WRI 102 Critique Essay: Strengths & Weaknesses in 'Bad Friends'

This essay presents a critique of Carlin Flora's 'Bad Friends' article, which explores the complexities of friendship and how even the closest relationships can become strained. The critique summarizes the article's main points, including the idea that friendships are not always reciprocal and can sometimes lead to negative feelings and increased stress. It analyzes the article's strengths, such as its well-organized structure, use of rhetorical patterns like argument, persuasion, cause and effect, and appeals to logos and ethos. The essay also identifies weaknesses, including the lack of clear definitions for specific psychological terms and an over-reliance on research studies. Overall, the critique finds the article credible due to its use of supporting evidence and offers suggestions for improvement, such as defining complex terms for a broader audience. The essay concludes by agreeing with the author's assertion that having some friends, even 'bad' ones, is better than having no friends at all. Desklib offers numerous resources for students, including similar essays and study tools.

Running head: CRITIQUE
Critique
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1CRITIQUE
The article titled ‘Bad friends’ written by Carlin Flora mainly explores
the topic of friendship and illustrates how even best of friendship can lose its
magic and one can start feeling burdensome in the relationship. The author
Carlin Flora is a journalist and she was a formal editor of ‘Psychology Today’.
She graduated from the Columbia University School of Journalism and written
many interesting novels and articles in the Psychology Today magazine. Her
article ‘Bad friends’ gives the argument that best friendship are not always
merry and such friendship can often turn out to be messier than expected
(Flora, 2016). The thesis statement is that Carlin has put forward validated and
credible information on effects of bad friendships and the only weakness is
that lack of use of clear terms in writing.
The central theme of the article ‘Bad friends’ by Flora (2016) is that even
best of friendship can go through a rough period and people may start
feeling sick in the relationship. The articles gave the insight that best of
friendship is often portrayed as one in which two people have great
admiration of each other and people in such relationship experience great
satisfaction. However, the author presented the other side of the coin in
relation to best friendship, which is experience of increased tension and
conflicts in richest friendships. The other sub-topics that has been explored
by the author is that only half of friendships are reciprocal, loyal friends also
have qualities that are less desirable and ambivalent relationship is linked to
increased cardiovascular reactivity and decreases sense of well-being too.

2CRITIQUE
The author concludes that although dealing with bad friends is stressful,
however it cannot be as worse as having no friend at all.
After reading and reviewing the paper, it has been found that the
article is well-organized and it is written in an expressive language that
attracts the attention of the reader. The rhetorical pattern of argument and
persuasion; and cause and effect has been used to present the content of
the article. This is said because the author has taken a definitive stance on
the topic and supported this with reasonable data and examples. For
example, after stating that ‘... only half of our friendship are recriprocal’, Flora
(2016) states this as shocking by stating that ‘research confirms that we actually
assume nearly all our friendships are reciprocal’. Similarly the author’s writing styles also
suggest illustration of cause and effect through rhetorical pattern of writing. For example, the
writer explained lack of reciprocal relationship in friendship by stating that ‘One explanation for
imbalance is that many friendships are aspirational’. Similar type of rhetorical pattern has been
found throughout the article.
The review of the article content also depicts the author’s appeal to logos as she has not
just focused on taking a stand on the topic. Instead she has backed up her views with logical
arguments and reasoning too. For example, while stating that ‘Ambivalent’ relationship ....., are
characterised by interdependence and conflict’, the author took the approach to explain how
such form of conflicting thoughts emerge in people. Flora (2016) also gave many examples and
explanations to prove how best friendship can be centred with conflict and stress. The author also
took the approach to link negativity in relationship with that of increase in hypertension. The
information is supported by research evidence in the article. The information presented is

3CRITIQUE
accurate as research evidence shows negative social interactions are associated with high risk of
hypertension in adults.
Apart from presentation of a well-organized content with a focus of establishing logical
connections between sub-topics, certain weakness in writing style has also been identified. For
example, although the writer has used simple language, however certain specific terms like
‘psychological regulation system’ and ‘ambivalent’ relationship has not been clearly defined.
Hence, people outside the psychology field may fail to understand certain points made in the
article. The analysis of the article also revealed that the author over relies on the strategy of using
research studies to support his point. However, this strategy makes his information more reliable.
Over-reliance on research studies cannot be identified as a limitation as many sources have been
used to develop the argument. The writing style also shows an appeal to ethos as emotional
aspects of friendship has been well-expressed by sentence like ‘These are the friendships that fill
our souls...’. Another strength of the content is that Flora has also refuted opposing parties view
by stating that having no friends at all can be more worse that dealing with bad friends (Flora,
2016).
The overall critical analysis of the article revealed use of rhetorical
patterns of arguments and persuasion and use of appeal to logos and ethos
as one of the strength of the article. However, some weakness includes
overreliance on one technique making the writing style predictive and lack of
consideration to define new terms. I agree with the author’s point that
having no friends is worse than dealing with bad friends. To conclude, I find
the article credible because the author’s has not only expressed her own
opinion on the topic, but also supported them with credible reference. To

4CRITIQUE
improve the article, I would suggest defining some psychological terms in
simple words so that more readers can interpret the content.

5CRITIQUE
References:
Flora, C., (2016). Bad friends. Retrieved from: https://aeon.co/essays/when-a-friendship-turns-
sour-more-than-feelings-get-hurt