A Rhetorical Analysis Of An Article By Eliana Dockterman

Eliana Dockterman, the author builds an argument in order to persuade her audience that there are benefits to early exposure to technology. And she does so by clearly asserting her opinion with using a contrast between Advantages and disadvantages to early embrace to social-networking which builds an adequate and logical proposal. Additionally, Eliana Dockterman also does so by using some reliable evidences or facts in order to provoke the readers and prove her immense amount of knowledge on this topic to her audience. To start with, Eliana Dockterman systematically builds her logic to her audience by first mentioning the disadvantageous to early exposure to technology: the opposition of her opinion. But then, she suddenly twists around the main idea of the passage by mentioning the phrase “But it’s not that simple. While there are dangers inherent in access to Facebook, new research suggests that social-networking sites also offer unprecedented learning opportunities.” This strongly changes the main idea of the passage from malfunctions of Technology to advantages of social-networking to children. To add on, by using this quote, the author illustrates that there are some disadvantageous of technology, but there are

For instance, in Eliana Dockterman’s passage, she uses lot of statistics, such as “According to research cited by MIT, students can remember only 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear and 50% of what they see demonstrated. But when they’re actually doing something themselves-in the virtual worlds on iPads or laptops-that retention rate skyrockets to 90%”. As quoted previously, the author hardly tries to emphasize the advantages of internet by using reliable statistic information and by comparing them with others to highlight the efficient functions that internet gives