- [David] Hello, readers.
Today we are going on a dangerous journey
inside the mind of the author.
(ominous music)
Every piece of text is
written for a purpose,
and especially in informational text,
every author structures
their texts, words,
and their ideas with that purpose in mind.
And sometimes that purpose
will be harder to see.
As readers, our job is to consider
the author's purpose as we read.
How is it influencing the
information the author shares?
How is it influencing my
understanding of the topic?
Is what I think the same
as what the author thinks?
Do I agree with them?
Do I disagree?
You may be familiar with
the memory device of P.I.E.,
persuade, inform, entertain,
as three categories of purpose.
But I'd like to go deeper than that.
I live in Washington, D.C.,
which is home to an
entire professional class
of what are called lobbyists,
people whose job it is
to advocate to Congress
on behalf of a special interest,
for example, the oil industry
or the cheese industry.
This isn't always bad.
You can learn more about
lobbyists and advocates
in Khan Academy's Government
and Politics course.
But frequently, it takes the form
of someone from an industry
trying to convince Congress
to give them a competitive
advantage over other industries.
Now, let's pull real-world
politics out of this
and pretend for the
purposes of this lesson
that there are two warring
lobbying groups in D.C.
One that represents the cake industry,
and another that represents
the pie industry.
An age-old conflict.
So hold that conflict in your mind
for a second, cake versus pie.
Now, when we read informational text,
we should be learning new information.
But the author's opinions
can shape the text
to the point where the information
becomes biased or misleading.
When you read informational text,
maintain an air of healthy skepticism.
Ask yourself the following
questions constantly.
What's the author's opinion?
What information did they include,
or what information did they leave out?
And if so, was that on purpose?
What's the connotation of
the author's word choice?
You know, how do the words feel?
And what's the overall tone of the piece?
So now we have these
questions to ask ourselves,
let's return to our pie versus cake
lobby fight in Washington.
So imagine you're reading
"The Washington Post,"
and you see this opinion column.
"Cake Connected to Cavities
"and Poor Dental Health, Study Finds."
"A recent study by the
American Dental Association
"connected the consumption
of cake or similar foods
"with a 30% increased risk of tooth decay,
"cavities, and gingivitis.
"People who reported having consumed cake
"in the previous 60 days were
significantly more likely
"to experience problems
related to dental health
"than those people who did not.
"Cake is dangerous.
"Cake, which rarely contains
fruit, will rot your teeth."
And then if we squint down at
the very bottom of the column,
it'll say in small text,
"The author is the CEO
"of Circular Solutions,
a pie-advocacy network."
And now let's ask ourselves
those same questions again
while acknowledging that
this is a fake story
that I made up for the
purposes of this video.
There is nobody named Wendell Apricotjam,
although I wish there were,
that'd be a great name.
So, what's the author's opinion?
Well, it seems to me that the author
really thinks cake is dangerous
and poses a threat to the
nation's dental health.
We know this because they
literally say "cake is dangerous."
They want people to buy
and eat fewer cakes.
What information did the
author choose to include?
Well, so this is interesting.
The author talks about the results
of this study and the big takeaways
about the danger of cake or similar foods,
and then they go on to
mention incidentally
that cake rarely contains fruit.
That's a curious thing to say.
It's almost like they're saying,
"Pie, which has fruit in it,
is better for you than cake,"
without actually saying it.
What information did the
author choose to leave out?
Well, notice that the piece
says "cake or similar foods."
I would be hard-pressed to come up
with a definition of foods similar to cake
that does not also
include desserts like pie.
But the way that this piece is written,
it swerves out of its way to avoid
pinning the same tooth decay risks on pie
the way that it blames cake.
I think it would be reasonable to assume
that if we read the underlying study
that this opinion piece is based on,
it would include pies and cakes
in the same category of sugary desserts
that are associated with
bad dental outcomes.
Why would the author do this?
Well, they want you to
buy pie instead of cake.
But they don't want you
to think too hard about it
because if you did, you would buy and eat
both less cake and less pie.
And the pie lobby doesn't want that.
What's the connotation or the feeling
of the author's word choices?
Well, they're citing a
scientific study by dentists,
so they want you to take
their warning seriously,
and they're using words
like risk and danger, rot and problems.
They want you to make an association
between eating cake and bad tooth health.
They want you to associate
scientific language with trustworthiness.
So I'm gonna put down
scientific authority here.
What's the overall tone?
It's negative.
The author does not want you to eat cake.
They want you to think it's bad,
and they've planted a little hint here
that fruity foods are better.
And what's a fruity food?
Pie.
Can they say pie is safer?
No, not without lying outright.
Now, I wanna be clear about two things.
Sometimes an author's purpose
really will just be to
inform straightforwardly.
Not everything has to be a tug-of-war
between you and the author over the truth.
Sometimes a writer just wants you to know
the lifecycle of a butterfly,
or how to make egg salad,
or the order the U.S. presidents came in.
But most of the time, there's a purpose,
an opinion, behind the text.
Now, the second thing I
wanna be super clear about
is that I made up this whole thing.
I made up the article, the statistics,
Wendell, you know, all of that's fake.
I like both pie and cake very much.
And now that I've said that,
I'm sure you're wondering,
"Oh, is David in the
pocket of big dessert?"
And the answer is no.
I'm in the pocket of big free education
for everyone everywhere.
You can learn anything.
David out.
