I decided to go with a psychological article that was based
on a study which tried to identify if there was any correlation or actually
connection between psychopathy and Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED).
After having read the article and thought ab bit of it as
well as skimming through it a second time, I noticed that there were many citations
within the text, especially within the latter portion of the paper. In the first
two section of the article—the introduction and methods section—most of the citations
were based of other research or in reference to the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manal of Mental Disorders 5th Edition (DSM-5) and its test for
diagnostics. In the second portion of this article—the result sections—the citations
were mainly in reference to the data that was collected from the experiment
performed for this study. The addition of the many citations is mainly used a
source of ethos to gain credibility on the way that the participants were going
to be analyzed and how the test being made actually legitimate.
A very noticeable rhetorical feature in this article is the
tone of the article. From the very beginning of the article—by this I mean the
title, authors, and the paragraph before the actual article starts—the reader
is subjected to very formal, scientific, and informative tone. These thing present
the tone through the addition of each of the authors field of study and formal
introduction to what IED is and what this paper will be about.
Another noticeable feature is the exclusion of personal
pronouns which is meant to give a less biased view to the article and make it more
about going straight to the point with little “fluff”. This functions as a way
to make the article see more reliable since it is purely factual and is also based
on an analysis the data of previous studies to see if they missed anything for
not taking into account what was being taken in this study.
From an overview of the article there are many noticeable conventions
that can make this article be classified as a “scholarly” article. A few such
general conventions would be the inclusion of data, graphs, and a reference section
with many references listed—because as Dirk tries to explain, pieces of writing
build on each other to become better pieces of said genre. Another convention
in this article would be the division of the article into three pieces—an introduction,
the method (how the study was done and the data), and the results. A certain convention for this article could be
the inclusion of paragraph that came after the title, but before the start of
the actual article. As stated before this paragraph function as an introduction
to the study and gave the reader a sense of what he/she could expect to read,
pretty much a warning as to who might be interested in this article—answering the
“who cares” (So What? Who Cares?)
The main question posed in this article was: if there was
any link between psychopathic behavior and IED. The question was answered by
analyzing over a thousand individuals through test certified by the DSM-5. Concepts
such as IED, anger, aggression, impulsivity, and many different disorders were
defined all by the DSM-5, but they were all operationalized by the many test
taken by the participants which gave empirical data as to whether said participants
could be diagnosed with the disorders.
The two most important aspects of this scholarly piece, in
my opinion, would have to be the division of the article in to the three main
pieces—the introduction, the presentation of the experiment and the data, and
the discussion of the results—and the tone encountered through the article. The
division is important because I present the article in a manner that is easy to
follow and understand what is going and being presented. The tone is important because
it give the article a non-biased view that will only be informative and present
the data as it was calculated.
Hi hector, your choice of the scholarly article in your pb2a was extremely interesting! I thought your analysis of what the paper included was done very well, especially the citation observation. I suggest maybe including how the research paper was written, and why that is important to their specific readers, in your paragraph about tone could have elaborated my understanding better. I also think that having a small introduction of what you are going to write about could have helped the structure of your pb2a, but overall it was a sick read.
ReplyDeleteI like that you pointed out the exclusion of personal pronouns from scholarly articles. That is something I think people subconsciously know about research papers but don’t really think about, even for myself. It is such a subtle but huge aspect of the paper that largely contributes to the formality and tone. Another thing that wasn’t mentioned in here and I think a lot of people also forget about was the fact that these publications are peer-reviewed; they are not published until they have been subjected to heavy scrutiny by a team of colleagues and fellow researchers. This is what adds a large amount of credibility for the researcher and makes the information such a reliable source. Peer-reviewing is a very important “convention” that sets these works apart from other online/textual sources.
ReplyDeleteVery cool topic! I liked how you went deep and analyzed conventions like tone and what it specifically did for this piece. I think your PB would benefit from a stronger introduction. While reading it I felt like I was told the title of the study and then thrown into the analysis on a topic that I had no information on which left me confused at some points. Besides that I think your analysis is thoughtful but it could benefit from a little more why/who cares. All in all a good read!
ReplyDeleteThis was a very unique topic choice. It was hard for me to understand but you organized it very well. I like how you put one idea for each paragraph. It created good organization and allowed the reader to understand what you were saying. I liked how you really analyzed the article and understood the purpose behind each part. The paragraphs were also a good length. It helped me read it and understand what point you were trying to prove in each paragraph. I also like how you included the concepts and questions posed in the article. It showed that you really understood the article. Good job!
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