Confusing the Reader: Susan Griffin’s “Our Secrets” Essay (Critical Writing)

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The Paragraph:

Yellow highlights represent claims, while green highlights represent evidence.

“When one starts reading this book, it is true that it may be confusing, especially if the focus was to classify it into one of the conventional genres of literature. At first, it appears as if her prose is an oral narrative, a story that is based on fiction. Her prose is centered on herself as she uses first person pronoun to present her story. However, further reading of her work reveals that Griffin’s work is not a story based on fiction. It is a piece of research that has been presented in a non-conventional way. She is trying to collect facts from the past and present it in the best way possible. One of the major themes of her work is the World War II, its major players and implications. Graff and Birkenstein (2007) say, “Something still hidden which lies in the direction of Heinrich Himmler’s life,” (p. 236). It is important to note that Heinrich Himmler was the head of Nazi’s secret police. Heinrich Himmler sought thefi advice of Reinhard Heydrich, his assistant, when making his decisions regarding the wars. According to Graff and Birkenstein (2007), “He has made only one decision on his own with a consistent resolve: following Hitler with unwavering loyalty, he is known as der treue Heinrich, true Heinrich” (p. 250). Susan Griffin is interested in what happened in the years preceding World War II, especially in regards to the atrocities the German government committed against humanity.”

The main claim in this paragraph is that, at first Griffin’s book does not appear to fit into the conventional genres of literature. This claim is informed by the fact that the book has the potential of confusing the average reader. This claim is followed by the evidence that Griffin’s book first appears as an oral narrative to the reader. This evidence is expounded further when the author points out that most of Griffin’s book makes heavy use of first person and other personal examples.

The other claim in this paragraph is that Griffin’s story is not entirely based on fiction but it also utilizes subtly delivered research. This claim is followed up with the evidence that most of the book is trying to collect and utilize historical facts. The evidence that is used to back up this claim is Griffin’s references of World War II. For instance, Griffin uses scenes that occurred in Germany during the World War II to make her evidence ‘speak’ in the defense of her claims. Another piece of evidence that is used to back up the claims that are made in this paragraph is the observation that Griffin indicates genuine interest in historically accurate facts that preceded World War II.

The balance between claims and evidence in this paragraph is unsatisfactory. First, the first two claims are supplied with inadequate evidence. For instance, the first claim that Griffin’s work is a fictitious oral narrative is backed up by frail evidence that the author uses first person pronouns in the book. Furthermore, the first claim is quickly disqualified by another claim that Griffin’s work is research-based. This second claim is followed up by substantial pieces of evidence including quotes from the book. However, even though the paragraph utilizes quotes from the book, these pieces of evidence are not analyzed properly in a manner that makes them tangible. For example, the three sentences that follow the second claim are all direct quotes and only the last line in the paragraph is an analysis of these quotes.

The revision that would achieve a balance of claims and evidence in this paragraph involves combining the first two claims in order to come up with a single and solid assertion. Combining these two claims would make the paragraph less confusing to a reader. The other viable revision for this paragraph involves using fewer quotes as evidence for the second claim. Therefore, the paragraph would have more analyses for the quotes.

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"Confusing the Reader: Susan Griffin's "Our Secrets"." IvyPanda, 21 Apr. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/the-book-our-secrets-by-susan-griffin-critical-writing/.

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IvyPanda. (2021) 'Confusing the Reader: Susan Griffin's "Our Secrets"'. 21 April.

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IvyPanda. 2021. "Confusing the Reader: Susan Griffin's "Our Secrets"." April 21, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-book-our-secrets-by-susan-griffin-critical-writing/.

1. IvyPanda. "Confusing the Reader: Susan Griffin's "Our Secrets"." April 21, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-book-our-secrets-by-susan-griffin-critical-writing/.


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IvyPanda. "Confusing the Reader: Susan Griffin's "Our Secrets"." April 21, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-book-our-secrets-by-susan-griffin-critical-writing/.

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