BAHRIA UNIVERSITY (KARACHI CAMPUS)

COURSE TITLE: Writing & Presentation Skills

ASSIGNMENT # 6
TOPIC: Persuasive Writing

Class: BS (Media Studies) – 2 A&B Student’s Name:

Course Instructor: Hafsa Maqbool Date: 5th April, 2023
Submission Date: 10th – 11th May, 2023 Max Marks: 15

• Read the information provided in the handout below on the given topics
• Decide if you are in favor of or against the issue (your position)
• Select your sources (references) and evidence (information). (These are the 3
arguments that support your position)
• Write:
a) The introductory paragraph
b) 3 paragraphs of the body using the TIEE structure discussed
c) The concluding paragraph
 The legal age for driving in Pakistan is 18 years old. Should the legal driving
age be raised to 21?

Information:

1. a) Source: A 2016 report by the Governors Highway Safety Association, financed by a grant
from the Ford Motor Company Fund,  titled “Mission Not Accomplished: Teen Safe Driving,
the Next Chapter”
b) Evidence 1: “teenage drivers are approximately 1.6 times more likely to be involved in
fatal traffic crashes than adults.”
c) Evidence 2: “drivers between the ages of 18-20 are twice as likely as drivers aged 15-17
to be involved in a fatal crash between the hours of midnight and 6am.”

2. a) Source: Studies of the human brain by scientists and experts

b) Evidence 1: The prefrontal cortex is not fully “connected” until the mid-20s. This is the
part of the brain that weighs outcomes, forms judgments and controls impulses and emotions.
This causes lapses in judgement.
c) Evidence 2: Active hormones in a teenager’s brain limit the ability to control moods and
increases desire for thrill-seeking behaviour. In making critical decisions regarding risky
driving situations, the teen brain may not make the same judgment calls as the over-25 brain.

3. a) Source: Parent
b) Evidence: “Do we really want our kids dependent upon us for everything? Do we really
want to chauffeur our kids everywhere, up until they graduate high school, go off to college,
or even join the military? Most teens don’t have access to public transit. We need to let them
have some freedom. We need to let them get jobs. We need to let them grow up. And
learning to drive is one of the very first steps into adulthood.”

 
4. a) Source: Experienced truck driver
b) Evidence: “The legal age to receive a commercial driver’s license is 18 years old, but
most don’t obtain their commercial driver’s license until after the age of 21. The most
dangerous truck drivers on the road are those with less than 2 years of experience, regardless
of age. It’s likely that if we simply raise the driving age, we will only shift the “problem
drivers” to a higher age bracket. The problem isn’t the age, it’s lack of experience.”

5. a) Source: Causes of Road Accidents in Pakistan, a research article by Abdul Manan Khan
and Ansa Tehreem, 2019
b) Evidence:  Main causes which are found behind road accidents are lack of training
institutes, unskilled drivers, poor road conditions, use of cell phone during driving, use of
intoxicants, over loading and poor performance of government in this regard.
 Should euthanasia (mercy killing) be allowed by the government?

Information:
1. a) Source: A terminally ill patient in severe pain
b) Evidence: “A civilised society should allow people to die in dignity and without pain, and
should allow others to help them do so if they cannot manage it on their own. My body is my
own, and I should be allowed to do what I want with it. It is wrong to make me live longer
than I want. In fact making me go on living when I don't want to violates my personal
freedom and human rights. It's immoral to force people to continue living in suffering and
pain. Suicide is not a crime, euthanasia should not be a crime.”

2. a) Source: Social Journalist, Rupert Taylor

b) Evidence: Euthanasia harms the person performing the act. Unlike suicide, where a person
kills himself, euthanasia requires person A to kill person B at the consent of person B. Killing
another human being has negative psychological impacts on humans who are not sociopaths.
Taking another person’s life will traumatize the euthanizer especially trained doctors who
repeatedly perform the procedure. The repeated killing of humans causes people to harm
themselves, exhibiting behaviours like drinking excessively or committing suicide.

3. a) Source: Article by Carlo Focarelli in the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International
Law
b) Evidence 1: International law tends to prohibit euthanasia-related practices, particularly by
sanctioning the right to life in several human rights treaties, both universal and regional. In
addition, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of 24
January 2007 prohibits certain forms of euthanasia (Disabled People, Non-Discrimination of).
c) Evidence 2: The Right to Life and the Right to Dignity in Human Rights Treaties:
Euthanasia is considered by its opponents as a form of murder, or aiding and abetting suicide,
and incompatible with the right to life. The human rights treaty norms sanctioning the right to
life are generally construed as implying a positive obligation to ensure that a person's life is
not arbitrarily deprived by private individuals. It is unquestioned that this positive obligation
comprises a duty to criminalize murder and murder-related practices.

4. a) Source: Religions and Euthanasia, an article on BBC News website, debating the ethics of
euthanasia
b) Evidence 1: Most religions disapprove of euthanasia. Some of them absolutely forbid it. The
Roman Catholic Church, for example, is one of the most active organisations in opposing
euthanasia. Virtually all religions state that those who become vulnerable through illness or
disability deserve special care and protection, and that proper end of life care is much better
than euthanasia. Religions are opposed to euthanasia for a number of reasons: 1. God has
forbidden it; 2. human life is sacred; and 3. human life is special
c) Evidence 2: Muslims are against euthanasia. They believe that all human life is sacred
because it is given by Allah, and that Allah chooses how long each person will live. Human
beings should not interfere in this. Allah decides how long each of us will live. “When their
time comes they cannot delay it for a single hour nor can they bring it forward by a single
hour.” - Qur'an 16:61
d) Evidence 3: Euthanasia and suicide are not included among the reasons allowed for killing in
Islam. Suicide and euthanasia are explicitly forbidden. “Destroy not yourselves. Surely Allah
is ever merciful to you.” Qur'an 4:29
The Prophet said: "Amongst the nations before you there was a man who got a wound, and
growing impatient (with its pain), he took a knife and cut his hand with it and the blood did
not stop till he died. Allah said, 'My Slave hurried to bring death upon himself so I have
forbidden him (to enter) Paradise.'" Sahih Bukhari 4.56.669
e) Evidence 4: Islamic Medical Association of America (IMANA) says: "When death becomes
inevitable, as determined by physicians taking care of terminally ill patients, the patient
should be allowed to die without unnecessary procedures."
IMANA say that turning off life support for patients deemed to be in a persistent vegetative state
is permissible. This is because they consider all mechanical life support procedures as
temporary measures.
While turning off a life-support is allowed, hastening death with the use of certain pain-killing
drugs is not allowed as this would equate to euthanasia.

5. a) Source: The Hippocratic Oath

b) Evidence: The original oath included, among other things, the following words: "I will
neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to
this effect."