Author Lise Maring, in her essay, “Rice Bowl, Dust Bowl: Agribusiness and the Future,” writes about the issues of commercial mining of the soils and groundwater. Maring’s purpose is to show readers that resources are depleting and to raise awareness about farming. She adopts various tones in order to help readers think about the existing problems in the area of agriculture and learn more about agribusiness.
Maring begins her essay by comparing herself to her readers of how she and they must have recently read articles about the declining fisheries and emphasizes the fact that this new idea of oceans being mined by commercial interests is of news to the locals. She also expresses concerns about the declining fisheries. When Maring writes, “What you haven’t read much about yet is that,” she personalizes the essay and appeals to the readers’ emotions to invoke a concerned emotion. By using “you,” she does not seem to accuse the readers, but she tries to help the readers empathize with her. The way she appeals to the readers allows her to clearly display her passion and concern for these environmental problems. Personalizing her essay allows readers to empathize with the author and understand her concern and passion for the…show more content… Her concern is how the number of farms and farmers have decreased from 22 million farmers in 1957 to 7 million today. She seems to be frustrated with these statistics and how the primary cause are the large factories “with their large pieces of special equipment.” Her tone in these few paragraphs tends to focus on her purpose of her essay and shows the readers the problems in “agribusiness.” Readers can clearly sense her frustration with the way she describes the
