Analyzing Rhetorical Strategies in "Stem Cell Controversy"

Steigman, S.A. "Diagramatic representation of the concept of autologous amniotic mesenchymal stem cell-based fetal tissue engineering for the treatment of congenital anomalies." 31/8/2008 via wikimedia. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

In this blog post I will be reviewing the rhetorical strategies of the Stem Cell Controversy. These rhetorical strategies include the appeals to credibility and character, appeals to emotion, and finally the appeals to logic.

Credibility and Character:

After comparing the article to the reading in the Student's Guide, it seems that the author is using points mentioned in the book to establish her credibility. These points include:

• references to credible sources.
• word choice.
• tone.
• information about the author's experience (you can find this information on website).
• Acknowledgment of counterarguments and refutations to those arguments.

The author starts off the article by introducing an outside source. In this case, she is referring to the "2005 guidelines for research" as the catalyst for the argument. But then she also provides a hyperlink to a page on that same website with more information as to what stem cells really are. 

With a site like News Medical, they have doctors and medical experts writing these articles. They even mention at the bottom of the article the editor. There is a hyperlink to the editor's Google page that tells the reader more about her as well and her qualifications for editing a science related article. But when the reader learns more about the stem cells and how they are procured, you have a better understanding of where both issues are coming from in their arguments. 

The word choice also helps verify the author's credibility. She uses correct scientific terminology to describe what is going on with the stem cells and to describe which part of the process people are most against. "To obtain embryonic stem cells, researches use the inner cell mass from the blastocysts (fertilized eggs) from an in vitro fertilization facility. These blastocysts are the ones that are excess and donated voluntarily by couples who have been treated successfully for their infertility." 

With the research I have done into the topic, it seems she is using the terminology correctly. It is these kinds of statements that make me think you want to have a bit of scientific background knowledge to fully understand what the author is saying. 

The tone she takes gives the reader a clear idea that she is strictly intending to get the information stated in the introduction across to you. The article is laid out quite clearly and organized by subheadings as well. The tone is how the reader gets the facts across by using their own language. I not only look for word choice, but how the words are organized. You know that this author is getting down to business when there is no "fluffy" introduction, but a means to say what the article will be discussing. "There are several ethical issues that are raised while working with stem cells." 

Another example of her informative tone is the quote mentioned earlier when she went on to describe how the embryonic stem cells are acquired and voluntarily donated. Making sure to include that the stem cells are donated voluntarily does help show that she is making an effort to make the research look ethically "correct" to the public. 

The information on the author is not given directly on the article, but is given within the site. It tells you that she is a doctor and has been medically trained. But she also enjoys writing for the the point of being informative. She likes to make certain scientific issues known to the public and makes them understandable. 

"For her, health communication is not just writing complicated reviews for professionals but making medical knowledge understandable and available to the general public as well."

Finally, she goes a good job at pointing out both sides of the argument. This means that she is not really bias either way in that she makes sure to balance out the information in favor of and against stem cell research. The whole article is about the controversies on stem cell research. If she didn't mention and go over both sides of the argument, she would not have been accomplishing the goals put forward in her introduction. 

Emotion

The most emotion the author put into this work in continuing to point out the cultural and religious views of different individuals with the use of repetition. She discusses the right of a human to be born, but then talks about stem cell research as being "noble." Noble makes me think of knights in shining armor and how they save the damsel in distress. It is like by doing this stem cell research, you are helping all those in medical distress. 

"Some believe that life of a human being begins at the moment of conception and the embryos deserve protection. In addition, some cultures and religious traditions do not support the use of human life as a means to some other end despite the end being a noble one."

In a way it makes those with the culture or religion she is referring to seem heartless for going against such a noble cause. These little things being added in can make you change your view on an issue without really being aware that it is happening. She didn't directly correlate the stem cell research and the nobility that these cultures and religions are fighting against, but as the reader, that is what i implied from the text. 

This subtle hint could be taken up by the reader, or it may not be significant enough to be noticed by the reader who ends up skimming through the text rather than really soaking in all the knowledge. But it seems to make the cultures and religions going against this research seem like the villains that are holding back the knights in shining armor. 

With this being more of an informational article on a particularly specific topic, I would make the assumption that the targeted reader would be inclined to fully read the article. This level of dedication by the reader allows the writer to not be so flashy with their words and use a bit of subtly. This doesn't necessarily take away credibility from the author. We are all human and as a human, we all have our own opinions on things. A lot of our values and opinions are based upon events that have occurred in our life that have made us believe and think a certain way. Just because the author shows a little bit of her personal opinion, it does not mean that she has less qualification to write this article since it seems her medical knowledge is quite vast. 

Logic

There is a lot of logic in this article since it seems to me to be very much of an informative piece, even though it is talking about a controversy. It is informing the audience of the controversy and the players on either side of it. The logic appeals used within this article are:

• Effective use of sentences, paragraphs, ideas, images, etc. 
• clear transitions between sections of text
• and arrangement of images/text for emphasis/focus.

The author organizes the article in a quick reference guide format. A quick reference guide is a brief way to get information across in an easy to read manner. This use of formatting tells you that the author will be going through a series of points related to a topic that are clearly stated in the subheadings. Some of these subheadings are, "Controversy with embryo use," "Controversy with reproductive cloning," and "Controversy regarding Human-Animal Chimeras." These clearly state what will be explained in the following paragraphs. 

The author is trying to make it easier for the reader to find the information easier and to be able to better follow the sequence of events that are being laid out within the text. It helps the information transition from one idea to another in a more efficient manner. The short paragraphs used within the text makes it a bit friendlier on the eyes and makes the ideas more distinct and separate which, in turn, makes them more memorable rather than having really long paragraphs that ends up confusing the reader. 

As a reader, I felt that this was quite efficient and helped me to better read and understand the article. By using this very logical formatting, it makes the arguments she is presenting much more reliable and easier to comprehend. If you are able to understand it better, you have a higher likelihood of agreeing with what the reader is saying.

The clear transitions between sections of the text, like mentioned earlier with the subheadings, helps transition between ideas quickly in a very obvious manner. There is no mistaking when the author is moving on to a new idea related to the controversy.  

She wants the reader to better understand the concept of stem cell research and society's views on it. I think that this did help me better understand the text by knowing when the topic of discussion was changing. She also made a point in using these headings to introduce a potential use of stem cells: "Controversy regarding Human-Animal Chimeras." This was what she wants you to zoom in on when reading and what she wants you to understand more about when reading that particular section. 

This kind of transition does not leave that much room for creativity when it comes to writing style, but with this kind of topic, creativity is not really the main priority. 

The arrangement of the text is something she used to help get her point across.  By stating right away her introduction, the reader knows exactly what she wants to accomplish in her piece. She is not really trying to convince you of anything it seems. This article states both sides of the issue and is trying to make its audience aware of the disagreement at hand with stem cell research. 

Once again, the author is trying her best to make the reader understand the knowledge to the best of their ability. Her goal for these kinds of posts in to "medical knowledge understandable and available to the general public." She introduced the topic, talked about the background of stem cells briefly and attached a link for more information, she made her point about the controversies involved in the research and ended it by stating some facts. This neat organization does help the reader follow the information.

Reflection:

After reading through Laurence's blog post, I feel like I went through and analyzed my source efficiently. Obviously you will have more analysis on the rhetorical devices that your author used more of. The hard thing about analyzing my article was that the author was not really making an argument herself, but rather talking about the arguments made about the topic. I feel like I didn't go overboard with the quotes but I mentioned the main points the author made with each device.

Reading over Hallye's blog made my article seem not that argumentative. My topic is not quite as interesting and is dealing more out of a scientific basis with a science prone audience, so the author does not really assume that the audience needs an image to draw them in because they should have been interested enough in the topic to search for the article. I feel like I did quite a bit of analyzing but I felt at some points I was just repeating myself since some of the rhetorical devices started to overlap.