How the writer engages the reader

One of the elements your task asks you to focus on is how the writer Carolyn Edgar engages the readers in her text “My Happy Detroit”. This section will show you how the writer engages the readers through different techniques, such as open argumentation, rhetorical devices, forms of appeal, and language.…

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Open argumentation

Open (or direct) argumentation involves transmitting a clear message from the author, in which readers find out the author’s point of view about a certain situation. In open argumentation, the author’s message is explicit and clearly formulated. However, in closed (or indirect) argumentation, the author’s message needs to be worked out by the readers and the text’s meaning and intention is only implied.

In “My Happy Detroit”, the argumentation is direct. Carolyn Edgar engages her readers by directly stating her point of view about Detroit. In the following extract, you will note that a first-person narrator is employed:

I grew up in the Detroit that the commo…

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Rhetorical devices and language

Carolyn Edgar uses several rhetorical devices and linguistic techniques to engage and persuade the readers of her opinion regarding the fall of Detroit and to make the article more vivid and attractive.

Nostalgia and imagery

First, she uses nostalgia to evoke a former time, when Detroit proved to be a harmonious home for her and her family. For this, she also employs visual imagery (which is a linguistic technique) to help readers imagine what her childhood summers looked like in the 1970s:

My mother’s garden was in full bloom, and it seemed every day brought new…

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Forms of appeal

There are three main forms of appeal or persuasion devices: ethos refers to the credibility of the sender/author; pathos refers to the emotional response stirred in the readership/public; logos refers to the use of logic and reason to persuade the readership or the general public.

In “My Happy Detroit”, Edgar employs all three forms of appeal to engage her readers.

Ethos

Ethos is employed to show readers that Edgar’s experience as a child born and raised in Detroit offers her credibility. Through her example, Edgar manages to appeal to the readers and to show them that there is more to a Detroiter than the media shows:

I grew up in the Detroit that the common narrative gives up for dead – Detroit as it existed after the 1967 riots, white flight, and the end of auto manufacturing jobs. The Detroit of my childhood was a city of more than one million people who thrived, for a time, despite being reviled by our suburban neighbors and given up for dead by the national media. (ll. 14-17)

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