Genesis/ Doctor Who

I will often refer to this article in my blog. . .  Enjoy(:

"Cyborgs and Robots: A logically Ordered Existence?" explores how Bernard Beckett's Genesis and Doctor Who's Dalek portray the differences between organic and inorganic life comparing them to the Cartesian Dualism theory. Cartesian Dualism is a philosophy about the mind and body being independent from one another.

In order to understand this article the reader must already know the text and the episode that the author is referring to. The author often goes into detail about the sources he's using without much background and refers to individual characters in them. The author does not actually state Rose Tyler is from Doctor Who, but he has assumed his targeted audience, Si-Fi fanatics, already know this fact and he assumes that both sources have been read or watched and understood.

 The author begins his essay with a "hook", much like we were taught in Mrs. Mot's class. He begin with a quotes the helps lead to his thesis. His thesis, the last line of his introduction, includes both sources and what he is trying to prove through his essay but does not give a clear "road map". If it looks like an introduction, sounds like an introduction, and feels like an introduction, its probably an introduction. The authors second paragraph gives a strange sense of deja vu. The second paragraph refers to two new sources and the agreement of ethical and spiritual problems with artificial and inorganic life. This "new thesis" does not support the previous one and, strangely enough, is not touched for the rest of the essay.  Only a couple sentence fit with the introduction. I feel, it would have been better to combine the couple relevant sentence with the original introduction and delete the rest of the second paragraph completely.

In the other body paragraphs the author often uses both sources in one paragraph even though they have ultimately difference arguments. The author uses Beckett's book to discuss procreation and reproduction for cyborgs and inorganic life. And he uses Doctor Who to challenge the tradition ideas about "being alive" and if the soul can transfer to another host. When both sources are put into one paragraph it can become unclear what idea the paragraph is trying to support. However, towards the end of the essay the fog begins to clear unless you still haven't read or watch the sources. . . Towards the end the author separates the two sources into individual paragraphs but he begins to bring more and more information. This narrows his targeted audience from "Si-Fi fanatics" to those who have studied the sources in detail.

However, the author does have nice transitions. His last line in a paragraph often is related to the first in the nixt. This makes for an easier read. Without good transitions, an essay can sound jerky and awkward.

After reading this essay, I believe a substitution in one of the sources would have supported the author's thesis better. Instead of Doctor Who, "Data" from Star Trek would have supported the Cartesian Dualist argument better. Data is an android who lives and works as member of the Enterprise on Star Trek. Throughout the series, Data strives to be more like his humanoid colleagues but studying their emotions and attempting to properly use them. The same points proved by Doctor Who can also be proved with Data but also expanded.