TOW #20 - Star Article (Starticle?)

Ron Cowen of Nature Magazine writes this article on stellar motion for Scientific American. It details how, 70,000 years ago, when humans were spreading from Africa to Eurasia, a stray wandering star briefly entered our outer solar system and then left soon after. The star is called Sholz's star and would have been just bright enough to see from Earth by early humans. The article is non-political and so it really only has two goals. One, convince the reader that this theory is accurate, and two, convince the reader that this theory is very important. An important and accurate new theory is all it takes to write a successful science article.
As there are two goals for this article, accuracy and importance, there are two strategies employed to meet those goals. The first is the arrangement of the article. The information is arranged starting with the smaller inarguable impacts on our scientific understanding of the early solar system, "has a mass about 8% that of the Sun and is orbited by a 'brown dwarf' companion", (para 2). It then moves on to perhaps more arguable but, if true, revolutionary effects on our world, like initiating mass extinction events by smashing through the Oort Cloud.
The secondary strategy of this article is meant to make the article's theory seem more accurate. Where the previous strategy was in subtle arrangement, this strategy is direct content. Through statements of observations and facts about our ability to map stellar paths and the interruptions in the consistency of the dust at the edge of our solar system, it implies the absolutism of the theory. It also directly claims, "The result is almost certainly correct, as predicting the nearly straight-line motion of nearby stars is a well-understood calculation," in a quote from a relevant astronomical resource.
This is a straight-forward article with straight-forward tactics. For once, the more direct of the article's strategies is more effective and the more subtle actually fails more in its task. This may be a hasty judgement, however, as the importance of the theory is easier to doubt than its apparently incontestable accuracy.

TOW #19 - ISIS Article

This article on the  growing ISIS terror threat in the middle eastern part of the world details its development in the area and its movement to a global level. It was written by FOX News, and it has two distinct goals in its presentation of the news development to its audience of mostly adult American conservatives. These two distinct goals are the encouragement of American cooperation and trust in the nation of Israel, a close nation geographically to the countries ISIS is leading., and the perhaps justified fear of the American people towards ISIS.
Israel has long been an ally of the United States, and we them. In order to defend our mutually beneficial geopolitical relationship. The writer of the article goes out of their way to defend Israel. To much of the world, the dominating conflict in the middle east is the turf and philosophical war between Palestine and Israel. It is difficult to hear tell of Muslim aggression in the middle east without that conflict being brought to mind. Even though the two are unrelated and those in Israel have nothing to do with this event, the writer mentions them just to secure this fact and even edifies it with expert quotes.
It is not difficult for the American media to breed fear of ISIS. It is not difficult for the American media to breed fear of anything, and ISIS is inherently scary. It is a terror group, after all. With word choice like, "tectonic" and notoriously, this FOX article attempts to inspire fear in its readers. Scared readers are reliable readers because they will seek out knowledge not out of curiosity or interest but out of fear that ignorance means danger. This isn't to say that fear is an unreasonable response, or that FOX has to do much to the information it presents in order to guarantee fear, only that that is the tactic it is using, and that it is wildly effective.
Through both choice of the content discussed in the debriefing of this latest development in ISIS terrorist affairs and word choice when describing individual aspects of the content, this FOX News article is highly effective in its ability to inspire fear and trust in the same event. Fear and trust may seen contradictory, but they are pulled off well.

TOW #18 - Book Cover

Clive Barker, perhaps best known for his works of horror and gore, is also the surprising author of a number of children and young adult books. One such young adult book is a surreal fantasy with themes of adventure and the conflict between good and evil. The book's cover, like its author, is a surprise. While most covers are not designed by the authors of their books, each of the nine paintings on this cover, in addition to the hundreds inside the book, were hand painted by Clive Barker. Even the title graphic, "Abarat" was designed by Barker. Both the paintings and the title are meant to entice readers and hint at the book's content.
There is a lot to digest in the paintings on the cover of this text. Nine paintings make up the small art gallery that is the front jacket. Four of the paintings show strange locations, a skeletal lighthouse and a crystal island for example, and the other five of the paintings show main characters of the text, a woman wrestling with a white dragon and an amphibian with a bouquet of skulls for example. Much like a visual blurb, the paintings help the reader to understand a few central points of the novel, without spoiling its telling. The tactic is effective, as all it takes is for one of the images to intrigue a potential reader.
There is seemingly less to digest in the title graphic. However, closer inspection reveals that the image of the title graphic is an ambigram. Rotating the image 180 degrees reveals an identical image. It is a small and subtle tactic, which is significantly less effective than the paintings. This is due mostly to the unlikelihood of anyone actually noticing this. Yet, a potential reader who does notice this would almost certainly be drawn to read on about the kind of creative mind that would produce such a strangle title graphic.
A surprising book cover jackets a surprising book with a surprising author. Despite the conventional wisdom against judging a book by its cover, perhaps in this situation the paintings and the title graphic give an accurate if cryptic look into what the book holds. All in all the cover of this book is highly effective in its attempts to entice readers with just enough information regarding the content of the book.

IRB 2 - Introduction - Daybreak

I will not lie. I am nervous about this text. This is the first book I will ever have read on philosophy, and Nietzsche is studied often enough that it can be assumed his work is not simple. The book is called Daybreak, and has the subtitle: Thoughts on the prejudices of morality. While I know that Nietzsche is known for controversial opinions, the only idea I can attribute to him is that morality is totally subjective. I hope there are at least some ideas that I can appreciate in this text. Fingers crossed.

TOW #17 Stinging Insects IRB Part 2

In the second half of Edward Saunders's Stinging Insects, a scientific introduction to the subjects of etymology and toxicology, his curriculum-tactic discussed in the first post on this text has developed a few additional rhetorical strategies to further his goal of educating interested laymen. The first strategy attempts to deal with the frightening vocabulary and scientific content of the text through informal, almost casual language. His second strategy attempts to help the reader retain the information through repetition.

Most forms of scientific writing are simple. In almost all situations, the text is either directed toward casual science fans or well-educated scientists. The casual texts like Popular Science and similar science magazines can sacrifice technicality for entertainment. The educational texts like the American Journal Science and Arts can use highly technical language. However, texts like this one, which attempt to form a bridge and speak to only partially knowledgeable audiences must deal with introducing highly technical language to a new audience. Saunders handles this well by using informal language. For instance, Saunders explains, "I think it is only right to add some remarks on the structure...of insects, so that any one who wishes to follow up the subject may...get fuller and more exact data," (124). This language, while surprisingly personal, does help to get across the more obtuse concepts.

In books like this one, which feature constant new information and without the benefit of a story line to solidify the points made, it is often difficult for readers to retain the barrage of data and concepts with which they are presented. In order to combat this, Saunders continually references old information in his work. For instance, the concept of constant physical growth in some insects is reexplained several times in the text in order to drive this principal mechanism of etymology home. This strategy is highly effective, if a little tiring, but the unique writing style of the author helps to distract from a practice which does become occasionally annoying.

On the whole, despite minor flaws in the tone of Saunders work, its claimed goal of informing and inspiring potential etymologists can definitely be said to be achieved. Having a scientifically-inclined audience certainly helps, but Saunders still had a difficult task. Insect classification and behavior, even stinging insect classification and behavior is not the most glamorous branch of biology. However, through clever techniques and inexhaustible style, this text manages to do anything but bug its readers.