Hey guys check out my Salvador Allende term paper [Archive]

Comrade BNS

12th April 2004, 07:43

ok some general comments, please don't take these the wrong way.

Good content and formating of your piece. Well refferenced and good use of supporting evidence.

However it does not read very well in terms of coherency, or general flow of an analytical essay. your sub headings and titles should merely be there to make it obvious which aspect of the situation you are talking about, so if you removed them, the essay should still be coherent and well linked. Instead of going straight into the nature and brief history of US foreign policy, you might like to give a general introduction to the entire piece and the general aspects of the situation that you will be covering.

Also you use alot of colloquial (slang) language, which detracts from the objectivity of the piece. for example on page 3 you said "The Chilean election of 1970 was a pretty close one". perhaps a more appropriate expression would be "In 1970 the Chilean election was very closely contested..." ?
also, there was some somewhat irrelevant information in the following paragraph referring to each of the candidates in the election and the percentage of the vote secured. again perhaps you condense this and make it more relevant by saying something like "In 1970 the Chilean election was very closely contested with Salvador Allende securing the presidency with 36% of the vote, only marginally ahead of his rivals in the Christian Democrats party and the Conservative party".

also try to avoid rhetorical questions in an essay, they detract somewhat from the objective nature of the piece. for example where you said"What had happened to Chile in the final months of the Allende Administration?" and "What could he possibly do?"
However they are a good technique to use in speeches or oral presentations to engage the audience and provoke thought.

Another point is that you need to introduce all main events, people, dates etc.. either in your overall introduction aswell as/or in your topic sentance of introduction to the section you are dealing with. for example you said "The counterrevolutionary uprisings began on October 1972" and "Augusto Pinochet led the coup", however the audience has no idea what the counterrevolutionary uprisings were, or what they were about or what exactly set them off. Similarly, the general audience, has little idea of who Augusto Pinochet Ugarte is, what he stands for, how he fits into the whole situation, or what the "coup" was and how it was caused etc..

The best advice I can give you is at the beggining of every major point have an introductory type section, even if it is a few sentences, that introduces the main points, events places etc.. you are dealing with. You started off well at the beggining of the "Background" section, but kind of got off the track a little bit.
you said

"The death of Chilean President Salvador Allende Gossens on September 11, 1973 ended a Marxist experiment in Chile, but it did not stop controversy about his death. Salvador Allende was the first Marxist candidate to win a presidency in a democratic election..." this is good, although you don't continue to flow and link events you are going to cover. You then go on to mention that there was a past marxist government that was overthrown. Perhaps you could have continued the above section by saying "..., and this would not be easily forgotten, even after his murder in a US backed millitary coup, led by former Chilean general, Augusto Pinochet Ugarte." and perhaps also mention the counterrevolutionary demonstrations and extra-judicial land grabs etc..

overall you need to work on the form and flow required of the genre, however you have quite obviously researched the topic well, and have good evidence, quotes and references etc..

hope that this helps and that your paper goes well! :)

Comrade BNS