The Bee article

Jacob Kowalczyk
In the report “Show Me the Honey” by Taylor Hengen, the text takes a forensic approach to the issue of CCD, or Colony Collapse Disorder, a massive and widespread evacuation of beehives by honey bees in the U.S. In other words, the article examines the possible causes of this issue and, through investigating the evidence, narrows it down to one cause. The text, once the cause of the issue is established, then takes a deliberative approach as it discusses the multiple courses of action that are being taken and could be taken to solve the problem. The use of a forensic approach in this text certainly qualifies this text as scientific, but the deliberative approach that is apparent later in the text transforms this “report” into an argument. By framing the paper within the stases, I will seek to elucidate how this transition from a forensic to a deliberative approach occurs and how the text transitions from an investigation to an argument.
The text begins with a basic statement about the issue of CCD explaining what it is. Equally as important as the explanation of what CCD is, reasons why the issue is significant to the audience are also addressed: “These little workers are responsible for billions of annual agricultural industry dollars, thanks to their pollination services.” While this statement assumes that the audience cares about the continuation of the honey industry, the statement also implies that without the honey industry, there will be no or very little honey available, a problem for people who enjoy consuming it. So, the text begins the first stasis, the stasis concerned with fact and definition. The justification of the issue’s significance and the purpose of examining it are also present here. While not explicit, the purpose of the author beginning the text in this stasis is implied in that it is intended for general readers.
The text then goes on to discuss the possible causes of this problem of CCD, which deals in the second stasis. The author states that many different causes have been considered by different parties, but a recent study about pesticides in beehives that shows highly toxic chemicals being synthesized within beehives because of pesticides points the text towards the conclusion that the use of pesticides is the leading cause of CCD. Up until this point in the article, the approach to the issue of CCD has been forensic in that is has dealt with the facts of the issue. But this conclusion about the cause of the issue then leads the article to transition into a deliberative mode of argument in that the text next addresses what should be and what is being done about pesticide use on bee colonies, now that evidence shows that it causes CCD, a problem threatening the collapse of the honey industry.
At this point the article seemingly skips the third stasis of evaluation and goes into the fourth stasis which discusses policies or actions that needed to be taken to solve the issue. But the case is that the third stasis is implied based on the construction of the audience by the text. The text assumes that most everybody thinks that not having honey would be a negative thing to varying degrees. So, after the implied third stasis of value, the fourth stasis of policy and solutions takes on a deliberative approach. Several possible solutions are discussed, but through the deliberation of each solution’s validity and effectiveness, narrows these possible solutions down to the best one: organic beekeeping. So, through taking a deliberative approach to the issue of CCD, the text arrives at a conclusion about what should be done.
In sum, the article follows the stases rather sequentially to first examine the issue of CCD and then to prove the cause of it in a forensic manner. In an effective transition, the article moves towards a deliberative approach to discuss the action that should be taken on the issue once the cause has been identified. So, in that the article uses a forensic approach, it acts scientific, but in that this report transitions into an argument, it becomes more than simply a scientific report.