Excellent posts last week. Loved the words you found in your pieces.
This week try to focus on how the writer involves the reader. Good narrative pieces (this is not to say all of your readings are narrative pieces) engage the reader on some level. How do your writers do it?
17 comments:
"Every year in the United States, 325,000 people are hospitalized because of food-borne illnesses and 5,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s right: food kills one person every two hours." - Nicholas Kristof
Kristof uses statistics to show how much the issue of food borne illness affects Americans. He reiterates his point by using a short, simple phrase: "That's right". It grabs the attention of the reader and then Kristof goes on to say an even more astounding fact.
"GOP pop quiz: With whom would you rather roll your dice — a Harvard lawyer who wants government to bankroll jobs through higher taxes? Or a Texas A&M grad/Air Force pilot who has successfully run one of the largest states in the country?"
Here, Parker gets the reader's attention by posing a question to the reader. But because the question is a biased one, it forces the reader to look at things from Parker's point of view.
“Catherine Bullard is a thief,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua Hill wrote in a sentencing memo. “While working as a bookkeeper for three small-business owners, Bullard took advantage of her employers’ naivete to embezzle money for her own personal use.”
By using quotes, Lee is able to bring the reader in further, and effectively diverges from the typically un-biased point in his writing. A quote adds emotion and a level of identification with victims as well as perpetrators involved in a legal situation.
"Wait? What? Did the chancellor of Syracuse University just say that one of the primary reasons her school can justify ditching the Big East as a founding member is because she thinks the ACC has better Olympic sports programs? She can't be serious, right?" -Gene Wojciechowski
Wojciechowski's piece on the ACC expansion this past week is riddled with paragraphs full of questions for the reader. Aside from the obvious, that he hopes to provoke the reader to answer them for him or herself, he uses the questioning to express his incredulity at the events that have transpired. The short questions and the use of ",right?" offer the impression that Wojciechowski is actually looking to the reader for guidance, emphasizing how absurd the Chancellor's comments are.
"HAS American political life become a carnival so invasive, indiscriminate and sometimes even crude that it repels some of the best potential officeholders and almost guarantees that the most important business of the country won’t be properly done?"
By starting with a question, Bruni immediately grabs the reader's attention. Suddenly, my own mind was racing to answer it while at the same time wondering what Bruni had to say about it. Even though the question may be more to himself than the reader, it hooks the reader, setting up the context for the article and directly stating the question he has been contemplating. This makes it more straightforward for the reader to read the rest fo the article.
"Is there a single, most effective strategy for dealing with life’s constant battering? One way to approach this question is to look at an example of sheer social ineptness, and where better to find this than in the old sitcom Seinfeld, specifically in the character of George Costanza." - Wray Herbert
Herbert engages the reader by posing a question. He then goes on to answer his question by referencing Seinfeld. Herbert keeps a casual, informal tone throughout his article, which is echoed in these sentences. By refraining from formality and seriousness, Herbert keeps the reader interested and makes his ideas relatable to a wider audience.
"Someone who could help the company handle stories like the one in the Daily Mail today, about how Facebook wants to extract all your private information and sell it and can even track what you do online when you’re not logged onto Facebook — or the one in the Financial Times, which says the same thing pretty much."
In this excerpt from an article about Facebook's privacy, Achenbach involves the reader by writing as if he is talking to the reader and using "you" and "your." While his tone is casual throughout the article, he also seriously summarizes the stories above in order grab the attention of his readers and to make them more personal or relatable to the readers.
"I woke up after the accident in the hospital not knowing who or where I was. I couldn’t tie my own shoes. I couldn’t read or write, add or subtract, tell time or sit properly in a chair." -Su Meck
Meck describes a horrifying experience in a very accessible way. The simplicity of her examples allows the reader to easily step into her shoes and experience her amnesia for themself.
"It seemed so brazenly evaluative — an employment counselor inquiring about a gap in your résumé, a dental hygienist asking how often you flossed"
In this quote, Eckel uses the second person in order to connect to the reader. Be using the word "you" it is as if she is talking directly to us. She also uses similes that every person can relate to. By using this type of description, the reader is able to feel the exact emotion that Eckel is trying to get across because they too have experienced it.
"And price-gouging isn't even that bad. Three dollars for a $2 item! Do I look like one of thoese American suckers? Don't answer that."
Caroll does a great job of involving the reader by playing out an experience that many people might have gone through (if they are welathy enough to travel). He is giving a little antedotal lesson that makes the reader face the reality of what they are doing when bartering in another country. He even askes the reader a question about themselves, which he then anwers "yes" by saying "Don't answers that."
"Think of anybody you admire. They probably have some talent for fellow-feeling, but it is overshadowed by their sense of obligation to some religious, military, social or philosophic code."
David Brooks engages the reader in his article about empathy by having them think of examples for him. He then goes on to counter whoever the person is thinking of using statistical evidence and analysis later in the article. This is all possible because he pulls the reader in by actively grabbing the readers attention and involving them in the article.
"In situations like this, you can usually have justice or you can have order, but you can’t have both." - Fareed Zakaria
For the first time in the many articles I have read by him, Zakaria uses the second person. This change of perspective catches the reader's eye and makes him or her examine the argument a little more closely. Zakaria is also clever in that he simplifies this topic. He uses this sentence to explain complicated foreign relationships in a way that the reader will understand because it feels like the conversation is aimed directly at him or her.
The Yankees? It's like rooting for a hedge fund. The Phillies? Just another checkbook champion.
Although I know this quote is going to get me an F from you Mary, Rick Reilly is able to engage the reader here. The reader can truly identify with Reilly's tongue and cheek comment about baseball's big spenders. Whenever someone talks about the Yankees, my friends and I, along with most around us, complain about their unfair monetary advantage. The Phillies have also crossed into that realm. Reilly takes advantage of this fact and uses it to engage the reader at the beginning of his post about the loveable Brewers.
"You have a right to your feelings, of course, and if your dad's relationship with your ex makes you uncomfortable, it makes you uncomfortable." -Dan Savage
Savage is in an interesting position in regards to this top because his written pieces are formatted as responses to letters he receives. One way to look at these letters is to see them as general advice, rather than specific statements directed at the author of each letter: when Savage writes "You have a right to your feelings," he is both addressing the author of the letter and his wider audience. This is one sentence that appears to be addressed more to the audience rather than to the author of the letter, as it uses "you" instead of the author's name.
"When Obama declares 'we are one civilisation', that implies that every single person standing in Westminster Hall inhabits the same powerful, glamorous world as the American president: every single one of them has been sprinkled with stardust by the man from the White House. It isn’t true, of course, but it’s nice to think it might be – just as it is nice when someone famous pretends to know who you are."
Anne Applebaum compares the relationships between the British MPs and Obama, and the reader and a celebrity. This analogy involves the reader by using him or her in it, and it helps the reader to understand the dynamic between Obama and the British MPs by making it relatable.
"I sat down and looked away while she hunted for a vein, found several and then missed all of them. In total, she poked me four times before she hit something that spit hot, wet fluid down my forearm and made her scream.
'Don't look!' she told me.
'OK,' I answered. I think."
-Soren Bowie
In these lines, Bowie engages the reader by using active, precise verbs, such as "hunted" and "spit." In my opinion, the use of these words really works, since they catapult the reader into the Bowie's humorous and (exaggeratedly) traumatic experience of giving blood, even if he/she doesn't want to be.
In addition, I think Bowie also engages the reader by including a dialogue — albeit a short one. This dialogue shows (instead of tells) the unease Bowie faces in this experience, making this funny article even more attention-grabbing.
"Cast your mind back to that dear old year 2004. What do you remember about it? George Bush's re-election? Swiftboating? The war in Iraq expanding? Or maybe you remember the Super Bowl. Can't remember who played that year? Doesn't matter.
Two words: wardrobe malfunction."
This is a good example of Carrol's connection with the reader. He starts out his whole article with questions to the reader, this is a common tactic Carrol uses and I like the fact that I have to think about my life while reading what he has written.
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