Throughout the piece Noffs, repeatedly highlights the medical and emotional risks involved with the drug abuse and the “rapid escalation in the level use of” methylamphetamine (“ice”). Substantiating his point with the well-known authority of the Australian crime commission, Noffs is able to further stress that “ice poses the highest risk to Australian community and [that] the problem will grow” which generate a sense of fear, from the future that they are “warned” to be having; thus prepares them for the solution that Noffs will be providing further in his article. The extensive examples regarding “the physical and mental health effects of using ice” further perpetuates the author’s point of view that ice users “need highly specialized treatment program” and establishes him as an informed person who knows “the pointy end of the current problem” which coaxes the audience to agree with him. In addition to his informative piece, placed predominately on the article, the photograph elicits that although ice is used in small doses, which is illustrated by the size of the finger compared to the dose, it “poses the highest risk to the Australian community”. Moreover it also enlightens the audience about how ice looks like hence places them as people who are more familiar with the problem which inclines their thinking with the author’s contention.
As I read through this, what I notice is that you're pulling out examples and labeling them in terms of what the writer is doing quite generally, So, in the paragraph above, you're mentioning how he's appealing to credibility, appealing to the reader's sense of fear and then later establishing his credibility, then back to the sense of fear (probably?) in terms of the photo? With that in mind, the suggestion I would make for you, for now, would be to look at linking together examples that are related to one another. Once you've done that, you can talk more specifically about how they are designed to persuade the reader.
So for the paragraph above, if you wanted to describe how the writer creates a sense of fear, you might grab:
- The image: zooming in on the blade (so literally, the "pointy end of the current problem"
- Any ways he emphasies the urgency: "a crossroads", "a rapid escalation", "the highest risk"", "so they don't end up dead"
With a few examples, you can pull them together and then ask yourself the question: why is the writer trying to portray the ice problem as so serious and so urgent? Why is he asking the reader to be alarmed and act immediately?
Next, you can start putting it together, reworking the focus of your paragraph a little:
Noffs authoritatively focuses the reader's attention on the emerging dangers of the ice epidemic, describing the situation as being at "a crossroads", posing "the highest risk" and representing "a rapid escalation". Coupled with the image of a razor blade on which rest fragments of ice, Noffs evokes a sense of fear and immediate danger. Level-headed and presumably reasonable, Noffs relies on his authority as someone who works in the field to bolster his concerns and present them as legitimate, rather than a passionate overreaction: if even he is alarmed, so too should the reader be shaken into action lest "young people... end up dead or in jail."
Eh, it's late, that's rough and I'm leaving stuff out, but I'm hoping you get a sense of how I'm trying to reorganise it? Possibly you might want to plan a little bit more before you write (so that everything "fits" together), if you're not doing that much planning already.
Keep working on it and you'll only keep improving!
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