Vocabulary
inundate
That would be the entertainment industry, which as Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's vice president, went on to explain, creates violent video games, films and television shows that inundate our youth with "the filthiest form of pornography."
cow
As we have been told repeatedly during the last week, the gun lobby is among the most powerful in Washington, able to cow politicians and presidents into policy often in direct opposition to their personal and publicly stated opinions.
depravity
And while there is value in exploring the outer limits of both human valor and depravity, there is also such a thing as wallowing, of substituting shock for illumination.
Structure
Partial (and inflammatory) quotations to represent "they say".
Instead of paraphrasing and instead of producing long, full quotations, McNamara illustrates the other side by mixing paraphrase and partial quotation.
Breaking its dayslong silence, the NRA on Friday offered its solution to making American schools safer -- armed guards -- and laid the blame for the seemingly endless cycle of mass shootings on "a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people."
That would be the entertainment industry, which as Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's vice president, went on to explain, creates violent video games, films and television shows that inundate our youth with "the filthiest form of pornography."
Pre-Conclusion With Appropriate, Pathos-filled Movie Reference
To make the conclusion connect with readers, McNamara references a really sad scene in a movie in which the problem (adults arguing and not attending to the real problem) causes something terrible. She follows this with a call to action (see next!).
In Ang Lee's beautiful film "The Ice Storm," adults argue and engage in endlessly self-absorbed drama while one of their children, unnoticed, forgotten, walks down an empty frozen street, where a power line falls and electrocutes him.
Call to Action Conclusion
McNamara uses a very common ending for speeches -- the call to action -- in this opinion piece and ends with a last sentence that "reviews" both other sides -- the NRA position and the Hollywood position. Notice, too, the pathos ("and while we argue, our children die"). (Unfortunately, this pathos is all too real in this instance.)
This is not the time for grown-ups to argue; we have been arguing for far too long, and while we argue, our children die. This is the time for us all to take responsibility, make it not so easy for a young man to imagine a hideous act of violence, and not so easy for him to actually commit it.
inundate
That would be the entertainment industry, which as Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's vice president, went on to explain, creates violent video games, films and television shows that inundate our youth with "the filthiest form of pornography."
cow
As we have been told repeatedly during the last week, the gun lobby is among the most powerful in Washington, able to cow politicians and presidents into policy often in direct opposition to their personal and publicly stated opinions.
depravity
And while there is value in exploring the outer limits of both human valor and depravity, there is also such a thing as wallowing, of substituting shock for illumination.
Structure
Partial (and inflammatory) quotations to represent "they say".
Instead of paraphrasing and instead of producing long, full quotations, McNamara illustrates the other side by mixing paraphrase and partial quotation.
Breaking its dayslong silence, the NRA on Friday offered its solution to making American schools safer -- armed guards -- and laid the blame for the seemingly endless cycle of mass shootings on "a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people."
That would be the entertainment industry, which as Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's vice president, went on to explain, creates violent video games, films and television shows that inundate our youth with "the filthiest form of pornography."
Pre-Conclusion With Appropriate, Pathos-filled Movie Reference
To make the conclusion connect with readers, McNamara references a really sad scene in a movie in which the problem (adults arguing and not attending to the real problem) causes something terrible. She follows this with a call to action (see next!).
In Ang Lee's beautiful film "The Ice Storm," adults argue and engage in endlessly self-absorbed drama while one of their children, unnoticed, forgotten, walks down an empty frozen street, where a power line falls and electrocutes him.
Call to Action Conclusion
McNamara uses a very common ending for speeches -- the call to action -- in this opinion piece and ends with a last sentence that "reviews" both other sides -- the NRA position and the Hollywood position. Notice, too, the pathos ("and while we argue, our children die"). (Unfortunately, this pathos is all too real in this instance.)
This is not the time for grown-ups to argue; we have been arguing for far too long, and while we argue, our children die. This is the time for us all to take responsibility, make it not so easy for a young man to imagine a hideous act of violence, and not so easy for him to actually commit it.