Let’s now turn to a student’s analysis of Kristof’s essay and then to our own analysis of the student’s analysis. (We should say that the analysis of Kristof’s essay that you have just read is partly indebted to the student’s essay that you are about to read.)
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Betsy Swinton
Professor Knowles
English 101B
March 12, 2016
Tracking Kristof
Nicholas D. Kristof’s “For Environmental Balance, Pick Up a Rifle” is an engaging piece of writing, but whether it is convincing is something I am not sure about. And I am not sure about it for two reasons: (1) I don’t know much about the deer problem, and that’s my fault; (2) I don’t know much about the deer problem, and that’s Kristof’s fault. The first point needs no explanation, but let me explain the second.
Kristof is making an argument, offering a thesis: Deer are causing destruction, and the best way to reduce the destruction is to hunt deer. For all that I know, he may be correct both in his comment about what deer are doing and also in his comment about what must be done about deer. My ignorance of the situation is regrettable, but I don’t think that I am the only reader from Chicago who doesn’t know much about the deer problems in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Arkansas, the states that Kristof specifically mentions in connection with the deer problem. He announces his thesis early enough, in his sixth paragraph, and he is entertaining throughout his essay, but does he make a convincing case? To ask “Does he make a convincing case?” is to ask “Does he offer adequate evidence?” and “Does he show that his solution is better than other possible solutions?”
To take the first question: In a short essay Kristof can hardly give overwhelming evidence, but he does convince me that there is a problem. The most convincing evidence he gives appears in paragraph 16, where he says that the New Jersey Audubon Society “advocated deer hunting as an ecological necessity.” I don’t really know anything about the New Jersey Audubon Society, but I suppose that they are people with a deep interest in nature and in conservation, and if even such a group advocates deer hunting, there must be something to this solution.
I am even willing to accept his argument that, in this nation of meat-eaters, “to wring one’s hands over them [dead deer], perhaps after polishing off a hamburger, is soggy sentimentality” (para. 14). According to Kristof, the present alternative to hunting deer is that we leave the deer to “die of disease and hunger” (para. 15). But what I am not convinced of is that there is no way to reduce the deer population other than by hunting. I don’t think Kristof adequately explains why some sort of birth control is inadequate. In his eighth paragraph he makes a joke about controlling the birth of deer (“Liberals presumably support free condoms, while conservatives back abstinence education”), and the joke is funny, but it isn’t an argument, it’s just a joke. Why can’t food containing some sort of sterilizing medicine be put out for the starving deer, food that will nourish them and yet make them unreproductive? In short, I don’t think he has fairly informed his readers of alternatives to his own positions, and because he fails to look at counterproposals, he weakens his own proposal.
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Although Kristof occasionally uses a word or phrase that suggests argument, such as “Granted” (para. 18), “So” (final paragraph), and “There’s another reason” (para. 17), he relies chiefly on forceful writing rather than on reasoning. And the second of his two reasons for hunting seems utterly unconvincing to me. His first, as we have seen, is that the deer population (and apparently the bear population) is out of control. His second (para. 17) is that hunting “connects people with the outdoors and creates a broader constituency for wilderness preservation.” I am not a hunter and I have never been one. Perhaps that’s my misfortune, but I don’t think I am missing anything. And when I hear Kristof say, in his final sentence—the climactic place in his essay—that “hunting is as natural as bird-watching,” I rub my eyes in disbelief. If he had me at least half-convinced by his statistics and his citation of the Audubon Society, he now loses me when he argues that hunting is “natural.” One might as well say that war is natural, rape is natural, bribery is natural—all these terrible things occur, but we ought to deplore them and we ought to make every effort to see that they disappear.
In short, I think that Kristof has written an engaging essay, and he may well have an important idea, but I think that in his glib final paragraph, where he tells us that “hunting is as natural as bird-watching,” he utterly loses the reader’s confidence.
AN ANALYSIS OF THE STUDENT’S ANALYSIS
Have I asked myself the following questions?
Early in my essay have I accurately stated the writer’s thesis (claim) and summarized his or her supporting reasons? Have I explained to my reader any disagreement about definitions of important terms?
Have I, again fairly early in my essay, indicated where I will be taking my reader (i.e., have I indicated my general response to the essay I am analyzing)?
Have I called attention to the strengths, if any, and the weaknesses, if any, of the essay?
Have I commented not only on the logos (logic, reasoning) but also on the ethos (character of the writer, as presented in the essay)? For instance, has the author convinced me that he or she is well informed and is a person of goodwill? Or, in contrast, does the writer seem to be chiefly concerned with ridiculing those who hold a different view?
If there is an appeal to pathos (emotion, originally meaning “pity for suffering,” but now interpreted more broadly to include appeals to patriotism, humor, or loyalty to family, for example), is it acceptable? If not, why not?
Have I used occasional brief quotations to let my reader hear the author’s tone and to ensure fairness and accuracy?
Is my analysis effectively organized?
Have I taken account of the author’s audience(s)?
Does my essay, perhaps in the concluding paragraphs, indicate my agreement or disagreement with the writer but also my view of the essay as a piece of argumentative writing?
Is my tone appropriate?
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Swinton’s essay seems to us to be excellent, doubtless the product of a good deal of thoughtful revision. She does not cover every possible aspect of Kristof’s essay — she concentrates on his reasoning and says very little about his style — but we think that given the limits of space (about 500 words), she does a good job. What makes this student’s essay effective?
The essay has a title (“Tracking Kristof”) that is of at least a little interest; it picks up Kristof’s point about hunting, and it gives a hint of what is to come.
The author promptly identifies her subject (she names the writer and the title of his essay) early.
Early in the essay she gives us a hint of where she will be going (in her first paragraph she tells us that Kristof’s essay is “engaging . . . but . . .”).
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She recognizes Kristof’s audience at the start, and she suggests that he may not have given thought to this matter of the audience.
She uses a few brief quotations, to give us a feel for Kristof’s essay and to let us hear the evidence for itself, but she does not pad her essay with long quotations.
She takes up all of Kristof’s main points.
She gives her essay a reasonable organization, letting us hear Kristof’s thesis, letting us know the degree to which she accepts it, and finally letting us know her specific reservations about the essay.
She concludes without the formality of “in conclusion”; “in short” nicely does the trick.
Notice, finally, that she sticks closely to Kristof’s essay. She does not go off on a tangent about the virtues of vegetarianism or the dreadful politics of the New York Times, the newspaper that published Kristof’s essay. She was asked to analyze the essay, and she has done so.
Take one of the essays not yet discussed in class or an essay assigned now by your instructor, and in an essay of 500 words analyze and evaluate it, guided by the checklists and examples we have provided.