I found this public service announcement on a woman’s blog. The post was titled “for oprah” and had a brief description of Oprah’s “don’t text and drive” campaign. Oprah Winfrey declared April 30th, 2010 “National No Phone Zone Day” in order to get people to stop using their phone while driving.
The major claim in the argument is that you’re four times more likely to have a road accident when you’re on a mobile phone. The warrant that supports this claim is that it is hard to concentrate on two things at one time. This is evidenced in the layout of the public service announcement. When reading, the eye tends to want to read each line in sequence. This is impossible, however, because every other line is part of a different sentence. The usage of different colors for each sentence has two separate purposes. One is to throw off the reader when trying to read line by line. The other is to allow the reader to differentiate between the two thoughts after discovering that they are not all one thought.
Overall, the argument is successful. It presents a statistical claim about the dangers of cell phone usage while driving, supports it with a reasonable warrant, and then evidences the warrant through the layout of the announcement.
2 comments:
I like that you chose a visual. It is simple yet very effective. It definitely took me a few tries to read the sign correctly.
This is a good analysis and the use of this picture is very effective. It really is hard to concentrate on two things at once and the sign gets that message across clearly.
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