A Quick Fix for Strokes

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The text A Quick Fix for Strokes belongs to popular scientific writing as its main aim is to inform the reader about a recent discovery in the field of medicine which can help patients to recover from a stroke and convince of its effectiveness. In the introduction, which is the first paragraph, the author states the topic of the text. The use of words belonging to one semantic field such as a stroke, stroke patients, paralysed, heart attacks outlines the theme of the text. To stress the significance of the subject the author resorts to imagery: the words catastrophe, terrifying due to their negative meaning create an image of a disaster. At the same time the author tries to attract the reader’s attention by showing that this situation can happen to him or her which is explicitly expressed through the use of the personal pronoun you and the possessive pronoun your: your arm goes numb; you can’t speak; half your body becomes useless. Apart from imagery and reference to the reader background knowledge the author resorts to other means of argumentation. To make the process of stroke clear to a common reader the author uses informational kind of process analysis: a wayward clot blocks an artery and robs the brain of oxygen-rich blood; nerve cells start to die, depriving key parts of the body of cerebral instructions they need to function. Such presentation of facts helps to explain the mechanism of a stroke and show what the function of the medicine is: TPA can change all that by dissolving the clot and restoring blood flow. This explanation is supported by a chart which serves as an illustration and, on the other hand, gives additional weigh of objectivity and thus can help to convince the reader of the usefulness of the medication. To the same end the author resorts to an example: four weeks ago, Dr.Virendra Bisla, 49, was in a hospital outside

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