Our (Collin and Tory) Project is based around communications within the aquarist (professionals who care for aquatic life) discourse community, and communications from within this community to broad audiences. Our main line of investigation focuses on the rhetorical methods aquarists use in their writing to facilitate the transfer and delivery of their ideas in this scientific discourse. The main interest for this topic, stems from my (Collin) close relationship with the aquarium that has grown from a birthday party there when I was 8 all the way to two internships. We are both marine biology majors and have a deep and lifelong interest in this field of study. I (Tory) have a relatively less developed relationship to the aquarist community. I work in the wet lab here on campus, so my interaction with this discourse community is somewhat more isolated. We have thus far chosen three sources; a blog post written by an aquarist, a paper written by an aquarist, and an interview with an aquarist. The Member of our chosen discourse community that we are interviewing, is an aquarist at The New England Aquarium Quincy Quarantine Facility named Hannah Cutting. The questions that we have settled on are as follows:
What kinds of reading do you do in support of your work as an aquarist? What professional groups do you most often communicate with? What skills do you find to be most important in your day-to-day communications and work? What criteria do you use to determine what is relevant to read and what is not? What specific texts would be valuable for me to review and examine as part of my analysis? Are there analytical tools that you can recommend helping me better understand the variability and similarities of the genre style of scientific journals? Questions we have for you (Classmates) from your point of view: Are our questions clear and coherent? What other sources should we investigate/consider? Do you believe that there are any questions that we are missing that could be insightful?
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Minor Assignment 1 (repost): The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science by Scott L. Montgomery2/15/2018 According to the Oxford Dictionary, rhetoric is defined as “The art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques.” Similarly, in the Second Edition of “The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science,” Scott L. Montgomery uses the opening chapters to define scientific writing as “storytelling” that is “also engaged in rhetoric by aiming not just to tell but to persuade.” Montgomery goes on to make the important point that scientific writing “not only has meaning but is meaningful.”
To make this more concrete for his readers, the author shares and analyzes examples of scientific text over the course of history that evidence the importance of persuasiveness in effective scientific writing. It becomes clear right from the first chapter that considering science in the context of rhetoric can make it more enlightening for readers and writers alike. This is particularly true when the composition of the text has been written by a writer that considers not only the fact-based content that they are sharing but also the importance of the use of rhetorical techniques in sharing that information. As essential examples, Montgomery highlights the use of transitions and sentence rhythm and length to show how rhetorical methods can be used to add more meaning to scientific writing. I believe that one of the most important reasons for talking about rhetoric in a science writing course is to help us understand the critical need to leverage rhetorical techniques to strengthen our arguments, add clarity to our writing and to ultimately be more effective communicators. I think that in science especially, rhetoric is critical because it deals with things that readers may not understand. Because of the complexity of many scientific topics, and the heavy use of jargon and scientific terms, it becomes critically important for a scientific writer to leverage the devices necessary to make their point clearer. Doing so allows us, as writers, to convince our readers of the validity of our statements. It also prevents us from having to fully explain all principles involved to prove it to them. In Charles Bazerman's book The Languages of Edison's Light, he dedicates a chapter to “Patents as Speech Acts and Legal Objects.” He uses this part of his book to provide some historical context around the importance of protecting ideas and “transforming them into intellectual property.” To do this, Bazerman goes into great detail to explain patent genre, the history of how early patent law was developed and more specifically he uses the early patents of Thomas Edison as case studies in his analysis.
To more closely analyze the patent genre, Bazerman suggests that it is necessary to “understand in greater depth the relationship between the concrete description and the abstract claim” of a patent. He further emphasizes the importance of approaching this analysis from the perspective of the patent being considered a speech act. He then outlines some concerns about speech-act theory in the context of analyzing a patent application. He describes the first issue as being related to “the importance of local circumstances in the identification, interpretation and realization of speech acts” and gives examples of how language can mean different things to different people, depending on their perspective, background and personal experience. Another issue Bazerman raises is the difficulty is impact of the multiplicity of meaning behind a word. He explains that depending on intention and intonation words can have a different interpretation. The final point that I found to be relevant from this chapter was Bazerman’s idea that it can be very difficult to apply speech-act theory “to long, complex written documents.” In considering Bazerman’s work and its applicability to my Preliminary Analysis, I do think that there are elements that can be applied. In particular, I believe it could be very valuable for me to “look to behaviors in highly regularized or institutional settings that help enforce recognizable and socially agreed upon characters to particular moments.” Just as “the patent process consists of a highly developed set of typified practices”, I know that the same is true among the marine scientists. I know from working alongside the aquarists that I intend to interview that there is a language and unique form of communication that they use among them. Conducting my analysis from this perspective will help me to more accurately interpret word meaning and context in their responses. I think that as I conduct my analysis I will need to think about the challenges that Bazerman raised about applying such an analysis to complex written language. This will be especially important as I refine my references and consider scientific journals as a means of input. In my last post, I included a number of questions that I intended to ask in my interviews that I believe are still relevant. I have included again here for easy reference:
I found many new concepts presented when reading Charles Bazerman's "Speech Acts, Genres, and Activity Systems: How Texts Organize Activity and People." The first of these new ideas was “speech acts” which he defined as “social acts accomplished through language.” In considering this concept, I realized I had certainly experienced and even used these in my own use of language but had never heard them described this way before. Another new idea was Bazerman’s use and definition of the term genre, which he describes as “patterned, typical, and therefore intelligible textual forms.” This definition was very different from how I have been taught to think about “genres” which is more as artistic or literary styles. I could see value in Bazerman’s perspective that “understanding genres and how they work…can help you as a writer fulfill the needs of the situation.” I believe that this will be particularly important to remember as I approach the Preliminary Analysis assignment and focus on the genre system of scientific journals.
Based on my interest in marine science and my direct experience working as an intern at the New England Aquarium during the last 18 months, I am interested in investigating the activity system of the aquarist community. I see an opportunity to use this assignment to better understand how the activity system works among aquarist peers focused on accomplishing a common goal through the exchange of knowledge and information in their writing. I intend to leverage the relationships I have built there to include 1-on-1 interviews with the aquarists as well as to read journal articles or scientific papers that they have collaborated on to better understand their discourse communities, the language they use and any challenges they may have faced in communicating their work. Specifically, I will be interested in learning more about how particular genres have helped form the ideas within their discourse community. Some of the specific questions that I will plan to consider in my analysis and interviews that were referenced in Bazerman’s article include the following:
Author Alan Gross uses Chapter One of his article “The Limits of the Rhetorical Analysis of Science” to explore the use of rhetorical canons, stases and appeals in scientific writing. The author uses case studies to explore the limitations of rhetorical analysis when writing for science and shares his perspective that the facts and theories of science reach beyond the ability to be argued, and as a result can go beyond rhetorical analysis as well. He also describes how scientific writing can be an example of deliberative rhetoric and how while the science can go beyond argument it may still have implications to policy.
As a way to better understand "the ways in which rhetorical processes constitute science", I chose to review a journal article focused on ocean acidification, an important topic that is part of my major in Marine Biology. The article “Impacts of ocean acidification on marine organisms: quantifying sensitivities and interaction with warming” was published in Global Change Biology in June 2013. In the article, the authors rely heavily on the use of the rhetorical appeal of logos by appealing to the logic of the reader and seeking to persuade through reason. They do this by providing evidence of many previous studies that have proven the same theory that they are writing about. An example of this can be found in the following quote: “Here, we test the robustness of previous conclusions regarding the sensitivity of various taxonomic groups to ocean acidification to an additional 155 studies (representing approximately 100 new species that were not included in the previous meta-analysis (Kroeker et al., 2010), which had 79 species).” My analysis of this article showed that in addition to using logos appeal, the authors also employ three of the four rhetorical stases including 1) the facts as evidenced by this and previous studies, 2) defining the issue by describing the nature of the impact of ocean acidification, and 3) the seriousness of the issue. An example of this can be seen in the following quote: “Ocean acidification is projected to impact all areas of the ocean, from the deep sea to coastal estuaries (Orr et al., 2005; Feely et al., 2009, 2010), with potentially wide-ranging impacts on marine life (Doney et al., 2009). There is an intense interest in understanding how the projected changes in carbonate chemistry will affect marine species, communities, and ecosystems (Logan, 2010; Gattuso & Hansson, 2011a).” The one stases that the writers do not address is related to policy as they are mostly silent on this issue and do not use the journal article to define a clear plan of action. In doing this assignment, I thought about what role context would play in shaping the rhetorical act of the journal article. I believe that given the nature of the topic and the level of detail provided, it may be difficult for a lay person to truly understand the impact of the findings and it would be especially difficult for them to translate the findings into action without the context of a scientific background or making a lot of assumptions. |
AuthorHi! I am Collin Barker and I am a Marine Biology Major at Roger Williams University, an avid reader and fish keeper. To learn more about me check out my About page. Archives
May 2018
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