Assignment+Revision

The assignment that I revised was “Summary.” The instructions were to find an article that made you have a strong emotional response. Then, a summary had to be given along with your opinion on the subject. In my revision, I separated the summary of the article from my opinion. I also took out some of the in-text citations because they were not needed. An introduction was also included with the summary because I did not have one in my original draft.

In the article, “Smokers Get a Raw Deal” by Stanley S. Scott, the discrimination against people who smoke is discussed. Scott believes that smokers are being discriminated against and that it is not any different from discriminating against race, religion, or sex (Clark 21). He believes that you are a “potential target of violent anti-smokers and overzealous public enforcers” if you light up a cigarette in public. The author talks about how smokers and nonsmokers have been able to coexist for a long time and that now all of a sudden they can’t. According to the author, many Americans are being denied some of their freedoms due to the fact that they are smokers.

The way some anti-smokers act toward people who smoke are definitely unacceptable. I do however believe that measures need to be taken to get the point across that smoking is not socially acceptable like it once was. Today, there is more information regarding the effects of smoking not only on the smoker, but also on everybody around the smoker. The author talks about how smokers and non-smokers used to “coexist,” well now more people are educated and don’t want the consequential health problems that are associated with smoking. Studies have shown that secondhand smoke is just as dangerous if not more dangerous than if they were actually smoking the cigarette. Knowing this is what caused restaurants and stores among others to not allow smoking inside. I would not compare the discrimination against race, sex, or religion to that of smokers because those things don’t affect the health of the individual or anybody around the individual. I don’t believe that we are that bad for taking away some of the freedoms that we have from smokers because they don’t have to smoke. They can choose to have their freedoms back by fighting their addiction.