http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-parker-election-math-20141109-story.html
The article above is about the frequent inconsistencies found in a two-party political system- or, more directly, how to break it. Matt Parker, the author, offers a few strong solutions to what he describes as "the two-party deadlock", reinforcing these ideas with details, structure, and language.
The weakest of the three is language. Still utilized efficiently, the language Parker uses backs up his point well. From the beginning, Parker assumes an authoritative tone, which can partly be explained by his career choices. His bio states that he is the unlikely combination of mathematician and stand-up comedian. With that in mind, his writing can be considered extremely precise and calculated with an underlying whisper of sarcasm- like he's making fun of the topic that he's treating so seriously. Through his sort of colloquial explanations, Parker's choice of language convinces the reader that he knows exactly what he's saying and why, and that any argument against his could be easily discredited.
Next comes details. Parker starts his article off with a series of statistics.
"Republican Rick Scott won the Florida midterm election for governor, but 51.8% of voters did not want him."
This excerpt is the first sentence of the piece. It is followed by another percentage, then readers see four more in the third paragraph. It may seem insignificant, but go read the article. Every stat is used to illustrate a point. The author does an excellent job of using facts to create ideas. He makes his thoughts on the matter sound as irrefutable as the details they are surrounded with. Parker uses these statistics to make readers believe that the two-party system is actually hindering progress and that his argument is more relevant than the parties themselves.
Lastly. structure. The article does a good job of keeping readers interested with varying sentence length, but it also engage readers in other ways- Parker asks rhetorical questions, he provides answers to questions that haven't been asked, and he even occasionally baits readers. The varying sentence length is obvious, but another aspect of that is his use of different types of punctuation. I haven't seen much of it in past editorials but Parker's analytical thoughts are pronounced with colons, dashes, and quotes. The ways he forms his sentences keep the reader thinking about each point and transition smoothly into each other. Parker's article is very easy to read and remember as he uses precise structures to keep the reader in the article and up to speed with his own purposes.
I found your article interesting and I think you did a good job analyzing it. I would suggest that you avoid telling the reader to go read the article, as it should probably be assumed (or hoped) that they are going to read the article before they read your analysis of it. That sentence sort of breaks the flow of your middle paragraph, as does the weird spacing around the quote. Both of these things distract the reader from the sound argument you are making in the second paragraph.
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ReplyDeleteJason,
Great article choice, who would have thought to break a political party system. I am confused on why you start your first character with how Parkers’ language is the weakest portion of his article…if he does not do a good job representing it, I would not chose that as one of the parts of DIDLS to address. I agree that Parker has an authoritative tone in this article but give specific examples from the article to show his authoritative tone. You are right, percents are great details in articles like this but give more than one example of Parkers’ detail. I appreciate your personal reflections to the Parkers details. You need to clarify which area of rhetoric you are addressing because simply saying structure is not a part of DIDLS unless you are referring to sentence structure which is syntax. Make sure to give physical examples of Parkers’ syntax in your post.
Hi Jason,
ReplyDeleteI like your article choice. I found it really interesting! I have some suggestions though. Firstly, remember that this has to be a formal thesis driven essay. You've done a good job sticking to MLA format for the most part, but there are some places that you need to revisit. I would not start off by examining language if it is weakly represented within the article. Choose another element from DIDLS if it can be better supported! Lastly, please clarify which are of DIDLS you are addressing. It will make your paragraphs much clearer!
Jason--Great progress from October's post to this post! Once again, however, your peers gave some great feedback in their reviews that would have let you revise to make this a stronger piece, but you chose not to use it. You really do need to be doing some revisions, because you have work to do in some areas: "language" means figurative language, and so I see that you need some work on terms; no first person or editorializing in a formal argument; and quoted examples from the text are necessary to support your claims.
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