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New unique discursive essay ideas?

Hi, I am in 5th year and researching on topics for a dscursive essay for English? I am wondering if anyone has some unique and different ideas that is not too overused or too clichéd, preferably something fresh, something unexpected. I heard that the scarcer the topic , the more chance that you will achieve a higher grade. I am stuck and have ran out of ideas.

Oh and also: if you can please avoid anything too philosophical, i want something more topical

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Reply 1
my one last year was: “Christmas today is simply about making money and mass commercialism. As 21st century citizens we have forgotten its true message and meaning in life.” Discuss." I got a 19 i think on it :smile:
I did "are TV talent shows destroying the music business?" or something to that effect. I basically covered how I think The X Factor damges voices, teaches children that they can get fame very easily and that they don't have to work hard to get a job as a singer.

I got an A overall, but I haven't seen the breakdown so wouldn't be able to tell you what the examiner gave it, but in class it got a 23.
Reply 3
Original post by christielovesyou
I did "are TV talent shows destroying the music business?" or something to that effect. I basically covered how I think The X Factor damges voices, teaches children that they can get fame very easily and that they don't have to work hard to get a job as a singer.

I got an A overall, but I haven't seen the breakdown so wouldn't be able to tell you what the examiner gave it, but in class it got a 23.


Tahnks for the reply, it is a very good topic and i would have thought that you could write about the topic in quite a good length. I was thinking about 2 topics, 1 is Should the burqa be banned... alot on the news about it esp, in France which thy banned it in . or 2 . Should there be more emphasis on foreign langauges in our lives.

What do you think?
Original post by animelover123
Tahnks for the reply, it is a very good topic and i would have thought that you could write about the topic in quite a good length. I was thinking about 2 topics, 1 is Should the burqa be banned... alot on the news about it esp, in France which thy banned it in . or 2 . Should there be more emphasis on foreign langauges in our lives.

What do you think?


Both sound like good ideas! :smile: If you're wanting to do something a bit more unusual, I'd do the second one, although it might be a bit broad, but I think the burqa one would allow you to use more statistics.
Reply 5
Original post by christielovesyou
Both sound like good ideas! :smile: If you're wanting to do something a bit more unusual, I'd do the second one, although it might be a bit broad, but I think the burqa one would allow you to use more statistics.


Do you really? I would have thought that the burqa one would be unusual as not alot of people would have thought to do it. And i agrree that the langauges one , i would porbaly struggle to find any evidence or statistics.
I think the burqa idea sounds good personally. It seems to be a good idea to go for something quite current: well, from my experience. For my Higher discursive *cough* ARGUMENTATIVE *cough* I argued about how the taxpayer shouldn't be footing the bill for the Pope's UK visit last year.
I can't say what I actually got in terms of marks for it, but my class teacher said it was the best discursive essay she'd had in her class - she's only been teaching 2 years now but shhh :biggrin:
Original post by animelover123
Do you really? I would have thought that the burqa one would be unusual as not alot of people would have thought to do it. And i agrree that the langauges one , i would porbaly struggle to find any evidence or statistics.


The whole burqa thing's been all over the news for a few years now, I wouldn't say it was terribly 'unique'. As for the languages one, it's has a lower profile (still present) in the mainstream media but is an active area of academic research, so I don't think finding supporting information would be a challenge at all. :smile: I would say the languages one is much more interesting.
Original post by LonelySoul193
I think the burqa idea sounds good personally. It seems to be a good idea to go for something quite current: well, from my experience. For my Higher discursive *cough* ARGUMENTATIVE *cough* I argued about how the taxpayer shouldn't be footing the bill for the Pope's UK visit last year.
I can't say what I actually got in terms of marks for it, but my class teacher said it was the best discursive essay she'd had in her class - she's only been teaching 2 years now but shhh :biggrin:


Seriously? The British taxpayer had to pay for some guy's holiday? How absurd! Did parliament actually end up deciding to pay for it? Do you know how much it cost?
Original post by chr1stopher11
Seriously? The British taxpayer had to pay for some guy's holiday?


Analogy can obscure rather than illuminate. It does so particularly when it omits important details. For example, that the opinions and public statements of this man strongly influence at least the 5 million Catholics in England and Wales, that he is the leader of a religion which at least factors into the problems in Ireland and that he is regarded as a de facto head of state. (And consequently, it would be very poor diplomatic protocol to not afford him the same courtesies extended to others in his position.)

It's not a straightforward decision, not least because it raises issues of separation of church and state over here.

How absurd! Did parliament actually end up deciding to pay for it? Do you know how much it cost?


Of course. And a Google search for 'pope visit uk cost' gives numbers of 12 and 14.5 million (20m also appears as speculation). The question then is how much extra value did the visit bring to offset that cost?

It's a complex issue and kneejerk responses are a bit silly. Which is why it makes a good essay topic, of course...
Original post by TheUnbeliever
Analogy can obscure rather than illuminate. It does so particularly when it omits important details. For example, that the opinions and public statements of this man strongly influence at least the 5 million Catholics in England and Wales, that he is the leader of a religion which at least factors into the problems in Ireland and that he is regarded as a de facto head of state. (And consequently, it would be very poor diplomatic protocol to not afford him the same courtesies extended to others in his position.)

It's not a straightforward decision, not least because it raises issues of separation of church and state over here.



Of course. And a Google search for 'pope visit uk cost' gives numbers of 12 and 14.5 million (20m also appears as speculation). The question then is how much extra value did the visit bring to offset that cost?

It's a complex issue and kneejerk responses are a bit silly. Which is why it makes a good essay topic, of course...


Wait, so heads of state/other major religious people get a free holiday if they come to the UK to visit? Why should the taxes of normal British people, who have struggled in this economic climate pay for the luxuries of someone wants to preach his beliefs? To me it is ridiculous. In future when things like this happen again the person whose going on this holiday should pay for it.

Well if say it brought about an extra 30 million for the economy then it would have been a profit of £18 or so million. Whereas if Britain didn't pay for it then it would have been about £42 million??
Reply 11
The affect of Twilight on modern teenage relationships.
Original post by chr1stopher11
Wait, so heads of state/other major religious people get a free holiday if they come to the UK to visit?


I don't think it's helpful (or particularly mature) to construe it as a holiday, and not only because state visits and holidays have different diplomatic protocol and are handled differently. But, if you insist, then the answer is 'yes, they do'. Of course, this works both ways, and the key point is that none of this happens in a vacuum - if two heads of state meet, then they're almost always both hoping to get something out of it in the interests of their country.

There's the immediate things: we pay to police the visit of a middle-east leader so we can sell arms to them, we pay for a Papal visit in the hope that he might be convinced to soften his stance on e.g. contraception and save us from having to spend the money on the results unwanted pregnancies - whatever. But there's also the indirect effects of fostering good relationships which will pan out in our favour in the long run, of raising our profile abroad to encourage other people to bring tourism here, to get involved in business with us.

Why should the taxes of normal British people, who have struggled in this economic climate pay for the luxuries of someone wants to preach his beliefs?


Well, that's what I'm trying to explain. But, as I've acknowledged, it's not a clear cut case, especially because of the confounding issue of secularity.

Well if say it brought about an extra 30 million for the economy then it would have been a profit of £18 or so million. Whereas if Britain didn't pay for it then it would have been about £42 million??


... that's not how things work. If you don't invest, you can't get any return on investment. It's not impossible that the Pope wouldn't have made the visit if the UK didn't cover the costs. Or, if we didn't and he still came, we might not have got what we were looking for out of the visit. There might even have been wider repercussions, since shunning the leader of a major world religion would reflect poorly on us (like it or not) and could damage relations with e.g. Italy, Spain...
Original post by TheUnbeliever
The whole burqa thing's been all over the news for a few years now, I wouldn't say it was terribly 'unique'. As for the languages one, it's has a lower profile (still present) in the mainstream media but is an active area of academic research, so I don't think finding supporting information would be a challenge at all. :smile: I would say the languages one is much more interesting.


I agree on your comment to an extent, i have tried finding information on the lanmgauiges tooic but its qiute hard as its not been that topical or broadcasted in reccent years so , i cant really find any newspaper articles on it. Howeve, reading your comment , it has persuaded me to now deo the langauges topic as it does have much more to say, but much harder to find evidence that is relevant.
Original post by chr1stopher11
Wait, so heads of state/other major religious people get a free holiday if they come to the UK to visit? Why should the taxes of normal British people, who have struggled in this economic climate pay for the luxuries of someone wants to preach his beliefs? To me it is ridiculous. In future when things like this happen again the person whose going on this holiday should pay for it.

Well if say it brought about an extra 30 million for the economy then it would have been a profit of £18 or so million. Whereas if Britain didn't pay for it then it would have been about £42 million??


Regardless of the proposed benefits and such for the UK, this was one aspect of the visit that really riled me:
http://www.secularism.org.uk/taxpayer-to-pick-up-the-tab-for.html

Anyway, the whole issue has been debated to death now I think. And I don't really want to clog up this thread with irrelevant stuff :smile:
Some ideas, mainly political but all sorts really :

Are politican's undervalued in modern day society ?

Is the current coalition government a "one-off" or does it represent a shift in UK Politics to more collaborative work ?

Will the coalition succeed ?

Do forums such as The Student Room provide benefits to students, or do they exist purely to speculate and worry ?

The media is the main reason for an increase in anti-immigration feeling across the UK.

Are the recent riots in England a sign that society has degraded over the years, or was it just a case of "you have - I want" mentality ?
I quite like the papal visit idea, although I was for the papal visit at the time :L

I did my persuasive essay on the arguments for lowering the voting age to 16. I'd never really thought about it before, but it was a really interesting topic. My folio got 16/20 but I don't know which essay got which mark. I would guess that my persuasive got 21 and my creative got 19 although it could have been 23 and 17, or indeed 19 and 21.
Original post by animelover123
Hi, I am in 5th year and researching on topics for a dscursive essay for English? I am wondering if anyone has some unique and different ideas that is not too overused or too clichéd, preferably something fresh, something unexpected. I heard that the scarcer the topic , the more chance that you will achieve a higher grade. I am stuck and have ran out of ideas.

Oh and also: if you can please avoid anything too philosophical, i want something more topical


I did my discursive on whether women should be allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia or not (it is currently illegal... well essentially it is illegal for women to drive there). I lived in Saudi for 2+ years so I felt that I could right quite a lot on it considering there aren't many articles about it because it is quite a sensitive subject within the country.
Reply 18
Is there perhaps something you could do about the riots? Like just off the top of my head, are Labour to blame for the recent riots in England?
Reply 19
Original post by Lil2wkd
The affect of Twilight on modern teenage relationships.


Oh this made me laugh so much. I don't know if you're serious or not though... :smile:

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