Professional columnists have often enjoyed the
luxury of an additional writer to verify their work. This person is usually an editor or
proofreader. Each day, millions of pages
of text are scrutinized for accuracy by the public. Many times, people have
read through an article and found an error in syntax or spelling. It almost appears to be a rewarding
experience for the reader to discover an error in professional works. I have noticed that writers sacrifice their
articulation for eye-grabbing slang. Is
this sacrifice worth it? Does it sell
books or magazines? I will explore these
and many more questions as I attempt to enter the professional writers' mindset
of methods and techniques. I have compiled six articles from various
professional sources. They all differ in
content and writing style.
However, they
all fit the discipline of my major, sociological law.
The first article in the ytical queue is published in Time
Magazine, "From the Fists of
s." This article addresses
the question of prosecuting a six-year-old child for .
I can empathize with the author receiving this assignment. In a previous criminal justice class, I wrote
a term paper dealing with juvenile
ers. It was a difficult
assignment because of its ethical and moral implications. Juvenile prosecution is a very sensitive
topic of discussion in our society. The
author had to take many cautious measures to remain neutral. He did an excellent job of stating the facts
and injecting the judicial statutes dealing with juvenile delinquency. In proper keeping with the three modes of
persuasion, Toufexis decided to persuade the audience through the logical
approach. The reader was not influenced
by passions, prejudices, or customs.
Facts were written in a logical fashion and presented to the reader in a
chronological order. This approach was
noteworthy because of the sensitive nature of juvenile .
It also allowed the reader to decide their own opinions related to the
facts presented in the story.
Furthermore, the ideologies of the reader are not distorted by the
convictions of the writer.
Had the author decided to use an ethical
presentation of the facts of this story, the virtuous battle lines between the
reader and the writer would be drawn.
The author would also be forced to adopt an opinion relating to the
issue of the crime surrounding it. This
could possibly lead to the reader condemning it for lack of neutrality. Moreover, writers are expected to maintain a
non-biased aspect when reporting a story.
Additional investigation of Toufexis' work
uncovered the limited use of figures of speech.
One aspect of professional writing that I have discovered in my research
declares the use of figures of speech as a primary viaduct of diction is
strongly discouraged by many rhetoricians (Corbett 357). Additionally, restricted use of figures of
speech constitutes an effective form of message delivery. Figures of speech should be used to seize a
reader's attention and focus on a particular point. They should not be overused or their
effectiveness is greatly reduced. Toufexis does a satisfactory job when
utilizing some available figures of speech.
According to the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level,
readability statistic's for this article were 11.1. This indicates that an 11th grader would have
no problem reading and understanding the article. However, I found a few sentences that lacked
proper style schemes. The use of a
Syllepsis' is noted in the following sentence, "Police initially believed
the tragedy grew out of a theft." I
believe the use of the word grew projected a very weak meaning of the
sentence. Perhaps a better way of
writing this sentence is, "Initially police believed the tragedy stemmed
from theft." Better word choice
could have assisted the writer in producing a clearer and more understandable
image.
Charles S. Lee and Lester Sloan incorporate
unlike forms of style than the previous article yzed, "From the Fists of s" by Anatasia Toufexis. In their article, "It's Our Turn
Now," from Newsweek Magazine, the writers are bound to deliver the
extremely sensitive and e issue
of . I decided to use the Bormuth Grade Level to
gauge the reading level for this article.
The Bormuth Grade level uses word length in characters and sentence
length in words to determine a grade level.
The results were ninth grade reading and comprehension level. I discovered these results quite
surprising. There were several sentences
that were rich with subordination and apposition versus standard use of
compounding. This is a significant form
of sentence structure because it often dictates complexity of writing.
Many somewhat complicated and uncommon choices
of words were used. This lack of
understandable vocabulary had tendency to lose its reader's interest. An example of the story's unorthodox word
utilization is, "The sense of aggrievement is apparent in the inflamed
rhetoric on mutual substantiated sides."
When I finished reading this sentence I was dumbfounded and
confused. The sentence appeared to use
several instances of over-impressive jargon without a clear direction. I translated the sentence into more understandable
language with, "Both the Latinos and Blacks share a sense of substantial
grief." Another sample of
complicated word choice is, "They point out that few Hispanic's bother to
vote in local elections, so they are disenfranchising themselves." I asked a couple of my neighbors and friends
if they knew what disenfranchising was. One
thought it had to do with buying a restaurant chain. The other thought it was a foreign currency
in France. I consider these people a
common sampling of readers that could quite possibly read an article similar
to, "It's Our Turn Now."
Perhaps, other readers would also have a difficult time understanding
the story.
The authors used a couple of interesting
stylistic schemes and tropes. In one
instance the author said, "Have the oppressed now become the
oppressors." This is a perfect
example of a epistrophe. An epistrope is
a repetition of the same word or group of words at the ends of successive
clauses (Corbett 438). It is interesting
to point out that the use of this epistrope assisted the author in
collaborating a short but essential point that oppression was handed from the
Blacks to the Latinos. The journalist
also discovered and integrated a beautiful quotation into his article. This quotation was the staple of the entire
article, "They hire people with our tax money. We subsidize our own
discrimination." These two
sentences are key because they enable the reader to understand the Latinos
suffrage from taxation without representation.
Although this concept prompted America to declare independence from
Britain in 1776, the article demonstrated the Latinos feeling the same
oppression as many Black Americans experience today.
A mainstay of American political controversy is
the debate over increasing the speed limit on highways. In 1974, the authority to impose speed limits
on roads was taken away from the states and placed under control of the federal
government. The reason was the Arab fuel
embargo. The bureaucracy believed
lowering speed limits would conserve fuel.
The politicians were correct in their estimates.
"Hello 75, so long 55," published by
US News & World Report, appears to ridicule the cliché of nothing ever
changes after all. The journalists make
good use of their descriptive rhetoric.
The arrangement of the article is somewhat confusing. The text could have been more free-flowing
and predictable. I was confused most of
the time as to which direction the article was heading. The subject matter was
contrasted with the five parts of usual argumentative discourse: exordium,
narratio, conformatio, probatio, refutation, and peratio (Corbett 282). I found that the introduction narrative was
chosen by the writers to establish reader interest. An introduction narrative is, "To rouse
interest in our subject by adopting the anecdotal lead-in" (Corbett
286). The writers used a highway patrol
officer's story about speeding very effectively to capture my curiosity.
Another aspect of discourse is
"Integrating Oneself with the Audience" (Corbett 287). This method establishes credit with the
reader by making sure qualified experts are referenced throughout the
story. The authors referenced several
experts in the field of highway safety.
Some of these include, highway patrol officers, United States Department
of Highway Safety, and city legislatures.
Their article presented indisputable facts surrounding the issue of
highway safety. All of the data
displayed was quite impressive and believable.
Additionally, it was presented in superior graphical quality.
The next part of discourse I wish to address is
the conclusion. The authors ended their
article with a somewhat weak ending. It
was almost as if their editor said, make it 150 words less and we will print
it. Seriously though, the article did
end abruptly. Corbett points out that a
conclusion should, "Round off what we have been modifying in the earlier
parts of the discourse" (Corbett 307).
The writers did not make good use of this concept. The conclusion of the article appeared to go
off in it's own misleading direction.
The fourth of the six articles I chose is,
"The Scandal of Prisoner Lawsuits" appearing in Readers Digest. This feature article addresses the issue of
incarcerated prisoners spending millions of tax dollars suing the government
while inside prison. I think this issue
is not held in a favorable light by most Americans. Why do prisoners have the right to sue while
behind bars? Should inmates have this
privilege? This issue is addressed by a
journalist by the name of Dale VanAtta.
He was the most colorful and enthusiastic
writer I encountered in my research. He
utilized emotion, the third mode of persuasion to pitch his emotional
appeal. Emotional appeal was originally
specified by Aristotle and recognized by later rhetoricians is the appeal to
the emotions of the audience (Corbett 86-87).
In this particular story, the reader is pitched into a pit of anger and
resentment. These emotions are
often e, unpredictable, and bond
the reader to the article through sheer interest.
The first line of the story is, "Lawrence
Bittaker is on row, a serial er responsible for the brutal ual assault, torture and mutilation s of five teen age [sic] girls in Los
Angeles County in 1979." If we take
a closer look and the sentence and dissect it, we see the crime in a much more
visual way. Indeed, itself is a horrible and unforgiving
crime. However, when we add brutal ual assault, torture, mutilation s, and five teenage girls, these words
and phrases strike fear and anger into the heart of the reader. This is what makes the use of emotional
appeal effective and unforgettable. Dale
VanAtta accomplished what many writers strive to achieve, visual articulation.
"Residential Segregation and School
Integration," published in the journal Sociology of Education, is a purely
statistically weighted presentation of argument. There are eight separate full-page graphs and
charts. These graphical depiction's of
comprehensive data had an inclination to bore the reader into loosing appeal
for the story. Too much data can overload
the reader's attention span. Moreover,
the attention span is only active when it is stimulated.
The article does present some interesting
elements encompassing the realm of racial justice. The article is presented to the reader in an
orderly and efficient manner. This is
accomplished by utilizing a chronological method of delivery. The author begins the quest in the year 1776
with the Declaration of Independence, and completes with the Civil Rights Act
of 1990. This is particularly useful in
assisting the reader to absorb critical dates and events based on actual
memorable historic events.
Since it was written under the pretext of a
professional article, the use of personal pronouns is not used throughout the
story. This gives the paper a commercial
appearance versus a writers' personal opinion.
This can be quite useful when trying to present factual argument from an
establishment or group perspective. In
most instances, the article is written in an extremely formal format. This is indicative of The American Civil
Liberties Union briefing papers.
In conclusion, we have examined several
professional works from professional journals to the internet. I have gained a much better understanding of
1) accessing articles and information on the internet, 2) conducting library
based research and referencing, and 3)
yzing professional writers' techniques for capturing the attention of
the reader. In the future, I can see
infinite opportunities in educational research and writing from the valuable
pedagogical experience I have gained from writing this paper.
Works Cited
American Civil
Liberties Union. Racial Justice. ftp://aclu.org/home/1pb/reform-c.html
(3 October 1996).
Corbett, Edward
P.J. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Kaye, Mulrine,
and Corinna Wu. "Hello 75, So Long 55." US News & World Report
Dec. 1995: 71-75.
Lee, Charles S.,
and Lester Sloan. "It's Our Turn Now." Newsweek Nov. 1994: 57.
Rivkin, Steven G.
"Resedential Segregation and School Integration." Sociology of
Education 67 (1994): 279-292.
Toufexis,
Anatasia. "From the Fists of
s." Time May 1996: 38.
VanAtta, Dale.
"The Scandal of Prisoner Lawsuits." Readers Digest Apr. 1996: 65-70.
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