Analysis

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is ineffective, but to maintain credibility she acknowledges the opposing view with a counter argument.

The author develops her essay by using a reasonable amount of sources, which elaborate on her thesis. Tugend also provides the reader with evidence on the subject that is both credible, and relevant. For example, in paragraph fifteen Tugend explains how Earl Miller, "Picower professor of neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology" (Tugend 715), conducted studies to prove his theory on multitasking. His results were explained in the article, along with where it was originally published. The author effectively avoided the use of fallacies. As previously stated, the author continuously used credible statements throughout her article that provided knowledge, and failed to have a lapse in logic (714-718).

Style

The author uses a formal writing perspective, which is appropriate for a report. Tugend also provides the effective use of figurative language in her essay. For example, in paragraph 2 and fourteen: "Virtually all of us spend part of most of our day either rapidly switching from one task to another or juggling two or more things at the same time" and "We can do a couple of things at the same time if they are routine, but once they demand more cognitive process, the brain has "a severe bottleneck"" (Tugend 714 and 716).

I can infer from the use of the words "simultaneously" (Tugend 714), "electrodes" (Tugend 716), and "informatics" (Tugend 717) that the author has an enhanced vocabulary, but she intends her article open to all readers. Tugend also employs a variety of sentences with different lengths, and rhythms to achieve different effects. For example, in the first paragraph the author decided to use short, condensed questions to spark curiosity within her reader, but towards the middle of her article (Tugend 716-717) she displays a more complex sentence structure by providing her reader with a series of credible research. The author also employs formal diction, which is a word choice that has an implied meaning. She does this by straying away from words like "aren’t" ,and "ain’t" in her essay. Instead, she uses a word like "cannot", to appeal to mature audience.

Conclusion

In this essay, I intended to provide an analysis of the article "Multitasking Can Make You Lose...Um...Focus," by Alina Tugend. I did just that. The idea of multitasking provided the reader with an understanding. This understanding allowed the reader to not only to acquire knowledge, but possibly even to re-think their own actions. The author intended this article to begin with unanswered questions, so that when the reader finally approached the conclusion they would have come to one on their own. This article seemed to not only persuade the reader of the authors’ opinion, but it also had factual information for her statement. Alina Tugend provided an effective essay about multitasking, and hopefully her work has influenced the minds of many.

Works Cited

Tugend, Alina. "Multitasking Can Make You Lose...Um...Focus" The Norton Field Guide to writing. Ed. Bullock Richard, Maureen Daly Goggin, Francine Weinberg. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. (714-718). Print.