Compare-Contrast Essay – Perspectives on Assimilation

Length: 4 full pages in standard MLA format

This essay will concern the online articles found in Modules, “Scooters Aren’t An Urban Scourge. They’re a Solution” by the LA Times Editorial Board and “Are Scooters A Transit Solution…?” by John Tinnell. With these articles, your experience, and possible further research, you’re going to answer the question,

Right now, in our city of Los Angeles, are e-scooters more of a solution to transit problems like traffic and access to transportation OR are they a problem that makes our streets more dangerous and polluted with metal junk?

In June 2018, the LA Times editorial board published an article outlining how e-scooters worked and the potential they held for helping more people get around our city for not that much money. They generally seemed to argue that e-scooters represent more of a possible solution.

By contrast,

In July 2019, John Tinnell wrote an article for the LA Times that argued that the e-scooters were really a menace, disrupting how we get around for the worse and using public spaces to store an inventory of private vehicles that litter our streets and sidewalks.

Which point of view seems more accurate to you? Are e-scooters more of a scourge than a solution or the other way around? Why?

Using specific references to the LA Times editorial board’s and Tinnell’s articles and your own experience, identify, compare and contrast their views of e-scooters’ impact on our city.

You will need to present each major opinion and its reasons and respond to both. You must use both the LA Times Editorial Board and Tinnell articles in your essay.

That means you’ll need to first address one article’s argument and reasoning, and then respond to it alone. After your response to the first article, present the viewpoint and reasoning from the second, and then respond to that second article.

For your responses, you may draw on further research as long as it comes from a reputable news or research source, such as the LA Times, New York Times, or one of the article databases at the ECC Library. Further, if you have experience with scooters that is relevant to what one of the assigned articles mentions, you may present that experience as evidence for your response idea.

See below for a rubric of how the essay will be scored.