Our first major formal assignment in ENGL 400 was a rhetorical analysis of an artifact of our choosing that addressed an important public issue in today’s society. My rhetorical analysis focused on ocean activist and the struggle to clean up our polluted oceans today. The analysis helped put what I learned into action and it showed me how to organize a rhetorical argument. This rhetorical analysis also allowed me to expand my understanding of public discourse and the use of rhetoric in order to make a persuasive argument (objective 2). Arguing is an important aspect of life and doing it properly is extremely important if we aren’t able to organize our thoughts then doing speeches or presentations would be difficult and would fall flat more often than not. It is important to be able to discuss what you understand and create a clear and concise argument for listeners and viewers. Additionally, I learned how to “analyze the effectiveness” of my own written work through the peer review process (objective 4). I’ve never been good at peer review work, but this essay made me do my best to analyze the assignment and improve it so that it would flow better to my audience. Overall this was a great essay leading into the common good project and it helped us organize my ideas and thoughts before doing the presentation.
The Ocean: A Dying Resource
The Ocean is one of our greatest resources that the human race has under its belt. The waters provide us with nourishment, energy, and transportation, and yet what kind of respect do we provide to the very thing that provides us life? Humans are the apex species, but that comes at a price and for the ocean that price is the waste and pollution that we hurl into the murky depths of its waters. Pollution has become a common theme for environmental groups and ocean conservationist, but how big is the problem truly? Many people believe that the problem is outside of their control or not as major as some would have you believe. For those people, I present the issue of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Garbage Patch is a culmination of waste, like plastics and fishing gear, that accumulated within the Pacific Ocean. The currents within the waters causes the trash to combine with one another and form the abomination that we witness today. The group that has took on the monumental job to purge the area and create an understanding of how to prevent the issue is the Ocean Cleanup, an organization dedicated to creating a brighter future for the world through conservation. They created a website called The Ocean Cleanup to educate individuals about the dangers of pollution, the effect it has on humans and animals, and how they research the issue. They believe through conservation and understanding that they can prevent further accumulation of ocean debris, and create cleaner oceans in order to secure the future of mankind.
Appeal to Polluters
The Ocean Cleanup organization understands the importance of effective communication with their audience. They employ the use of logic in order to convince people of how large the problem is and why it is in our best interest to rectify the problem before it manages to blow up in our face. They start off their first paragraph by stating “1.15 to 2.14 million tons of plastic are entering oceans every year from rivers” (What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?) they also provide a current scientific article in order to support their claim on the topic. The organization uses large words in order to convey the size of the anomaly, they describe it as “the size of Texas” and “three times the size of France.” (What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?) They employ this method of persuasion known as terministic screens in order to show individuals the magnitude of the problem and that it shouldn’t be taken lightly. The article continues to drive its point across in the first section by bolding the words the quotes they wish the user to see and possibly share on various social media sites. They also go into detail about the different types of plastics and they begin to discuss the rigorous process that is purging the region of materials. The article goes one step further with its use of logic by breaking down the amount of plastics into easy to understand graphs and data. While we may also only think of soda bottles or general waste as pollution the article shows its vast array of knowledge by explaining how they categorize different materials like foam, nets, and fragments along with the pictures, the descriptions help build credibility for the creators and it lets them prove to the audience that they are knowledgeable about the topic.
Appeal to Animal Lovers
While the group starts out as a logical argument they begin to shift towards an emotional argument when it comes to the affect that it has on marine wildlife. In the article they state, “interactions with these nets can cause entanglement, which often results in death of marine wildlife” (What are the effects on Marine Life?) the statement makes an attempt to appeal to the emotional aspect of an individual’s persona and try to convince them of the dangers of destroying marine life. They further build on this idea by reflecting on the affects that destroying the ocean, and the garbage patch in particular, has on human activity. The Great Ocean Cleanup states that plastic pollution costs over thirteen billion per year for people all across the globe. Not only do they describe the ways humans lose money, like an inability to fish or the death of ecosystems, they also describe the way plastics poison people when we consume the fish that ate the plastic. While the effects aren’t stated we do know that an excess of plastic can poison and kill wildlife. This section manages to spark fear and remorse into the reader for wildlife and human safety. The creators of the article understand humans need for self-preservation. There are many large businesses that have no qualms about disposing of waste in the ocean. They attempt to use emotions and logic to reach out and show the dangers that can occur if the problem is left unchecked.
The Facts
The final part of their article features a play by play of the efforts they have put forth in order to complete the conservation of the ocean. The Ocean Cleanup organization employed the use of Trawls which can reach down into the ocean and analyze various layers, they used over 30 ships with 632 nets in order to collect plastics from a variety of areas consistently, and they used planes in order to quickly acquire the plastics from the patch so it could be analyzed quicker. The process for analyzing the plastic was back breaking work, it required scientist to go through the plastics by hand for over three years in order to categorize the varying types of plastics found in the area and determine the sources that they were coming from. The plastic had to be flown to a base in the Netherlands in order to get analyzed and documented. The researchers were also required to categorize everything by hand and study the pieces to determine if they contained any form of toxicity. The process is pain staking work and progress is slow for the researchers who carry out the work. The section returns to form by using logos in order to get its point across. As mentioned above the varying methods used for collecting, documenting, and researching were significant. This helps the reader understand the efforts put into this project by its staff and the sheer size of the problem that the plastics can cause for various people all over the globe.
Article Issues and Audience Affects
Like most things in this world the article has its own type of imperfections that holds it back from becoming a perfect piece of literature. One of the main issues present with the article is the lack of a solution to solve the problem of polluting or how we can prevent the way the garbage patch grows. The article has a strong focus on facts and logic, but fails to explain what the average individual can do to help the ocean. The article also goes out of its way to beat around the bush with the issues. In the section referring to toxicity the author say’s “Chemicals that affected plastic eaters can move up the food chain and be present in humans as well.” (Impact on Humans) While it can be important to know what goes inside our bodies the article participates in fear mongering and explains how the plastic is deadly to animals, but fails to mention the problem it has on human life. While this may seem arbitrary, fear mongering isn’t the route the author should go in order to convince the reader and it appears out of place in their logical analysis. The author also makes another bold statement in the same section referring to humans, they say “plastic pollution cost 13B per year. This figure includes the cost of beach cleanup and the affect it has on fisheries.” (Impact on Humans) The main issue with that part is that the article prides itself in its visuals, but in this section, it fails to show the allocation of the 13B that affects the economy every year. This makes it appear as if the author is employing fear mongering to rectify the issue of pollution.
A Wrap Up
The article overall does a good job describing the issue of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in terms of a scientific standpoint. While they do make a slight attempt to form an emotional appeal with the audience, it boils down to a series of fear mongering that ends up hurting their point instead of enhancing. Their scientific analysis however, shows a strong appeal to Aristotle’s idea of rhetoric, specifically logos, and does well when accurately explaining to the reader the issues present within the Pacific Ocean and how they are working to fix them. I think the paper can improve itself by focusing not only on an emotional appeal, but an ethical appeal since the ocean affects the world it is everyone’s responsibility to protect them. This point could have been presented in the article in order to garnish more support for their cause and create a better appeal for the reader.
Work Cited
Ocean Cleanup. “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” The Ocean Cleanup, www.theoceancleanup.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch.html#footnote-2.
Lebreton, L., et al. “Evidence That the Great Pacific Garbage Patch Is Rapidly Accumulating Plastic.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 22 Mar. 2018, www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22939-w.
Seeker. “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Is Not What You Think It Is | The Swim.” YouTube, YouTube, 3 Dec. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HBtl4sHTqU.