Michael Pollan’s article “What’s eating America” is an extremely interesting publication, which covers a lot of aspects of modern agriculture in the USA. The main focus of the article is corn and its role in American agriculture. Michael Pollan is convinced that today’s American market is filled with corn, a plant, which does not have any rivals. The author of the publication believes that such tendency can negatively affect our world.
In my opinion, this article can be interesting for a variety of people, because Michael Pollan speaks about things, which in one or another way affect all people. In general, I think that target audience of the author is a group of people who work in the sphere of agriculture and farming. However, it can also be said that information given in the article can easily attract attention of all conscious people, who consume food, grown in the USA.
The article gives impression that the author’s arguments are effective. Without doubts, one of the reasons of such impression is presence of such aspects as history of agriculture and experiments, which were held during the past years. Moreover, the author uses a lot of specific terminology, which makes the text a little bit complicated for ordinary readers, but adds more seriousness and effectiveness to the article.
When reading the article, readers can see a variety of modes of development, including description, comparison, process, cause and effect, illustration. All of these modes can serve as a good example of the fact that the author knows a lot about the subject and understands discussed issue profoundly. In my opinion, all of the mentioned above modes of development are persuasive and effective.
It is necessary to analyze some of modes in details. Michael Pollan writes: “F1 hybrid corn is the greediest of plants, consuming more fertilizer than any other crop” (Pollan, p. 302). In this sentence we may see both description and comparison. These modes show that the author understands the topic and the audience can believe his words. However, the power of this sentence becomes even more significant, when we have a look at the next sentence: “Though F1 hybrids were introduced in the 1930s, it wasn’t until they made the acquaintance of chemical fertilizers in the 1950s that corn yields exploded” (Pollan, p. 302). Here we can also see description, but it is more profound, with elements of history.
In my opinion, the author of the article understands the power of modes of development and skillfully uses them is his publication. It is crucial to mention the last sentence of the article “Especially as the price of fossil fuels climbs, even the world’s most industrialized farmers will need to take a second look at how nature, and those who imitate her, go about creating fertility without diminishing our world” (Pollan, p. 305).
It is a good example of cause and effect mode of development. Everyone knows that powerful and persuasive end of any speech or publication is rather important, because quite often audience remembers only the last words. I suggest that the last words of Michael Pollan were heard by the audience. This is a good appeal to respond his call and think about consequences of our actions.
The author of the publication uses formal diction in his work. There are plenty of professional terms, long complicated sentences, and detailed description of the processes. Without doubts, such type of diction is rather effective, it makes the article sound professional and persuasive.
In conclusion, it should be said that the article is indeed interesting and informative. Although I think that I am not a part of target audience of the author, I still enjoyed reading this publication. Moreover, I picked up a lot of new and useful information, which shaped my opinion about modern American agriculture.
Works Cited
Pollan, Michael. “What’s Eating America.” Smithonian, 15 June, 2006. 300-305 pp. Print.
