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Amani PritchardWriting 2De PieroMay 3rd, 2015Mainstream Media or Scholarly, Which is Best for You?When society is consumed with a large issue that affects all corners of the globe, it is safe to assume that many people will be writing, reporting, and examining such events. In today’s modern world, global warming and climate change is that big event. Scientists have been studying the effects that it is having on our globe while reporters are keeping track of how it is affecting people and their everyday lives. By looking at climate change from different perspectives, different reports are able to focus and present more detailed pieces about the issue. Mainstream media articles are able to reach broader audiences and discuss the issue of climate change with their use of personable and understandable conventions, while scholarly articles target specific audiences that possess background knowledge of particular fields to discuss highly specific topics of climate change. In modern, mainstream media pieces, the articles are written explicitly for people with little background knowledge who want to be informed of what is going on in the world. Therefore the combination of specific moves, conventions, and styles such as emotional stories and factual data are very important. The New York Times piece, “Borrowed Time on Disappearing Land,” by Gardiner Harris, was written to report the effects of climate change and how it is affecting specific part of the world; Bangladesh. The title of the article itself was a big move by the writer as it gives a lyrical or poetic feel and catches the reader’s emotional attention. The piece follows this emotional thread throughout the rest of the moves and conventions used. Like many other mainstream articles reporting on tragedies and crises, there is a personal story that gives a face to the issue of climate change in the article. The author uses this move to answer the “So what, who cares?” that many writers face when trying to catch the audience's attention (Birkenstein). Harris discloses the story of Jahanara Khatun and how intensely the harsh, natural disasters of her area, as well as the effects of climate change and global warming affected her family. This personal story caters to the audience’s emotion, or Pathos. This is a move used by the writer to draw the readers in. Readers tend to care more about an article if they can somehow personally connect with the information. Harris also includes pathos through many intense photographs depicting the poverty that many people are dealing with due to the effects of natural disasters and climate change. Additionally there is content geared towards the audience’s logical reasoning as well, which is known as Logos (Ibid). Logos is represented by numerous quotes and facts from officials about climate change and the effects it is having on the country of Bangladesh. These quotes support the author’s main point, which is that climate change is heavily affecting Bangladesh and within a few years, the country may be completely under water. The quotes go a long way in strengthening the article and balancing the emotional appeals with facts and statistics. The author’s intent is to provide an informative piece, while getting readers aware and hopefully generating change. With different genres, even though they are centered on the same subject, the articles are much different. When examining a biological-anthropology article titled Phenological Changes Reflect Climate Change in Wisconsin, it is immediately apparent that the styles and moves used by the authors of this scholarly article will differ wildly from those used in the mainstream media piece. The title alone conjures visions of statistical data and analysis, which matches with what the article contains. The article is very well organized to present an experiment that tests the effects of climate change in Wisconsin. There is a methods section that overviews the experiment and explains the process used to calculate data. The results section simply states what was recorded and is paired with graphs to give the reader a more visual understanding of it all. Lastly there is a discussion section that explains the data and how it proves the overall theory of the paper: certain species phonological adaptability will affect their ability to change with climate warming, and those with poor phonological adaptability will have a hard time surviving with the changing circumstances. The moves and conventions of this article are styled for an audience that already has a background understanding of the field of bio-anthropology and the genre of experiment reports. There is a lot of scientific jargon that is attributed with scholarly scientific articles and reports. It is seen especially in the discussion section of the article with “Regression analysis performed on the yearly records for each phenophase yielded an approximation of the slope of the data for the six-decade period.”Throughout the essay, the author’s word choice is also very telling when using statements such as “To limit our analysis…” and “We suggest...”. These words are an important move because they show a collective effort from all four authors as they invested much time analyzing much data (61 years worth) in their study. In reading subsequent scholarly articles on the same subject, many would assume the rhetorical features and moves would be very similar to the bio-anthropology article. There are, however, noticeable differences between that article and a physical science article titled Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, which attempts to summarize the topic for Policymakers of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Much like the two previously analyzed articles, the title is a distinct move to notify the reader exactly what to expect when reading the paper. The level of formality is something to pay attention to, as it is also an important move (Lunsford). It communicates that there will be no fluff or personal tragedies. There are multiple sections, which are organized to address the topic of the paper. They are neatly organized and go from explaining the data used to determine the process of climate change, to the effects it is having on sea levels and snow falls, to predicting the continued effects of the problem. The writing is very scientific and full of conversions, data, and jargon that anyone without a scientific background would have trouble fully understanding. The author’s motive is to inform highly knowledgeable individuals about climate change and give them a full view of it. This is organized with many bullet points making up each section, as well as numerous graphs depicting the changes in the environment. The data is also used to disprove alternating theories (such as volcanoes and natural gases contributing to climate change more than man-induced fossil fuels) so that the reader can be confident in the legitimate claims of this article. Though they all examine the subject of global warming, the different genres of these three articles allow the authors to focus more intently on certain aspects of climate change. For the mainstream media piece, Gardiner Harris focuses on connecting with the audience on an emotional level, as well as backing up the story with quotes and facts to give it credibility. The tone is personal and the language is descriptive, conjuring up images of the crisis. One example of these moves can be seen in a metaphor used: “In the Ganges Delta, made up of 230 major rivers and streams, 160 million people live in a place one-fifth the size of France and as flat as chapati, the bread served at almost every meal.” The bio-anthropological essay does not focus on the emotional side of climate change, but rather the biological changes it is bringing about in certain species and how they will be affected in the long run. The audience is targeted – members of the anthropological community—and the content is straight to the point. There is not imagery in the words, but instead in the graphs illustrating the data. Though not as personal as the first essay, the use of words such as “our” and “we” show how much work the authors put into their study and how much they care about their work in the field of anthropology. While this paper might not appeal to as broad of an audience, all the moves combined make up the most appropriate way to introduce a theory, test the theory, and prove the theory. The physical science article is similar to the bio-anthropological paper because it too requires background knowledge in the science field. It differs in the way that it is a broader look at the issue of climate change. It is also very formal and the least personal of all three essays. The data is served in bullet points and graphs, making it difficult to dispute the overall point of the paper. The intention of this article is to inform policy makers about the severity and causes of this issue. It does so with little flair and much exactness. Climate change is an important topic that must be discussed and understood within modern society because it has such a colossal effect on the world. By appealing to many people around the world with emotion and reason, Gardiner Harris makes it possible for anyone to become informed of what is going on with climate change. His moves and style make his article, in a sense, approachable for anyone to read, which is important because many different types of people read mainstream media articles. The physical science and biological-anthropology pieces also take great care to inform their readers, however their audience encompasses individuals who already contain background knowledge of each specific field. This saves the authors from explaining the history of climate change before delving into their research or experiments. Their style is more formal and their moves and conventions reflect this when talking about the details of their topics. All three genres are very different in their own ways, yet are equally important because with all three pieces, every type of person can be informed on the growing importance of awareness of climate change. Without one of them, the balance would be skewed. SourcesAlley, Richard. "Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis." Climate Change2007: The Physical Science Basis: Summary for Policymakers. Geneva: IPCC Secretariat, 2007. 1-18. Print.Birkenstein, Cathy and Gerald Graff. “So What?/ Who cares?” They Say/ I Say: the Moves that Matter in Academic Writing. New York: Norton, 2010. pp. 92-101. Bradley, Nina L., A. Carl Leopold, John Ross, and Wellington Huffaker. "PhenologicalChanges Reflect Climate Change in Wisconsin." Phenological Changes Reflect Climate Change in Wisconsin. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May 2015."Ethos, Pathos, and Logos." Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May 2015.Harris, Gardiner. "Borrowed Time on Disappearing Land." The New York Times. TheNew York Times, 28 Mar. 2014. Web. 04 May 2015.Lunsford, Andrea A., John J. Ruszkiewicz, and Keith Walters. Everything's anArgument: With Readings. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007. Print. ................
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