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Kayla Maanum

Kim Freeman

COLWRIT 161: Writing in the Biological Sciences

19 February 2019

Science & Style: Writing about Neurobiology

A Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Rhetoric often indicates the intended audience of a written piece. More subtly, the

rhetoric of a piece may also reveal its intended purpose, which may be influenced by the

audience who reads it. Take, for instance, the academic neurobiology community and the

everyday citizen community. Though the two discourse communities may differ in many ways,

they are alike in that they would like to stay informed about the newest neurological discoveries.

Here I present two articles that address each of these communities. Published in ​Neuron​ in 2018,

“Light prior to eye opening promotes retinal waves and eye-specific segregation,” is a primary

research article by Tiriac and colleagues that argues light that passes through the eyelids of

young mice plays an instructive role in developing neural anatomy that connects the eyes to the

brain. In Marc Beaulieu’s popular science article “Science says dim lights=dim wits. More light

is likely a bright idea” published by the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), the author

discusses new research that shows dim lighting reduces rat hippocampal size and reduces rats’

performance in spatial learning tasks. While Tiriac et al. aims to convince neurobiology

colleagues about the validity of their results over others findings, Beaulieu attempts to convince
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his everyday audience about the applicability of rodent neurobiology in their everyday lives.

Through comparison of each author’s overall tone and accompanying visuals, the two pieces of

literature present neurobiology research in ways that their respective communities may

understand and be interpreted in the way the authors desire.

One of the major differences between the two texts is the authors’ tones. Tiriac et al. use

an academic, almost esoteric, tone in order to rigorously prove their hypothesis to fellow

neurobiology experts. This highly contrasts Beaulieu’s conversational tone to engage and

influence the neurobiology novices in his audience. Tiriac writes with a formal, scientific tone,

and m​uch of the text is dense with facts and conclusions. Only people well-versed in

neurobiology discourse would read the sentence “At postnatal day 1 (P1), waves are mediated by

a transient cholinergic circuit in which recurrent excitatory connections between starburst

amacrine cells initiate and propagate retinal waves” with relative ease.

Although the esoteric topic may isolate the work from the lay citizen, Tiriac does use

rhetorical devices to engage his audience. The authors write in first person plural and refer to

themselves as “we.” By using personal pronouns when referencing their own experiments,

Tiriac et al. high​light their unique findings and contrasts it to the research of other scientists.

When discussing results of other studies, the authors switch to passive voice; Tiriac et al. write

“It was also reported that retinogeniculate axons segregate normally in a Crx−/− mouse…. in

seeming contradiction with our results.” The effect is that the authors are critical of other

research, but they maintain a respectful tone. Using active voice would seem more of a direct

attack on the other researchers’ methods. By using formal tone, first person tense, and selectively
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passive voice, Tiriac and colleagues highlight their own novel discoveries to a particular

neurobiology community.

In contrast, Beaulieu writes with a colloquial tone to convince his audience about the

applicability of scientific research findings to their everyday lives. The author references to

well-known contemporary figures. The byline reads “Kanye and Rihanna were right. ALL OF

THE LIGHTS!” By referencing popular celebrities at the start, Beaulieu is able to engage his

non-scientific readers and pique their interest in a scientific subject. Now that he’s hooked his

audience, Beaulieu employs a conversational tone to keep his readers engaged. He uses idioms

like “the hippocampus is buried deep enough in your melon to never see the light of day” to

bring scientific concepts to life and with a little bit of “color,” making them easier to understand.

(Imagine, instead, that Beaulieu meticulously described the location of the hippocampus within

the brain structure in anatomical terms. He would have lost his audience right then and there.) He

maintains a conversational tone by writing in second person, often using the word “you.” This

tactic allows the reader to feel apart of the conversation and makes him feel more directly

connected to the subject matter. Second person also makes the content very approachable to the

beginner reader due to its invitational nature.

In addition to differing in tone, the authors also choose different visual aids to promote

the goals of their pieces of writing. While Tiriac et al. used several several figures and graphs to

argue their hypothesis, Beaulieu focuses on the human subject to relate scientific research to

members of his audience. ​Like most primary research articles,​ ​the ​Tiriac ​paper contains images

and graphs to support claims that the authors make. Some of the figures include schematic

diagrams of the retina and its projections to the dorsolateral geniculate nucleus,
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computer-processed images of calcium transients that indicate the presence of retinal waves, and

heat maps that reveal varied spatial intensity of retinal activity. If you did not understand those

descriptions of the figures, you are not alone. Though common modes of analysis in the

neurobiology community, these types of figures are barely understood by a regular citizen.

However, the purpose of these figures is to support claims made that are then synthesized into a

larger purpose/importance in the discussion section. The authors display actual numbers and data

analysis in order to bolster their claims about the instructive role of light in neuroanatomical

development. Without these figures, members of the community would have no evidence of the

collected data or how to interpret it.

Beaulieu, on the other hand, provides only one image that serves to connect the reader to

the presented research findings. The associated image is a stock image of a female sitting in front

of a brightly-lit laptop screen in a dimly lit room. She appears in distress as she clutches her nose

bridge, her eyes closed, and her head tilted downward. The visual only tangentially relates to the

article subject--Beaulieu writes about a study about rat brains and the effects dim and bright

lights, not human brains and the effects of computer light. However, his audience

members--most likely working adults-- undoubtedly resonate with the accompanying visual

scenario. Beaulieu hopes that the problem displayed in the visual will make readers more

receptive to the possible solutions that can be extrapolated from rodent research. Beaulieu

effectively uses the stock image to connect the reader to the problem and solution new

neurobiological research has provided.

Despite the many rhetorical differences employed by the authors of a primary research

article and a popular science article, both use rhetorical devices to relay to their audience the
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importance of the cited neurobiology research. While Tiriac et al. aim to prove the importance of

their experimental results in the field, Beaulieu tries to tell his audience that the scientific results

are important to their lives. Primary neurobiology articles, like Tiriac’s, present a respectful but

critical view of previous research. The academic neurobiology discourse community requires

influx of new knowledge and altered paradigms that comes with integrating new, younger

members into the community. Beaulieu’s discourse community of everyday citizens find the

most utility of scientific research in how discoveries relate to their lives. Colloquial language

used in popular science articles allows this goal to be realized. Thus, rhetorical strategies can be

used, even subtly, to guide audience members to think in the way authors intended.
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Works Cited

Beaulieu, Marc. “Science says dim lights=dim wits. More light is likely a bright idea.” ​CBC Life,

15 Feb. 2018,

www.cbc.ca/life/wellness/science-says-dim-lights-dim-wits-more-light-is-likely-a-bright

idea-1.4537586​. Accessed 18 Feb 2019.

Tiriac, Alexandre, et al. “Light prior to eye opening promotes retinal waves and eye-specific

segregation.” ​Neuron,​ vol. 100, no. 5, 2018, pp. 1059-65,

www-sciencedirect-com.libproxy.berkeley.edu/science/article/pii/S0896627318308997.

Accessed 18 Feb 2019.