A Pakistani-American visual artist, graphic designer and filmmaker, Safwat Saleem in his speech, “Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent” published in 2016, addresses the topic of normality, and argues the perspective of “what is normal?” is not true. He argues that nothing is considered normal, because something we see as not normal now can be altered to being normal. Saleem supports his claim by the use of ethos, pathos, and his use of amplification. Saleem’s purpose is to inform his audience that there is a deeper meaning of normality, by claiming that the idea of what is supposed to be normal is not true in order to alter the perspectives of what the audience and even society claim as being normal. Saleem adopts an humorous/connective tone but also a sense of informative tone for his audience, the audience of the TED TALK speech was more of a wide public but also to the public speakers, or students, more so others that are also interested in the idea of that there is not actually set standards to what “being normal” exactly is? Saleem starts his speech by talking about a dream he repeatedly had of a room full of people talking to him but he simply could not reply. Salim connects with his audience with a sense of humor. He uses humor to present his personal stories to his audience. He talks about his childhood where he had a problem with stuttering so he faced public anxiety. He mentions how he never raised his hand in class, he also mentions a time where he posted a youtube video of him doing voice overs but then gets a lot of hate comments about his pakistani accent. With the problem Saleem faces of having speaking anxiety, he then goes into his speech questioning what normality is? That people should not judge people based on what their idea of normal is. He then realizes that he has his own standards to what he believes is normal, so he starts to do the voiceover videos again. Safwat Saleem highlights the importance of how his background shaped his identity. The author has a sense of informative but also persuasive theme throughout his speech.What the author is trying to convey within his speech is basically the idea that there is no exact meaning to what “normal” is, and he conveys his message within his speech with the help of personal experiences and his identity, but also rhetorical strategies such as ethos, pathos, and Saleem’s use of amplification. Safwat Saleem has used ethos quite a lot throughout his speech to help his argument but also to connect with his audience. Saleem’s use of ethos helps seek that deeper message he is trying to argue, which is that there is no exact meaning for “normal”. Within his initial start to his speech Saleem mentions “I used to have this recurring dream where I’d walk into a room full of people and someone would say to me hi my name is so and so what is your name…I just panic…I’m just quiet… have you forgotten your name” (0:20). This experience that Saleem mentions helps develop the audience’s perception of what Saleem’s identity is. Basically in other words who is Saleem and how credible is Saleem. He raises interests on how growing up he struggled with speaking anxiety. Saleem uses his personal stories to connect with his audience and he does that throughout his speech. Saleem’s speech is in an informative tone so he starts off with this experience so the audience can relate to it and also a sense of why as the audience we should listen to him. He then goes on to build his credibility by showing how that struggle impacted him throughout his childhood and other parts in his life. This experience can also be seen as use of pathos where he is showing his emotions to his audience and hopefully the audience being able to relate to the fact that that happened to them as well. Also this experience that Saleem is mentioning helps strengthen his argument about the fact that there is no exact meaning of normal and there is a different meaning of normal to everyone. Safwat Saleem has many rhetorical devices to deliver a strong speech. Saleem uses pathos often throughout his entirety of the speech. Saleem mentions an experience within his life when he used to make YouTube videos of him doing voice overs and he would receive lots of hate. Saleem says “I got to do the voice of space invaders… when the video was posted online I was so excited to see what the responses would be… so the first comment comes in great job… people other than my mom are saying nice things about me… I hit refresh, his voice is annoying refresh…couldn’t follow cuz of the Indian accent…”(3:00). Saleem addresses this experience so the audience can show a sense of sympathy for Saleem. This experience that happened to Saleem helps relate to his idea of the fact that there is no exact definition of normal. Saleem uses vivid language, he says “refresh” a few times within that story to actually get the audience’s attention, and show how he actually felt during the situation. The use of his personal experiences helps with the purpose of pathos. Salim’s use of this personal experience kind of helps connect to his audience because the audience would kind of feel bad for him or the fact that maybe they can relate to Saleem’s experience. He also uses a humorous tone to engage with the audience. He says “Indian accent!… I have a Pakistani accent”. He sort of jokes about his accent so the audience tends to be engaged. He has the use of pathos to also establish a sense of credibility as a speaker. He is showing a sense of credibility because as the audience you can see the hardships Saleem faced due to his fear of speaking. This experience Saleem mentions also helps give an understanding to his central idea throughout his speech about everyone having a different idea of what normal is. To Saleem “normal” was basically everything that he thinks is ethically alright, the hate comments were about his accent but Saleem later comes to find out that those hate comments were only because of what those people’s perception of normal was which was different from Saleem’s perception of normal. As the audience this experience helped give a better meaning to what Saleem’s main message was throughout his speech. Safwat Saleem delivers a strong, well organized, and relatable speech. He delivers this speech strong and clearly because he is sort of credible to deliver the speech. Saleem goes on to build his argument/main message that there is no exact definition of normal. He does that with the use of rhetorical strategy amplification. Saleem mentions a part within his speech where he was giving a reference of white vs black names on resumes, the professor not helping female or minority students. Saleem says, “what is normal anyway? We know that reviewers will find more spelling errors in your writing if you’re black. We know that professors are less likely to help female or minority students. And we know that resumes with white-sounding names get more callbacks than resumes with black-sounding names. Why is that? Because of our expectations of what normal is”(7:17). This part of the speech Saleem mentions highlights the importance of the central message that Saleem wants the audience to urgently pay attention to and intensely think about which is what “normal” is. His use of amplification within the speech helps give understanding to what normal is. Saleem believes that everyone has a different meaning of normal, that normal is all based on someone’s expectations. He mentions different examples of what expectations of normal is such as white sounding names on resumes getting more callbacks than black sounding names, he also mentions female or minority students not succeeding. This helps the audience to argue the meaning of normal, that normal can mean different things based on people’s expectations or perceptions. Salim wants everyone to think of a deeper meaning of normal, and that there should not be any set standards to normality. All in all Safwat Saleem delivers a very clear and strong speech. Throughout Saleem’s speech he creates an overall argument about normality, and the idea that there is a deeper meaning and understanding to what “normal” is. Saleem’s informative and persuasive tone/theme helps support his claim that normality is based on expectations and perceptions of one’s view. Saleem supports his argument throughout his speech by connecting with the audience and his use of rhetorical strategies such as ethos, pathos, and amplification. He uses ethos to show his credibility as a speaker, and his arguments on normality. He uses pathos to connect with his audience. Lastly he uses amplification, the majority of his speech he uses amplification to explore a deeper meaning of “normal”, and we saw that the idea of normal is all based on perceptions and expectations. Salims conveys his message/argument clearly and backs up his claim with effective speaking skills, which shows how credible he is as a speaker