Rhetorical Analysis

Rhetorical analysis of your journal and the articles you read using the genre frameworks provided by Swales and Linton et al. In what ways do the articles make use of the conventions of structure, reference, and language? And what can this tell us about the journal’s audience(s) and its implied “world view” (i.e. epistemology)?


The scholarly journal about Civil Engineering found through the online database generally follows the structure of Swales in most of the articles.  Swales' Genre Model begins with Establishing a Territory which can be clearly seen from the research style articles that often begin with an abstract.  The Territory is set and then the Niche is then recognized.  After the Niche is set and both sides are recognized it is the occupied through the proof of the research and the conclusion.  


The journals are written with research that is built on from previous engineers and therefore the references are clearly stated and acknowledged.  The articles are also written in an attempt to be objective in order to provide the audience with accurate research.  The audience is the fellow engineers and the future engineers interested in research the apart of academia.  The language is written with great detail but can sometimes be a bit difficult to understand because it is written specifically for its audience. 


The epistemology of the journal is that there is more and more things to learn and continue to fix.  As we begin to learn more, it opens the door to more things we can learn.

Robust Structures

This particular scholarly journal discusses the need for overly robust building structures and how this is adequately achieved.  Buildings are designed to be more than what is needed in case of an accidental failure.  This way when a failure occurs, the building can absorb the energy while keeping the relative original shape.  Essentially creating a building that is robust means that the building is over designed to a certain extent.

This journal attempts to determine at what extent the building should be robust in order to remain safe and more cost efficient.  By over designing the building, the cost will increase.  The author performed different case studies in order to find out the relative percentage of over design that should be used for a typical failure.   Buildings are not built to withstand all of nature's fury just because it is not economically feasible therefore they are only built slightly stronger than what is needed for a typical location.