Essay 2: Audience Analysis Henry Nicholls

Essay 2: Audience Analysis
Name
Institution
Essay 2: Audience Analysis
There have been several talks on whether school starting time for teenagers should be later than it currently is. This essay analyses the text by Henry Nicholls on why teenagers should be left to sleep in, which was published by the New York Times in September 2018. Nicholls brings out a logical argument on why it is important to let teenagers start school later, bringing on board scientific knowledge to successfully support his argument and convince his audience.
Nicholls’ primary target audience is parents, educators, and lawmakers concerned with children welfare. This is because in general, most teenagers are still under someone's care and cannot make decisions on their own, thus leaving parents as part of the primary intended audience. He severally mentions how parents can be involved in ensuring that teenagers get enough sleeping hours, such as regulating time spent using technological devices. Further, the school starting time is set by educators who also work with lawmakers during policy formulation. Nicholls text is targeted to them because eventually, they are the ones with the ability to effect real change regarding school starting time. Nicholls understand that targeting these three groups of individuals is the only way to ensure action is taken in support of his argument.
The main purpose of Nicholl’s text is to inform parents and educators on the dangers of sleep deprivation on school going children, especially teenagers, who are more predisposed to sleep deprivation due to biological and environmental factors. Further, Nicholls aims at ensuring that the adults are aware of ways in which they can help these teenagers to get enough sleep. The fact that he is a science high school teacher makes him a more credible author and gives him an edge in fulfilling his purpose in the text. His audience is more likely to believe him because he interacts with teenagers during school session and his use of scientific knowledge to defend his argument rather than his interaction with students eliminates any doubts of bias.
At the beginning of his text, Nicholls describes the activities that teenagers undertake at night and in the morning to try and show his audience that teenagers are left with a few hours of sleep as a result. He uses words such as “double whammy” to point out how these activities are affecting teenagers' sleeping hours, thus convincing his readers from the start that teenagers are actually at risk of sleep deprivation. He focuses his argument on why teenagers, in specific, have a hard time when it comes to getting enough sleep and uses biological processes such as puberty, and technology, to explain to his audience how disadvantaged teenagers are.
Throughout his text, Nicholls ...