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Mengqi Ma

Ryan Myers

ESL 1080-005

February 9, 2020

Rhetorical Analysis Final Draft

Since the competition of employment is increasing in recent years, many people want to

get their master or doctoral degrees to get a better job. However, entering graduate school means

that there will be more and more tasks for study and research, so people must choose between

academy and relationships. As a result, many graduate students have to sacrifice their marriage

for academic reasons. According to the “Why Does Graduate School Kill So Many Marriages”,

Kathryn R. Wedemeyer-Strombel believes that seeking knowledge does not mean sacrificing

their relationship. She analyzed that those graduate students spent a lot of time in the laboratory

and ignored their own and family emotions. People should carefully consider this issue before

planning to enter graduate school, and graduate schools need to give students the necessary

reminders of what is going to be happen about their relationships after their students get to

graduate program. In the original article, Kathryn R. Wedemeyer-Strombel discusses the fact of

graduate students lost their marriage at the beginning. She tries to figure out why this fact

happened next. Finally, she proposed solutions through her own experience and the opinions of

others. Wedemeyer-Strombel used genre, purpose, exigence, audience, visual design, and

constraints to provide a serious problem about relationships of graduate students. Therefore, the

author used the rhetorical tools well to make this article well-constructed and very convincing.

This article is an argumentative essay. As an argumentative, it needs to find a topic and

discuss this topic, then give personal opinion. For that, Wedemeyers-Strombel firstly talks about
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she finds that more and more graduate students lost their marriage based on her own and her

colleagues’ experiences, which is one of the popular topics. She said, “Doctoral training is hard.

And relationships are hard. They’re both long-term, serious pursuits. But the quest for

knowledge should not mean sacrificing your relationship.” Then she explains why this problem

happened. She believes that because graduate students spend a lot of energy when they are doing

graduate research, they easily ignore their relationship. In addition, pressure as a graduate student

and pressure from professors and graduate schools have also “depleted your emotional

reservoir”. At last, he provides some solutions to solve the issue. For example, you should

consider what suits you and your partner when choosing whether to enter graduate school. She

addressed the issues and steps clearly and perform them in the most understandable way to the

readers.

Wedemeyer-Strombel tries to remind those who want to enter the graduate school to

maintain their relationship; and the school needs to remind students what will the consequences.

For those who have become graduate students, the author hopes that they could balance their

academy and relationships. The topic of this article is serious and sad. Many families are broken

because of graduate programs. Therefore, it is very urgent for the author to write this article. She

believes that this article is important for those who are graduate students or doctoral students.

She hopes that those who read this article will have some insight or remind them to pay attention

to their relationship. The support detail is “When my own marriage nearly collapsed, graduate

school was a main factor. We have had to fight hard to stay together, and I have had to

unapologetically realign my priorities to what works better for both of us, and not just for my

work.”
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The intended audience of this article is graduate students who have relationship with

someone, graduate school, and some people who want to study in graduate school. As I

mentioned in the previous paragraphs, the purpose of this article is the author wants to remind

graduate and doctoral students that their relationship could be in danger. Additionally, she

suggests graduate school should have a class, which to remind students what will be happening

after they entering the graduate school, like “welcome to grad school” orientation.

For the visual design, she adds a photo at the beginning to attract readers. The author uses

bullets when she tries to give readers some solutions about how graduate students to notice their

relationship Those bullets make the article clear and understandable. The support detail is “·

Only you can decide how to prioritize ··· and me. · A marital crisis, in ··· beginning. ···” There

is also a capitalized T at the beginning of the article, this capital letter reminds her readers the

start of this article.

As the author said, her own marriage was also near collapse, so I don't think she could

maintain absolute objectivity when writing this article and may have some bias against graduate

school. A support quote is, “When my own marriage nearly collapsed, graduate school was a

main factor.” No matter what, as long as it involves themselves, everyone will have some bias.

In a word, it is an argumentative essay. The author wants to remind people that they need

to be prepared with their partner when they want to study in graduate school. Her article’s main

audience is graduate students. She adds a photo and bullets to attract readers. However, she may

not be able to claim her points objectively. The article “Why Does Graduate School Kill So

Many Marriages?” is perfectly structured, and the support idea that Kathryn R. Wedemeyer-

Strombel used were trustworthy.