E03: Critical Reading-Philly321

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

  1. “The house is often as quiet as a morgue. You can hear the cat padding around.”
  • House: The word “house” indicates a wholeness or collectiveness assessed in the argument here. The author wants to show the environmental effects of Caleb’s illness by describing the home.
  • As quiet as a morgue: Perhaps, to make the claim more effective, the author uses a simile to compare the quietness in the house to that of death.
  • The downfall of this claim starts when the cat is introduced because it is irrelevant to the idea presented.
  • The claim would be more effective if the the author had touched more upon the idea of death. The cat fails to paint a picture in the authors head.
  1. “After making sure she’s at least an arm’s length distance away.”
  • A household effect of PTSD
  • Eliminates any type of injury in the bedroom
  • This claim reveals that Brannan’s carefulness is nearly installed into her way of life
  • The distance that the author talks about is not the point at all
  • The “making sure” is a reflection of Brannan’s hesitant and anxious personality that is merely a reflection of Caleb’s PTSD.
  1. “This PTSD picture is worse than some, but much better, Brannan knows, than those that have devolved into drug addiction and rehab stints and relapses.”
  • Brannan infuses her personal opinion
  • Someone who has abused drugs has it bad certainly. But this author has no authority to categorize different levels of PTSD.
  • There is no data to support her point, which leads to a generalization.
  • This claim would have been more effective if she gave first hand examples of people who have devolved into drug addiction in an effort to cope with their PTSD.
  1. “Some hypotheses for why PTSD only tortures some trauma victims blame it on unhappily coded protein, or a misbehaving amygdala.”
  • This is a categorical claim because it groups the opinions of PTSD patients into one category.
  • Some. From the word “some” we can make the assumption that there is at least two people in the argument.
  • There is more opinions and ideas that have yet to be tested
  • This claim is made to amplify that this field of study has a lot more information to uncover
  1. “But whatever people have called it, they haven’t been likely to grasp or respect it.”
  • This claim is unclear, but it seems to be an attempt to stand up for PTSD victims in a sense that not many people can relate to what they are going through.
  • Who is “they”?
  • The term “they” suggests there is more than one person who has failed to understand PTSD and its side effects.
  • This author fails miserably in her claim because the author is not a credible source, therefore, cannot relate to people with PTSD. The claim is entirely subjective.
  1. “You can’t see Caleb’s other wound, either.”
  • This claim makes a comparison between Caleb’s physical signs of distress as opposed to his internal battle
  • The author talks directly to the audience by using “you” to focus on Caleb’s internal wounds.
  • We feel obligated to show remorse for Caleb.
  • See. This sensory detail allows for an effective, persuasive argument, yet could be more efficient if the author used other senses such as feel or sound to paint a more vivid picture for the reader
  1. “The Army has rules about that sort of thing now.”
  • What rules? What “sort of thing” do they have rules for?
  • This claim is technically true, but it does not convince me that the Army is doing everything in its power to help people affected by war.
  • Sort of thing. This broadens the horizon significantly. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a specific sickness that should be identified as such. There are numerous injuries that result from war. The author is being too vague here. The author should focus specifically on PTSD instead of making a blurred claim that may confuse the reader.
  • It seems entirely unclear what the Army is actually doing to support its non-active duty members. This claim fails to specify any sort of moral or physical support for people that suffer from PTSD.
  1. “But there’s still a lot about brain damage that doctors, much less civilians, don’t understand.”
  • This sounds like a repetition of the fourth claim about the lack of knowledge in this field of study, but the addition of society allows the claim to make a connection with the reader
  • Why the writer chooses this point in his argument to add civilians to his argument is unclear.
  • Why is the author focusing more on what we don’t understand instead of giving advice to people with PTSD?
  • This claim fails because it is irrelevant to the subject matter. It is more of a topic sentence rather than an analysis on Caleb and Brannan.

One thought on “E03: Critical Reading-Philly321”

  1. This is beautiful, Philly. While I don’t agree with all your criticisms, my disagreement in no way mitigates my enthusiasm for the amount of thinking on display here.

    You appear to want the author to have written a much different piece, which is your right, or better still, to be a different author altogether—in other words, you’d like a scientific study of the subject rather than a personality editorial. That tension is evident in most of your objections.

    I hope that means you’re paying attention to both sides of this interaction, what the author intends and what the reader needs. This piece can’t be persuasive with you on its own terms, so you’re not the ideal audience. You can’t be persuaded by articles like this, so the author is not qualified to provide what you need.

    Keep that in mind when you write your own essays. What sort of reader am I appealing to? What sort of evidence will persuade my ideal reader? Do I have any techniques to appeal to a wider group of readers?

    I’d appreciate your reaction to these ideas. The course functions better when you and I have an active dialog. Use the Reply field below if you’re willing.

    Grade W

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