Question

Read the draft of a body paragraph in an argumentative essay. Executive Order 9066 was a response to suspicion and prejudice. In the days following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, military commanders were concerned because most Japanese Americans lived on the West Coast, where many military installations were also located. As a result, nearly all Japanese Americans on the West Coast were relocated and interned. This was clearly unconstitutional. How could the writer improve this draft?

Answer 1

The paragraph is missing analysis connecting the argument--that the Executive Order was unconstitutional--to the evidence.

The paragraph does a good job explaining the context of Executive Order 9066 and what the order entailed. It ends the paragraph with the argument that the order was unconstitutional. However, there is no explanation of why the order is unconstitutional. The writer needs to explain how the Executive Order violated constitutional rights. The argument would be even more solid if it included the specific amendments or clauses that the order violated.

Answer 2

Best answer:  

By creating another paragraph with evidence of unconstitutionality.

• The first sentence begins the paragraph well, establishing the theme that will be explored in the essay.
• The sentences are not overlong, and "big words" aren't really used.  Perhaps a word like "interned" might be considered a "big word" because it is not frequently used in everyday vocabulary. However, that term is a key term for the action taken against the Japanese Americans, and so needs to be used in this context.
• Evidence that suspicion and prejudice were involved can be seen in the statement, "Military commanders were concerned because most Japanese Americans lived on the West Coast, where many military installations were also located."  That indicates that the commanders were acting on suspicion and prejudice that Japanese Americans would seek to sabotage or attack American military installations on behalf of the Japanese.
• What is not included in the opening paragraph is evidence from the US Constitution that the actions against Japanese Americans were unconstitutional.  Providing such evidence might mean pointing to the 5th Amendment (part of the Bill of Rights), which says "No person shall be ... nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."