Scientific Journals Blog

I agree with Aubrey's post about the adaptation of a scientific journal into an article that will interest the public. In both Palmer and Killingsworth’s article  “Rhetoric and Environmental Politics in America” and Fahnestock’s “Accommodating Science, The Rhetorical Life of Scientific Facts”, they discuss the difficulties that come with taking a scientific discovery and making it into a scientific journal. While scientific discoveries are important, the way these discoveries are presented to the public must be intriguing to the audience. People who are interested in science will easily take an appeal to these topics, but an audience who is not familiar with scientific topics will not care about the work. Both authors note that original scientific discoveries are written with a more complicated vocabulary than most people have. Science has it’s own language in a way, and only other scientist truly understand it. Fahnestock stated that the public has a right to know these discoveries, but the concern is with the public’s ability to understand them. A journalist will take this original discovery, and turn it into an article that a general audience can understand. The intriguing aspect of both of these articles is that the science part of the discovery is almost forgotten when an article is written. 

The major difference in a discovery and an article is that the scientists are writing facts of what occurred, while a journalist is attempting to find an edge for their story. A journalist, who may be interested in writing the piece, depends on more appealing and willing sources and information. “Human interest is the leading factor in determining what scientific activities will be covered as big stories” (Palmer/Killingsworth p.3). While this is true, scientists may not be so happy with this idea. When human interests are included into the objective, it goes against two main aspects of scientific objectivity. First, it insists that science must have social value, and second, it insists that science must not only be applied to general human problems, but it must solve these problems.

In Fahnestock’s article, he notes that the change of audience will bring a change of genre. He states that there are three big factors that occur during this change, the genre shift, the change in statement types that occurs with a larger audience and the effectiveness of classical stasis theory in clarifying what goes on in the rhetorical life of a scientific observation. The minor changes made to the way a scientific journal is written are attempting to add significance to the subject by claiming its uniqueness. The genre shift, that Fahnestock mentions, is from a forensic discourse to an epideictic discourse, which concerns judgment over whether something deserves praise or blame. The public will ultimately decide if this is something worth their time. Journalists want to celebrate the news rather than validate the news, giving it that extra sparkle for the audience. “Thus the work of epideictic rhetoric in scientific journalism requires the adjustment of new information to an audience’s already held values and assumptions” (Fahnestock p. 6).

With this change in genre comes a change in information. The facts themselves are not changed, but a journalist will find the points of interest that will appeal to the audience and expand upon them. Fahnestock states in his essay, “glamorizing is the writer’s purpose throughout accommodation, part of his heavy task of bringing a deliberately dry research report into the realm of interesting journalism” (Fahnestock p.8). While the research may sound boring to some, the outcome of the research can be magnificent. That is what the journalist will aim for rather than facts. Qualifications and validations become less important when writing for a general audience.

Both authors seem to have the same general idea in their articles, changing a scientific journal for a broader audience is difficult and can change the overall subject of a journal to aim at a topic that the audience will respond well to. When these articles are dumbed down, they lose the important information that the scientist probably wanted others to see. The audience just wants to see that it works, but don’t generally care how it works. While the scientist, who worked hard and created something, will not be able to reach a larger audience. Both essays suggest that studying this topic of changing scientific journals for an article should be looked into more. The science part of a discovery is just as important at the discovery itself.

Fahnestock, J. "Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical Life of Scientific Facts." Written Communication 15.3 (1998): 330-50. Web.

Killingsworth, M. Jimmie, and Jacqueline S. Palmer. "Ecospeak: Rhetoric and Environmental Politics in America." Choice Reviews Online 30.03 (1992): 30-1771. Web.