Paul Bogard's Essay 'Let There Be Dark'

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When writing a persuasive essay one must use as much features to attempt to grasp the reader's mind in order to shape it with their words, by doing so with every detail of the essay, the tone, the flow, punctuation and diction. Author,Paul Bogard, in his essay"Let There Be dark", in which he builds an argument to persuade his readers that natural darkness should be preserved, he uses an array of features in order to do so graciously.

Bogard begins his essay with himself reminiscing the period of time when the world was darker, ironically better. He does this to begin with a story telling type of mood, to get the reader interested as well as comfortable. He does not bombard his reader with facts and the consequences of artificial light, instead he simply states his longing to look up and see stars and even the milky way. In the following paragraph he than switches to a poetic tone. Bogard creates his poetic tone by the use of a lullaby-ish diction, he uses the words such as,"steady rhythm","closeness" and "spells'. It's as if he wants to sooth his reader with a small poem to ready his reader for what is to come. He also does this to make the essay feel inviting and to trick his reader into missing …show more content…

He begins to state scientific evidence that darkness is essential to a healthy life. From setting a comfortable mood to abruptly stating that without darkness you can develop cancer and have a harder time fighting it as well as develop diabetes, obesity, depression and cardiovascular disease. Bogard purposely does this to create fear in the reader, instead of starting off this way he gained a comfortable feeling with his reader and than shocked them with an overwhelming amount of information to create a stronger imprint in their position of natural

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