Kunal Goyal

Kunal Goyal
Aleksandra Kasztalska
ENGL 106i
4 April 2014
Rhetorical Analysis Draft 1
Gillian Goodmans article A Girl Who Codes attempts to spread awareness of
importance of Computer Science among girls. The author condemns the less involvement of
women in the growing field of Computer Science and advocates that women should also
start coding instead of inclining towards streams that dont pay well. In the beginning of the
article, she introduces Nikita Rau who started XX Hackers, a high club for girls interested
in learning Computer Science. Then, gradually Goodman expresses her dissatisfaction with
the performance of women in Computer Science industry. She talks about various factors
about this situation and steps that are being taken to improve it. She tries to convince women
to join Computer Science industry because of its immense growth potential and promote
more initiatives like Girls Who Code throughout the country.
The author is simply trying to convince her readers especially young girls to not see
Computer Science as a hard subject and that the field had great scope for all of them. Due to
her firm belief that girls should start coding, she uses convincing and adamant words like
should and can more often. For Example, she writes, anyone can(160), can
prove(160), should really(138), should learn to code(160) and should push(160).
There is also a tone of playfulness in the article as the author uses phrases like I shouldnt
be afraid(160) and sounded right to me(160) throughout the article.
To begin to analyze the argument being made here, one must first understand the
authors background. This is important in developing ethos, and establishing the authors
credibility. Gillian Goodman is a self-employed writing and editing consultant to various
magazines and journals. She has done her graduation in Psychology, which helps her in

Kunal Goyal

interviewing people and getting to know the facts. In her article A Girl Who Codes, she uses
ethos very effectively by introducing every person she interviews in great detail like
Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code,(137) and Saujani is in the middle of an
(eventually unsuccessful) campaign for New York's high-level public advocate
position(137).
Throughout the article, Goodman uses various facts and statistics to support her
arguments. She uses facts to share the factors responsible for low interest in Computer
Science of girls and to convince girls that CS industry will prove to become the largest
employer in future years. For Example, In 36 states, computer science counts only as an
elective credit, not a math or a science, generating more than 2 million views in the 24
hours and the average computer programmer (of any race or gender) earned $1,218 a
week; software engineers earned $1,549, placing them among the highest-paid professionals
in the country. There were 429,000 computer programmers employed in the U.S., but only
96,000 were women. Almost 2.4 million men and 807,000 women worked in computerrelated fields, a ratio of around 3 to 1.
The author uses rhetorical strategies in her article to keep it interesting like similes,
metaphors, etc. She compares Computer Science to a combination of science and liberal arts
subjects as she explains Computer science as "like a creative mix".

Kunal Goyal

Bibliography
Goodman, G. (2013). A Girl Who Codes Fast Company magazine. pp. 137-138,160.