The document summarizes Claire McIntosh's essay "Digital Deception", which warns readers about the dangers of online dating. McIntosh employs a didactic tone and pathos to relate examples of people being deceived or harmed by people they met online. She aims to protect readers and help them recognize deceptive behaviors. McIntosh also uses logic and statistics to encourage critical thinking about sharing personal information online and catching scammers. Her goal is to arm readers against online predators while acknowledging that online dating also provides benefits when approached with caution.

1. Green 1
Allison Green
English 103
Charles R. Dixon
13 October 2013
Digital Deception
Dating websites have become a larger part in our society than ever before.
Imagine meeting the “perfect” person online and going to meet them in person and it
turns out they were lying the entire time; even worse, they are a dangerous criminal. In
her essay “Digital Deception” Claire McIntosh writes to warn and possibly protect her
audience, some who may have thought of online dating or are doing it already, against
the dangers of online dating websites. She employs a didactic tone and a strong
pathetic appeal with a hint of a logical appeal to successfully get her point across to the
audience.
The didactic tone of the piece is created through a string of written out examples.
The written out examples in the piece make the didactic tone lighter, as if the reader is
being talked to by a mentor such as an older sister or brother instead of a professional
teacher. The opening of the piece is a, rather extreme but pointed, representation of
how a woman thought she was falling in love with a man she met on the Internet and
got engaged to. He then later was found out to be a scammer and took her for about
$12,000 of her own money thanks to fraud and larceny (229). McIntosh uses this as a
call to action for her readers in order to warn them of the dangers of online dating and to
be careful with meeting people online; similar to how Nev from the MTV movie/show
used his experiences with someone he met online lying to him to help his fans find out

2. Green 2
whether or not they are being lied to themselves through their own online relationships.
Another example that was used in the piece is about a woman in Hollywood that met a
person online. When she went to meet him in person he was found to be a sexual
predator and he assaulted her. The man was unable to be caught because he was
using a fake name and profile to lure his victims in. By using these examples McIntosh
creates a didactic tone in her piece where the reader feels as if McIntosh is an older,
wiser friend giving advice rather than a parent telling them what not to do. McIntosh also
employs the heavy use of statistics such as “men were found more likely to lie than
women in 13 out of 14 categories” (230). These statistics create a more didactic tone as
if one is reading a pamphlet on the issue of people lying about themselves online. While
the anecdotes are mostly about women being lied to, there are men who were lied to
such as Mel a 40-year-old bachelor from Pennsylvania. He had fallen head over heels
for a beautiful woman in her late 20s and drove to see her. When he had arrived to her
house he thought he saw his “grandmother. She looked old and tired, moved slowly,
wore a hair net and heavy makeup” (230); needless to say she was far from what he
was expecting. This piece is somewhat geared towards women because men are more
likely to lie online; however, she does include how men are also fooled.
The didactic tone is furthered through the repetitive use of words like “false” and
“lie.” Much like a teacher or a parent, McIntosh repeats these words to make her point
stronger. The stronger variations of these words are used in order to basically drill into
the readers’ head that people have the ability to lie over the internet and no one exactly
knows what is real or fake. McIntosh wants her readers to be safe and able to see
through the lies other people put out there. McIntosh takes on the role of a big sister to

3. Green 3
her readers telling them the dangers that they could encounter with online dating
websites.
An overarching characteristic of this piece is a strong pathetic appeal to the
audience. The examples are placed within the piece to make the reader feel
sympathetic towards the people who have been hurt by people lying online. On the flip
side of this Claire McIntosh is trying to also help her readers realize the pain that goes
along when people lie online. Through doing this she is preventing her readers from
lying to people online. Using strong diction like “sexual assault”, “disappointment”,
“unwitting singles” and “suspicious behavior” creates an unsettling feeling in McIntosh’s
audience. This creates a tone of warning throughout the piece. McIntosh is trying to give
her readers a sense of urgency with the realization that it is so easy to lie online and not
to believe everything that one reads.
Along with the pathetic appeal the logical appeal is also present throughout the
piece but it becomes heavier in the closing of the piece. She states that “requests for
personal information (address, financial info) are the number one signs of trouble” (231).
Normally when one meets a person face to face and they ask for personal information it
a red flag goes up but when this happens online there is a lapse in judgement. This lack
of judgment may come from how it feels less real talking to a person online. Simply
reading words on a screen is completely different from talking to a real person.
McIntosh is trying to get her readers to think rationally and realize that if a person asks
for this information online its not a good thing to do. People do not realize how
dangerous it can be online with people trying to scam them for all of their money and
often times getting over $10,000 scammed away from them just because they had a

4. Green 4
temporary lapse in judgement thanks to the lies the person on the other side of the
screen had put up. McIntosh also includes different things on how to catch a person that
is overseas and trying to scam people. She states that most scammers are from Nigeria
and Ghana but not all of them are from these countries. They mostly are people trying
to escape the turmoil in their countries but are doing it wrong by stealing money from
innocent people. McIntosh is like a teacher trying to get her students to think logically to
protect themselves at this point. The logical appeal towards the end of this piece makes
readers feel more comfortable in that they now have tools to possibly catch those that
are lying to them over these dating websites.
McIntosh’s pathetic appeal, logical appeal and didactic tone are what makes her
piece “DIgital Deception” successful in warning her audience against the dangers of
online dating websites. While she does not deny that good does come out of them but
at the same time there are a lot of horrible people trying to scam the lonely singles of
the world. These problems can now be easily avoided with McIntosh’s tips or just
avoiding online dating all together. Online dating is the new rage for singles of all ages
these problems would have never even been thought of even ten years ago. If it keeps
growing at the rate it is with the emergence of shows and movies like Catfish the public
needs to learn to arm themselves against online predators and scammers.

5. Green 5
Works Cited
Jones, Cynthia. Lying, Cheating, and Virtual Relationships. Global Virtue Ethics Review 5.1
(2004): 3-12. Proquest. Web. 7 Nov. 2013.
McIntosh, Claire. Digital Deception. Authenticity. Southlake, TX: Fountainhead, 2012.
229-231. Print.