02/01/2016
Working on a scholarly
article is definitely a lot more complex than working on a non-academic article
or free writing. There is so much more to look at but it is also very structured
in a way that you will not always understand what exactly is going on unless
you have some background knowledge of the subject because many of the times
articles can be very dull. Articles are usually written by scholars who have
done plenty of background research, studies, test, etc. about this particular
subject and are very reliable and fluent on what they will present or write
about. Sometimes, articles are written by bigger agencies and companies that
study this certain subject and dissect it very carefully to continue to write
more research on their findings as they go. I decide to look into an article
called, “Why the Alcohol and Drug
Community Should Support Gay Marriage” by a company called Drug and Alcohol
Review. I decided to look into this article in particular because they bring up
subjects that I am very interested on which allows me to read the article a lot
better. I will look into rhetorical features and conventions like; tone,
audience, structure, and color to describe how I viewed the article.
I believe that the tone
of the article is very much what drives it and the reader to be interesting or
dull. This article in particular had a very close-minded tone to it which could
drive two different audiences in at once. Audience is very much driven by the
subject of the article but most definitely the tone as well. This article in
particular was completely dissing they gay and lesbian community by saying that
they are the reason for the drug and alcohol community growing. This argument in
particular you would think would have a close-minded, republican, older generation
audience to it but I think it can go both ways. It will definitely have a huge
attraction to that audience but it can also appeal to people who are huge
activist, the queer community, open-minded people that are trying to get as
much information on this subject to know how to fight back and learn where
exactly all this information is coming from.
The structure of articles
are very similar for the most part. They have a bold, black title right in the
middle and occasionally a subtitle right below it. This happens when the
article is fairly long and it is trying to break it up into main topic sections
so the reader can follow through fluently. Articles also are almost always
divided into two columns so a person reads down a page then back up the page on
the left. I think this is done so the reader feels like the readings are much
shorter and they can jump around the pages if they do not need to read all the
way through. This is where the subtitles come in for the most part. I also
notice that articles seem to have a lot of evidence and citations throughout
the readings so that as readers we can know where this information is coming
from and we can check the validity of it if we would like to. Besides the
citations most articles if not all always have a reference section where they
go back to all the evidence they provided and cite it all over again with full
information.
Another quick convention
that I noticed was that articles have a lot of dates, statics, findings, and
data in the readings. In this paper in specific they focused a lot on statics
they found from people in hospitals and prisons in which they tested positive
for alcohol and / or drugs. They had statics on how gay and lesbians have a higher
chance of being addicted to drugs, living in poverty, or being alcoholics all
from findings they did on their own in hospitals and prisons.
Usually articles have a
few questions that lead the writer into bigger discussion in the article but in
this particular article there was only one and it was; “why is it more likely
for gay and lesbian people to develop problems with drugs or alcohol?” This is
basically what led the entire article into discussion and conclusion so it
still had the certain question and response structure but it was just fairly
quickly.
Some specific aspects of
this scholarly piece that strike me as important are definitely the question
posed and the response given, the tone of the article, the column structure,
and most importantly all the evidence provided.
Article reference: <http://web.b.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:2048/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=d021f1d8-dcb2-4b8c-b666-725eac0d188c%40sessionmgr114&vid=5&hid=115>.
Hi Cassy,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, your PB has a really nice flow to it. I like how you start off very general, discussing who writes such articles, and then moving into the specific conventions. One thing that stood out to me in your PB was when you talked about the audience. I thought it was a really good point that this article in particular drew two different audiences. I think you could also add in that this publication pulls in an academic audience as well. Other researchers, professors, students, etc. could also be interested in this subject matter. Good job on this!
Hi Cassy,
ReplyDeleteGood job! It is nice for you to choose a scholar article that you are interested in, because you have motivations to read through it and fully understand and analyze it. You break down the analysis of the essay into tone, audience, structure, and your own opinions. You argue that the tone is close-minded and give reasons to support your opinions, which is something like a criticism. It is great to add your own argument in the analysis of a scholar article and to question the authorities. I think it would be better if you add some textual evidence in your analysis.
Zhicheng Zhang
Hi Cassy,
ReplyDeleteGood job! It is nice for you to choose a scholar article that you are interested in, because you have motivations to read through it and fully understand and analyze it. You break down the analysis of the essay into tone, audience, structure, and your own opinions. You argue that the tone is close-minded and give reasons to support your opinions, which is something like a criticism. It is great to add your own argument in the analysis of a scholar article and to question the authorities. I think it would be better if you add some textual evidence in your analysis.
Zhicheng Zhang
Cassy,
ReplyDeleteYour project builder overall had a very nice flow. When just beginning to read it, I totally get that it can be hard to understand what is going on because so much is thrown at you at once. Reading further into it, I liked that you noticed that even though it was a very close-midid article, you said that it could still be tailored to a majority of audiences. I found it really cool that you picked that out from it because you are right when saying that it can also grab the very open-midid audience because you can read into it and see why they say the stuff the ado and where they get their information from. Very cool and good thoughts!
-Ryan