Outside Reading: Column

Our Daughter Isn't A Selfish Brat; Your Son Just Hasn't Read Atlas Shrugged
By : Eric Hague

In this column, Our Daughter Isn't A Selfish Brat; Your Son Just Hasn't Read Atlas Shrugged by Eric Hague, Hague creates a persona that has just had a volatile encounter at the "Tot Lot" with his young daughter. He crafts this persona with his use of polite diction and long explanatory syntax that makes his persona sound sincere in his apology but is also not sorry about the outcome, his daughter did "win" after all.
The voice that he made also uses humor to create a tone that changes what he is saying from a very serious issue to a regrettable situation but one that is not bad and happens regularly. Because of his use of diction like "admittedly", "I think", "contradictory", and "delighted" create a sense that the persona is in no way confrontational,  the long sentence structure supports this and adds the sense that this is also to explain the event from his point of view.
This persona allows the reader to appreciate what he is saying and not being fixated on the event that happened, exactly as would be necessary for this to balance the "veritable powder keg of different and contradicting parenting styles". The humor that he uses makes the situation easier to see from his point of view as well because it creates a mutual respect and light hearted atmosphere. 
His persona is definitely not appropriate for an AP essay because of the humor that is used throughout. The humor creates an inappropriate connection to the reader. The persona comes off as funny but also as cocky since the combination of all of these elements are not confrontational but very confident. For an AP essay informative and confident writing is good, but funny and cocky is less effective for a persuassive essay.