Outside Reading 2-2

Date: Nov. 3^rd
Title: Where Do Democrats Go Next?
Author: Evan Bayh
Type of reading: Newspaper piece
You can find the actual article I read from the website below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/opinion/03bayh.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Editorial columns, features, and other magazine and newspaper pieces with clear points of view and strong voices—how does the author craft a narrative persona and a “voice” here, and how do these elements impact your response to the content of the piece? If this piece were AP essay, would the speaker be appropriate? Why or why not?

             After the midterm election, many articles that are about the election result came out. What I read is one of the articles about the election and the defeat of the democrats, and it was particularly written by a democratic senator who will be retiring on January. It is about what democrats should learn from the failure and how should they revive in the next election, and the writing is not at all depressing but clear and didactic.

             As a student writer and a reader, I think the article is well-written. There are not many rhetorical techniques used, but as it should be as a newspaper article, the writing is clear and the language is easy to understand. The vocabularies that are used are not very advanced, but still sound intellectual and formal. The piece as an overall is well organized and the point is well directed out. Bayh used dashes for a couple of times to clarify some of the terms, and that is one way of making the writing more clear. Moreover, he uses multiple transition words between two paragraphs to make the language can flow better as a whole.

             The persona of the author in the article is like a teacher. He does not scold his “students” but points out what things can be improved. The tone of voice is clear and sure. From the structure of writing point of view, the author starts the article with a line like this: “Democrats can recover from the disappointments of this election and set the stage for success in 2012. But to do so we must learn from Tuesday’s results. ” And he lists out things he wants to mention one by one with composure. The organization like this is similar to how teachers talk to their students. From the language point of view, he is using plain words like a teacher who is explaining things to students.

             In AP tests, we don’t have to sound like a teacher and we don’t have to write something with poise. We can appear to be more passionate or aggressive. But I think we should learn how the author of this article brings the readers step by step to his conclusion. Also, another important thing we can learn from this article is that how the author appears to be so sure about what he’s saying. When writing AP essays, we need to show our understandings of the literature and literary techniques are complete and sophisticated enough.