DETERMINING AUTHOR'S POINT OF VIEW

DETERMINING AN AUTHOR’S POINT OF VIEW

An author’s point of view is his or her position or stance on a topic. Authors express their points of view through the kinds of words they use and by the kinds of details they include in their writing. It is important to recognize an author’s point of view when you read. Identifying an author’s point of view helps you understand the author’s position on a topic, it helps you compare it with your own position, and it may help you understand differences of opinion among authors on a topic.

In the readings for your college courses, you will be exposed to many different topics with multiple points of view. Part of your responsibility as a student in those courses will be to understand the value of competing points of view and to make reasoned judgments about their strengths and weaknesses.

There are three main elements to assessing an author's point of view:

interpreting a writer's tone

detecting bias

recognizing slanting

Interpreting a Writer’s Tone

You can gauge a writer’s attitude toward a subject by his or her tone. Tone is the way the writer’s voice sounds in your mind as you read. Writers convey their attitude toward a subject with the kinds of words they choose to describe or explain it. A writer’s tone may convey enthusiasm, humor, anger, joy, admiration, sarcasm, or any number of attitudes. The key to understanding tone is to look closely at and listen closely to a writer’s sentences and language.

Practicing Interpreting a Writer's Tone

Detecting Bias

Bias refers to a person’s disposition or inclination to favor one side of an issue or topic. Advertisers, for example, are biased toward the products they promote. Music lovers might be biased toward a particular genre: opera, country, hip-hop, or folk, perhaps. A person can be biased in favor of something or biased against it. A Boston Red Sox fan may hate the New York Yankees. Or a voter whose political bias is for the Democratic Party will very likely be biased against the Republicans. Although bias does suggest preference, it isn’t necessarily a matter of unfairness. Sometimes bias is simply a person’s point of view.

Recognizing bias will help you determine how objectively, or evenly, an author treats his or her subject. Writers who hold strongly biased views might ignore or dismiss opposing points of view. Consider, for example, this paragraph from a 2001 Cal Thomas article, “New Study: Gays Can Go Straight,” about a controversial psychological study that found that homosexuals can change their sexual orientation:

Many homosexuals with whom I have spoken are not aware of the availability of nonjudgmental counseling to help them escape the “gay life.” Many feel trapped in their “orientation,” not because of dwindling cultural disapproval but because of pressure to conform to gay society. They are told that a desire to change indicates they hate themselves and that it is impossible for them to reject their “true identity.”

To detect bias when you read, look closely at the language used to describe someone or something. You should also look closely at the way writers attempt to persuade their readers. Consider the language Cal Thomas uses. His quotation marks around gay life, orientation, and true identity suggest that he dismisses these terms, but he doesn’t offer any explanation for his dismissal. He speaks of escaping, feeling trapped, and pressure to conform; his choice of these words suggests his point of view—that being homosexual is necessarily unpleasant. Notice also the details—or lack of them—that he uses to support his argument: He says many are not aware of counseling, that many feel trapped. How many is many? He doesn’t say. Maybe he spoke to hundreds of gay men and women. Maybe he spoke to four. Maybe “many” is the majority of the people he spoke to; maybe it’s a minority. The reader has no way of knowing. With these clues, you can determine that Cal Thomas is biased against homosexuality; knowing that will affect how you respond to his argument.

Practice Detecting Bias

Recognizing Slanting

Slanting is a technique some writers use to persuade their readers to adopt a particular belief or point of view. In slanting, a writer uses language that conveys a strongly positive image toward a favorable topic or a strongly negative image toward an unfavorable topic. Look again at the Cal Thomas paragraph above. As you’ve seen, his words and details portray a negative slant on homosexuality. What would a positive slant look like? Here is a passage on the same study Thomas discusses. This one, from the 2000 article “Why Not Turn Them All Gay?” by John McCalla takes a different point of view, suggesting that perhaps society should encourage straight men and women to convert to homosexuality.

                Gays and lesbians are—all false humility aside—not only good enough and smart enough, they’re smarter, better-looking, more stylish, better-mannered, more artistic, sexier, funnier, and, in general, preferable at cocktail parties and cook-outs. This is not a secret. Why else are city governments encouraging more gay and lesbian home ownership? Gays are better for urban-renewal, aesthetically improving neighborhoods while at the same time contributing much and taking little from the tax base. More gays and lesbians on the planet would be, in corporate America cliché-speak, a “win-win” across the board.

                Like Thomas, McCalla uses language and slanting that reveal his bias: “smarter, better-looking, more stylish, better-mannered, more artistic, sexier, funnier, and, in general, preferable at cocktail parties and cookouts.” He also makes his argument without substantial supporting detail.