Language Analysis for VCE 2005 English Exam - Feedback Please

[chansena]

Hi,

Could someone please read my language analysis for the article "the write stuff" from the English exam in 2005. I've only done it to one article thus far. Feedback, advice, corrections would be greatly appreciated 


http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/exams/english/2005english.pdf Page 14


Sparked by the growing trend of hand written letter over electric letters, the article which appeared in a popular magazine uses an elegant yet serious ton in addressing the issues of letter writing in this day and age.

From the onset of the article the writer visually attracts the audience through the use of an italic font coupled together with a pun. In doing so it entices the audience by appealing to their visual sense. The writer uses of pun “the write stuff” address the issue of whether the audience is “writing” the right way, by indirectly questioning their writing habits. The article begins with an elegantly hand written like “E” which is set apart from the rest of the writing. In a way the writer brings back past traditions, of what letter writing used to be by contrasting I to the word emails being “fast and efficient” losing its elegance.

The written condemns the use of technology throughout the article. By using an anecdote to compare “e-cards complete with dancing sheep and the words “I luv ewe”” to the “opening of a thick red, envelope that sprinkles fragrant rose petal as she releases a hand written letter” it appeals to emotion by highlighting the significance and impact a hand written letter can have. In doing so It causes the audience to feel compelled to write letters as they carry more emotion unlike emails. What’s more the writer further heightens the argument by referring to its niche audience of e-card reader as having a “heart of stone” by doing so shows that email carry no meaning. The writer makes letter writing sound more romantic by using words of positive connotation such as “important occasion”, buy a stamp and send it” giving it a dramatic and fairy-tale like feeling.  This causes the readership to feel motivated to experience this, by writing letters instead of e-cards.

What’s more the reader is portrayed as being lazy. In doing so it causes the reader to distance themselves from this idea and to disassociate them self from this laziness. By using inclusive language to address this “we’re not only too important to write letters, we can’t even be bother to sit down and read one” causes the read great concern as it associates them with the inability to social interact. This is further heightened by the point made by Ian Hutchinson “we’re now subjected to 20 million advertising message before we hit 20” further emphasizing this inability to socially interact. By causing the readership to feel socially isolated it makes them worried and stressing the point of changing their habits. The author goes on to explain how “the results, in many cases, is an abbreviation of real communication causing the reader to ask themselves whether they are interacting in genuine communication causing the reader to appeal to their senses.

The writers attacks not only the audience but goes on further to attack the current generation and their habits. By describing “these guys” as “the most visually literate generation… but they've got the attention span of gnat” it compares the older readership to this generation. Through this attack it instantly causes the readers to change their habits as they would want to disassociate themselves at being portrayed as [someone with a short attention span]

The writer compels the audience to feel emotionally touched by hand written letter by stressing the importance and significance by using emotive language to persuade her audience to send letters instead of e-cards.

 
Feedback, comments, areas of improvement all welcome 

[sunshine98]

Disclaimer- I'm no expert , and am still in yr. 12, just basing this on what I've been taught by my tutor and teacher.
So this is what me thinks of your intro:
Intro:
- you want a short intro(My tutor's way of saying it - you want it to be  'short and sweet') , but I think this may be too short (it's one sentence long) . 
- you've attempted to tackle the issue , but I'm not sure whether the issue you've written is actually the write ( ) one.Because by saying  'the growing trend of hand written letter ' you've actually sort of contradicted the article. It actually condemns the increasing trend of  electrical msgs (emails , SMS ) which have taken over the traditional forms of communication  .
- By referring to the tone as 'elegant and serious' you are not really adding  much to the analysis , you want to be more specific. SPECIFIC (upper cased this , because you want to always , always be more specific
- You haven't really mentioned the contention of the article. You've substituted the issue for your contention.
The way I write my intro is :
Issue being addressed -> Article stuff (title, author , date published and publisher) -> Contention (with overall sense of tone and style of writing, also if you wanted to you wanted to you  can mention the overall target audience ) -> Mention something about the visual
I quickly skimmed through the rest of your writing and noticed some expression errors , you want to make sure you say things as concise as possible. 
Soz , don't have much time to look at the rest. Got to go and write my own LA

Hope this is helpful 

[heids]

Hey chansena, overall I think you have quite a bit to improve on - it needs to be longer, deeper, a bit clearer in expression, and have more analysis of impact on the audience.  But please don't take my feedback as attacks, it's really intended to help and make your writing awesome in the end !

Sparked by the growing trend of hand written letters over electric letters, the article which appeared in a popular magazine uses an elegant yet serious tone in addressing the issues of letter writing in this day and age.
As said above, you need more in this intro!  You haven’t got almost any of the basic details you need, or the contention at all.  It’s not hard to write a relatively good intro (it’s pretty much a checklist without many analysing skills) and gets the examiner off to a good start.  Maybe sit and practise 5 intros in a row, they’re not hard to improve on and are really important to get right!  Include:
•   context of article: why has it been written? what current issue is it addressing?
•   ‘the basics’ e.g. author name + position, title, article type (publication details e.g. date, place of publication in brackets)
•   main contention don’t generalise – give some insight into its complexity
•   audience – has language/arguments been used to target some particular audience?
•   tone and style, including any really major shifts
•   overview of major emotive appeals/persuasive techniques (don’t try them all – just the really major, recurring ones)
•   also note image

From the onset outset of the article the writer visually attracts the audience through the use of an italic font coupled together with a pun. In doing so it entices the audience by appealing to their visual sense. OK, it entices them to feel/think/do WHAT?  Just saying it entices them doesn’t actually say how it persuades them!  Also, this sentence just repeats the sentence before with no additions.  The writer uses of pun “the write stuff” address the issue of whether the audience is “writing” the right way, by indirectly questioning their writing habits. The article begins with an elegantly hand written like “E” which is set apart from the rest of the writing. In a way the writer brings back past traditions, of what letter writing used to be by contrasting I to the word emails being “fast and efficient” losing its elegance. Firstly, reread what you write aloud to check that it flows nicely.  Secondly, check that with EVERY technique you identify, every word you analyse, every thing you mention from the article you describe how it would IMPACT THE AUDIENCE, what it would make them feel, think or want to do.

The written condemns the use of technology throughout the article. By using an anecdote to compare “e-cards complete with dancing sheep and the words “I luv ewe”” to the “opening of a thick red, envelope that sprinkles fragrant rose petal as she releases a hand written letter” it appeals to emotion what emotion? be very specific – e.g. romance by highlighting the significance and impact a hand written letter can have. In doing so It causes the audience to feel compelled to write letters as they carry more emotion unlike than emails. In this section, you could really get down to tone and language usage.  When describing the letter, the author tries to use rich, descriptive words that feel luxurious and romantic: like ‘thick, red’, ‘sprinkles’, ‘fragrant’, ‘releases’, ‘blushing pink’.  Whereas the tone used to describe the e-card is light and brief, doesn’t sound at all romantic. What’s more informal; try ‘furthermore’, ‘moreover’ the writer further heightens the argument by referring to its niche audience of e-card reader as having a “heart of stone” by doing so shows that email carry no meaning.  Is the niche audience e-card readers?  Here, the author basically says that if you believe emails are better than letters, you have a ‘heart of stone’/are ‘illiterate’.  As a reader, would you like to think that you’re like this?  Obviously not (I hope ).  Hence, you must believe that letters are better, or else you are bad.  The writer makes letter writing sound more romantic by using words of positive connotation such as “important occasion”, buy a stamp and send it” giving it a dramatic and fairy-tale like feeling.  This causes the readership to feel motivated to experience this, by writing letters instead of e-cards. These two sentences are much better! They analyse how the language makes the audience feel and want to do

What’s more again, try furthermore/moreover/additionally/building on this etc.the reader is portrayed as being lazy. Give me proof!  Throw in a 1-4 word quote to show how the author portrays the reader as lazy. In doing so it what is ‘it’? causes the reader to distance themselves from this idea what idea? you must specify and to disassociate them self from this laziness. By using inclusive language to address this “we’re not only too important to write letters, we can’t even be bother to sit down and read one” causes the read great concern as it associates them with the inability to social interact. This is further heightened by the point made by Ian Hutchinson “we’re now subjected to 20 million advertising message before we hit 20” further emphasizing this inability to socially interact you used exactly the same words the sentence before – try to vary it. By causing the readership to feel socially isolated it makes them worried and stressing the point of changing their habits. The author goes on to explain how “the results, in many cases, is an abbreviation of real communication causing the reader to ask themselves whether they are interacting in genuine communication causing the reader to appeal to their senses again be specific – what senses? and how? and then how does that actually PERSUADE the reader to agree with the author?.

The writers attacks not only the audience I don’t think the author ever attacked the audience... but goes on further to attack the current generation and their habits. By describing “these guys” as “the most visually literate generation… but they've got the attention span of gnat” it compares the older readership to this generation. Through this attack it instantly causes the readers to change their habits OK, did you read this and instantly delete your email and start writing a letter to your girlfriend?  (Maybe you did, but I didn’t... especially as I don’t have a girlfriend.)  Be more tentative – ‘this attack encourages readers to/stings readers in to... etc.as they would want to disassociate themselves at being portrayed as [someone with a short attention span]. Yes, that’s good! Basically the author is targeting mainly an OLDER audience I think; the author is attacking the younger generation, appealing to the audience’s sense of the ‘good old days’, nostalgia, the ‘the-past-was-better-everything-is-degenerating-now’ mindset.  The writer aligns emails etc. with the younger generation who the older audience is likely to think of as flighty, shallow, everything bad, and aligns letter-writing with the wonderful past.

The writer compels the audience to feel emotionally touched by hand written letter by stressing the importance and significance by using emotive language to persuade her audience to send letters instead of e-cards.  Very very general, you need to get deeper and more specific!  Think about the major ways the author tried to persuade (major techniques, approach or tone) and specific arguments they used.  Being too general = low level as anyone could come up with it.

Overall: you have approximately the same issues as last time.  Do you have someone to step you through language analysis in person?  I think it would really help you.  A couple of major things to address:
a. Clarity and expression: reread everything aloud to see if it makes sense.
b. Impact on reader: every SINGLE thing you mention from the text MUST have a discussion of how it impacts the reader – how it makes them feel, or what it makes them think or want to do.  Try to be as specific as possible, don’t just say ‘so it persuades them to agree with the author’.
c. Be more specific and analytical: describe exactly how X word or Y technique or Z phrase works to persuade, what specific emotions it appeals to, and HOW.

Hope this helps ask if you have any questions