Writing About Health Risks Associated with Drug Abuse

Please Read topic: If you were to write about science, what you write about? How would you approach it from a rhetorical perspective? What resources would you make use of?
Then my response to topic:
If I were to write about science, I would write about drug abuse and health risks associated with drug abuse. I would discuss excessive drinking of alcohol and smoking of cigarettes. I would choose this topic because the effects of cigarettes, for example, are felt by the society as a whole. Effects of smoking affect the smokers and non-smokers. For instance, it has been shown by research that cigarettes amplify the effects of cancer among the patients when they smoke the first or second-hand tobacco. Also, cigarettes smoking and alcohol causes so many diseases that affect the society health and well-being, and I would make an impact by adding to the awareness of dangers of drug abuse so as to urge the people to avoid drug abuse.
The rhetorical approach would help me to focus my writing on identifying the needs of the consumers of my work. For example, employing rhetorical perspective will help me ask myself why am writing the report so that I can be able to deliberate on the content that uses full to the audience. Rhetorical perspective would put me in the shoes of the members of the society who are anticipating or abusing drugs and help in engaging them, through writing, in a very convincing manner as to why they should abandon drugs such as alcohol and cigarettes.
To make my content convincing and appealing to the readers, I would use reliable sources of information such as the peer-reviewed journals, books, and first-hand data from specialists in the area of my writing. I would also use statistics from reliable sources such as the United States Bureau of Statistics when showing the significance of the effects of drug abuse among the populations, for instance.
Then 2 peer responses to topic:
Peer 1:
I would write about computing and the various technologies associated with it. My initial response is that I would like to be a tech journalist writing and reviewing consumer technologies like computers, phones and tablets but would probably go to a more academic areas. I have recently become more interested in Artificial Intelligence and believe that we will see great advancements made the AI field. We currently use AI in some technologies like IBM's Watson that is sold to enterprise. Amazon Alexa is another AI technology that many use in their home or office today. Microsoft Cortana and Apple Siri are two more. They all have their quirks and don't always work as well as we think they should but I do believe that these technologies will really grow and develop in to great tools for problem solving and learning.
I am sure there are classic papers written about AI, Machine Learning, and a more current term, Deep Learning. Much of the writing about this technology is yet to come so most resources will be current sources. Current breakthroughs and advances in AI would be worth writing about and there are numerous metaphors to be used. Reading one picture book gives one the tools to read another picture book on another topic equates to a computer "reading" images and being able to identify new images based on the initial images. Equating machine learning and AI to human learning.
The rhetorical approach I would take would probably be in a way that promotes the use of AI but also critical in way that improves the technology. If features of AI don't work correctly or are inaccurate a critical viewpoint must be expressed in hopes of improving the quality of the service. As we depend on AI for many of our needs in the next 20 years we will want a service that is accurate and dependable.
Peer 2:
If I were to venture into the world of science and authoring, my branch would likely migrate towards the brain and how the mind works, specifically the functions of memory. I have since a child had fascination with our very little understanding of how the mind works and its capabilities. I have always found it very interesting how some are able to be so much more higher performing when it comes to things such as memory and information recall.
From a rhetorical perspective I would engage readers with the use of metaphor. Likening the mind to a sophisticated machine that is capable of gathering and storing mass amounts of data would be a likely avenue for me. I would ask the audience to imagine a machine, much like the brain, with hundreds of times the ability as a human, only to remind them that the brain could have as much as 90% more capability! What could we be possible of if only able to discover ways to access those parts?
As far as resources, I would start with medicine and science journals. I could see tons of valuable information from neurology hospitals such as Mayo and Johns Hopkins. Many established neurosurgeons have written articles and thesis on mind capability and function. I would put those to use in my writings.