Exam paper 1 practice summative 17/11/21
November 17, 2021•621 words
"On leaving the Guardian"
Glenn Greenwald 31 October 2013
How does the writer use features of language to establish the earnest tone of this piece?
17 November 2021 - Paper 1 exam practice summative:
Glenn Greenwald, who has been writing for 14 months for the Guardian, covers all the information and news about Edward Snowden and the after affect that Edward Snowden had. This article is contains information about Glenn Greenwald himself and how he is leaving the Guardian. Greenwald. explains how he will be working for a different soon to be media organisation, and gives his final information on his following career and what will happen further on.
Glenn Greenwald has always given trustworthy and detailed information on the whistleblowing incident, and so he became quite a respected figure. In this article he establishes an earnest tone, in order to get his readers to keep following his work throughout the continuing journey. There is a diction he uses in this article that gives him an earnest tone. This is the word "we". An example of this is "[...] and am particularly proud of what we achieved together over the last five months.", he includes other people in his effort that he put in over the years, and really tries to include the readers into his success. In his last paragraph Greenwald also shows appreciation towards his readers and commenters which makes it more personal towards the supporters of his articles.
What Greenwald is very adequate at and gives him his earnest tone is writing with confidence. Writing with confidence creates a more trustworthy argument, and confidence is a quality in humans that the readers adore. We can see this in his second paragraph "We do not yet have an exact launch date for the new outlet, but rest assured: I'm not going to disappear for months or anything like that.". The diction I'm focussed on is "but rest assured". This shows that Glenn Greenwald confidently believes that his readers relish his work, and demand more articles on the engaging stories of whistleblowing. A quality in Greenwald that is very impressive is that he is never unsure about what he says. Greenwald will never say "I think" and he scarcely uses the word "like" as a preposition.
What Greenwald does thoroughly is not to leave the reader with a sense of confusion. He tries to specify and give all the information he is allowed to. The third paragraph is partially about his new contact information. Greenwald guarantees people have the option to contact him. This gives Greenwald a very earnest tone. He explains how he "will periodically post on my personal blog [...] with an active comment section, as well as on our pre-launch temporary blog.". Greenwald also displays his twitter account, email address, and his PGP key.
To conclude, Greenwald uses certain features of language to establish the earnest tone such as including the audience to make it more personal. He also writes with a lot of confidence which creates a trustworthy argument and confidence is key to persuade, since people relish confidence. What Greenwald also does well is give all the information possible so that his readers are not left puzzled. I believe that Greenwald is a well educated and trustworthy journalist who knows his way around an earnest tone. He proves it strongly in this article and I find that he was the right journalist to cover the Edward Snowden whistleblowing incident in 2013. We know Greenwald has dedication towards journalism through his saying "It's what journalism at its crux is about, and we must protect that.". Greenwald has an earnest tone in his article because he was dedicated to get to the point where he is now.