Jailed for Life After Crimes as Teenagers
-Adam Liptak
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/03/national/03lifers.html
Rhetorical Analysis: Are You Serious?
Wow, I don't think I have ever been so shocked to have read the opening line of an article before, okay maybe that was an exaggeration. But seriously: 9,700 American prisoners serving life sentences? Reading the last story really took me off-guard I would never imagine him getting a life sentence. When I was 14 years old I was doing all sorts of stupid things. Maybe my friends weren't killing people but if the circumstances were different I could not say that maybe I wouldn't have gone to steal something just for the sheer excitement. We all do dumb things, his just went too far, which from the sounds of it was not his fault.
Okay, well that is the content but as for the rhetorical anaylsis of this article. Frankly, I think Liptak (the author) could have made this article a much more intense, interesting article. It was extremely important to put in statistics in an article like this but was it necessary to put so many redundant statistics, some of which were worded extremely awkwardly: "In those same years, the number of juveniles sentenced to life peaked in 1994, at about 790, or 15% of all adults and youths admitted as lifers that year."
Liptak also added a comment about race and sex on the 2nd page. The fact was very interesting but he didn't go any further to anaylze what consequences this has on either arguement (for or against juvenile life sentences). I was pretty sure I learned in high school not to introduce statements unless they were relevant to the topic at hand, and why they are relevant.
ALSO, I had a huge problem with the comments by Ms. Falcon. I almost stopped reading the article when I read, "I started listening to rap music and wearing my pants baggy. I was like a magnet for the wrong crowd."
Oh please, I listen to rap music and I don't think any of my friends have shot anyone? That is extremely stereotypical. There are many reasons I could say that she fell into the wrong crowd, after only reading this article: not supervised enough, self-confidence issues, coming from a broken family. But the only reason she can come up with is because she listens to rap? Her mother came upon the same conclusion, which makes me want to say to them both: You make your own desicions. She chose to be friends with whomever she was friends with and it had nothing to do with what she wore, or what kind of music she listened to.
Although the content of the article was interesting and brough up many issues I didn't even realize were issues, I did have trouble sticking it all the way through the article. Maybe I'm reading too deep into things or am completely off, but both Liptak and Ms. Falcon may want to work on their sentence structures and word choices.
I thought I'd add a rating from now on to my rhetorical analyses.
Content: 8
Ease of reading/ Rhetoric: 5
Overall: 6
posted by Mariam @ 10/03/2005 05:06:00 PM
1 Comments:
I found this article extremely interesting as well. It seems as though the author presents both sides of the case well, showing the perpetrators in both a good and bad light. I do agree, however, that the article seems to be written by a twelve year old. The article does not seem to flow as well as it could have, and it surprises me that a prestigious newspaper like the New York Times would allow this kind of writing to be published. The article seemed to be organized oddly, with random pieces of information intertwined with the stories about the kids in jail. The inclusion of the description of Falcon before trial seemed irrelevant and The topic itself is intriguing and raises important issues that otherwise may go unnoticed, but I think that the article could have been written in a more effective way. I also had a serious problem with the stereotype that Falcon suggested when she discussed the baggy pants and rap music equating to a life of crime and misconduct. This stereotype reflects her ignorance and her attempt to blame something beyond her control for her actions. In the article, it seems that she does not take responsibility for her own actions. In the end, she decided to get in the cab and she decided to drink. I thought her testimony felt false and she does not seem to have learned anything from what happened to her. If anything, the entire incident seems to have merely reinforced false stereotypes. I too had a difficult time getting through the entire article, and I think this may have been because the author tried to drag out the issue, adding in random facts and descriptions that were not relevant to the issue at hand. All in all, however, I found the article to be an interesting in terms of topic, yet a poor example of writing and effective editing.
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