Analysis Of The Right To Fail By William Zinsser

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It’s inevitable to never fail. Everyone will fail at some point in their lives because perfection isn’t realistic. The question is, is failure fatal or a learning experience for success? The articles “The Right to Fail” by William K Zinsser and “In Praise of the “F” Word” by Mary Sherry both explore the concepts of failure. William Zinsser’s article makes the claim that failure is the only way for people grow and should not be looked at solely as negative. Mary Sherry’s article makes the claim that failure should not be feared by teachers and students but used as motivation for success. Both authors use evidence and appeals in similar and different ways to get their claim of failure being positive across to the audience. …show more content…

For example, William Zinsser uses well known and successful people and character’s experiences with failure as evidence that failure is how people grow. Zinsser uses Thomas P.F Hoving as an example. He states that Hoving was a dropout’s dropout who must have learned from his unorthodox years because he then became the top of his profession later in life (Zinsser 7). Another example Zinsser uses is the character Holden Caulfield from “The Catcher in the Rye” who was a dropout that became one of the greatest known literary heroes (Zinsser 8). These examples support Zinsser’s claim and show the audience that the most successful people have failed and used failure as a learning experience. Similarly, Sherry’s article uses a failure to success story as evidence as well. She happens to take a different approach on doing so though. Sherry uses personal experience as her evidence. Her son was told he would be flunked if he did not start paying more attention in his English class (Sherry 1). By doing so, her son began to make English a priority and succeeded in the class. Her evidence supports her claim that failure can motivate students to succeed because her son went through failure and she watched him prosper from it when given the option

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