TOW #13 - The Case of the Vanishing Blonde

"From the start, it was a bad case."  These are the words Mark Bowden uses to begin his chilling tale of a Florida crime case cracked open.  While the first sentence may seem dramatic, much of Bowden's essay is written in this way.  Through short statements and surprising truths, Bowden tells the story of a woman found raped and beaten on the edge of the Everglades, and how two men turned the case from a dead end, into the surprisingly complex outcome it became. Bowden begins with a general telling of what happened.  The woman only remembered pieces from that night, but immediately hired a lawyer and sued the hotel she had been staying at for negligence.  Upon hitting this point in his telling, Bowden switches to giving background information about the private investigator that was hired to find the facts of the case.  Through quotes such as "I'll find out what happened.  I'm not going to shade things to assist your client, but I will find out what the truth is", Bowden reveals the contrasting agendas that each person involved in the case had.  In addition, by switching from telling the story, to giving background about the main players, to quoting these players, Bowden is able to build tension to the eventual climax of his story, and allow the reader to form opinions and inferences about his topic.  Another effective tool Bowden uses is to lay out the evidence in the same order that the detectives in the case found it.  He doesn't give all the answers first, and then explain how they realistically arrived at those answers, and instead leaves the reader guessing and wondering.  In this way, Bowden is able to bring his audience in as a part of the case, and by the end, the readers feels as if they have solved it themselves.  Not only is the case Bowden describes an interesting one, but he intricately weaves the tale in a way that forces the reader to want to keep reading.  He also subtly includes the doubts he has about the victim's tale, an idea that becomes increasingly important.  By only subtly including his biases, the reader almost believes they came to these conclusions alone, and that they have been a small factor in solving the case.  Bowden plays to his audience's emotions and assumptions, and is very effective in making this real life crime feel almost as though it could have been created for the big screen.

TOW #12 - Can light therapy treat non-seasonal depression too?

In places all over the world, the winter months are cold, dark, and pretty darn depressing.  For a select few, these months are more than just a nuisance.  They are a trigger for seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a type of depression that is related to changes in the seasons.  A typical way of treating SAD is with light therapy, in order to simulate some of the same conditions of the lighter months.  A recent study has found that light therapy can be useful in treating all kinds of depression, no longer just SAD.  In the essay, Can Light Therapy Treat Non-Seasonal Depression too?, the author works to enlighten her audience about a recent advancement that has been made using a familiar treatment tool.  As would probably be obvious from a more scientific article, the author, Carina Storrs, relies mainly on her use of statistics and quotes to back up the points she makes.  In a study done to test the effects of a light box, it was found that "among the 32 patients who did light therapy alone and the 29 who had a combination of light therapy and Prozac, 44% and 59% experienced remission after eight weeks, meaning that their depression symptoms all but went away."  By supporting her idea with facts straight from a study, Storrs is able to cement her point for the audience.  Many times throughout the article, Storrs uses quotes from professors who study all types of depression, as well as the leaders of the study she sites.  In doing this, Storrs becomes more trustworthy, and her information is backed up with fact.  Another interesting strategy Storr uses is having a short compilation of photos from all over the world.  The photos show all of the various ways that people have been utilizing light therapy, aside from treating SAD.  Therefore, the idea that light therapy can be a useful tool for a variety of reasons is implanted in the reader's head from the minute they begin to read the article.  Overall, Storrs was very effective in relating her information concerning the treatment of depression, not just SAD, using light therapy.  Her article had a highly positive tone and forced the reader to become optimistic about the advancements being made in the treatment of depression.

TOW #11 - Eat, Pray, Love (First Half)

The Italian have a saying that goes: l'arte d'arrangiarsi - the art of making something out of nothing. In her story, Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert was able to discover this art for herself.  After a horrible divorce and several bouts of severe depression and heartbreak, Gilbert set out for a trip to Italy, India, and Indonesia.  In Italy she hoped to rediscover passion and pleasure, in India, devotion and prayer, and finally in Indonesia, the happy medium between the two.  The story follows Gilbert's own journey of healing, and the pilgrimage she took to rediscover herself.  Through her use of fitting dialect and juxtaposition between the two sides of herself, Gilbert reveals the hardships, as well as triumphs, that she experienced during her year of rediscovery.  The first half of the book follows Gilbert through her journey in Italy.  Here, she sets out to learn the beautiful language of Italian as well as eat the most luxurious and delicious food she can imagine.  Throughout her telling of this little part of her travels, Gilbert uses much Italian to convey the emotions she feels.  Many of her anecdotes begin with an Italian word she learned that day, and many of the revelations she makes about herself and her life come from Italian words and phrases.  In her beginning days in Italy, Gilbert starts to discover little gardens and hidden places all over the city of Rome.  One day, she buys a poetry book with English on one side and Italian on the other.  After discovering a wonderfully hidden garden with a small fountain in the middle, Gilbert opens the book she bought and reads a line. "Dal centro della mia vita venne una grande fontana...From the center of my life, there came a great fountain" (39). Not only is this moment chill inducing, it includes the actual language that Gilbert fell in love with during her journey, and brings the reader even closer to the experiences she had.  Gilbert also is able to juxtapose the two sides of herself that are shown throughout the story.  On the one hand, she is a confident, smart, loving, funny 30-something with a great life.  On the other hand though, Gilbert is depressed, clingy, stubborn, insecure and lonely.  Throughout her anecdotes, the author is also able to weave the opposing tales of her two sides into everything she does.  When her depression makes an appearance, she doesn't shy away from it and instead addresses the issue with her audience.  In this way, Gilbert is a very open and relatable author, and the triumphs and revelations she makes throughout the story become all the more important to her readers.