Nicholas D. Kristof
Published March 12, 2011
Kristof's editorial, "Pay Teachers More" uses elevated diction, details, and syntax, to create a strong voice, supporting his clear point of view on the benefits of increasing teachers' salaries.
Throughout the piece, the writer displays elevated, professional level diction, which gives the reader more confidence in the reliability of the writer. This also causes the voice to sound strong and certain, like they are well educated in the topic they are supporting. With all of the diction against salary cuts containing a negative connotation, elevated diction emphasizes Kristof's point. Rather than saying we're losing money from teachers being overpaid is a bad false statement, Kristof says it is "a pernicious fallacy" (1).
He also uses some syntax to draw attention to ideas and statements. One example of this is the first very short sentence of the second paragraph, “That’s a pernicious fallacy.” By using such a short sentence it puts all the focus on the idea he is trying to communicate to the reader without an overabundance of insignificant words.
However, the most used rhetoric element is the use of details in provided research. This piece is filled with evidence from different studies. By offering teachers a higher salary, the writer believes better educated people will apply, and supports his claim by providing data from a study that found that “47 percent of America’s… teachers come from the bottom one-third of their college classes” because the more “brilliant” ones are going to higher paying jobs like lawyers and doctors (1). He also reasons that based on studies from Los Angelos and Stanford’s Hanushek, quality teachers are essential to “eliminate the black-white achievement gap” and cause an “increase [in] their students’ [future] earnings” as much as twenty thousand dollars, therefore improving the economy (1).
Kristof makes many very convincing arguments supported by a significant amount of evidence, defending his reasons to increase teacher salary. He uses a strong, AP essay-appropriate voice that perfectly persuades the reader to his side. The writer also organizes the editorial in the English class-taught way of including the other argument and then stating its faults before discussing his position in depth. Overall this is a practically perfect editorial.
Pass.
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