Rhetorical Analysis Draft

For this essay, I will be conducting a rhetorical analysis of an

article that is related to the semester topic that I choose,
which is synthetic foods.
Before we go on to doing the analysis, I would first define
some of the lexis I will be using.
Rhetorical Situation is the process in which the author or
rhetor communicates to an audience about a certain topic
with a purpose in mind.
Logosis the authors method to substantiate his argument
or statements. There are different ways of doing this, the
most common being citing other experts on the topic being
discussed, having quotations, giving important facts and
data that support his argument, organizing the information
in a way that can be understood and fulfills the purpose of
the text.
Ethosis the authors method to demonstrate experience on
the topic being discussed. Appealing to ethos is often done
by stating anterior experience, credentials or affiliation to a
group or discourse community that investigates and and/or
discusses the topic of the text.
Constraints are the external factors that may alter the
rhetorical situation. Some examples may be the beliefs or
culture of the audience and the context or circumstances
where the rhetorical situation is taking place.
Exigenceis the reason why the rhetorical situation exists.
Rhetorical situations are partially existent due to the context
that they are found in, so they will always respond to a
problem, issue or change.
The article that I will analyze is a scholarly peer-reviewed
article with the purpose of informing other researchers and

anyone else who wants information on the subject. The topic

which the researchersfrom the University of Auckland Daniel
A. Devcich, Irene K. Pedersen and Keith J. Petrie, studied was
the relation of modern health worries to the acceptance of
functional foods.
Since this is a scholarly peer-reviewed article, we could say
that one of its principal characteristics is being objective,
which implies not adding opinions or biased statements to
the article. This kind of genre is also characterized by
sections describing methodology, data and the references.
The purpose of these articles is commonly to inform about a
research, so there is little, if any, use of pathos or any type
of persuasion.
I believe the reason why this article waswrittenwas to
explain or give insight into the health beliefs that lead some
people to believe that functional foods can be beneficial, or
alternatively cause some problems or undesired effects in
the body.
This topic has been in debate for a very long time and
continues to be very controversial today.
An aspect of scholarly articles that I like a lot is that they
almost always have an abstract before the actual article. The
function of an abstract is to describe the purpose,
methodology, data collection, results and other important
characteristics that give a general idea of what the research
described in the article is about. After the abstract, the
keywords used in the article are stated to assist anyone who
wants to make finding the article easier. The introduction
serves the purpose of giving us some historical background
on health concerns related to functional foods, but the
authors also cited articles written by other researchers to
further their point and to be more credible by basing their
statements on other studies. In the section for methods, the
researchers define their sample population and the criteria
and instruments they used to collect data for their research.
In the results section of the article, they describe the data

they collected from their research and explain how they

acquired that data. In the discussion section, the researchers
explain what their data means and how it affects society.
Even though I consider the article is at getting its point
across, just like in any rhetorical situation, there are factors
or constraints that can limit or change the meaning of what
the researchers wanted to inform. For example, a nutritionist
may interpret the health issues that could be related to
functional food differently than someone working in the food
industry or a member of the general public might. So, we
could say our constraints are the knowledge or experience
you had with this topic beforehand, the eating habits which
you are used to, how much concern you have relating to
alimentation or diet, etc.
In general, I think this article is well organized, its easy to
read and it provided me with important information I will
later use for my own article.I can use the reference page to
find other articles related to this topic, which is really
convenient. It presented the information in a clear form.