SylQuala Bright

ENC 1102
Professor Kyle
21 February 2015
Which can you trust? The scholarly article with vast claims and
evidence or the popular video with little to no evidence. Well within my
discourse community, whether popular or scholarly their claims require
evidence or they are just tossed to the side. Ocean pollution is a widely
known issue that most people overlook and treat as a minor problem. Within
both the popular and scholarly genre they both grasp the importance of
getting rid of ocean pollution as well as the deaths of marine animals due to
the polluted oceans. Although the two expressed the importance of the
issues they did it in different ways with organization and the use of lexis,
appeals, claims and evidence.

The National Geographic News writer, Carolyn Barry provided me with

my popular publication, entitled Plastic Breaks Down in Ocean, After All
And Fast. She provides the findings of the Japan-based team that took
samples from the ocean and found something commonly shared from sea to
sea. Ocean pollution or more so plastic polluted water, she includes the
origins of these plastic pollutants back to Styrofoam, disposable silverware,
DVD cases and etc. She leads on to discuss the plastics meting point as well
as the by-product of plastic melted in the water. The rest of the article
provides the effect of melted plastic by-product effect on animals and even
people. My scholarly paper Quantitation of persistent organic pollutants

absorbed on plastic debris from the Northern Pacific Gyres eastern garbage
patch, by Lorena M. Rios ( but includes the help Patrick R. Jones, Charles
Moore, and Urja V. Narayana), consisted of research by the previously named
scientist that collected data on the water of the North Pacific Gyre. They
provide their exact findings from number of congeners to the
organochlorine pesticides. They go on to discuss the concentration of all
the pollutant as well as the main plastic pollutants.
As far as organization goes both include a picture as the opening to
their publication but each picture centered on a specific audience the
popular publication had an image of a plastic fork on beach sand, which
created a sense of relatability for everyday people from all discourse
communities. The other picture included a sample collection vial that was
filled with 5mm plastic material this kind of image is something that was
meant for peers of the biology discourse community to look at. Both have a
nice page layout that keys in on their individual purpose. The scholarly
source introduction or abstract provides a compiled version of the data they
collected as well as a background on the place they are collecting data on.
On the flipside Barry incorporates the emerging news on the indestructible
plastic decomposing at a speedy rate as an opening to the publication.
Words and understanding what they mean is key to any conversation,
within each piece you can tell each includes a lexis that cuts out or allows
people into the conversation. For example bisphenol A is the only piece of
lexis (from the discourse community) in my popular article, which allows

people not affiliated with the discourse to join in the conversation. In the
Journal of Environmental Monitoring, my scholarly piece has a list long of
lexis like terms previously discussed like congeners, organochlorine
pesticides or ppb/ppm, these terms exclude the everyday person from
joining in or wanting to be a part of the discourse. The desired audience are
other peers in the same field that agree or are interested in this kind of
study.
In each piece they use different methods to appeal to their audience
form my popular article it a mixture of pathos as well as logos, think about
this Though ocean-borne plastic trash has a reputation as an indestructible,
immortal environmental villain, scientists announced yesterday that some
plastics actually decompose rapidly in the ocean. And, the researchers say,
that's not a good thing. The team's new study is the first to show that
degrading plastics are leaching potentially toxic chemicals such as bisphenol
A into the seas, possibly threatening ocean animals, and us. First she grasps
them by her use of emotion impacted word choices immortal,
environmental villain, and indestructible then she keys in on the logos
appeal by including the research teams findings.(Barry, 2009) Her picture
used also uses a pathos appeal by exhibiting the plastic fork on sand a
commonly used object that along with common plastic material has
contributed to the ocean pollution make people feel a sense of guilt and
evoke a desire to prevent such things from happening. The scholarly piece of
course uses logos as well as ethos a way to appeal to their audience,

extracted, and analyzed for 36 individual PCB congeners, 17 organochlorine

pesticides, and 16 EPA priority PAHs. Over 50% contained PCBs, 40%
contained pesticides, and nearly 80% contained PAHs. (Rios, 2010) It of
course involves logos because of the data they collected and although you
dont know the manner in which the text was expressed ethos is necessary
because no scientist ever discredits their own work they have faith in the
time they spent collecting their data.
Each piece highlighted their claims on the topic, but the evidence they
used separates the popular and scholarly genre. In the popular text, she
featured the by-product of melted plastic in the ocean and its effects. She
include a statistic of sea birds mistakenly eating plastic and dying as a result,
there are also an accumulated amount of species affected including humans.
Moore an oceanographer made claims of the chemicals causing cancer in
humans, although she is credible in her use of sources, she takes information
from others to back up claims further exemplifying her role as a popular
genre writer. Although my scholarly could have used information from other
to back of their claims, they used their own resources as scientists to provide
evidence of their claims. This allows them to make sure the information
provided is correct, the power to do that gives documents the title of
scholarly.
Scholarly versus popular is a battle in the mind of every reader to use
as a source of information. Although they carry different criticism from a
discourse community to another they both utilize similar ways to sway their

audiences by pictures, organization, appeals, and claims. The popular genre

will use sentiment (pathos) and logic (logos) from time to time to appeal to
their audience, provide a wide brand of sources to back up claims, and
feature elements of the discourse to allow everyone to take part in the
discourse. Due to this way of expressing their claims they can be seen as
uncredible because they dont actually do the research they discuss they use
other peoples information. The scholarly genre will use ethos and logos to
appeal to their audience, utilize themselves as a source, and involve a series
of lexis to exclude those not within the discourse community from getting
involved in the discoursewell in my discourse community at least. The way
they collect information separates popular genre from the scholarly genre,
the way they include certain lexis and exclude others creates their desired
audience, and the information they include established the genre they use.

References

Barry, Carolyn. "Plastic breaks down in ocean, after alland fast." National

Geographic 20 (2009).
Rios, Lorena M., et al. "Quantitation of persistent organic pollutants adsorbed on
plastic debris from the Northern Pacific Gyre's eastern garbage patch."Journal
of Environmental Monitoring 12.12 (2010): 2226-2236.