Critique 11/25

ARTICLE CRITIQUE/Caleb Waldron 1

ARTICLE FALLS SHORT

By Caleb Waldron

The following is a critique of the November 25^th New York Times piece “As Democrats See Security Gains in Iraq, Tone Shifts,” which is accessible via the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/us/politics/25dems.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

My impression of this piece is that it tries to get too much information to the reader at a time, starting with the title. The title’s attempts to reflect both the potential security gains in Iraq for Democratic candidates and the shift in Democrats’ tone at the same time makes the phrase seem awkward.

In the coming paragraphs, the piece attempts to address these issues at the same time. This makes the reader feel like they’re hopping from one storyline to the next. There’s no sense of flow or natural progression, only an anxious scattershot of information. The following sentence is a suitable example: “if security continues to improve, President Bush could become less of a drag on his party, too, and Republicans may have an easier time zeroing in on other issues, such as how the Democrats have proposed raising taxes in difficult economic times.” This reads like an anxious leapfrog, manically hopping from one Lilly-pad of an idea to the next.

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