Evaluation of Rhetorical Situations

U.S Navy. "Medical Staff at Naval Medical Center" November 10, 2009
Public Domain

Below, I will be analyzing the rhetorical public speech situations of three article pertaining to my discipline's controversy- neurology.

Gene Map Becomes A Luxury Item

Author/Speaker:

The author, Amy Harmon, is a national correspondent for the Times, covering the impact of science and technology on American life. She has won two Pulitzer Prizes, one in 2008 for her series, “The DNA Age,” the other as part of a team for the series “How Race is Lived in America,” in 2001. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in science writing in 2013. In the article, the writer is obviously biased as she finds that the wealthy's access to such medical technology unfair and goes on to allude that the social gap in the U.S is beyond repair.

Audience:

Harmon targets the lower classes of the American public, primarily the more educated of society; such as individuals in business or civil services. She is especially concerned with the middle class tier as she reports that the lack of access to gene mapping technology does a disservice to their way of life. Her rhetoric is formatted to inform the public of the medical "luxuries" the wealthy can gain access to and incited the general public to raise alarm to local government of the medical inequality within the nation.

Context: 

This article is in direct response or is generally influenced by recent Federal government actions made to give lower classes access to more expensive medical treatments- using U.S tax dollars to cover the bill. The writer is definitely referencing the Affordable Healthcare Act do to her obvious bias towards the super rich only having the resources to afford gene mapping research, playing with the idea that government should make such technology available to all citizens. 

Your Next Prescription Could Be a Genome Sequence

Author:  

The author, Meredith Salisbury, is a senior consultant for the life science communications firm Bioscribe. She has covered the genomics field as a journalist for more than a decade and is a co-founder/organizer of the Consumer Genetics Conference. She is a graduate from The University Notre Dame and Cornell University with a Bachelors in English, Political Science, and Journalism.

Audience:

 The article targets individuals well acquainted with genomes and other medical research issues. As well as doctors hoping to use the Human Genome Project's results for their practice or use in diagnostics. The article also hopes to sensationalize the idea that the gene mapping program will eventually become this one pill wonder for medicine, using its title to grab reader's attention.

Context:

The article attempts to persuade its audience in supporting the implementation of genome sequencing technologies in today's hospitals, and debunks any theories that such mapping could be detrimental to one's health. The author sensationalizes the technological strives made by genetic researchers comparing their work to science fiction. It also satirizes the idea of a debate on the issue through the tone of its title, and presentation of pro-sequencing data.

Every Patient a Subject

Author:

Hank Greely is the Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law, a professor by courtesy of genetics, and director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford University. Co-author Jennifer Kulynych is Senior Counsel in the legal department of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and
Health System.  Jennifer advises the investigators, Institutional Review Board (IRB) committees, research policy makers, and research compliance staff located within the School of Medicine and in the multiple community hospitals and practice groups that are members of Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Audience: 

The intended audience of this article are individuals well acquainted with genomes and other medical research issues. As well as doctors hoping to use the Human Genome Project's results for their practice or use in diagnostics and the gene sequencing technologies for treatment of genetic diseases. The article attempts to have a unbiased position on the issue, presenting the pros and cons of research found using human subjects to map genomes. However they give longer paragraphs and quotes to supporters of the medical process, and notes its victory popularity wise.

Context:

The authors purpose the idea of extreme personalized medicine, where doctors prescribe medications and treatments based solely on the genetics of the subject. It also poses the question whether or not a patient's privacy would be violated if it physician knew every aspect, or could assume certain qualities of the patient's bodily qualities, of the patient's lifestyle. However, the article eventually spires to assume that a person's DNA should never be on file or at the doctor's disposal because it may influence insurance company's coverage policies on certain individuals- more prone to illness due to their genetics- causing coverage discrimination.

Reflection:
After reading the posts made by Isabel and Kyle, I saw that both authors used more credible sources such as the New York Times or the Huffington Post as resources for rhetorical analysis. Isabel's post was the most compelling of the two blogs I visited mostly due to her reference to dates and author credentials within the author/content sections of her post. Kyle used a formatting style to present his findings in a more readable fashion, using a table with brief blurbs of information to give the reader a general idea of the article contents. Overall, I believe that my post is well-developed and consistent with the structure needed to make a strong rhetorical analysis. Especially, when I focused more on the author and data credibility rather than the argument as a whole.