"Observe Electronic Etiquette" by Michelle Engel

           

The commentary essay "Observe Electronic Etiquette" (May 2012) by Michelle Engel asserts the need to curb electronic interruptions. She relies on personal experiences to back up this statement. Her clear purpose is to make it know how annoying and costly our lack of electronic etiquette is in order to convince people to stay off their devices at inappropriate times. The audience is broad since this applies to anyone with an electronic device who engages with it in public.  

                  I have mixed feelings about this article. Although I agree with the author’s stance, I am not quite sure her delivery was strong enough. Her only reasons why electronic use should be curbed in public is because it is annoying, and the case where the two people lost a leg was the last point she made, as if it were her “weakest” piece of evidence. Because I agree wholeheartedly, that I don’t know a single person important enough to need to constantly be on a phone with the glazed over expressions and oblivious to the rest of the world, I automatically agree with the author. But because those on the other side feel differently, and Engel is trying to convince those people to stop their excessive behavior, she needed stronger evidence other than it’s annoying. A lot of people now have little regard for how someone else feels, probably due to the self-entitled importance some assume they have which spawn their awful etiquette in the first place. To convince these kind of people, you need better evidence.

                  This article was probably written as a commentary, due to the formatting of the paper, and is also informal. Engel’ tone is chastising, and almost snippy.  “Enough. I’ve had it with people and their smartphones" (Engel 311). This isn’t formal language or tone, and the spacing, probably for emphasis, is not formal formatting. Engel wrote this as a call to action. “We all need to look at our electronic etiquette.” (Engel 313) The author’s reason for writing is clear, as this is a subject she has dealt with personally. Nearly all of the evidence consisted of personal experiences. “On a recent Amtrak trip, a woman sat next to me and made a call to her friend. . . “  (Engel 312). However, she did include one compelling piece of evidence when using the case of the texting driver. Therefore, she relied on ethos mostly.