"Java Man" vs. "Toys"

In “Java Man” by Malcolm Gladwell, Gladwell writes an essay that researches caffeine. Although he does a phenomenal job, he tends to go off subject with his writing and looses me at times. Gladwell does a great job at going in dept with vivid details about his research on caffeine and how the idea of it changed over the years. He also does a good job about the history part of the essay because it tells the reader how his idea developed and how it was then and now. The last thing he does well is how he writes about the distinction of coffee and tea, but I think they’re pretty much the same thing because they are prepared alike and drank alike. They just have so many similarities to differentiate every last different ingredients from one another. Where Gladwell tends to lack in terms of his research is how he rambles throughout the essay. They’re so many things he could cut out to make his essay way better in a layout structure and let the reader be more drawn to his writing. Another aspect where it was unclear was how he talks about caffeine, but he doesn’t talk about it enough. He needs more focus when it comes to being more clearer and mapping the essay out better, but all in all, it was a really good essay and I enjoyed reading it.

Now in “Toys” by Roland Barthes, Barthes talks about French toys and how they shape young kids in today society. He does a good job when referring to the example, but even though he talks about toys, his essay isn’t balance well enough and he kind of goes off topic. Like how he first talks about how they shape us, and then he talks about the appearance of them. He needs to pick whether he wants the reader to know the appearances of the toys or how they shape us. The other thing that bothered me in his essay is how he states the differences in wood toys and mechanical toys because I though his essay was going to talk about how toys shape us. I just think he needs to pick one specific topic and stay with that like Malcolm Galdwell did in his essay titled “Java Man.” Where would I start if I was in charge of editing this essay and making have a clearer topic, Well, I first would change the title to fit the structure of the essay and then I would focus it more on one specific issue to have a clearer layout.