Armstrong essay

[spazyjosh]

Hey I just finished my first draft of my Armstrong essay just wondering what you all think. Thanks in advanced for the input.

Leadership and Followership

   Leadership and followership, two ideas that at first seem very different, but are in fact very much alike. Leadership is shown in many different ways. Leadership is in sports, business, home life, and school. But for the purpose of this essay we will be discussing it and its counterpart, followership, in the context of the Civil Air Patrol.

   A leader is a very special type of person. For a squadron to function well it must have dedicated leaders. A dedicated leader would be recognizable from a few character traits, charisma, communication, confidence, and appearance to name a few. But in my opinion the most important trait in a leader is servitude. This is because a leader's purpose is to motivate his followers and bring them toward a common goal. How could this be done efficiently without serving them? Without servitude the leader would soon be ignored because he would appear to be "bossy" and "not helpful". As the French novelist André Malraux once said "To command is to serve, nothing more and nothing less."

   On the other hand a follower must be an equally special type of person. They also have a few underlying character traits. Loyalty, willingness, and honesty are a few examples. But once again the overlying aspect is servitude. If a follower does not have servitude nothing would be accomplished. A follower without any servitude would not follow orders without being forced, would avoid doing anything difficult at all costs, and would simply be quite impossible to lead.  But opposite to that a follower with abundant servitude would follow orders quickly and efficiently, would take initiative and embrace difficult work, and would make the leaders job a whole lot easier by being very easy to lead.

   There is the underlying thing about leadership and followership, they are extremely similar! So many times they are wrongly viewed as opposites because without one the other would fail but that is false logic. Just because they require each other to exist does not make them opposites. That would be saying that smell is the opposite of taste because they require each other. Servitude is what makes them so similar. They both work on the same principals. So I would like to reiterate Servitude is the most important trait in both a leader and a follower.

   In brief leadership and followership are two ideas that seem very different but are not. This is seen in a variety but most of all from the servitude that brings them together to make a successful team.
   
   
   

[68w20]

Hey I just finished my first draft of my Armstrong essay just wondering what you all think. Thanks in advanced for the input.

Leadership and Followership

   Leadership and followership, two ideas that at first seem very different, but are in fact very much alike. Leadership is shown in many different ways. Leadership is in sports, business, home life, and school. But for the purpose of this essay we will be discussing it and its counterpart, followership, in the context of the Civil Air Patrol.

   A leader is a very special type of person. For a squadron to function well it must have dedicated leaders. A dedicated leader would be recognizable from a few character traits, charisma, communication, confidence, and appearance to name a few. But in my opinion the most important trait in a leader is servitude. This is because a leader's purpose is to motivate his followers and bring them toward a common goal. How could this be done efficiently without serving them? Without servitude the leader would soon be ignored because he would appear to be "bossy" and "not helpful". As the French novelist André Malraux once said "To command is to serve, nothing more and nothing less."

   On the other hand a follower must be an equally special type of person. They also have a few underlying character traits. Loyalty, willingness, and honesty are a few examples. But once again the overlying aspect is servitude. If a follower does not have servitude nothing would be accomplished. A follower without any servitude would not follow orders without being forced, would avoid doing anything difficult at all costs, and would simply be quite impossible to lead.  But opposite to that a follower with abundant servitude would follow orders quickly and efficiently, would take initiative and embrace difficult work, and would make the leaders job a whole lot easier by being very easy to lead.

   There is the underlying thing about leadership and followership, they are extremely similar! So many times they are wrongly viewed as opposites because without one the other would fail but that is false logic. Just because they require each other to exist does not make them opposites. That would be saying that smell is the opposite of taste because they require each other. Servitude is what makes them so similar. They both work on the same principals. So I would like to reiterate Servitude is the most important trait in both a leader and a follower.

   In brief leadership and followership are two ideas that seem very different but are not. This is seen in a variety but most of all from the servitude that brings them together to make a successful team.

I'm going to provide some overall impressions without making corrections.

-I'd recommend working on sentence structure.  You have many sentences.  Most of them make single statements.  This can be a useful tool.  Sometimes it can be distracting.  Does that make sense?  Consider making more effective use of commas (but please stay away from semi-colons...)

-Servitude.  You keep using that word...I do not think it means what you think it means.  dictionary.com: "Slavery or bondage of any kind."  Find a different way to say this.  The thesaurus is your friend.

-You use an excellent quote in your first paragraph, but you don't say anything about it.  Tell your reader why you think that quote is significant, or how it speaks to the relationship between leadership and followership.

-Consider being more economic with your words.  Rather than saying "On the other hand a follower must be an equally special type of person," consider saying "On the other hand, followers must also have certain special traits."  Do you see how that is more direct, concise, and clear?  You don't need to dumb down your writing, but you should make it as clear as possible for your reader.

-Try to avoid using words like "ideas," "things," or "is."  Find words that more specifically and actively express what you're trying to say.  Leadership and followership are not ideas-they are concepts, paradigms, a dichotomy, etc.  There is no underlying "thing" relating to leadership and followership.  There is one premise that one must consider in the relationship between the two.  Does that make sense?

-Again, focus on punctuation.  This is especially evident in your last paragraph (beginning with "There is the underlying...")

-Don't reiterate.  Reiterate is another way of saying repeat, and your reader already heard what you had to say.  Restate why "servitude" is the most important trait in Lship and Fship, but don't reiterate it.

-Your introduction and conclusion are excellent in structure and purpose.  Your intro hooks the reader by setting up the relationship between these two concepts.  Your conclusion ties back into your introduction, providing your reader with a definite link between the two.  Both could be polished somewhat, but great work on those portions especially.