The essay, "The Truth About Lying-, written by Judith Viorst, is a very interesting and an intelligent bit of work. The author has made a great effort in trying to present the different things people lie about in their daily life. She has divided them into four sub-groups and uses headings to separate them. She has used a lot of different techniques to convey her message to the reader. Over all she has used simple but accurate language to communicate with the reader. .
Judith Viorst has made this essay quite easy for the audience to comprehend. First of all, her essay title is very simple and short. It has conveyed the purpose of the essay very effectively to the reader. In addition, she uses a number of expository devices including verisimilitude and denotation. She uses vivid and real life examples to convey her message to the reader. For instance, she presents situations relating to mother and a child, friends and many more. These examples make this essay lifelike and truthful that it becomes even easier to understand because the reader can relate to it. Its simplicity was further elaborated through the usage of denotation and also her informal way of writing. Also, she repeated "What about you?- several times. I believe that it really helped to grab my attention as a reader and also to pay more attention to what was written. It made me open my mind and encouraged me to start thinking about the essay. Her way of asking question in each category of "lying- was fairly intelligent because I was clearer about what each category meant or what kind of lies were told in each type. .
Although Viorst's writing style and method of developing her essay was fairly well done, it had some weakness. First I thought that she describes each category in too much detail. This makes the essay too long and sometimes the reader fails to keep the attention on track and it makes it boring. In addition, this essay was very limited, in terms of cultural beliefs.