Gaining the audience’s attention is essential for achieving a strong essay. A successful essay stimulates the reader’s emotions through methods that influence him or her. Therefore, “Being a Chink,” written by Christine Leong, is an influential text that uses three different methods to effect the emotions of a reader. For instance, the use of cause and effect, in the essay, influences its reader through descriptive examples and demonstrations. In addition, “Being a Chink” uses comparison and contrast to affect the reader’s emotions by presenting different perspectives with which to view a situation. Furthermore, it contains definitions that give understanding to a word or phrase within a text. These methods allow the reader to become swayed …show more content…
This method is revealed through examples that are clear and recognizable. To illustrate, immediate and remote causes are two of the techniques used in Leong’s essay for cause and effect. An immediate cause is the result of an event and a remote cause is the effect of an event that happens unexpectedly. Therefore, the essay provides the reader with information to broaden his or her point of view to recognize why name calling is hurtful. The remote cause in “Being a Chink” appears due to the discovery of the envelope: “my mind began spinning with all the possible reasons he had written this particular word down” (Leong 483). This cause and effect method convinces the reader to accept the author’s main idea. For instance, Leong’s purpose for the essay is to make the targeted reader recognize the impact that one word has towards someone. The targeted audience are the people who are not a part of Leong’s minority and the ones who use that term. “Being a Chink” uses cause and effect efficiently because it keeps the reader involved in the …show more content…
Comparison and contrast is an effective element in the essay that finds the similarities and differences of things. For example, subject-by-subject and point-by-point are two organizational methods in Leong’s essay that evaluate the relationships of two or more objects. Subject-by-subject constructs two separate locations for the same topic and point-by-point uncovers the main points for both topics before moving on. For instance, the comparison and contrast between “chink” and “nigger” are represented in subject-by-subject (Leong 483-484). These two names make the author’s point stronger because it reveals that “chink” is just as offensive as “nigger” (Leong 483-485). The reader’s point of view is influenced by the wording because it makes him or her feel uncomfortable. Leong does this on purpose because it is important to impact the reader’s emotions. Furthermore, “Being a Chink” is an effective illustration for the construction of comparison and contrast because it affects the reader’s