Prompt: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2lJLoenVHIQOHdqdmwwVGtBcjQ/view

The article “The Best News You Don’t Know,” written by Nicolas Kristof, brought up the topic of poverty and how we are overcoming its difficulties. Throughout the essay, the author employs strategies such as logical reasoning with facts to back up, emotional appeals with personal experiences, and authoritative establishment in the passage.

First of all, the author used logical reasoning with facts in the passage to prove that there is an improvement in human well-being. The author uses facts such as “As recently as 1981, when I was finishing college, 44 percent of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank. Now the share is believed to be less than 10 percent and falling. ‘This is the best story in the world today,’ says Jim Yong Kim, the president of the World Bank.” and “For the entire history of the human species until the 1960s, a majority of adults were illiterate. Now 85 percent of adults worldwide are literate and the share is rising.” These quotes help prove that there are improvements from before and after, in this case a rise in literacy and decline in poverty. The author then goes on to describe the reason we are usually confused, which in this case he describes as focusing on human misery as news. Another example could be found in the thirteenth paragraph, where the author offered facts by stating the average average births per woman. The author combined those facts with the reason, which is – when people know their child is going to survive, they will stop having as many children. This strategy is effective as it helps the audience understand the current situation of the topic, then the author provides his own interpretation and persuade the reader about his argument.

Secondly, the author employs the emotional appeal to approach the readers’ feelings. There are phrases and words such as “ubiquitous blind beggars” or “robbed of dignity and any chance to be productive” that describes the situation of many people before the change happened. By understanding the reason the author chose these words, the audience can comprehend what it is like to live in those peoples’ shoes. However, after those phrases the author included the current situation for people like them  – “This is much less common today, partly because humanitarian aid — despite real shortcomings — has made a profound difference in health.” This strategy is persuasive as it helps the audience understand the situation of blind people before and after, and they could understand the change that has occurred – which further proves the point of the author.

Last of all, Nicolas establishes authority and professionalism in his article. Throughout the passage, the author explained the situation he has been through. One example of this is in paragraph nine, where he described his experiences in South Sudan, Mynamarr, and India. This demonstrates that the author understands the topic and has personally spent time to research and learn about the topic before publishing his article. Another way he exhibits his professionalism is through his well written essay, from the word choice to the structure, the author put together an elegantly written article. All the examples above helps the audience apprehend and see the author as a competent writer and credible researcher, which allows the audience to trust the argument more.

To conclude, the author incorporated facts and logic, with emotional words and phrases, alongside professional language to present the argument that we as humans are winning against war and poverty. Not only did Nicolas present the arguments, but also provided a call to action, urging the audience follow through with the argument and act upon it.

Review: Going into this assignment, I was finding it easy as I have been working on SAT prep over the summer. When I was writing the essay even though I did not think much about it, but I thought I did a great job. It was not until when I re-read my essay that I realize that my points were not as solid as I thought. After doing the assignment, there is a difference between confidence and being careless. I hope that I would not make such a mistake again and I could work on being more careful next time.