Severe Anxiety By Denizet-Lewis

In his New York Times article, “Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering from Severe Anxiety?”, Benoit Denizet-Lewis provides narratives and statistics that resist the traditional ideologies that anxiety isn’t a mental disorder and that teenagers are mentally weak beings. Denizet-Lewis uses the power of his media platform and language tactics to help raise awareness for teenagers and young adults that suffer from anxiety from all over the country. Denizet-Lewis uses a teenger named Jake and his journey through his anxiety from Jake’s junior year to his freshman year in college as the basis of his article. In addition to Jake’s story, Denizet-Lewis uses studies done on young adults and teenagers in relation to anxiety, multiple small …show more content…
Denizet-Lewis used more active voice in his article than passive voice. Using active voice helps a writer’s sentences become more clear and concise. As I said earlier, Denizet-Lewis resisted the traditional ideologies from our American society. He wanted the reader to go out their in communities and help to change the way that our society views anxiety and teenagers. Denizet-Lewis used more active voice in his sentences to spark ideas of change in his reader’s minds. For example, Denizet-Lewis wrote, “Jake learned mindfulness techniques, took part in art therapy and equine therapy and, most important, engaged in exposure therapy, a treatment that incrementally exposes people to what they fear” (New York Times). Instead, Denizet-Lewis could have used, “The things that Jake learned were mindfulness techniques, took part in art therapy and equine therapy, and most important, engaged in exposure therapy, a treatment that incrementally exposes people to what they fear.”Active voice is also known can also help your sentences be more impactful by connecting the sentences to your …show more content…
Denizet-Lewis used plenty of informal word choice. Whenever the writer introduced a new source in the text, Denizet-Lewis would call them by their first and last name. After that, he would call them by their last name. If the professional was a doctor, then he wouldn’t use the “Dr.” in front of their name. For example, in the text when Denizet-Lewis was introducing a character’s mom, he just called her by her first name. “ Instead, she was on the screened-in back patio of the townhouse where she lives with her mother, Allison” (New York Times). That makes the source and the article in general, more informal. Moreover, whenever Denizet-Lewis introduced a parent or student to the reader, he would call them by their first name, and first name only. I assume that forfeiting their last name was a matter of protection, however the writer still only called them by their first name. There was no “Ms.”, “Mrs.”, “Mr.”, etc. used in this text. The purpose of this was to make the article in general more informal. Informal language is used to make a text more conversational and simple and the purpose is to increase the understanding of the audience (Oxford Dictionary). If the text is more simple and basic English, then more people will be able to read, understand, and