Walmart's Stranglehold

7. Wal-Mart's Stranglehold

The majority of effective writers pick languages carefully to better communicate to the reader what their intended message is. From the yellow handout, the essay titled, “There's nothing to smile about with Wal-Mart,” had the writer used “unfair,” rather than “stingy,” the motif of the article would have been reduced. The difference in this article, portrays a stronger definitive dislike for the corporate giant Wal-Mart. When we hear the word, “unfair” our first inclination is to think that of a parent telling their child that they cannot stay up late or go to a friend’s house. Although it may appear the end of the world to the child, life will go on. However, when the word, “stingy” is used, it oftentimes is in reference to those who have more than enough to share, but choose not to and in doing so, harms others. In the article, the author states, “that Wal-Mart workers have to rely on because of their meager pay and health insurance place most of them among the working poor.” These subtle word changes that were carefully picked, help strengthen the author's piece.

The author assumes that the audience reading the essay are the people who pay taxes to the United States government, and/or work at Wal-Mart. In the opening paragraph, the author writes the line, “The giant retailer's business practices, including... are costing you and other American taxpayers millions of dollars every year,” which shows who the intended reader is. The writer tries to empathize with everyone in society in each paragraph, by bringing attention to how harmful Wal-Mart is to every community. Because everyone is now governed by the Affordable Care Act, it is required by law to have healthcare, Wal-Mart’s “shortchange their employee’s healthcare coverage,” has had a profound effect on the cost of healthcare for all Americans, rich or poor.

We believe the logic behind restating the thesis statement in the fifth paragraph is to help reiterate, to the readers how “stingy” and harmful Wal-Mart is to everyone, worldwide. By writing, “It’s a problem for [all] workers, and it’s a problem for our society,” right before talking about child labor laws in China, the author is attempting to acquire an even greater following towards his thesis statement. Now if the reader, was not a taxpayer, member of [American] society, or a Wal-Mart employee, the author is trying to gather more empathy from people against child labor.

Four important words we believe that we found were best used in this essay were: notoriously, meager, suppressing, and skimping. By using the word, “notoriously,” the author effectively adds to the negative attributes that is target of his paper. When the author uses “meager,” he is attempting to convey to the readers that there are little benefits to working at Wal-Mart, which the pay is certainly