The Rhetorical Situation of the Scientific Paper and the “appearance” of Objectivity

Mention the words rhetoric and science together, and many people see an intrinsic contradiction. After all, two hallmarks of modern science are objectivity and empirical method, whereas rhetoric bears the marks of a long and sometimes sordid history of sophistic oratory and biased argumentation. Gerald Holton describes this distinction: Rhetoric is often perceived as the art of persuasion, while science is generally seen as the art of demonstration (173). This idea implies, to use a figure of speech, that rhetoric and science should not be seen together in public. The distinction between the two, however, is probably more fabricated than genuine. Scholars, especially during the last several decades, have argued that scientific practice and discourse do have rhetorical and persuasive elements. Published scientific papers bridge the gap between a scientist’s work and the public’s knowledge of that work. Research that goes unpublished, to use an image from Robert Day, is like a tree falling in a forest when no one is around––there is no “sound” without an audience (1). In order for this knowledge to be received and accepted by the intended audience, generally the scientific community, the research or experimental report must follow certain conventions, not the least of which are methodological validity and pertinence to the existing body of scientific knowledge. The authors of scientific papers must demonstrate the validity and objectivity of their findings and make them seem interesting and relevant to already-established conclusions. In effect, this is a rhetorical situation: a speaker (the author) communicates knowledge about a particular subject to an audience via the scientific paper, intending, on some level, to persuade that audience. What is most interesting about the rhetorical situation of the scientific paper is that the writer persuades his or her audience largely through the appearance of objectivity. Many people, as Charles Bazerman points out, think that writing based on scientific premises is not really writing at all (14), that it is an unbiased vessel for transmitting truth. But in this essay, I analyze Renske Wassenberg, Jeffrey E. Max, Scott D. Lindgren, and Amy Schatz’s article, “Sustained Attention in Children and Adolescents after Traumatic Brain Injury: Relation to Severity of Injury, Adaptive Functioning, ADHD and Social Background” (herein referred to as “Sustained Attention in Children and Adolescents”), recently published in Brain Injury, to illustrate that the writer of an experimental report in effect creates an exigence and then addresses it through rhetorical strategies that contribute to the appearance of objectivity.