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I will talk about the rhetorical patterns of the essay. As is known to all, rhetorical patterns are very important. It can help to beautify the essay, color the characters, and stand out the key points. Though it is an argument, it is still very vital to use a variety of rhetorical patterns to express the main ideas. The author used contrast, exaggeration, analogy and so on. I will not list all here but some important and common ones. First, also the most important, is the contrast. The author used different contrasting patterns to stand out his opinion. Just like the phrase “not yet” appeared in several sentences in paragraph 2 and 4. For example, in paragraph 2, “Life has a way of being obvious, and yet it’s notoriously difficult to define in absolute terms.” The phrase really help to stand out the author’s idea—— we can not easily define life clearly. Also there is another important contrasting pattern in paragraph 21 “Many scientists don’t wonder why aliens are buzzing and the Earth in flying saucers—— they wonder why they aren’t”. The author use negative and positive element in a reversed way in the two parts of the statement, which makes the ideas stand out and sentences more humorous. Then, I will talk about a very vital sentence in paragraph 10, “Mars is in the midst of a full-scale invasion from earth”. In this sentence we can find two different rhetorical patterns. One is exaggeration, and another is analogy. I believe it is easy to define analogy in this sentence. The author described human’s exploration to the Mars as an invasion. As to exaggeration, the word “full-scale” can reflect. Limited by the science and technology, it is easy to think that human didn’t have enough ability to invade the Mars. They just tried the best to explore. So the author, here, used exaggeration to express his opposing idea to the exhausting plan. In a word, though it is a critical essay, rhetorical patterns still plays a very important role. They made the essay more...