Heinrichs and Carson

Carson uses many different scientific terms, alludes to evolution, and makes references to history and famous scientists to establish her credibility. She uses emotional appeal in the beginning as she paints a picture of the hypothetical town and the eventual destruction caused by careless humans, “a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death.” The intro is also a place where she uses sight to involve her audience through imagery and she also uses persuadable moment because, as exemplified by the quote, she uses emotionally charged words to engage and change the mood of her audience. She uses commonplaces in order to set the emotional tone in the beginning as well. Her hypothetical town is a commonplace in the sense that it’s a fairy-tale like town, common and appreciated by the readers. Another commonplace would be that people would agree that pesticides and pollution aren’t good for the environment. Both commonplaces are also forms of ‘identity strategies’ as she using common values to persuade the readers to support her position. She uses ‘repeated codewords’ throughout the essay as well, making allusions to time, evolution, and radiation- all in relation to destruction. In terms of context I think she made connections between WWII, the atomic bomb, and the feat of space travel to the possibility of huge destruction by humans as science continued to develop.