6. Conclusion
The essay by John Perry is a prototypical written text. The text is made to be very personalized; in order to make the reader feel more involved in the text, the author uses direct address to the audience (e.g. […] this bad trait work for you; […] the tasks you have to do; […] you may be asking) and rhetorical questions (e.g. […] what could be more noble than using one character flaw to offset the effects of another?). The author reveals his opinion with the repeated usage of grammatical cohesive devices (personal pronouns ‘I’, ‘you’) which create a feeling of solidarity between the author and the audience. When using personalisation the author also creates the illusion of a real life discussion by including questions seemingly coming from the reader and then giving the reader answers to these questions which creates the feeling of completion and satisfaction for understanding the issue. The author describes one of the key concepts (procrastination) in much detail; in order to make the reader understand the importance of the idea, the author creates examples that the reader can relate to (e.g. […] they do marginally useful things, such as gardening or sharpening pencils).
The author shows his opinion on the matter by using evaluative expressions: criticizing one aspect (e.g. this bad trait; exactly the wrong tack) while giving praise to his solution of the problem (e.g. an amazing strategy; effective human beings; terrific resident fellow). …
