Following NBC News site
A Brief Analysis of the Rhetorical Devices in NBC New
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasa-unveils-2-new-missions-study-truly-strange-asteroids-n703266
The article above is about NASA's decision to create two new missions to study asteroids and their purposes. Mike Wall, the author of this article, writes using scholarly diction. He writes educational sentences that share lots of knowledge, such as "The Lucy project will investigate the Trojan asteroids, which share an orbit with Jupiter, while Psyche will journey to the asteroid belt to study a huge, metallic asteroid named 16 Psyche that resides there". He is clearly knowledgeable on the subject and his diction supports this. His diction influences his erudite tone because throughout the whole article he is sharing facts and making the article rather educational, but at the same time it is easy to read. Throughout the article Wall uses long complex syntax to make the article read and flow in an interesting manner. An example is when he writes "If all goes according to plan, the probe will visit an asteroid in the main asteroid belt — located between Mars and Jupiter — in 2025, and then go on to study six Trojan asteroids between 2027 and 2033, NASA officials said". There is lots of information in this one sentence, which makes it intriguing and fun to read. As stated before, Wall uses an erudite tone. He obviously did lots of research on the topic and became well acquainted with the subject of the missions. He learned objectives, years of travel, and he even learned about the asteroids themselves and why they were of such importance. He says "The Discovery Program, which was founded in 1992, supports relatively low-cost planetary missions; development costs for the current crop are capped at about $450 million apiece". He did the research to leave the reader with enough knowledge on the subject to be able to follow the story, and he did so with an educational-like tone. The purpose of the article was to make readers aware of our country's space program's developments. Wall writes fairly early in the piece "The space agency has selected projects called Lucy and Psyche via its Discovery Program, which funds highly focused space missions to destinations throughout the solar system", giving the reader information on what the developments of NASA are. This gives the reader more insight on what their tax dollars are going towards, which is a big deal because Americans pay lots of money that goes to their taxes. The overall goal is to make Americans more aware of what is going on in space and here on Earth, how we are learning more about this great big thing we have very little information on. Wall starts the article by giving the reader some insight on what NASA has been working on and the new missions they are currently planning. Throughout the middle of the article Wall provides many facts about the mission, the asteroids that will be explored, and some quotes from people who work in the field of space about how important or impactful the mission is. In the end Wall gives the reader information on the developments of the program. He uses quotes from people that work with NASA to back up his writing, "This is what Discovery Program missions are all about — boldly going to places we've never been to enable groundbreaking science," Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C., said". Wall doesn't leave a statement without a fact to follow it up, making the argument strong.
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My name is Stephanie Crisfield. I am a junior at North Cobb High School and this is my blog that is dedicated to analyzing NBC News. Welcome!
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