Date: 31 August 2022

To: Prof. Stephen Fonash

From: Andrew Watts
Subject: Rhetoric Analysis Of PSU Lab Safety Guide

The purpose of this memo is to analyze the effectiveness of conveying information to the
students and instructors needing to enforce the safety protocol. This was created by the Penn
State University staff in order to prevent possible dangers or accidents while handling
dangerous materials and equipment. This Lab Safety guide has been evaluated by it’s success
in finding the solutions to the problems encountered, targeting a specific audience, the design,
readability, the collaboration, and the goals of the company.

Audience-
The Lab Safety guide has a main audience intention of PSU students looking to take part in a
lab setting. The front cover of this guide plainly reads Laboratory Environmental Health and
Safety Handbook, clearly stating its purpose for the audience when given out. The secondary
audience is the professors and teacher’s assistants that must enforce these rules and teach the
students before using the Lab equipment.

The document states one page 1 that “The Pennsylvania State University is committed to
protecting the health and safety of its employees, students, visitors, and the environment,”
letting the audience know that it is intended for students and teachers or anyone else using the
lab equipment. The author also states, “Penn State wants everyone to practice four essential
principles of safety,” referring to the people present in a lab setting.

Solving Problems-
This document was created for teaching Penn State students how to safely use lab equipment
and what to look for when preventing an injury. The students must read the introduction first to
understand the fundamentals of being safe in the lab. Once they understand the basics, they
will learn how to safely use each piece of equipment along with preparing it and putting it away.

Before starting to use new equipment, students can reference the set of directions to familiarize
themselves to be more confident and safe. During a lab if there are any complications, like a
chemical spill or a fire, anyone in the lab setting will be able to look in the safety guide to solve
the problem in the safest manner.

In case, if the description is not clear enough, the images give a visual reference to what they
would be seeing in person. If the description and images do not provide enough information,
the links lead to more information about the subject and also contact information in case the
reader would like to reach out with a question.

Design and Readability-

The front cover of the document states, “Penn State University Laboratory Environmental Health
and Safety Handbook,” allowing it to be read easily from a distance. It also has the PSU
environmental Health and Safety logo allowing the author and intentions to be interpreted
through language barriers. This is a nondecorative page and is perfect for the intended age and
makes people respect the rules more to keep everyone safe.

The reader can easily navigate the document by using the table of contents with corresponding
pages right after the cover. The table of contents displays the information in subheadings with
corresponding page numbers making each topic clear.

During the content of the document, everything has even spacing and allows links to stand out.
The font is professional and has bigger titles making it easy to see where the next topic starts
and ends.

The images used are simple, colored, and animated to give examples of what to look for.
These are useful to the reader to make the connection to new material and the real world to
help them use this knowledge.

Collaboration-
This document was created along with Penn State Environmental Health and Safety to make
sure that Penn State University does not pollute the surrounding area. There is a link to their
website on pages 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, and the emergency contact page.

Goals Of The Company-

The goal of the authors is to protect people from the dangers of being in the lab setting. This is
essential because without this someone could get hurt and blame the University for being
responsible. The university also works to keep the surrounding environment clean and healthy
by disposing of chemicals safely as said on page 8.

Conclusion And Recommendation-

This Document instructs students, teachers, and visitors on the safety protocols in a lab setting.
It is easy to find the information from the table of contents and their corresponding page
numbers to complete the task needed.

I think the number of subheadings can be reduced in the lab safety because it contains titles
that are not specific enough for the content it provides. Good Housekeeping and Good Hygiene
can be added to General Safety Guidelines in order to clean this up, especially if they are on the
same page. This would make the structure of the table of contents neater also because the
number of subheadings per topic gradually starts with 10 and ends with only 1 subheading.

The article contains links to the Penn State Health and Safety Policy that needs to be updated
and has good references where they are needed. Although parts are not useful information for
acting in a lab setting, it lists the responsibilities of the different roles in the classroom. These
links have more information to contact someone about any further questions.