Critique

Image retrieved by The New York Times

http://straightsets.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/clijsters-knocked-out-of-australian-open/?hp

As I began to review an article written about a tennis match, in the New York Times, it appeared that many components of a well written story were missing. Right from the beginning, the journalist Joe Drape was not clear (1). Drape introduced Kim Clijsters as "The Australian Open" but he does not say that she is a tennis player (1). Now, looking at the photograph the reader would assume that Clijsters is a tennis player (if they indeed saw the photograph), but he didn't open the story up by stating that fact. When Drape wrote, "barely got to know the U.S. Open champ here Friday night," I didn't know who he meant was the U.S Open champ (1). He introduced Clijster's component as Nadia Petrova, the 19th-seeded Russian, so I did not understand if this is who he meant as the U.S Open champ (1). I think that a lot of this confusion on clarity is due to his language choice. If one did not play tennis, I believe that they would have a hard time understanding this article. I do not play tennis, and this was the case for me. I don't exactly know what the U.S Open champ is. When I read the quote by the tennis player, Clijsters, it seemed like it could have been summed up better by Drape. It dragged on and didn't get to the point very fast. In the middle of the quote, Clijsters said, "But, um, yeah, the question is of course, why?"(1) I don't think that "but, um, yeah" needed to be placed in the quote. Drape left me asking questions too. After I read the article, I was wondering what loosing meant for Clijster's career and what was the winner Nadia Petrova moving on to? Judging by my critique, Drape definitely did not write this article to its full potential. He missed the concepts of accuracy with the language, brevity, and clarity.

Reference:

1) Drape, Joe. Clijsters Knocked Out of Australian Open. 22 January 2010. The New York Times. http://straightsets.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/clijsters-knocked-out-of-australian-open/?hp.