In the vast world of literature, there are many different categories that fill various interests. One of the more fascinating categories is STEM writing. The wonderful thing about this kind of writing is that anyone from a world renowned researcher to a highschool student can contribute in many different forms. In the professional world, the most common method of sharing ideas and knowledge is publishing a professionally revised paper with new and relevant research. The problem with this method is that not everyone is doing groundbreaking professional research. For the people who do not necessarily have the resources a fully funded researcher would have, but still want to contribute to the world of science, STEM blogs seem to be the best option. In this first blog post I am going to analyze two different STEM blogs that are actually relatively unique from each other, and look specifically at the types of rhetorical devices, the intended audience, and each blog’s use of graphics.
Ocean Bites : An Ocean on Fire
Intended Audience
In Writing Science in the Twenty-First Century by Christopher Thaiss, he explains that being aware of the many different types of potential readers can make a piece of literature more applicable to more people. When it comes to actually analyzing these types of blogs, one of the most important aspects is what type of audience the writer is trying to communicate with. Does the blog have more of a casual tone with informal vocabulary, or is it extremely formal and quite frankly, hard to understand fully due to the complex terms used? Asking oneself this question while reading scientific literature is imperative, due to the fact that knowing an author’s intended audience can reveal more about the author’s agenda behind even writing the post in the first place. In this particular blog post the author, a Ph.D. candidate named Emily Chua from Boston University, does a great job of blending some personal anecdotes, with actual evidence and statistics supporting her findings. Chua begins the post by describing the alarming situation occurring in the oceans off Australia in a relatively casual, yet effective manner that any type of audience should be able to comprehend. What truly proves to be an eye catcher is Chua’s clever manipulation of headings, crossing out a word and replacing it with another to alter the direction of the statement. I believe this is an example of trying to seem personable to the average reader and form some sort of connection. All in all, it seems as if Chua’s intended audience encompasses a wide range of potential readers.
Rhetorical Devices
The three main rhetorical devices that must be considered when analyzing a piece of literature are ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos has to do with establishing credibility, pathos deals with emotional appeal, and logos is the logical facts and figures that should be present in something like a scientific paper. Chua does a good job of establishing her credibility as a Ph.D. student at a university at the bottom of the blog post, therefore creating a level of confidence in what is being talked about in the post. There is actually very little pathos throughout the post, while logos can be seen in almost every paragraph. The blog post is littered with statistics and graphics that support Chua’s claim.
Use of Graphics
Visual aids such as pictures, graphs, and videos can drastically elevate the impact a piece of writing has. In this blog post about the devastating ocean heatwaves, Chua includes images of dead coral and fish, a graph detailing the number of heatwave days over the last hundred years, and a heat map on the globe pinpointing the affected areas. Overall, Chua uses an appropriate amount of graphs and visual aids to elevate the post even further.
Southern Fried Science: Probing the Submerged Caves of Bermuda with Trident
Intended Audience
Compared to the previous blog post that was analysed, this blog’s intended audience is much more clear cut. The title of the post is very eye catching and can be understood by the average person. The language that is used throughout the post also points towards the fact that the author’s goal was to target a much larger audience. The intended audience of this blog post is very obviously not scientific researchers, but the average internet goer that might happen to come across the post. One of the major tell tale signs that points me to this conclusion is that the author rarely mentions any significant statistics or scientific facts regarding the project or the potential effects. The reason behind using the Trident ROV, the device being put into the Bahamian caves, is slightly glossed over and is not delved into very deeply. It is quite clear that this blog seems to be catered towards readers on the more casual end of the spectrum.
Rhetorical Devices
This blog post by Andrew David Thaler is quite interesting with its rhetorical devices due to the fact that some types of rhetorical devices are not used as much as would be expected from such an informal post. The rhetorical device I am talking about is pathos. I would have expected Thaler to try to include many examples of pathos so that the information from the post would resonate more with the readers. For a relatively relaxed and run of the mill style of writing, having elements of pathos littered throughout would allow for a connection to be made between the reader and what he or she is reading. When it comes to the ethos of the post, it is almost nonexistent. Unlike the oceanbites blog post, this author includes no brief description of their academic background to create a sense of trust between the reader and the information being given. There is no way to tell if Thaler is a renowned scientist, or if he is an accountant who likes to write blog posts about interesting information in the scientific community. Shifting over to logos, there are trace examples of it that can be found through relatively surface level statistics. There is nowhere near the level of figures and numbers in this post compared to Chua’s post on the marine heatwaves.
Use of Graphics
When it comes to graphics and visual aids in this post, there are only two examples. The only two pictures are of the same thing, the Trident ROV submerged in the water. There are no images mapping out areas of the cave systems that have or have not been explored, for example. The lack of actual tables and figures might have actually been better for this type of a post because the average person does not need to know every kind of statistic possible, they only need the basic surface level information to get the point of what is being told.
My STEM Blog
When writing future blog posts I plan on only using established and credible sources. Examples of sites that could be of great use would be NOAA or a website that I used in this post, Oceanbites. Similar to Chua’s style of writing, I would like to be able to appeal to as wide of a range of readers as possible. This would allow increased traffic to the site. The manner in which I plan doing this is by using familiar language, including statistics, and being factually correct.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the analysis that was done allowed us to delve into the author’s head and understand why and how they wanted to accomplish certain tasks with their writing. Instead of only focusing on the subject matter, analysing a piece of writing rhetorically is extremely important for understand not only the actual content. Both blogs communicated their ideas very differently, but effectively, due to the different purposes and intended audiences.
Martin's Blog 