PB2A Comparing Academic Publications

                Research and science are two subjects that are almost always associated together. Whether it be research into stem cells, cancer or diabetes, people often hear about research in terms of scientific activity. What most people assume is that conducting research is the only and most important aspect. How do people understand other people’s research? The answer is simple; writing. Science has progressed due to the spread of information from one researcher to the next. By having the ability to study other people’s research, other scientists can conduct experiments in different fashions in order to yield better results. Although most of these papers are intended to be informative, they all contain traces of rhetorical devices. In fact, almost every piece of writing and literature contains a wide assortment of rhetorical devices and literary techniques. For example, the SCIgen generator creates a computer science oriented research paper that is similar to the scientific paper. The two, however, utilize a diverse set of rhetorical and literary techniques in order to appeal to the particular audience that is viewing the work.

                 Technically the SCIgen paper and the scientific article are both considered research papers, in that they both describe the experiments conducted in order to yield certain results. However, what separates the two is that each paper covers unrelated fields or genres. This ultimately means that they both contain conventions that are unique solely to their own genre. The scientific paper, “Proliferation and Differentiation of Progenitor Cells in the Cortex and the Subventricular Zone in the Adult Rat after Focal Cerebral Ischemia,” is a neuroscience paper that talks about the development of cerebral cortex cells in rats after an ischemia. The SCIgen compiles a variety of research papers that talk about various aspects of the field of computer science. The two papers do, however, share a couple of features. These shared features allow people to classify both papers as research papers that simply focus on different fields of studies. For example, both papers include abstracts which provide an introduction /context to the topic of the paper. This helps readers understand the general outline of the work and classifies the work as an informative piece. The two papers are also structurally similar. They both begin with a title, which serves as a summary of the entire work, authors, sections, and subsections. The title serves as a “hook” that appeals to a specific group of readers and establishes the writers ethos from the get go. Logos is established through organization, images, and references. By keeping the paper structurally sectioned and organized, the writers can provide evidence and support per section thus providing a logical explanation for his/her arguments.  Incorporating images and graphs provides physical and statistical evidence for the writer’s arguments while quoting and citing other sources further fortifies the writer’s points. The arrangement of structure, graphics, and references not only allow the writers to provide a persuasive yet informative argument for the readers to gauge, but also create a credible situation in which the readers can come back for future publications.

                Although both papers are structurally similar, the content in which they are written in are two completely, unrelated topics. The SCIgen paper includes the data collected throughout the experiment and eventually denotes the results of the experiment, whereas the scientific paper includes the various steps of the experiment and the analysis of the results. This includes a background on the progenitor cells and how they’ve been affected by certain transcription factors, the experimental procedures which include preparation, introduction of the specific transgenic mice, immunohistochemistry, the analysis of the results, and cross section/time lapse images of the cerebral cortex throughout the experiment. As mentioned before, scientific papers specify every minute detail in order to allow other scientists recreate or modify certain parts of the experiments to tailor to what they are studying. Therefore, by including a detailed list and analysis of all of the procedures that were involved in the study, the readers are more likely to trust the writer when it comes to future publications. Within the procedures of the experiments are specific words and abbreviations that are specifically tailored to readers who work in the neuroscience field. For example, the abbreviation SVZ stands for subventricular zone, a region of the cerebral cortex that develops progenitor cells. OB stands for olfactory bulb which is connected to scent and smell. Both of these abbreviations aren’t explicitly stated in the work and they assume that the readers have a general understanding of the work that the writers are conducting. These differences don’t define the type of paper these two works are, but rather they define the fields in which the two are situated in.

                Research has been an integral part of science, but it isn’t the only thing. Scientific journals and articles that have been published have become a useful form of documentation for many researchers. By documenting both the findings of a particular experiment and the manner and steps that were required to get there, future researchers have the necessary information to take the discoveries from the past and modify them for the future. However, what makes each paper useful isn’t so much the information, but rather how the researchers phrase the information. This way readers not only have the ability to grasp the information, but the writers are also able to establish their credibility with the readers, ultimately ending up with others citing their work for years to come.