Rhetorical Features in “Writing about Biology”
Writers throughout the entire world have their own meaning in each book that they write. They include different types of rhetorical features to try to make a point in their story and for readers to enjoy their time while reading. They would have their own purpose in writing the story. Some might be to educate and to persuade readers, and others might just want to read to get their minds off reality and take a break. “Writing about Biology” written by Randy Moore. Moore uses multiple rhetorical features in his writing such as Logos and Pathos.
Moore’s article mostly points out Logos, talking about basic scientific knowledge to people. He writes about two scientists, Wattson and Crick, and how they were experimenting on genetics and what will happen when they try to combine them and have them mutated. They explain the steps on writing their very important report and what should be included while writing it. Moore elaborates on that by explaining how the scientists had to really focus on their writing, “Watson and Crick were extremely concise; their paper is only about 900 words long. Avery et al. were verbose; their paper is about 7,500 words long. Many great scientists have used concise writing to increase the impact of their work.” (pg 2). They need to be conscious of what they are writing because if they mess up they wouldn’t be able to get a proper report and people would not truly understand the meaning of the report. When making their experiments on genetic mutations, they needed to be certain that they were doing everything correctly and to prove that their hypothesis will stand with them and have supporting details why they are correct. “Watson and Crick were glibly confident of their conclusions; according to Crick (Crick 1974), their presentation “leaves little doubt” that Watson and Crick “thought they had a good idea.” Avery et al. seemed hesitant to make conclusions, and Avery himself had “nagging doubts” about whether they were right (McCarty 1985).” (pg 2). They were not fully sure what to have as their conclusion or if their experiment would be successful but at the end they were able to finish it the way they were supposed to.
The main purpose for writing this article was for scientists to know how to write their articles properly since Watsons and Cricks won a Nobel Award. Moore writes the steps so they would not make a mistake and have written a proper report on some big experiment that they might conduct. The article also appeals to future scientific students who might be into DNA and genetics mutation and would also be showing what should be included in reports as a future reference. “Watson and Crick proclaimed their work as important in their paper’s second sentence (“This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest.”). Conversely, Avery et al. made no claims about the
importance of their work; instead, they described their work as being merely a “more detailed analysis” of an already well-known process.” (pg 3) You need to put a lot of effort for you to succeed and with effort, you must put in a lot of time into your work.
The article has also included Pathos, the author explains to us readers how when writing a report or any summary, you must put in emotion into it for people to get hooked onto the reading and actually be interested in it, and read more. Moore explains how you must persuade readers from the beginning to have them catch their ears with a certain sentence that might interest them or to include something that might be a mystery to others. “Watson and Crick lured their readers with first-person statements that emphasized their activities (e.g., “We wish to put forward…” “We wish to suggest…”) and, by implication, their rejection of the supposition that data can speak for themselves.” (pg 3) The Nobel winning scientists include sentences that assert their knowledge and that they are truly confident in their experiments and that they are successful. Moore has also explained how with different types of rhetorical features, it will truly change the impact of your writing and will have people interested and try to follow in your steps.
Many times, researchers will mess up their report and from that people might stop reading or just keep going and not be interested. It is crucial to have certain parts in your text that will hook readers on. “ “a very fair hearing,” while that of Watson and Crick had a revolutionizing impact on science?” (pg 2) You need to choose the correct type of rhetorical feature because if you might be writing about about helping people and then write nothing about actually helping people, people might get annoyed and thing that they might have just wasted their time reading an article that was supposed to tell you about how to help people, but not mentioning it once in it.
When writing a report and including rhetorical analysis about your topic you must always include a certain level of description because you, as the writer might know exactly what you are writing about but then for the people who you are writing to or just reading might have zero clue what you are writing about and not understand the topic whatsoever. “Watson and Crick presented only a sketch of their model, with a “minimum of hedging” and “in simple terms, unmarred by any trace of algebra” (Crick 1974). Avery et al. described in painstaking detail how they arrived at their conclusions.” (pg 2) It is best to always write with simple wording for everyone to be able to understand what you are trying to explain in your writing.
With different types of rhetorical writings, such as a proper purpose, Logos, Pathos and Ethos, you will be able to have many people pulled into your reading. For example, in “Writing About Biology”, Randy Moore was able to have many scientists and future students get hooked onto the reading and to learn new things for the future. It has people learn about new genetic mutations by being able to connect two RNA’s together. For me, that fascinates me and with this new knowledge, scientists will be able to create new breeds or new plants. This is what got me into science and I am wanting to become a doctor because I read one single article and it pulled me in and interested me to try that myself.
