The present is continually spurred by rapidly advancing technology. More specifically, it is due to the collective desire and pursuit of humanity to access gadgetry and everyday utilities with as minimal effort as possible. In "In A Battle Of Wits With The Kitchen Appliances, I'm Toast" by humor columnist Dave Barry, he presents his take on the prospect of interconnected and extraordinarily smart home appliances through deliberation coupled with humor. Barry first discusses the impracticality of appliance manufacturers' desired features. They envision refrigerators which alert the consumer when they have run out of milk, transmits their weight to the gym, and allows the sharing of information on the internet. "I frankly wonder whether the appliance …show more content…
manufacturers, with all due respect, have been smoking crack," he says, to show his strong feelings of disagreement. Barry then emphasizes the complications of actually maximizing the features and their being nonessential.
He states: "but here is what really concerns me about these new 'smart' appliances: even if we like the features, we won't be able to use them. We can't use the appliances features we have NOW." he also jokes about the most likely complexity of the controls: "if you want to make the refrigerator stop, you'll have to decipher owner's manual instructions written by and for nuclear physicists." Generally, I disagree with Barry's view on the topic, his writing technique, and reasoning. His work is a persuasive text meant to entertain; but, in my honest opinion, it does not even succeed in merely swaying the reader in order to shift their perspective or chuckle at the supposed hilarity of his jokes. The main points are not sufficient, strong, and well-supported. for instance, upon reading in the Washington Post the plans of manufacturers to improve the functions of appliances, he retaliates by saying, "did they ever stop to ask themselves WHY a consumer, after loading a dishwasher, would go to the office to start it?" as it can be seen, the author provided a sample situation that obviously does not portray the true purpose and value of the particular feature. All throughout the piece, he provides examples of the same nature. These failed shots at wittiness led to an ineffective elaboration of his points because, instead of clever reasoning, he unfortunately resorted to questions
and one-liners which do not thoroughly explain his given idea. They dodge logical thinking, an apparent foundation for writing, informing, and persuading. Though the column, as a whole, is pieced together by mediocre writing, the strength in which the author establishes his judgment is commendable. It is clear and delivered in a variety of creative ways such as, for example, an anecdotal passage and a hypothetical conversation between the consumer and their boss. Another feat of the piece is its tone; it presents a topic that is usually tackled in a serious and technical way in a relatively fun and lighthearted manner. In doing so, it produces a light and relatable read for anyone to occupy themselves with.
His conclusion, life is not fair. Boobie Miles, for example, is a High School student who has dedicated his life to football.... ... middle of paper ... ...
"Refrigerators." Canada Science and Technology Museum. Canada Science and Technology Museum, 2014. Web. 15 Feb. 2014. .
As a part of the English 101writing course, doing well on an in class writing is essential to excel in the course. During the second in class writing, individuals such as myself, had to respond to the article “Brain Candy” by Malcolm Gladwell. As a result, I wrote about whether or not Gladwell agreed with Johnson’s assertion that pop culture has made America smarter. Upon analyzing my graded in-class writing, I realized several errors that could be fixed.
Persuasiveness is a vital skill all authors and essayists must master in order to effectively communicate their ideas. “The Great Person-Hole Cover Debate: A Modest Proposal for Anyone Who Thinks the Word “He” Is Just Plain Easier…” (Person-Hole Cover Debate) written by Lindsy Van Gelder is a poor example of how to construct a persuasive essay. This essay can be deconstructed into three key areas which are used to judge an essays persuasiveness. Failure to achieve effectiveness in these areas deem a persuasive essay ineffective. These areas include persuasive essay fundamentals, literary devices, and features. “Person-Hole Cover Debate” fails its goal of persuading the audience to comprehend and eventually agree with the thesis of the essay.
This is a credible article; it seems that it is researched thoroughly and thoughtfully. Overall this article highlights my topic fairly well, and did meet my expectations; the author’s conclusion ended strong and summarizes the article greatly. Still, this article is not much different than my other twelve articles with the exclusion of one. In this article and others not all sources have different points of view and only one has done that.
I have found Zinczenko’s article to be persuasive and effective with being herd on his view points of the topic. The strategies used worked very well and allowed for the information to flow. The only thing I feel he could have done better with would be his choice of words since they didn’t beef up the overall tone of how the author felt. Even though the words weren’t very strong he was still able to build his argument on other things such as his statements and the facts that supported them. The article overall was efficient on getting the reader into the topic and feeling a sense of anger towards the fast food restaurants which is affective since it will make people want to change the fast food domination of Americans diets.
information you will read about in this paper is what might become of the future.
Another issue that promotes bias is that the author tends to be very repetitive and continues to stretch out the issue more than it should be. The points she make are valid but because she continues to talk about the same issue for extended periods of time, not only does this create bias to leaning one side, but it also loses the readers’ interest in the article. The fact that the author did expand on each issue for a long duration may imply the strong feelings she had for the issue at hand. But it is not the authors place to bring personal feelings into an article like this. In order to inform the reader of the issue and the take on the problem the author must provide both sides in an unbiased manner and then pick which side the author prefers and what the issue is with each
Dave Barry is a humorist who has a keen taste for stereotypical problems. He has received praises such as: “’the funniest man in America’-The New York Times” (“Dave Barry” n.p.). In his piece “A GPS Helps a Guy Always Know Where His Couch Is” he compares the attitudes of men and women specifically toward technology, or as he would say: “gadgets.” He opens with some form of a backstory by visualizing “some primitive guys” that are watching their wives prepare a carcass, and “Then they noticed some large, smooth, rounded boulders, and they had an idea: They could sit on the boulders and watch! This was the first in a series of breakthroughs that ultimately led to television” (Barry 94-95). This example of situational irony is only the beginning of the kind of humor he uses to express his opinion on this rather intriguing matter. This matter being the conflicting attitudes that men and women have on our ever advancing technology. As a guy, Dave Barry approaches this dispute with a
1. The Point and Counterpoint writers both provide bibliographies to support their argument. Most of the sources that they use seem reliable. The Point and Counterpoint author cites several evidence from the same sources. For example, both authors include evidence from Valerie Tripp and David Cesarani. The Point author cited several blogs, which can be unreliable. Though, most of the sources that the point author gives is credible and reputable. The Counterpoint author provides many bibliographies to support his argument and they all seem reliable. The sources that the counterpoint author cites are written from experts in this field. My analysis of the bibliography affects my opinion of the persuasiveness of each essay because it tells me which
His essay is on consumerism and the harm it does to our society, and especially our children, is based more on his own ideology instead of well supported facts.
Miller has written for Newsweek, where this article comes from. He has also written writing handbooks, such as Motives for Writing (McGraw-Hill) and Hodges’ HarBrace Handbook (Harcourt College Publishers). He is an educator in argument techniques, writing Informed Argument: A Multidisciplinary Reader and Guide.
If there had been more facts involved in this essay it would have been convincing, but it lacked that facts and I was unable to take the argument seriously. Some of these arguments could be pulled apart; some of the premises are weak, for example, “The future of mankind is at stake.” As a premise, this can be proven false. There was plenty of pathos, such as describing the author’s children and the next generations, but that didn’t make me really take the author seriously.
Professor's Comments: Very well done--subtle and perceptive and well-argued. A very sophisticated and beautifully written paper as a whole.
Putting the ' Smarts' into the Smart Grid: A Grand Challenge for Artificial Intelligence. (2012).