Jordan Peterson Moment

In “Now Is the Time to Talk About the Power of Touch” from The New York Times, David Brooks discusses how emotional touch or lack thereof can have adverse effects on a person’s psychological development. Brooks makes an allusion to Austrian physician that studied how empathetic physical contact affected infants. This anecdote introduces the point that Brooks is trying to make and further develops his argument by providing information from an external source. In this piece, Brooks also references a famous Grant Study done on Harvard students and by doing so, Brooks provides facts and statistics that are verifiable. Brooks uses more formal evidence by using in-text documentation that includes the hyperlink of his sources. For example, Brooks quotes a writer from the The Washington Post and provides the link of the article that he is quoting from. David Brooks’ …show more content…
In the column, Brooks references Peterson’s new book and cites a hyperlink to the book as well. Throughout the column, Brooks references the ideologies of Peterson and uses direct quotes as well, which shows that Brooks has done a sufficient amount of research about Peterson. The types of support used in this column are similar to the ones used in “Everyone a Changemaker.” Both columns use mostly one source and that source is a person, rather than another article or academic journal. Brooks also cites another writer, Conor Friedersdorf, from The Atlantic and provides a hyperlink to the article that Brooks is directly referencing. Due to the lack of more formal citations, it is suggested that the column is written for a general audience that does not expect such formality. The audience is most likely casual readers of The New York Times or readers interested primarily in Jordan