Example 1
Example 4
Student Example
Richard Thomas
ENC 1101
27 November 2018
The Last Spot – Effective Persuasive Writing
Good persuasive writing presents reasons and examples of those reasons to influence action or thought. Thus, a good persuasive writer clearly states an opinion and provides reasoning and specific examples that support their opinion. With texts, “Toward carefully controlled legal immigration” by Maria Espinoza and “Debunking 3 myths behind ‘chain migration’ and ‘low-skilled’ immigrants” by Raquel Aldana, both are attempting to persuade the reader to accept the points they had made. However, Aldana’s use of structure, objective tone, sufficient evidence and counterarguments, formulated her into being a more persuasive author compared to Espinoza. With only one available slot left to speak at Valencia’s “Persuasive Writers Series”, it is clear Aldana is the superior candidate.
To begin with, Aldana’s use of organizational structure within her article was more efficient than Espinoza’s. How an author chooses to structure their publications has a great effect on the readers’ ability to apprehend and trust the source material. Aldana makes her qualifications on writing about the subject matter tremendously clear by stating “As a scholar on U.S. immigration law and policy, I’d like to correct and contextualize the numbers on the now maligned “family-based immigration”” (Aldana), in the introductory part of the text. As a reader, this creates a sense of credibility and feeling that the following statements made in the article were analyzed thoroughly. Being aware that an author is a scholar assures the reader that they can rely on the author to provide nonpartisan evidence and reasoning. On the other hand, Espinoza reveals her connection with the subject matter at the very end by mentioning her relationship with ‘The Remembrance Project’, which is an anti-illegal immigration non-profit organization she founded. This opens the opportunity for a reader to start questioning who it is that they are supposed to be learning from. In addition, Aldana’s use of subheadings to separate common myths about immigration allows her points to become more memorable interesting. In particular, the subheading “Myth #3: ‘Low-skilled’ immigrants don’t benefit the US” (Aldana) allows her to grab the reader’s attention by declaring a relevant topic that most people have doubts about. Creating subheadings within the article allows her to point out the key topics, explain them, and give her argument supported with evidence. Without this structure, information would be all over the place. Espinoza’s article contains no specific structure, which gives room for the reader to become overwhelmed and confused with what points she is trying to validate.
Furthermore, Aldana’s equitableness with evidence and counterarguments throughout the text and Espinoza’s lack thereof, proves Aldana to be a more persuasive author. Aldana kept in mind the contradictions that would come with her claims and addressed the objections she would face. When talking about the variations among immigrants across subjects such as home ownership and English proficiency, knowing people would challenge her, she quickly adds “These variations do not mean that some immigrants integrate poorly or fail to contribute to U.S. society” (Aldana). This shows that Aldana was able to see the opposing side of the argument, and prepared multiple counter arguments in return. However, Espinoza used one counterargument against her perspective as the basis of her whole article. She states in the first paragraph “Most Americans have probably heard the line that immigrants are less likely than native-born Americans to commit crimes. That claim, perpetrated so persistently by the media and open borders advocates, is often accepted as truth, but it’s belied by some stubborn facts” (Espinoza). Rather than using this counterargument to strengthen her own claims, she deprecates a whole perspective people have on this topic and wishes to extinguish it. This shows that Espinoza wants her readers to throw away any belief of that counter argument, so they can just follow her blindly. As a result, Aldana is more persuasive because of her ability to capture ideas from both sides but addressing them to work in her favor.
In addition, Espinoza failed to demonstrate an objective tone, while Aldana maintains one throughout her whole article. Having an objective tone allows an author’s message to be more accessible to readers and gives them an opportunity to engage with a new perspective. This can be seen in Aldana’s article when she states, “The Trump administration has expressed a preference for highly skilled immigrants” (Aldana). While it would be easy for Aldana to use loaded words to describe the opposing side and their ideas, she refrains from doing so. This helps create a situation where it is harder to a disagree with. On the contrary, Espinoza uses many biased words in order to appeal to the audience with emotion. For example, she states “Unfortunately, this has not been the case for more than 50 years, due to reckless immigration laws passed by Congress and signed by a Democratic president.” Espinoza created a negative connotation against a large group of people (Democrats), which already reduces her window for acceptance within the audience. The negative connotations sprinkled in her article towards democrats and people of the ‘left’ proves that she is biased against their beliefs and her writing is influenced by personal opinions rather than fact. As a reader interprets Espinoza’s article, they could easily conclude that the true purpose of the article was to strengthen predisposed emotions on this topic. However, when reading Aldana’s article, her objective tone helps her reasoning come off as trustworthy and incorrupt to the audience. This allows her to form a more persuasive argument, than Espinoza.
Everything considered, both Aldana and Espinoza made very compelling arguments to prove their point. Yet, Aldana establishes many key factors that allow her to become a more persuasive writer. Aldana produced an effective structure for her text, maintained an objective tone, and provided enough evidence and counterarguments to advance her claim. Espinoza, on the other hand, did not match up to Aldana’s texts’ traits. As a result, Raquel Aldana is the best choice for filling the last spot to speak at “Persuasive Writing Series”, hosted by Valencia College.