Help Received: Spell and Grammar checker, writing about writing book, easy bib, The every day writer.
“Melting” Down the Writers
Which is more dangerous the avalanches caused by melting glaciers or the fear caused by the tongue of a news reporter? News articles are often twisted and reworded to have the greatest effect on the reader or audience. I gathered a news article on the effects of glaciers on avalanches, and also a research article on Glaciers in the Chinghai- Tibet plateau. Then analyzed the differences in writing based on their perspective audiences. Media has a way of shifting the information to being very entertaining the reader where, researchers are very straight to the point, and informative on avalanches. Although media may be easier to understand it may not always have the most reliable information. Researchers use hard data, where the media may add numbers to appeal more to the reader’s emotion. Both methods are strong, but all depend on the audience and purpose for the writing. The effect of writing a piece to appeal to a certain audience is necessary to draw their attention in and relay information, but may not always be the most factual information.
The first piece that I looked at was a newspaper article titled “When Glaciers Transform into Deadly 150-mph Avalanches” written by Robinson Meyer in the News Bank. This article gives us several examples of when Glaciers have cracked when melting and slid down the mountain face and caused many deaths. It was written with the exigence of showing how bad global warming is. The first example Robinson gives is the glacier Kolka on the Georgia- Russian boarder. Robinson adds rhetorical information such as many numerical details and also scientific terminology to this article to effect the reader’s emotions. One example of how he uses numerical values to appeal to ones emotions in in the use of time. He uses exact times like 8:08, and 8:13 to make it seem like he is counting down in anticipation of something major. This excites the reader and gives them a rush that draws them in to the story. The addition of scientific terms to the article also gives it a more appealing dialect. He uses phrases such as “million cubic meters, land sat 7, miles of ice, and 10 meters per year” to give the reader what he thinks is factual information to draw from the text. This may sound really good but could just be non-important information. The true information that is important is amount of people that died and where and not the speed at which the rate fell and size of the ice. Those facts just make the article more interesting. The other thing that the writer of the news article did was to use vocabulary the appealed to the readers. He uses words such as surge, collapse, crevasses, pooled, and captured to excite the reader. An example of this from the article is “The glacier before its collapse in early July. Some crevasses, a sign of imminent surging.” These words give the reader a sense of urgency and danger and get the adrenalin pumping. This contrasts with what you would see in a research article where the writer is just giving hard facts and does not worry about drawing the reader in. An example from the research text is, “Wissman (1959) calculated that the total area of the Himalayas in 33,250 Km2.” This method of drawing in the readers emotions can be very important the overall success of this news article in the media.
The second article I drew was from a research stand point, with the purpose of giving a reader specific information on that specific topic. The article was titled “Recent Research on glaciers on the Chinghai-Tibet Plateau” written by Li Chi-chun and Cheng Pen-hsing. As you can see there is a major difference in the two titles of the articles. The newspaper article title creates that since of urgency in the words used. The research article on the other hand was written to tell you exactly what is going to be about. Not unlike the news article the research article was most likely also written because of global change and the effects on glaciers. Since this article was not based on getting the reader’s attention drawn in, it was more based on telling the reader hard facts about the glaciers. This research tells up the exact size and location of every glacier on this plateau. It informs us of the exact area in Km2 of each type of glacier and the structures there are and even the amount of precipitation and what the totals are for each season. It is important to get this information straight up for anyone doing other research on the glaciers and not the random facts like the news article. If the research article had all the other random details in it, it would waist way too much time for the reader trying to gather information. But on the other hand for someone trying to read an article for entertainment this article would not be the one to choose out of the two. Another thing that sets the research article apart from the newspaper article is the use of charts and graphs to give the data. In the newspaper article, the author just develops a story and does not give us any other types of information. In the research article, the author uses graphs to clearly lay out and labeled the data to make it easy for the person reading the information to understand it. This form of research article can be very useful and important but only to the right reader. Research articles are structured very informational based on their specific topic of study.
Both of these writing methods are good but very specific based on the audience it is being written too. In the newspaper article the facts all flow together and are all general based on the topic. In the research article on the other hand the claims and facts are very direct and straight to the point all on the same topic with specific factual data. Not saying that all the newspaper articles facts are false but they may have been changed slightly to appeal to the reader. The information from the research came from specific scientific calculations using geological mapping to calculate the area. The newspaper article does not tell where its information came from. Another major difference in the two articles is the difference in the development of the information. In the news article, the information was developed based on a story telling how the ice cracked and then leading to the conclusion, whereas the other article just went straight to the facts. The information in the news article did not contradict the information in the research article just gave more information than was needed from the research article. The scientist would not have to refute any claims made by this article he would just not need most of them for his specific research. Research articles are very specific and give the reader important data on their topic.
As you can see newspaper articles and research articles are very different but both fulfill their own separate purpose. The newspaper article has the goal of entertaining the reader and engaging them in the story. The research article is made to give specific information to someone interested in that same field of study. The methods by which they get their message across may be different but they are both very effective at what they do. The newspaper article gives a lot of numerical values and scientific sounding data points in order to make the information sound like a reliable source. It also adds time and specific vocabulary into the writing in order to give the reader a sense of urgency and danger when reading. This draws the reader and engages them in to what is going on, even if the information is not one hundred percent reliable. The research article on the other hand is based on cold hard facts. It is informing the people on a specific topic and giving them real data. In this case it gave us specific information on the areas and locations of glaciers on the Chinghai-Tibet Plateau but research articles can give you information on just about anything. They are very important for information and research purposes. Both types of writing are very specific for their varied audiences. Even though they may appeal the same exigence, they are made for very specific audiences, and very specific rhetors, and come up with very different conclusions.
Word count: 1534
Works cited
Covino,William, and David Jolliffe.”What is rhetoric?”Rhetoric: Concepts, Definitions,
Boundaries. Ed William Covino and David Jollife. Boston: Allyn &Bacon 1995. 3-26.
Print.
Grant-1Davie, Keith. “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents.”Rhetoric Review 15.2
(1997): 264-79.Print.
Inventory, World Glacier. Recent Research on Glaciers on the Chinghai-Tibet Plateau (n.d.): n.
pag. Web.
Meyers, Robinson. “when glaciers transform into deadly 150-mph avalanches.” Atlantic: Web
Edition Articles (USA) 18 October 2016, News. NewsBank . Web. 21 October 18, 2016.
Porter, James E. “Intertextuality and the Discource Community” Rhetoric Review 5.1 (1986):
34-47. Print.
I thought this assignment was very interesting. I learned how writers use specific language to excite the reader and draw them in to their story. I used an example of media from the news and a research article to compare and contrast the writing styles of both. The main point of the media article was to bring up a problem and to entertain the reader. Where as on the other hand the research article was there to give valuable information on the topic.
After reading these two articles and analyzing the difference in the two writing styles, I learned how writers use different techniques to fulfill their specific exigence. I also thought the two articles were also all around interesting.