http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/opinion/sunday/rethinking-sleep.html?pagewanted=2&ref=general&src=me
Summary: This article is titled "Rethinking Sleep" and offers information on the best way to sleep, as conceived now and in the past.
Diction:
Much of the word choice in this article is aimed to alter our way of thinking about sleep. For example, Randall uses the word "tyranny" when describing the eight hour sleep cycle. When most people think of getting eight hours of sleep a night, they don't think of it as having unrestrained power of them, like a dictator would. But by using this word, Randall puts the idea into the readers head that our ideas of a "good night's sleep" is actually controlling our lives, potentially for the worse. When discussing how deep sleep allows us to better perform cognitively, Randall uses low elevation words like "toss" and "jumble,"making the paragraph easier understood by the average person.
Details:
Randall uses most of the details he adds just to support his point that sleeping eight straight hours might not be the best way to sleep. He adds examples from everything from literature and the Canterbury Tales, to sports and athletes. However, using only these examples that showcase the abnormal would make this article difficult to relate to. Randall also uses details that show he knows most people don't have the opportunity to nap on the job, or that mentioning sleepiness usually warrants the scolding "Get more sleep." In order to make his points more convincing, Randall chose to exclude details that emphasize how those who do get eight straight hours of sleep every night feel. Are they well rested? Do they perform better than those who have split sleep cycles? This information would be helpful to decide which way of sleeping truly is better, but it may not have helped Randall prove his point.
Imagery:
Although this piece is just informative and not full of imagery, Randall does use some imagery to help the reader understand what he's saying. To start the piece, he puts the reader in bed, waking up to some piece of technology. Because the vast majority of readers have experienced this, in depth description isn't needed to make the paragraph vivid.
I think you've done a really good job picking out examples for diction, detail and imagery. I like how you picked out the work "tranny" which shows Randall's use pejorative diction. It also give an insight into Randall's tone which seems to kind of negative. You say that some of Randall's use of detail worked against him, what would you suggest that he should do to make his examples work for him? Although you have captured the overall essence of the article, I think you could have used more examples to support the details you found in the article.In addition, I think you should consider including quotes from the article to better support your writing. However, I like your paragraph on imagery and how you backed up the authors reasoning as to why an in depth description is not necessary since most of us can relate to waking up technology.
ReplyDeleteWow, you really analyzed the word tyranny in the diction section. I think that he carefully chose the word tyranny because he doesn't like the controlling "eight hour sleep cycle". It sounds like the details that Randall includes aren't really helping his case, perhaps they are just beating around the bush. I would think that because he is talking about human behavior he would include some studies or statistics that would support his case. I really liked how you weren't afraid to shorten the paragraph on imagery.sometimes we feel like more is better ,but in this case the last paragraph was just enough.
ReplyDeleteI like your analysis of imagery and how the author uses it to make the article more understandable to everyone. (This also shows how being concise can make a big impact-- thank you _Nuts and Bolts_!) I'm a bit confused on your paragraph on details-- I don't see how the "However..." links the two ideas together. They seem like two different issues of needing detail and I don't see how they are linked. I do like what you did with your analysis of diction and how the types of words used affected the tone-- tyrannical sleep schedules seem like a comical idea, but in this article seem to be described in a serious way, affecting the tone. Overall good analysis of the article.
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