In the Huffington Post article "Girls Start Doubting Their Own Brilliance As Young As 6, Researchers Say" by Nick Visser, the author discusses the influence that gender roles have on how young children view their intelligence. The article is composed almost entirely of quotes and paraphrasing from Lin Bian -- who is the researcher directing the experiment this article describes -- which is why I will be analyzing Bian's ideas that were put into writing by Visser. The word "urgent" was used more than once to describe the issue that six-year-old girls were underestimating themselves when it came to intellectual ability. The concerned diction related to the topic reveals that Bian believes this is a serious problem which must be fixed soon.
When discussing statistics about how many women currently work in the STEM field, Visser's syntax consists of long sentences with multiple commas. The author's intent with this was to provide as much unfiltered information as he could. There were no fluff words involved; just two sentences that provided all the information necessary for the reader to understand the situation. Going back to the thoughts of Bian: the researcher displays a strong dependency on success for her project as well as a personal, prideful connection to the subject at hand, and she achieves this through her earnest, urgent tone. Her words, "certainly we need to do more... we need to intervene as soon as possible..." show that she and others are dependent on the success of her project, based off of the repeated use of the word "need." I believe the purpose of Visser's article was to raise awareness about a possible issue that has affected women in America and the jobs they choose so that it may become less of a problem in the future. The concluding paragraph especially expresses this goal, emphasizing that there is more to be done and the earlier it is done, the better. The author's purpose could certainly be helpful to their cause -- if the reader acknowledges the goal it is possible that they will find a way to cooperate by donating to the project, informing their peers, or attempting to erase gender roles regarding intelligence and occupation in their own household. Organization played an important part in the goal of the article: throughout the majority of the article, Visser explained Bian's experiments, but near the end the author provided facts that supported the intention of the project being discussed. He appeals to ethos by using statistics that proved the experiment wasn't based on emotion alone: "Women make up just 29 percent of the workforce in [STEM] sectors, according to the National Science Foundation..." The argument provided was strong and well-represented throughout most of the article, but one weak spot that I found was a small amount of repetition -- and not the stylistic kind. Visser could have removed one of the descriptions of the "urgent need" that were stated twice in slightly different ways. Other than that, I felt that the argument was solid and relevant. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/girls-brilliance-young-age_us_5889d550e4b061cf898cdd1c?section=us_science
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May 2017
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