Rhetorical Analysis

Rhetorical Analysis Report

Article 1: Accounting for accountability: A discourse analysis of psychiatric nurses’ experience of a patient suicide

Purpose

This article aims to explore how psychiatric nurses experience and understand the concept of accountability in the context of patient suicide (Robertson et al., 2010). The authors analyze the discourse surrounding accountability within the nursing profession, focusing on how nurses discuss and understand their responsibilities and obligations when a patient dies by suicide.

Audience

The audience for this article is primarily other professionals in the nursing and mental health fields. The article is published in a peer-reviewed nursing journal. It employs a scholarly tone, suggesting that it is intended for an audience of experts who are familiar with the relevant literature and terminology (Robertson et al., 2010).

Tone

The tone of this article is academic and analytical. The authors use a dispassionate and objective tone to describe and analyze the discourse surrounding accountability within nursing. The tone is serious and respectful, acknowledging the topic's importance and sensitivity.

Genre

The genre of this article is a scholarly research paper. It is structured in a way that is typical for academic research papers, with an introduction, literature review, methodology, results, and discussion section (Robertson et al., 2010). The paper is written in the third person and uses academic language and conventions, such as citations and references.

Context

The article is published in a peer-reviewed nursing journal, indicating that it has undergone rigorous review and assessment by other experts in the field. The context in which the article is written is that of a discourse community of nursing professionals who share a common interest in the topic of accountability in the context of patient suicide.

Article 2: Discourse Communities

Purpose

This article aims to provide an overview of the concept of discourse communities and how they function within different academic and professional fields. The author explains how discourse communities are defined and shaped by their shared language, values, and conventions and how these conventions influence how members of these communities communicate with each other (Twisdale, 2023).

Audience

The audience for this article is the general public, as it is published on a website that provides information and resources to students and scholars across various academic and professional fields. The article employs a more informal and accessible tone than the first article. It assumes that the reader may not be familiar with any particular discipline's specific terminology or conventions.

Tone

The tone of this article is informative and instructional. The author uses clear and accessible language to explain the concept of discourse communities and how they function without assuming any prior knowledge or expertise on the part of the reader (Twisdale, 2023). The tone is friendly and approachable, suggesting that the author is aiming to help readers understand an important concept that may be relevant to their own academic or professional pursuits.

Genre

The genre of this article is a general informational piece aimed at introducing readers to a critical concept in the study of language and communication. It is structured in a way that is typical for online articles, with an attention-grabbing headline, a brief introduction, a series of subheadings and bullet points, and a conclusion that summarizes the main points (Twisdale, 2023). The article employs a more informal and conversational style than the first article, using examples and anecdotes to illustrate its points.

Context

The article is published on a website to provide resources and information to students and scholars across various academic and professional fields. The context in which the article is written is that of a broad and diverse audience of readers who may be interested in the concept of discourse communities but who may not have prior knowledge or expertise in the field.

Comparison and Analysis

Both articles explore the concept of discourse communities and how they function within different academic and professional fields. Still, they do so in very different ways, reflecting their intended audiences and genres. The first article is written in a scholarly genre and is intended for an audience of experts in the field. It uses formal, technical language and extensively cites other scholarly works. The article also includes a detailed methodology section and presents the findings of an empirical study, making it clear that it is a rigorous academic piece. In terms of purpose, the article aims to investigate psychiatric nurses' experiences after a patient's suicide and to explore the discourse surrounding accountability in this context.

The second article, on the other hand, is written in a more accessible, journalistic style and is intended for a general audience. It uses simpler language and does not contain any citations or methodology sections. Instead, the article focuses on providing an overview of the concept of discourse communities and explaining how they function in various contexts. In terms of purpose, the article aims to introduce readers to the concept of discourse communities and to show how it can be applied to different fields and situations. When comparing the two articles, it is clear that they have different tones and styles of writing. The scholarly article is more formal, technical, and objective in tone, while the journalistic article is more casual, conversational, and subjective. This is reflected in the use of first-person pronouns and personal anecdotes in the latter article, which is common in journalistic writing but rare in scholarly writing.

Finally, it is crucial to consider the contexts in which these two articles were written and published. The scholarly article was published in a peer-reviewed nursing journal, indicating that it has undergone rigorous review and scrutiny from experts in the field. It is also likely that the article was written as part of a larger research project, which provides further context and credibility to the findings presented. On the other hand, the journalistic article was published on a website that focuses on education and student life and does not have the same level of academic rigor or peer review as the nursing journal.

In conclusion, the analysis of these two articles illustrates the different rhetorical conventions and expectations of writing within the nursing field and the differences between writing for an expert audience versus a general audience. While both articles explore the concept of discourse communities, they do so in very different ways, reflecting their intended audiences, genres, tones, and contexts. Understanding these conventions and expectations is crucial for effective communication within a particular discourse community and for successfully engaging with different audiences.

References

Robertson, M., Paterson, B., Lauder, B., Fenton, R., & Gavin, J. (2010). Accounting for accountability: A discourse analysis of psychiatric nurses’ experience of a patient suicide. The open nursing journal, 4, 1.

Twisdale, J. (2023, February 9). Discourse Communities. Retrieved from Eng2020.chrisfriend.us: https://eng2020.chrisfriend.us/blog/discourse-communities/twisdalj/discourse-communities/

You’re off to a good start, Felicity, but there’s a fundamental mismatch with one of your sources. The first source makes sense in the context of your discourse community of counseling, since it studies one angle of mental health/illness through a study of nurses with patients who die by suicide. The next text that I expected would be another take on mental health, suicide, suicide prevention etc, but produced for a general audience. The source about discourse communities is unrelated to the first, and they are both supposed to be produced by people in the counseling/mental health DC. You’re doing a great job with clear and thorough analysis; just swap out your second source for one that is in the right DC. The idea is to compare and contrast the two texts, related by DC, in how they communicate based on what audience they’re communicating to. Blogs, mainstream news or feature websites, TED Talks etc. are all possible platforms in which mental health experts might be addressing the general public.

After you revise with a source swap-out, a couple of notes remain:

1) I suggest an introduction that gives a little bit of background, names each source, identifies the author/creator of each, and gives just a teeny bit about the genre, right up front, so the reader has an overview of what’s coming up. Here is an example:

The discourse community I am writing about is Criminal Justice, specifically the court system. The first text I’ve chosen for this rhetorical analysis report is a fact sheet entitled “Criminal Justice Focus Issues,” and it is published by Stand Together, a nonpartisan non-profit group that seeks to remedy social problems. The second text is a YouTube video entitled “The Top 10 Things You Should Know About the Criminal Justice System,” an introduction to criminal justice by Julian Roberts, an Oxford University professor.

2) Look here for citation models for your Works Cited list:

https://owl.excelsior.edu/citation-and-documentation/documenting-locating-reference-information/