In the TED talk, Tim Urban goes between consultative and casual language register.

He

uses some technical terms, but for the most part, he uses casual register. Most of his speech,

he uses words and language that is easy for his audience to understand. His tone is very casual,

like he is talking to friends. He is very descriptive and uses power point slides to help him in his

speech. Some of the genres used were memoirs and narrative accounts.

Urban’s rhetorical strategies are very effective. He gains credibility for being a known

writer and blogger. He details a personal experience of how he procrastinated when it was time

to do his senior thesis and had to write a long thesis in 72 hours. He described how he went

days without sleeping. This method is effective because the audience can relate to his

experience. At some time in a person’s life they have put off doing something, only to panic

when it was due. Tim states everyone, including himself are procrastinators. However, there

are different levels of procrastinating when there is a deadline to meet. He tells a funny story

about having an MRI done of his brain (an instant gratification monkey) and the brain of a

normal person (a rational decision maker). This humor draws the audience in. He also uses

humor when he describes how the “panic monster” sets in when your deadline is nearing. On

the screen behind him he uses funny images. He describes what the different thinking concepts

are for the instant gratification monkey and the rational decision maker. Urban backs up his

story by saying he had all different kinds of people including professors, lawyers, and doctors

reach out to him. These people stated they were in the same place in life as him with
procrastinating. In his last rhetorical strategy, he shows a picture of a big boxes with little boxes

inside. He states that these boxes represent every week in your life and tells his audience to

think about the boxes they have already filled out. This was a good strategy because he makes

the audience think about all the time, they have wasted by procrastinating and hopes they will

make a decision to pursue their dreams.