concisely, the author was successful in presenting her point of view in the matter. However, I do find that the author lost focus on the central idea as the paragraphs progresses. The sources require further elaborations and the jargons need to be defined clearly to avoid misconceptions.