Chris Donnelly

ENC-2135
9/9/15

The three artifacts I have chosen to examine in my rhetorical analysis are all online
articles from various websites which deal with the conservation of our national parks. The first is
a comparison between the two often confused terms of preservation and conservation. It goes
into the history and meaning of each phrase, and even goes into practical uses of the two
methods today. Next is an article from the National Parks Preservation Conservation that lists
their five steps to saving the national parks. This one is less informative, instead it serves as a
call to action and promotes the ideas of the organization. Lastly is the most recent of the three
online articles, a report on how the repaving of roads surrounding old faithful with a car tire
based asphalt will improve the absorption of ground water to help maintain the geysers regular
eruptions.
The authors of these three articles vary greatly. One is a young marine scientist who
works to develop relations between the communities and the environments of coastal cities and
towns in order to protect the environment. The second is a staff writer for the tech website
Gizmodo, and the third author is the National Parks Conservation Association as a whole. Two
of these artifacts were published on a science or technology based website, so the targeted
audience may be more interested in those areas than conservation, despite it being the topic of
the article. The third artifact was published on the NPCA website, and may have also been
printed out as a pamphlet. The audience here are those interested in or perhaps even visiting
national parks. Two of the articles were written by scientists or conservationists within their
respective cultures. They are voices of authority as well as peers of some of their readers. The
other is written in the separate culture of technology, so the article must focus more on the
innovative solution to the problem instead of the environmental impact.
The genre of an online article suits the two shorter artifacts well. The way that the longer
artifact from the NPCA site is formatted, it may be best used as a presentation accompanied by a
speaker or as a printed reference sheet. None of these three articles would work as a different
genre because they are mostly informational. They couldnt be made into plays or novels
because they dont have plots or characters. Now looking at rhetorical appeals, well begin with
the first of the three artifacts, the one about new asphalt paths in Yellowstone. This article creates
an appeal to logic by often referring to numbers explaining how beneficial this new technology is
to the health of the geysers. This makes sense considering the article is hosted on a tech site; its
viewers may not be the most interested or informed about our national parks, but they can
appreciate the improvements of such an innovation. In the other two artifacts, the author creates
credibility by speaking from their position of a scientist or conservationist. The NPCA article
also gains emotional appeal by making the readers worried for the future of the parks, even
ending with a pledge they ask you to sign and send in to them.
The articles each fulfil their authors purposes, appealing to their varied audiences by
presenting arguments to suit them best. The rhetorical appeals used depended on the intended
audience, and each combination of these strategies was successful in getting the point across.

Chris Donnelly
ENC-2135
9/9/15

http://gizmodo.com/excellent-way-way-to-keep-old-faithful-from-looking-tir-1728719360
http://www.southernfriedscience.com/?p=11746
http://www.npca.org/assets/pdf/whitepaper_final_lowres.pdf