Before he outlines his argument against them, Krumpf wants the
reader to understand that video games are a more serious topic than one
might initially expect. He cites a U.S. Department of Health study that
reveals the enormous number of hours that kids spend on video games,
and establishes the significance of these hours by quoting Dr. Maude
Glazier in a study she published in the jornal Nature, in which she
emphasizes the importance of play for brain development. The use of
technical, specialized terms like “neuroplasticity,” “occipital lobe,” and
“corpus callosum” lend weight to her authority. But the author’s use of
the phrase “goofing around” at the start of the third paragraph lends the
essay a certain folksiness and lets the reader know he’s not losing sight of
the fact that he’s talking about the simple act of play.
Krumpf wants to distance his argument against video games from
others that decry them on different grounds. He spends a paragraph
disputing those who call video games overly violent and manipulative. He
chooses two newspaper headlines to serve as examples of this argument.
The first is straightforward, but the second, “Pixels Poison
Prepubescents,” demonstrates how ridiculous these popular arguments
can be. He uses the term “crops up” in order to characterize these
arguments as invasive pests, rather than serious intellectual positions. In
his concluding paragraph, where he states that video games do not
encourage creative thinking, he uses parallel structure to emphasize the
simplicity of video games. “If a door is locked, the gamer needs to find a
key. If a kidnapper has taken the president’s daughter, the gamer needs to
shoot the kidnapper.” This serves his final thesis: The complexity of real-
world games is more beneficial.
By the time we get to Krumpf’s argument in the last paragraph, the
reader is prepared to accept his point as valid, because he has established
the seriousness of the issue (by citing the Nature article and the U.S.
Department of Health study) and because he has distanced himself from
sillier arguments (by citing the ridiculus Post headline). When we get to
his final point, we are in a better position to accept it as a worthwhile and
important agument.Step 4: Smooth, Polish, Edit (5 minutes)