Back to Planning!
So, let’s take our paragraphs and spend another eight minutes finding some
rhetorical choices and analyzing why the evidence serves the argument. (For
clarity’s sake we wrote full sentences—your notes will likely be, well, more
note-like.)
Beginning: Opens with a joke to engage the reader—setting up (“what all young
boys want”) with an unexpected punch line (“a stick”). Contrasts the word
“simple” with “buoyancy,” “wind resistance” and “ballast” to emphasize the
complexity of what we would assume to be a very basic activity. He ends the
first paragraph with a question. This both engages the reader—who wants to
know the answer to this question—and creates a more conversational tone.
Middle: Establishes the importance of the topic by stating the high number of
hours kids spend on video games. Goes on to demonstrate the importance of play
in general by citing Dr. Glazier and the highly respected journal Nature (giving
his argument PhD backing). Dr. G’s quote includes some ten-dollar words like
“neuroplasticity,” “occipital lobe,” and “corpus calossum.” These words further
serve to ground his argument in hard science. Krumpf contrasts the simple
phrase “goofing around” with a serious one, “a child’s development”; the
contrast shows that the stakes of his argument are more serious than they might