The rhetoric of documentaries

Modern communication systems, specifically the internet, is able to capture history and society on many different levels. Documentaries especially, are able to synthesize the development of a society with a particular subject. The documentary, "The most dangerous drug in the world" easily portrays to the audience the way that a society has developed. The documentary arranged the information in an effective way that effectively emphasized the downward slope that methanpehtamine drags a society into by analyzing the development of the economy in Thailand that forces the people and the economy to be dependent on the consumption of meth. Documentaries have the ability to easily portray a large ton of information and synthesize it for a largely visual global audience.

Unfortunately, documentaries, though good in intention, do not really do much to inspire the change the most seek in the global community. Documentaries are able to engage the audience's emotions by making them aware of the problem, but most viewers can walk away from the documentary without any desire to spark that change. Documentaries do not really inspire the ideas of others, but are rather percieved as information to know rather than information to use and apply. This is evident in even the "the most dangerous drug in the world" documentary, because even though it proposes a powerful warning against meth, it wasn't effective enough in seeking a proposal, consequence, or application.

Documentary Rhetorical Analysis

The World's Most Dangerous Drug. Perf. Lisa Ling. Netflix. National Geographic, 18 Oct. 2006. Web. 27 May 2013.
"The World's Most Dangerous Drug" is a documentary on the many different detrimental effects of methamphetamine and how the rising drug has taken a dangerous hold on many different societies around the world. Methamphetamine was invented by the Japanese and used in warfare in WWII, and quickly took hold of the population of Asia, with 60% of meth users living in Asia. Meth has rooted itself in societies such as Thailand and today, has been seen in the youth worldwide. By the late '90's, meth has began to grow as a drug in the United States, originating in Oregon and spreading westward. Meth has caused people to become more violent, taken their lives away. The documentary makes it clear that since meth is cheap and easy to make and dangerously addictive, it is easy for meth to destroy the foundations of society and have the most devastating effects of any drugs, physically and socially.
The documentary at times was able to convey the magnitude of drug problems in other countries because it was able to evoke fear in the audience of the drug and those who use the drug. The most effective portion of the documentary that epitomized the drug taking root in societies and corrupting the youth of populations worldwide was an anecdote of the working class in Thailand. Meth is encouraged by the working industry to increase productivity by forcing the user to stay awake and not eat, forcing an incredible amount of hyperactivity and focus. This deep rooting of meth into the working class of Thailand has festered out of control, and this was emphasized by the documentary's news broadcasts of violent acts driven for the possession of meth. This evoked fear in the audience because they feared the dehumanization effects of methamphetamine. This was able to emphasize the documentary's purpose because it not only spread awareness of the magnitude of the problem, but it also did it's best to deter the user from turning to meth.
The documentary also used a lot of parallelism to tell the devastating effects of meth on a population. It compared meth to other drugs and showed that it was incredibly dangerous in comparison to other infamous drugs and showed that it was even worse by a significant amount. The documentary also used lab rat experiments that explained the looping mentality of meth users and how it destroys their sense of accomplishment and drive for achievement in the real world outside to the audience. This showed the audience that meth was able to root itself in any case just with one mistake of deciding to "try it" and made the user sad for the loss of many lives that had good potential in life.
Overall, the documentary was extremely ineffective at portraying an accurate representation of the drug problem overall, but the devices were not as effecive because they tended to be repetitive of the effects of the drugs and did not offer a resolution for the drug taking root in the world. It just made the viewer feel helpless in a world being posessed by an evil and dangerous drug while also underplaying the dangers of other drugs. It was an extremely unproductive documentary.

"The

TOW Reflection

AP English has been a boot camp of a class for me. It really whipped me into shape really quickly, something that for some reason couldn't have been achieved for me all of my conscious writing career until this year.
I used to focus a lot on style, thinking that it was the only thing that made good writing. I  thought that varied sentence structure and diction was the only essential tool, and even though I maintained that illusion for a while, I didn't understand quality sentence structure and diction. I saw that throughout the year, I had been able to pay attention to different tools of grammar to make writing more than just simple, but I learned to control tone with effective diction and syntax. It was beyond adding a couple clauses to my sentences. My posts went from okay sentence structure and a somewhat sophisticated tone that used to be the crux of my formal writing to being able to shape my tone around the context of the article I wrote about and having a real voice of my own. I was able to engage an internet audience by creating a persona of a curious, appreciative reader; creating an authentic reader meant making someone who was amused with an amusing article, emotional with a sad movie, or serious with a traumatic event in world news. I was able to show that I developed as a reader that responded to the texts I read.
I continued to improve my writing by also being able to move away from my excessive focus on "complex" sentence structure and focus on context. I went from listing the TOW requirements one sentence after another and began to really delve into the pieces of the article that made it effective or not effective. I was finally able to connect ideas between the different rhetorical devices in question and its relationship the different areas of rhetorical strategies such as author, purpose, genre, context, and so and so forth. I didn't focus on meeting every area of the assignment that seemed to demand these things for each post and began to make active rhetorical decisions on what to include and what not to include.
I also enhanced my content by not only delving deeper into the articles, but choosing interesting unique articles that weren't just editorials of politics and the news. My texts could have been either an interesting statistical analysis, an info graphic  or an interesting article about the science of paper. This demanded my interest and forced me to give stronger attention to detail. This new choice of articles gave me the opportunity to ask myself clarifying questions to guide my post such as, "why did I love this article?" and "how do I tell people why I love this article?"
Despite my improvements, I could still improve on choosing articles that would enhance my vocabulary and also practicing better vocabulary. That would come in handy for being able to express myself properly. I feel like a lot of my emotions and opinions could be oversimplified in a post if I were not to find a perfect word for it. I feel like a lot of times, I struggle to find the perfect word for a situation, and I would love to be able to write freely without the crutch of trying to search for a synonym for a word that already doesn't quite fit.
On top of that, I would also like to be able to explain my analysis more clearly and feel like my writing could benefit by uniting the piece overall by relating it back to my own purpose and thesis. This would improve overall clarity and build a more convincing argument.
Overall, I was impressed with the "kill two birds with one stone" effect of the TOW assignments. Throughout the year, they forced me to be able to have "meat" to bring to the table when I was required to bring evidence to argument papers. I also was forced to practice my weakest essay type of Analysis. To me, analysis required the most connection of different complex English ideas I had never explored or paid attention to before in my English career.  I was very fuzzy on the idea of writing and Analysis paper, but I realized that writing the TOWs gave me better practice of reading critically, analyzing clearly, and writing with clarity for a reader. Remembering my thought process on the TOWs gave me a clearcut path to a good Analysis paper and I hope that these skills as a critical reader and writer will continue to improve.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

When I watched this masterpiece this weekend, I couldn't explain why this movie had such a moving effect on me. It was a film that transcends mere entertainment and even just a sad story to something that was profoundly philosophical. Kauffman's piece is the story of Joel, a man hopelessly attached to a dead-end relationship with the spontaneous and emotional Clementine. Confused when he learns that Clementine had him erased from her memory after all of the things they've gone through. Joel feels like he must go through the same thing and soon falls in love with her all over again when he re-experiences the passionate early moments of their relationship. Kauffman masterfully employs effective arrangement, color, and parallelism to emphasize that you can erase memories, but you can not erase emotions, alongside a lesson that it is better not to forget, but to learn.
The movie impressed me with it's arrangement. The movie decides to take a weird timeline twist that goes from Joel and Clementine's break-up to the more intimate parts of their relationship. In that, the author shows that what Joel and Clementine had was real. He was able to show in the beginning the two had effective chemistry, despite an awkward first meeting, and by the end of the movie, shows that that wasn't the first time they met after all. It was a second chance at their relationship after their relationship had already ended and they had their minds erased. This emphasized to the audience the author's purpose because they were able to contrast the terrible ending of their relationship with the beautiful beginning and the audience was able to understand how genuine their relationship is. As movie critic Dave Sizer says, "you can't erase true love," and the audience was able to understand how deeply their bond went and how it will ultimately transcend the memories being erased.
Along the entire plot line, it is hard not to appreciate the color schemes of the movie. The movie is mainly grey and uncolorful, except for the truly beautiful things that the author must come to appreciate to understand the purpose. The bright colorful scenes of the happy memories, and also Clementine's ever-changing hair characterize Clementine's passionate, rebellious personality as well as emphasizing the beautiful parts of their relationship.
Parallelism firmly concretes the purpose of the powerfulness of emotions with additional subplots with supporting characters. These plots, such as affairs that resurface even after having memories erased and a scumbag supporting character that tries to pursue Clementine with the same things Joel had done in their relationship shows that memories are concreted with the emotions associated with them, and that emotions are overall the most important aspect of relationships and life itself. This parallels with the idea of not learning from the past.
This movie was something that was a truly effective masterpiece because of its unique theme and execution. It was beautiful not only in purpose, but in representation as well. It is unexpected and emotionally profound and sad. It also is able to give some hope to how real relationships and love can be, and can turn a cynic into a lover in an instant.

The Peculiar Physics of Crumpled Paper

One of the most overlooked phenomena in the world is the simple existence of a piece of paper. What no one even seems to consider is the contradicting properties and behaviors of paper. The strength, the weakness, the random and yet, the sophisticated algorithmic behavior of folding paper has stumped scientists recently. Newscientist recently explored this behavior of paper and effectively portrays to the reader that paper is actually quite mysterious and enigmatic and is something that needs to be further investigated.
The article effectively employs the use of antithesis between the properties of paper that make it seem like an object of a different universe. For example, the article talks about the weakness of paper in that it tears so easily, but then quickly prompts the reader to think about why it is so weak in one way, but so strong when pulled on in a straight manner. The paper can handle so much force, but not a lot of pressure. The article engages the reader in this antithesis because it stumps them as well as making it clear that scientists are stumped as well.
Another way the article effectively employs antithesis in another sense. It contrasts reality and expectation of the behavior of paper. The article writes, This wasn't an entirely unexpected finding, but the second thing the 3D images revealed was. You might imagine ridges would arrange themselves randomly inside the balls, but the reality is very different. Weirdly, the interior of the ball was a series of orderly layers." This effectively captures the new unexpected observations of paper, and encapsulates how detailed the research goes. This adds ethos to the reader because it makes them aware of the legitimate steps taken towards understanding the behavior.Overall, I thought the article effectively portrayed a really obscure and out there topic by sort of summarizing the expected uninteresting aspects of paper we overlook, and arranging them in such a way that makes us realize that we really don't understand the behavior of matter and how science is so deeply rooted into our everyday lives.

The New Yorker: Becoming Them

It is strange to think of that one breaking point where one transitions from child to adult. What is that defined by? James Wood redefines the beginning of his adulthood with the realization that he is becoming his own father. James Wood achieves this definition through many different rhetorical techniques that create a tone of reflection.
James Wood opens his piece with an effective anecdote. Imagery helps to paint a peaceful and ideal lifestyle that he misses from his childhood. He writes, "When I was growing up, Sunday morning...could almost have been the eighteen-seventies." The imagery builds the memory of the audience to help them to understand why becoming more like your parents are ideal and what a child tends to do. This helps him to achieve his purpose because he defines becoming your father is when you become an adult, and you have matured once this is realized.
To further create a tone of reflection, Wood uses repetition to ponder aloud. Wood writes, "Perhaps he is too busy....perhaps this is just my fear projected onto him." This pondering allows for him to show that he is reflecting on the connection between us past and present and builds a transition for his future. He transitions from pondering and thoughts to rhetorical questions. The act of rhetorical questions asked to the audience show that he is confused and engages the audience. This gives the idea that his worrying for his parents' role in his future as being a universal concern by engaging the audience.
Wood's self-reflection is effective because it allows for him to redefine his present and future by looking at his familial past. Its caused for me to be able to realize that as humans we naturally accumulate off of our experiences in the past to establish a universal idea of the ideal. Wood's idealization of his father is a purpose that applies to not only familial life, but the societal role of role models in general and their positive effect on the development of wholesome individuals.

Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War)

Art throughout history has tended to romanticize war instead of portraying the true diplomatic, moral, and social consequences of war. Evolving immensely from the times of painting grand pictures of our European generals and leaders like Napoleon, art didn't have much of a voice against humanity's innate flaw of being unable to compromise effectively. Six months before the Spanish Civil War, surrealist artist Salvador Dali took a critical look at his country's state of civility, and created a critical piece against the human condition of selfishness, and how that innate human flaw leads to a fragile and tentative state of "peace," and ironically his critical evaluation of the human condition was proven right with the start of the Spanish Civil War.
Dali is able to create a sense of peril in the audience through the placement of figures in the painting. The placement of the terrorized at the top of the painting indicates that even in the top rungs of society and diplomatic success and power, humanity still seeks to destroy itself in its greed. The construction of a perilous structure through body parts emphasize the selfishness of humanity because many different lives are wasted in the pursuit of power.
Dali is able to further his argument with the use of colors. The bright colors modernize the painting  contrasting it to war paintings of the past. War paintings of the past usually consisted of dark, monochromatic and pale colors that were rustic in nature. Dali is able to distinguish his pieces to the audience because by contrasting it to the past, it makes the audience aware of the context of the message being in the present day. This furthers his criticism of his own society because it allows the audience to be aware of the magnitude of the importance of proper communication and compromise rather than war.
In being able to express his ideal society in which people can establish a stable foundation for civility without the destruction of desperate grabs for power. Art has taken a huge responsbility in contemporary times in being able to critique the world in a way that audiences can easily be able to understand the emotional depth of the innate flaws in society itself.

Continuing Resolution, Continuing Dysfunction

The founding fathers left the country with a warning against the formation of political parties. They felt that political parties would be the death of the country, because instead of working for the good of the public, they continue to work for factional self-interest and deepen the ideological divides between two separate parties. Despite that, political parties took a strong root in the way that our entire government works, separating the bodies of Congress, the Senate, and presidential campaigns into Republican and Democratic parties. In recent light of events and failures for economic and social reform that was the responsibility of the government, David Firestone, writer for the New York Times, informs readers on the current standstill in the fiscal year and how the divide between political parties have prevented any substantial change. Firestone develops an effectively impatient tone to emphasize the lack of progress that Congress and the Senate have made.
Firestone is able to solicit the feeling of impatience in the audience because of the diction that he employs. Firestone writes, "Lawmakers - mostly Republicans - are using the legislation as an opportunity to score ideological points rather than simply do their basic jobs...don't expect anything but more disappointing C.R.'s..." The use of the words "rather than" combined with "simply" and "basic" alarm the readers of the politicians ineptitude. This is further built on by the author engaging the audience through sarcasm not to expect any real economic development and reform. The sarcasm he uses against both the progress in the bodies of government and against the politicians himself help to develop the impatient tone because he seems that he is angry and bitter that he has been expecting and waiting for Congress to get over their own ideological interests and do their part in fixing the economic crises  from even 2010 that continue to haunt America's fiscal policies.
Firestone also successfully expresses his impatience through his effective arrangement. Firestone juxtaposes different controversies and congressional response to them. For example, he lists all of the economic reforms that need to be done and then ridicules Paul Ryan for trying to undo the spending on Health Care reform rather than helping out other avenues of government spending. This continuing contrast between the need that the audience becomes aware of for real change and the politicians inability to recognize that helps for Firestone to express his impatience because he exemplifies social progress going out of control while political reform is at a standstill.
Firestone has effectively expressed to the audience that politicians these days are too concerned with their own parties interests rather than the fiscal and social reform that we have so long required. Firestone's ability to show to the audience the needs for cuts and budgeting and fiscal strategy will properly inform the audience of what flaws in congress they need to fix in the upcoming congressional election.

Another Malcolm Gladwell Book

It's interesting that I would be introduced to an entirely new definition of the word "epidemic" after first learning in health class this week. An epidemic was first defined to me as the spread of a disease throughout a population on a huge scale, but Malcolm Gladwell takes that definition to a whole new level. An epidemic is defined by Gladwell as a trend that could be fashion, crime trends, and general widespread human behavior. "The Tipping Point" is an interesting and thorough social commentary and statistical analysis of human behavior where Malcolm Gladwell uses parallelism to portray his statistics to his audience in an interesting and understandable manner to get them to understand the magnitude of certain factors that affect how epidemics spread.
Malcolm Gladwell first uses parallelism to compare the social situations he intends to thoroughly examine and the way that actual disease spreads. He first talked about the way that syphilis spread through a population, talked about the social behaviors that contributed to that, and then explained how similar behaviors constitute an amazing and rapid trend in cellphone usage or fashion trends.  This is effective because this addresses the canon of memory in the audience, and harnesses their understanding of how the way infection spreads through a populations and draws parallels in factors that most people don't recognize in social behaviors.
Gladwell also paralleled contrasting ideas in which he explains how most sociologists would explain a trend and then contrasts it with how he would explain the trend. Most sociologists would look at different factors such as environment, the people, and the transmission factor, but Gladwell looks at different things, like a small group of people that he calls the Extraordinary. This minority of people is what makes a big difference in a huge population based on their personability, influence on others and normal behaviors. He also looks at the stickiness factor and the importance of context rather than just location. Gladwell achieves his purpose of making the audience realize the magnitude of the small things because he shows that sociologists don't observe on a small enough scale. The parallelism furthers the accomplishment of this purpose by adding more of a sense of ethos because it makes it seem like Gladwell understands social behaviors more than most sociologists.
The book gives a whole new idea of how people behave in groups and basically gives an effective outline of how to create a trend. I find that this book is effective and easy to read because of the way that Gladwell breaks down the information and statistics.

Sheetz and Wawa Divide

These last few weeks, I've been spending day and night at Wawa to survive my robotics build season. Since we are spending up to 40 hours a week stuck at the high school, my friends and I make multiple trips to Wawa a day to buy heaps and heaps of sandwiches, Monster energy drinks, coffee, and junk food. An article that definitely hit close to home this week was a NY Times article that explored the cultural divide between Sheetz and Wawa fanatics throughout the state of Pennsylvania. I didn't even know what Sheetz was, but the article implicitly explained why I didn't know what Sheetz was. It's because I lived smack dab in the middle of a Wawa fanatic region. The article explained things so well and in such an entertaining manner that I was able to actually get through an article and enjoy it.
This article was really fun to read and very different from many other NY Times I've read so far. NY Times is usually my source of news and informational editorials that usually have a very serious overall tone, but this article had such a lighthearted purpose. Its purpose seemed to parody the "religiousness" of chain convenience store fandoms and have a whimsical mockery of how serious people take the "cultural divide." The first thing I noticed was that the article used a lot of irony in their diction, and that they made it ironically serious and used a lot of sweeping and general words that made the convenience store followings seem really grand. Just the fact that they called it a "cultural divide" was amusing because they made it seem like the "convenience store culture" is such a serious thing.
Another effective strategy they used to parody the convenience store fandoms is the interviews of the Sheetz and Wawa customers. It was laugh-out-loud hilarious because the article presented it like they were serious in giving these customer testimonials, and it seemed like the customer didn't even know the writer was making fun of them for being so "die-hard" about "the Wawa sandwich-ordering touch screens."
It was also really entertaining because of the way they organized the different opinions on Sheetz and then Wawa. The author alternated the Wawa and Sheetz testimonials and gave the article a flow that made it seem like a live debate between passionately fat Americans.
The author's persona is one I really enjoyed and would like to achieve in my writing. It was really effective in the way they built up the controversy and how he implicitly teared it down as a trivial issue. I thought his purpose of parodying the controversy was achieved because he was able to entertain the audience with his diction, use of testimonials and organization. I would definitely like to read more articles by this author.

Hotels.com Advertisement

I am glad that I get the chance to look at why the recent Hotels.com advertisement had so effectively captured my attention and emotional appeal. I love to watch the hotel service employee give his customers exactly what they want, no matter how detailed and tailored or outrageous it had to be.
 It's easy to say that I've never had an advertisement effectively persuade me to do something or purchase their product, but the Hotels.com advertisement made me really want to book a superfluous trip on their website just for the sake of good customer service and being pampered in such a luxurious way.
The first thing I noticed was the lofty 40's music titled "Make Someone Happy," by Jimmy Durante. The music was an effective choice, not only because of the happy lyrics that encourage selfless action, but the tone of the music also gives the audience a relaxed feeling. It makes the viewer feel like they are watching a perfect world on the television, where people are given exactly what they want when they want it. I find that the choice to use a song in a major key naturally makes the entire commercial a whole lot brighter.
The second thing that was very effective was the style of the animation. The style of the animation was very rounded, giving the cartoon a happy and bubbly tone. I find that the rounder the art style, the less harsh the piece is overall. The art style emphasized the kindness of the service man, who never faltered in how happy he was to make people of all kinds happy.
The choice was also bright and magnificent. It was pinkish and orange overall, emphasizing the aura of a sunset on the beach. It gave the viewer an emotional feeling of being truly relaxed and on vacation. It was much more effective than other vacation planner commercials because other vacation planner commercials tend to use bright blues and whites that seem a little fake and stereotypical of what you would expect from going to the beach. The pink gave the vacations planned on the commercial a homey feeling, and made it much more personal.
All of these elements were very effective in getting viewers to book vacations on Hotels.com. The visuals were very unique and evoked a feeling of serious care and customer satisfaction instead of guaranteeing fun on a vacation, it promises you to fit you perfectly. Their purpose in evoking that intimate feeling with its users was very effective because it set them apart from all other vacation-booking websites.

Tow Rewrite

I find it incredibly hard to hear that some feminists today still find that there are not enough women’s rights. Women today have adopted feminism as the norm, and find that they have to constantly be establishing their equality by competing with men or “fighting for their rights.” Women have been fighting for their rights for more than 150 years in America, and equality has been well established and it is easy to say that a woman can find power and success through meritocracy. In previous times, women wouldn't even have the right to work or vote. Their job would be to bear children.

Sure, I mean, I guess some women are victim to sexual harassment in the workplace, but to hear that as the main complaint of many feminists today is a little unnerving. Sure, its a terrible thing, but to even have a place to work for women in the first place is something that many societies even today can’t guarantee, and the horrors of the objectifying women is at a minimum in America.

I want to point the attention of these feminists to the gender-role situation in India. Gardiner Harris, a writer for the NY Times, writes a lot about different conflicts and events in India. His recent article highlighted the social changes between the genders in India, and how it has somehow led to an increase in rape and sexual violence from men towards women. Women are now finding a new sense of social mobility and economic success, and now, women are able to compete with men in the workplace. Women are matching men in education, and are participating as leaders in politics. This newfound success is met with a huge increase of gang rapes and domestic violence.

This article really caught my attention because it wasn’t just a bunch of statistics about how many incidents of sexual violence there was in India. The article was arranged in such a way that you could really sense the situational irony regarding the changing role of women in India. The increasing role of women in the industry, economy, and politics, caused for many men to feel challenged by this change, and fight their success with sexual dominance. Instead of allowing for social progress to occur in India as women fight for more power, men are making sure that women will still be able to fall to the whim of men in anyway possible.

The writer also uses imagery to appeal to pathos, the emotions of the audience. He really builds a picture of the developing society in India, while also contrasting it with the horrors of violent crimes against women. He uses both to emphasize his purpose, which is that there is an inherent hatred of women by men, and that social mobility will not be easy for these women, even though they have new and sudden success. This emphasis on the emotional aspect of the story really takes away from the writer’s persona. There isn’t really much emphasis on the writer’s persona, he makes observations and implications as if they are truth.

All of these devices are extremely effective in delivering the social implications of the article. I found that it was very hard to disagree with the purpose of the article and it left a very profound emotional impact. I really appreciate living in American society, and the rights I am guaranteed despite being a female. If American women today are feeling stunted because of the way American society is, they should really take a look at the situation in India.

Women in America today are being stunted by nothing but their attitudes. Stress, depression, and divorce are at an all time high, and it is due to the blurred gender roles and high expectations women have for how much respect their being female should demand. I think that these women who are unappreciative of their rights in America are expecting special rights as women, and I feel like America has done well to have actually fair roles and expectations from both genders.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/world/asia/in-rapes-aftermath-india-debates-violence-against-women.html?_r=0
http://voices.yahoo.com/feminism-sucks-masculinity-out-men-4231471.html

More Guns = More Killings

This week's article is an article called, "More Guns = More Killings", and it is an NYTimes article written about the different opinions on gun control. The context of the article is a widespread interest in finding ways to reduce gun violence, and since the Elementary School shooting of Sandy Hook, it has been a struggle to find out where Americans really stand on the issue of gun control. Many Americans strive for legislative action to create stricter gun policies, but The National Rifle Association suggested that the way to deal with gun violence and deaths caused by it is to give more guns to the "good guys" to act as a way of protecting citizens. The purpose of this article is to show that this idea is completely wrong and would lead to more violence. The author, Elizabeth Rosenthal, is a physical and science reporter for the NYTimes, and though her qualifications for making a stance on this article seem to be a little out of place, she justifies her strong opinion well with the use of the exemplification rhetorical strategy. She used the Latin American country Columbia to show that more guns and guards means that there are more gun related deaths.  She used these countries that are currently unstable in terms of politics and that using guns to stop violence shows that institutions are completely broken down. She also talked about Australia and their new stricter laws on gun control, and how that resulted in no mass shootings since. It was very effective for her to point these countries' gun policies to the intended audience, which is the general public who has a general knowledge of the gun incidents in the recent decades.