Taken For Pomegranate Summary

“Taken for Pomegranate” by Dave Lazarus appeared in Men's Health in March 1997. This monthly magazine has published articles written for the general public on various health issues that appeal to men; usually, the articles are well-written, but this article was poorly done. For example, Lazarus' purposes were to inform, persuade, and entertain, but he was only partially successful. The attempted humor was supposed to increase the entertainment value, but it diminished his credibility; his childish comments ruined his ability to inform or persuade. Why would readers want to follow the advice of someone who thought human sacrifice was “cool” (Lazarus 50)? Even though professional writers should present information in an unbiased logical,
However, he did not give enough information about how to buy the fruits, which would have helped persuade readers to purchase them. While he gave precise information about vitamins and minerals in the fruits, he added unnecessary and inaccurate opinions about the tastes of the fruits and what he called “cool facts,” which were mostly neither “facts” nor “cool” (Lazarus 50). Plus, he left out some information and added too many other opinions. Details are supposed to support the author’s purpose, but not all of Lazarus’ details did. A key concept that he failed to define was “I.U.”; he assumed readers knew what that meant, but not all readers of Men’s Health are nutrition experts (Lazarus 50). Also, he assumed that readers would think his jokes were funny and that the irrelevant information would be appreciated by all readers. An implication is that more people will eat these fruits if they can find them. Another implication is some readers will stop reading the magazine because this was so badly written. Only one expert point of view was quoted, the author of an encyclopedia on fruit, but several of the sections had no quotes. How can readers tell where Lazarus got the details he