Taylor Hengen’s article “Show Me the Honey” fits Jeanne Fahnestock and Marie Secor’s definition of scientific arguments. They believe that the goal of a scientific article should be presenting something new. Hengen does in fact present new research findings relating to Colony Collapse Disorder, also known as CCD. Studies that were conducted at
Not only does the article fit Fahnestock and Secor’s definition, but Hengen does a nice job using the four stasis to present her argument. Since Colony Collapse Disorder is not necessarily common knowledge, the term needed to be defined for the audience. Hengen’s definition was in the first paragraph and was accessible to almost any reader. This lays the ground work for the rest of the article since the issue being argued is a solution to Colony Collapse Disorder and the reader needs to know what exactly CCD is in order to understand why it is a problem. The author also explains the cause of CCD in the first paragraph, which covers the second stasis. The second stasis seems not to be as important as the third stasis considering that it the third stasis is prevalent throughout the article. Hengen is trying to argue that Colony Collapse Disorder is a negative phenomenon that is caused by high levels of pesticides, along with “parasites, viruses, mites, chemical exposure, and even radiation from cell phone towers.”(Hengen.) Hengen’s discussion of the Farm Bill that the Department of Agriculture has proposed to Congress helps show the audience that other people, including people in government, share Hengen’s views. The fourth and final stasis is clearly displayed in the last couple of paragraphs. The author offers many different ways to act differently to support her argument. Hengen urges the audience to use organic agricultural practices to help eliminate pesticides in our bees. I believe that Hengen’s use of the four stasis to articulate her argument adds to the scientific nature of this article because it helped clearly inform the audience of a new concept, CCD.
2 comments:
I think a lot of the students are outlining the way in which the author of the article they are posting about uses the stasis and I think you do a really good job of explaining it. You also explain how this article is scientific very well.
There have been a lot of people that used Fahnestock and Secor's stases to explain how their article was "scientific!" Maybe it's because we talked about it a lot in class, and feel like we understand it better. Your analysis of the article was very effective and to the point, however, I thought that Hengen focused the most on the fourth stasis, the policy. The impression that I got from the article was that what needs to be done was the most important. But I did see that the third stasis was prevalent throughout the whole article and not just "where it should be," following the cause. Did you notice though that Hengen began and ended with ideas from Haagen-Daz? I thought this was really interesting. Maybe she wanted to appeal to the average reader, or maybe just to those who really like ice cream!
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