A Focused Explanation: Excluding Other Topics

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 Analyze 
Use the basic features.

In writing about a concept as broad as love, Toufexis has to find a way to narrow her focus. Writers choose a focus in part by considering the rhetorical situation—the purpose, audience, and genre—in which they are writing. Student Patricia Lyu is limited by the fact that she is writing in response to her instructor’s assignment. As a science writer for Time magazine, Toufexis probably also had an assignment to report on current scientific research. The question is, though, how does she make the science interesting to her readers?

ANALYZE & WRITE

Write a paragraph analyzing how Toufexis focuses her explanation in Love: The Right Chemistry:

  1. What is the focus or main point of Toufexis’s essay? How do you think she answers readers’ potential “So what?” question?
  2. How do the title, epigraph, and opening paragraphs help you identify this focus or main point?
  3. How do you think Toufexis’s purpose, audience, and genre (an article for a popular newsmagazine) affected the focus she was assigned or chose?

    Question