Ineffective Rhetoric in Articles Essay Example

Articles are written for many reasons; to challenge the way we think, to inform us, or to persuade us to believe something. In order to know whether or not an article has a good claim, one must look at how the article is written. Some articles are so well written that the author is able to convince the audience to agree with his or her claim or to regard what was written as fact. One the other hand, some articles are written so poorly, that the only thing the author accomplishes is loosing the audience’s interest or confusing the audience. Although entertaining, Adam Sternbergh's article “A Tanifesto,” published in the popular New York Magazine succeeds in entertaining the target audience, but is ineffective in trying to inform readers about the claim; the negative effects of tanning. “A Tanifesto” presents a lack of organization, an unsupported claim, and inappropriate changes in topic and discourse level which show that “A Tanifesto” is ineffective in proving that tanning is bad for ones health.
Although an interesting article, “A Tanifesto” fails to successfully get it's point across. This article is written in order to inform society that tanning is bad for ones health and it is primarily aimed at young adults. Through his article, Sternbergh tries to inform us that tanning is bad, but the lack of statistics and solid evidence prove to us that “A Tanifesto” is only Sternbergh's personal opinions and that it is ineffective in informing us about the negative effects of tanning. The claim in this article is hard to find as well because the article says that tanning is “the best way to ruin your reckless youth,” but then continues by saying “As it turns out, we’re over-SPF’d, and not getting enough sun.” Although Sternbergh's use of humor is entertaining, as a reader, the introduction of two separate claims can be confusing. Sternbergh starts by claiming that tanning is bad, but then a new claim is introduced and says that we do not receive enough sun. This