Rhetorical Analysis of Aaron E. Carroll

    Aaron E. Carroll’s article is a review on why early start to the day for teenagers is affecting their performance as it is against their nature. Carroll’s entire career has been well-established in and around health research and policy. He started off his career as a professor of pediatrics and is currently a successful blogger and author on health-related issues. One of his main claims of argument in this article comes from Carroll’s passionate advocacy of delayed school start times for high school students. He asserts that forcing high school students to wake up early is against their will. However, this customary habit from parents who expect their children to wake up early isn’t just a bad for their health well being, but is rather more detrimental to the economy as well. In the article, Carroll published in 13th September 2017, Carroll Aaron E. successfully utilizes his experience in health research to appeal to teenagers needs to convince both parents and teachers that sleeping late is not the issue; rather the issue is all about waking up so early as this reduces the amount of sleep consumed by teenagers.

    The purpose of this article is to convince parents and teachers that waking up so early is not a worthwhile thing for teenagers to do since it has its own negative effects which are outweighed by the positive effects of delayed early start days. Carroll Aaron wrote this article affirming his negative opinion of early start an to the day by the teenagers and thus he is strongly against this customary act (Carroll n.p).  

    One example of Carroll’s position is his comparison of effects of sleeping later and waking early between young children and high school students, teenagers. This is an appeal to logos. Carroll wants the reader to take his or her time to compare and consider how sleep and wake timing transforms later in teenagers during the second decade of their lives. He, therefore, continues to argue that having a delayed sleep phase for teenagers will increase sleeping hours for teenagers and this will definitely translate to higher academic performance for them. however, he continues to assert that the benefits of having a delayed start time during the day are not only limited to economics and academic performance, but rather the benefits are also witnessed in the Health status of teenagers. This is because having enough sleep which can only be enhanced by sleeping a little later helps to reduce stress and depression (Carroll n.p).

    Carroll appeals to logos by quoting Hafner, Stepanek and Troxel’s analyses on the fiscal repercussion of a worldwide change of teenagers start times. Carroll also builds on her character which is an appeal to ethos, by quoting renowned health research institutions with whom they offered a professional viewpoint on the subject of sleep. By referring to the expert’s opinion, “The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute recommends that teenagers get between nine and 10 hours of sleep”, Carroll is acknowledging his need for additional counsel for this subject matter (Carroll n.p). Carroll reinforces his ethos through developing on the solid basis of an established health research leader.

    Aaron E. Carroll’s article has a few weaknesses. One f the major weakness is that the author is quite biased against waking up early. He is a health expert and so he is blinded by the fact that sleep is important and is related to performance. He, therefore, portrays his bias against early start times for teenagers by just giving a one-sided argument.  However, it is important to note that just because waking up early does not work for a few teenagers; it does not mean that it will not be applicable for any other teenager (Carroll n.p). Therefore, the author could have used a two-sided argument where he would also state why it is important for students to wake up early and in doing so he would have been able to effectively compare the effects of the two hence allowing the reader to choose on the best sleep and wake up time pattern that best suits their needs.

    Overall, Carroll makes a good claim about why teenagers need to be allowed to sleep later at night and still be left to wake a little later than the normal. The author gives some valuable insights and facts that parents and teachers should take into consideration before making up any decision in regards to sleeping and wake time for teenagers. Basing on the above analysis, it is quite evident that Carroll clearly uses rhetorical tools in his work so as to help him in building on his case. In general, we can deduce that Carroll is an effective writer, even if he was inefficient in convincing a large number of teenagers, parents, and schools to push back the start times of the days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work cited

Carroll, A, E. The Economic Case for Letting Teenagers Sleep a Little Later, 2017.  Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/upshot/the-economic-case-for-letting-teenagers-sleep-a-little-later.html