Critical Essay是批判批评类Essay，是众多Essay文体当中最为常见的一种，同时也是非常正式的一种文体。本文中主要跟大家说一下关于Critical Essay写作当中经常会犯的一些错误，如果大家想自己的Critical Essay可以拿到更高分数那么首先就要杜绝这些错误的发生。这里我们先来看看这些错误都有哪些：
第一：noncausal relationship
The author commits a fallacy of causal oversimplification.The line of thereasoning is that because A occurred before B,the former event is responsiblefor the latter.(The author uses the positive correlation between A and B toestablish causality.However,the fact that A coincides with B does notnecessarily prove that A caused B.)But this is fallacious reasoning unlessother possible causal explanations have been considered and ruled out.Forexample,perhaps C is the cause of these events or perhaps B is caused by D.
第二：Insufficient-sample
The evidence the author provides is insufficient to support the conclusiondrawn from it.One example is logically unsounded to establish a generalconclusion(The statistics from only a few recent years are not necessarily agood indicator of future trends),unless it can be shown that A1 isrepresentative of all A.It is possible that....In fact,in face of suchlimited evidence,the conclusion that B is completely unwarranted.
第三：based on a false analogy)
The argument rests on the assumption that A is analogous to B in all respects.This assumption is weak,since although there are points of comparison betweenA and B,there is much dissimilarity as well.For example,A...,however,B....Thus,it is likely much more difficult for B to do....
第四：all things are equal
The author commits the fallacy of“all things are equal”.The fact thathappened two years ago is not a sound evidence to draw a conclusion that....The author assumes without justification that the background conditions haveremained the same at different times or at different locations.However,it isnot clear in this argument whether the current conditions at AA are the same asthey used to be two years ago.Thus it is impossible to conclude that....
第五：Either-Or choice
The author assumes that AA and BB are mutually exclusive alternatives and thereis no room for a middle ground.However,the author provides no reason forimposing an either-or choice.Common sense tells us that adjusting both AA andBB might produce better results.
第六：survey is doubtful
The poll cited by the author is too vague to be informative.The claim does notindicate who conducted the poll,who responded,or when,where and how the pollwas conducted.(Lacking information about the number of people surveyed and thenumber of respondents,it is impossible to access the validity of the results.For example,if 200 persons were surveyed but only 2 responded,the conclusionthat...would be highly suspect.Because the argument offers no evidence thatwould rule out this kind of interpretations,)Until these questions areanswered,the results of the survey are worthless as evidence for theconclusion.
第七：gratuitous assumption
The author falsely depends on gratuitous assumption that....However,noevidence is stated in the argument to support this assumption.In fact,this isnot necessarily the case.For example,it is more likely that....Therefore,this argument is unwarranted without ruling out such possibility.