Commendation and for Improvement in the Paragraph

¶ … commendation and for improvement in the paragraph regarding the availability of computers. The author has a fairly transparent degree of verve and enthusiasm for the subject, which is sometimes a key component of an insightful article (Turnquist, 2009, 437). However, he or she has the tendency to make some emotional appeals instead of relying on empirical evidence to make points. Doing so is a crucial component of scholarly writing, and one of the areas in which the author could use some improvement.

The primary strength associated with this article is the author's logic. The author elucidates a number of crucial points that reinforces the paper's thesis: that computers enjoy a current degree of availability that they previously did not. However, in attempting to demonstrate his or her enthusiasm about this subject, the author has actually written about this issue from a decidedly biased viewpoint. A close analysis of the diction utilized in this article confirms this fact.

For example, the author states that the increased availability of computers is "great." Using this sort of diction inherently introduces a form of bias (No author, 2012) into the presentation about the facts supporting the author's thesis. Moreover, aside from having indubitably positive connotations, the word great is slightly colloquial and actually does not mean too much. The author would have benefitted from substituting a word for great that indicated what about the breakthrough was so positive. For instance, he or she could have said the breakthrough was valuable, useful, helpful, or any number of other adjectives that are less generic and more specific than "great."

The most disadvantageous aspect about using biased words such as great to describe points in an academic paper is that it serves to decrease the conviction of one's argument. Specifically, it does so by appealing to the emotions, and not the intellect of the reader. Emotional appeals are not appropriate for target audiences of academicians. The author would have been better off using words that help to reinforce evidence from a rational, logical perspective.

Another strength of this paper is that the author makes it quite clear what his or her opinion on the subject is, which is always essential for delivering a thesis statement. However, he or she employs a few rhetorical devices that do not aid his or her overall conviction. The author uses a broad generalization in the second sentence, stating that "everyone" is conducting their lives differently (and the reader assumes more effectively), because of computers. Yet there are surely some people who are not conducting their lives any differently despite the ubiquity of people. Homeless people are not doing anything different because everyone else has a computer. Thus, such broad generalizations are not true, and do not increase the author's conviction.