Simran Singh Sidhu
300728688
Centennial college
COMM 171-352
Sonia Senior - Martin
July 25, 2013
David Suzuki, who wrote “Overpopulation is bad but overconsumption is worse”, is a science broadcaster and environmental activist who achieved livelihood award in 2009. He founded radio program and was professor in genetics department until his retirement in 2001. The essay “Overpopulation is bad but overconsumption is worse” tells the readers that overconsumption is worse than overpopulation. Whereas, on the other hand, the author of “Blue jeans”, Leslie C. Smith worked in medical profession as a specialist in nuclear medicine. His idea affected the lifestyle of people to different style when “Blue Jeans” was published in 1992. Do you know what makes a reading interesting to its readers? We read so many essays but there are only few we like and find interesting. The reason we like some readings more is the style, organisation and development of an essay. In essays “Overpopulation is bad …show more content…
but overconsumption is worse” by David Suzuki and “Blue jeans” by Leslie C. Smith, the authors maintains their readers interest with the tone, anecdotes and organisation of their essays. In essay “Overpopulation is bad but Overconsumption is worse”, David Suzuki has attracted the readers with the tone of his writing as it has a good style, attention grabber and purpose. The reading attracts the readers with its style, as the author has used good vocabulary which makes it easier for its audience to understand and keeps the readers indulged in the reading. Even though this essay is very debating and is based on a very serious discussion, then also the author is able to maintain its reader’s attention. Moreover, the author is able to keep the audience interested because the beginning grabs the reader’s attention as it starts off with telling a very interesting fact, which motivates the readers to keep reading it. The author attracts the audience by using an appropriate attention grabber sentence at the beginning of the essay. The other thing which keeps the readers interest alive is the purpose of the essay. In addition, the reading has a very clear purpose which informs that overconsumption is more harmful than overpopulation. In essay “Blue Jeans”, Leslie C.
Smith’s tone is quite similar to David Suzuki’s tone, as he has also used a good style, attention grabber and a clear purpose to attract the audience. The essay “Blue Jeans” is easier for its audience to understand as it has an understandable and easy vocabulary used and its intended audience is younger generation. The use of good vocabulary makes the essay interesting and easy to understand for the readers. However, this essay has a different style of grabbing attention, as it has an attention grabber question, which attracts the audience and makes them curious to read with an interest. As the author is clear with his purpose in “Overpopulation is bad but Overpopulation is worse”, similarly, in “Blue Jeans” the author is clear with his purpose of writing. The clear purpose, effective attention grabber question and writing style makes the reading more clear and keep the reader’s interest alive in the
essay. In essay, “Overpopulation is bad but overconsumption is worse” the author has used some anecdotes to make the reading clear, more meaningful and interesting. The anecdotes used in the reading makes the meaning of the reading more clear. The author tells that countries with less population use more resources tan countries with more population and these actions of people is having a great impact on our ecological system. According to Aristotle (1993), “The avarice of mankind is insatiable” (p.89). A man’s greed can never be satisfied. Even if a man uses all the resources and materials then also he won’t get satisfied. Moreover, anecdotes make the reading more meaningful. The readers are able to understand the meaning of the reading more deeply by going through the anecdotes. By using the anecdotes, the author is trying to explain the readers about the opinions of different people. Furthermore, the use of anecdotes made the essay very interesting, as the readers get to know about the different short stories of the person’s regarding overpopulation and overconsumption. Just like “Overpopulation is bas but Overconsumption is worse”, in “Blue Jeans” also, the author has used many anecdotes to make the reading clear, more meaningful and interesting. The author has used few anecdotes which help the readers to understand more clearly. In fact, in every other paragraph, the author has used some anecdote so that the audience can become clearer with the essay. In addition, Leslie C. Smith maintains the interest of his audience by using the anecdotes, as it tells them about the different opinions of different people towards blue jeans. The anecdotes help the readers to stay indulged in the reading with complete interest. The essay “Overpopulation is bad but Overconsumption is worse” is a very organised and well - structured essay. David Suzuki has used transitions, examples and quotes, which make the reading easily understandable to its readers. As it can be seen that the author has used many transitions which help the reading to move in a logical order and make it easier for the readers to understand. The author doesn’t only use transitions; he has also given some examples of people debating on the subject of the essay. The author clears everything to the audience by using examples and let the readers know more deeply about the effects of overconsumption. Moreover, the author has used few quotes as well; he tried to bring forward the effects of overconsumption and wants the readers to know that overconsumption leads to destruction of our ecological system. According to W.W Norton & Co. (1993), “Consumption: the neglected god in the trinity of issues the world must address if we are to get on a path of development that does not lead to ruin. The other two – population growth and technological change – receive attention; but with consumption, there is often only silence” (p.89). The author is trying to tell that people do not consider consumption as a problem which is not right. They only pay attention two issues of population growth and technological change. This is not right to pay attention only towards these two issues, consumption should also be considered as a serious issue. On comparing “Blue Jeans” with “Overpopulation is bad but Overconsumption is worse” I got know that both these essays are very well organised and well structured. In “Blue jeans”, Leslie C. Smith has used plenty of short paragraphs, each paragraph talks about one thing at a time. This makes the essay easily understandable to the readers and they don’t get confused while reading. The essay tells about the history of blue jeans, it begins from the start of blue jeans and moves on by telling about the changes made in it and how they were made. It also tells about the different styles and trends of the blue jeans. The author made it very interesting by organising it so well. In essays “Overconsumption is bad but Overconsumption is worse” and “Blue jeans” the authors are successful in maintaining their audience’s interest with their tone, good use of anecdotes and the organisation of their essays. Both the essays have almost same style of writing however they have nothing in common in reading. The authors have used anecdotes, examples and quotes so well to make the essays interesting for the readers. Both the essays are giving some useful knowledge to their intended audiences. The essay “Overpopulation is bad but Overconsumption is worse” informs the readers that they should not blame overpopulation for the destruction of our ecological system as overconsumption is more responsible for that. Whereas in essay “Blue jeans”, the author tells the audience about the history of the blue jeans and is successful in achieving his target.
REFERENCES
Smith C. Leslie (1992). Blue Jeans: Born to Last. In G. Dasgupta & J.J. Mei (Eds.) Refining Reading Writing (pp. 105-107). Toronto: Nelson Thomson
Suzuki David. (1993). Overpopulation is bad but Overpopulation is Worse. In G. Dasgupta & J.J. Mei (Eds.) Refining Reading Writing. (pp. 88-100). Toronto: Nelson Thomson