SAT寫作高分範文《Foreign News at a Crisis point》

03-05

Nowadays, it』s not hard to find that the parts of foreign news on the newspaper have been compacted, and even eliminated. In the passage 「Foreign News at a Crisis point」, the author Peter S. Goodman shows the present fact that foreign news decline dramatically, and their unrepresentative nature compared to social media in order to call for people』s promotion and protection on foreign news by giving evidences including data and survey, using concession as reasoning, and performing literary devices of parallelism and simile. The main audience for this passage is US. Citizens, especially those who work for news industry.

The author makes use of diverse types of evidence. In paragraph 2 and paragraph 3, Goodman lists sets of data. He mainly demonstrates that both full-time foreign respondents employed by the newspaper of the US. and the American organizations』 foreign news parts sharply decreased in recent years by providing 「307 full-time people in 2003」, 「(only) 233 full-time people in 2011」, and 「(as many as) 20… eliminated their foreign bureaus」. The author quantifies the information; thus readers can easily realize the declined situation of foreign news in their country. Moreover, in paragraph 3, Goodman reinforce the similar idea that the foreign news has been decreased sharply for recent years in the US by referring to the 「AJR」 survey to show that 「the foreign news had shrunk by 53 percent over the previous quarter-century.」

Besides these evidences, the author applies clear reasoning to this passage. From paragraph 8 to paragraph 10, the author admits may advantages of the social media by mentioning that the social media 「connect readers with images and impressions」, 「breakdown the monopolies」, 「rise of the innovative means」, and 「make us better informed」. But in paragraph 11, Goodman inserts that we need to bring back and largely encourage to use serious foreign news journalism, since it 「turn the void into something fresh and compelling」, and 「re-examine and update how we gather information.」 By doing so, the author gives logical reasoning, which provides an opportunity for readers to know the opposite perspective from himself, and underscore the validity of the author』s argument. Consequently, readers can view this fact in a subjective perspective, and make a conclusion that preserving foreign news of non-internet version is really necessary.

In addition, several literary devices have been used to make the article vivid. In paragraph 9, the writer embodies with the strategy of metaphor. He compares professional foreign correspondents to the 「filters」, and compares citizen journalists to 「funnels」 to show that professional foreign correspondents』 jobs and citizen journalists』 jobs are in chaos, which need to be changed. As a result, the readers would be attracted and find it easier to grasp the true meaning of the author』s words that the government need to increase the amounts of citizen journalists, and informs them to do their real jobs. What』s more, in paragraph 10, the author states the advantages of social media by providing the parallelism, 「the democratization of media…informed.」 Such design of expression makes the author』 s point more compelling and passionate, and provides the context for the following rebuttals. In paragraph 4, the author implies that the although US. has engaged in many international events, foreign news reporting still decreases by mentioning 「Americans deployed in two wars with Iraq and Afghanistan」, 「the recession」, which is a relative ironic tone. Eventually, readers will realize that the news workers really need to keeping writing foreign news, since there are a lot of news are well worth reporting.

Through the tactful usage of these devices, the author successfully convinces the readers that professional foreign news coverage should be increased.