Please comment & rate my Essay-"Generalists vs Specialists"

[NazF]

TOPIC: "In our time, specialists of all kinds are highly overrated. We need more generalists -- people who can provide broad perspectives."
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The issue of demand of generalists over specialists is a controversial one. On the one hand, generalists have a basic knowledge about a lot of topics of various fields. On the other hand, specialists have in-depth knowledge about a topic of specific field. However, in the final analysis, I believe that generalists are not needed over specialists. In fact, for every generalist we need more specialists.
One of the reasons of my belief is that, in the health profession we need specialists when general physician fails to cure the problem. When one finds himself with a problem in breathing, he first visits the nearest physician available. The general physician can give him basic treatment, but when the physician finds the patient with a problem of asthma, he strongly recommends the patient to consult the Chest specialist. The specialized doctor of chest has a vast knowledge about that condition. He is familiar with the background and detailed treatment of asthma as compared to the general physician. So, generalists cannot take place of specialists in the field of medicine. In fact we need specialized doctors along with general physicians to help and support them.
Another example can be studied in the field of education, where it is okay to have under graduate or graduate level teachers at school level. But as the student moves to higher classes, he needs a subject specialist teacher. At school level one teacher can teach more then one subject like: math, chemistry, physics, etc. But at graduate level we need specialized teacher for every field. At the graduate level, the students of chemistry should be taught by the subject specialists, rather than by graduate level teacher. Because, only a specialized teacher can provide in-depth knowledge to his students. We see that specialized persons are also required in the field of education, along with general teachers.
For the above reasons I believe that we can not deny from the need of specialist in every field of life. They have an important function, and that function can not be met by generalists. In fact, it can be said that the specialists are required so that they can support the generalists as needed.

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[JackyMUC]

Hi NazF,

you used the template from Princeton Review, didn't you

Yeah, your points in the essay are not bad and also well developed, though I think you could do a better job.

Also, you only mentioned the Pro site and left the con site untouched.

I think you can get better grade if you at least acknowledge the con site, thereby showing the graders that you have understood the complexity of this issue.

By doing so, you probably are able to extend you essay at least for 50 more words

cheers

Jacky

[NazF]

Hi Jacky
Thank you for evaluating my first post, but this template is from POWERPREP.
Sorry I am a bit confused. Can you please clear my view.....I think one has to pick only one side of the issue to argue, either pro or con
Ref: Princeton Review (pg: 291) actually I am doing prep from Princeton. Is it okay?
I'll try to more next time. Thank you once again for your kind concern.
Regards.

[kanika]

Nazf
No one can go for a neutral tone as well in d essay staint both the positives n negatives n there by going for a balance approach.

[rrgre]

I liked your point on general and specialized teachers

[15weidi]

Well done!!!

[Visenth]

Hi all,
The sample essay for this topic is available in ETS's AWA intro file. Essays which are supposedly scored from 1-6 are given for this particular topic. You can find that in ets.org free test prep materials section. Just in case if you want to refer, have a look at that.

[15weidi]

I think it's a little short, have you counted the words?

[gre2009]

This definitely comes from Princeton Review. I recently received my AWA score (5.0) and I really felt that was the worst two essays I've written for GRE. I took the GRE 3 times and the first two times I wrote much much better for my essay (I canceled the first two). I really left thinking I did terrible on the writing as I did not prepare for it at all by the 3rd time I took this exam. I think what Princeton Review does say is that the length of your essay matters. I agree with 15weidi, it's too short. The content is not that bad, but you need to elaborate more.

[omnara]

TOPIC: "In our time, specialists of all kinds are highly overrated. We need more generalists -- people who can provide broad perspectives."

"You tell me earth revolves around the sun. Even if sun or moon revolves around earth, that does not matter to me or my work"
Sherlock Holmes, A study in scarlet.

Throughout the history of mankind, pursuit of knowledge had been a passion for a few. In the old times of Galeleo, Plato and Euclid, the range of knowledge available to humans were limited. So, they could concentrate on all aspects of available knowledge -- medicine, physics, mathematics and the like. Later, because of the works of these men, range of knowledge available to man took a progressive advancement. Within a couple hundreds of years, science itself diverged to different well defined realms like chmistry, biology, mathematics. Later, when the scope of different sciences grew, new finer distinctions were to be invented like marine microbiology, atomic physics, operational research in mathematics..etc.

Today, we live in a world of specializations - be it scientific, economic, philosophic or cultural. New development happens in all aspects of life everyday. Primary reason for such specializations to exist is the amount of knowledge that is available to man is overwhelming. None today is expected to have mastery over more than one subject. For example, it would be ridiculous to expect an astrophysicist who specializes in science of stars and other heavenly bodies to have an accurate knowledge about the functioning of heart of a human being. Similarly, a marine microbiologist would specialize in the underwater micro organisms and is not expected to have an accurate idea about whales and sharks. Another example is a micro financial expert who specializes in the needs of small societies who may not have mastered the intricacies of international trade and finance -- even when they are two aspects of economics.

This kind of specialization has its own positives and negatives. A large number of innovations that make human live easy, comfortable and sometime even possible on this planet has been the result of specialization. Advancement of marine micro biology has thrown light into the question of evolution. Advancement of analytical logic and graph theory has made it possible to use another super specialty innovation - computer hardware , that of semi conductor physics -- possible. At the same time, such kind of super specialization has created a genre of neurosurgeons who can do retinal nerve re-attachment but cannot fix a dislocated shoulder!

These innovations were the results of the efforts taken by people who spent countless number of days and nights relentlessly pursuing their dream. They were specialists in their respective fields who have worked extremely hard to master present day technologies and further them so that their wish could materialize. They were so engrossed in their stream of thought that they did not have any idea about most things outside their realm. It can be argued that we need more generalists who can find better use for the new innovations made possible by specialists. But one must remember that generalists can function meaningfully only with the fruits of specialist's labor. Thus downplaying the importance of specialists preferring generalists could be detrimental to the advancement of human race in the long term.