David Shipler's At The Edge Of Poverty

In the piece “At the edge of Poverty” David Shipler tells about the world of “the forgotten Americans”. The people who can’t save, can’t get a better job, and cannot move on to a better life. He shows us how hard it is to be someone like that, to be on the edge of poverty. He brings us to a different level of understanding of what these people go though and how they are almost are stuck in society, only to dream for a better future. In this well written piece, Shipler does a wonderful job of grabbing and keeping the attention of the reader with many techniques. He uses metaphors, pathos, dramatically short sentences, imagery and many more techniques. Shipler does, though, have two of his best techniques that he uses to really make this piece
His crafty word choice creates credibility for himself and allows the reader to be convinced into reading more. One illustration of Shipler’s incredible word choice is when he writes “we reveal in the nobility of tireless labor and scrupulous thrift that can transform a destitute refugee into a successful entrepreneur.” By reading this clever sentence, the reader can assume that Shipler has an excellent vocabulary. Excellent vocabulary means excellent knowledge, excellent knowledge means good credibility. Readers are captivated by Shipler’s well formulated words and phrases, and the reader starts to become influenced by the piece, wanting to read more of this intelligent writers work. In paragraph nine Shipler takes his wording to a new level. He uses words like “moral virtue”, “righteousness”, “the fair and final judge”, and “whiff of sinfulness”. He selects words like these to allude to theme of God. Reading throughout the paragraph, you start to realize Shipler is almost mocking the religious and their views on what they think is morally unethical. With Shiplers wording you can catch the theme of the paragraph. If Shipler were to use other words instead of the ones listed above, it would have been less hilarity, less allusion, and less of a credible piece to the reader. Throughout the piece Shipler uses very well crafted word choice to intrigue and gain the admiration of the