Lauren Burrows

RC 2001- Fall 2015

Rhetorical Analysis: 3rd Draft
16 September 2015
Salt Triggering Pain in Plants: A Rhetorical Analysis

How different species have related to humankind has for a long time been of great
interest to not only scientists, but the public as a whole. People are interested in what similarities
can bring two different things together and what differences can create barriers between them,
and from new research that talks about how plants can feel human-like pain, humans are one step
closer to finding a link to another species they are not related to.
In both the research of Won-Gyu Choi from the University of Wisconsin, and said
research that was summarized by an article from The Conversation, we are taught about plants
and how they respond to stress in a similar way to humans. Chois article basically speaks about
how salt triggers chemicals in plants that correlate with stress, and how in response to that stress,
the plant will exert calcium from the roots all the way to the tips of each leaf in order to defend
itself against the toxin that salt is to its livelihood. This process appears similar to human pain
processes, and what our bodies do when we are experiencing sensation that is not good for our
well-being.
The exigence that is occurring in the first article by The Conversation is basically the
question of similarities and linkages between different types of organisms. Humans have always
been interested in how similar we are to monkeys, or which animals have thumbs like us, and
which ones cry when members of their herds die. The Conversation knows this, and used this
research to put a spin on our emotion and get more views on its page. It takes the information

regarding chemical stress to the plant and plays to us, making us subconsciously link stress to
emotional responses to pain that we feel, which is not the same though it seems so in the article.
The exigence in the second piece by Choi is how plants respond to stress. Basically,
every organism responds to stress in a different way, and thats what keeps different organisms
alive and thriving. If each different living thing didnt respond to stress, it wouldnt survive very
long because there would be no defense against common enemies that are attacking their body
systems.
In Chois scholarly research, he tells us about the more technical ways to view this
response to stress: the mechanics involved in the operations of the plant, the certain chemicals
that make the response take place, the ways that signals fire, how plants defend themselves
against their opponent, and how the plant manages to create a synthetic nervous system for itself
by utilizing its different respondents to stimuli. The article written by The Conversation, an
online news journal, is basically recapping what is being shown in this research by Choi.
Malcom Campbell, from the University of Toronto, basically sums up what the article says so
that more simple audiences can understand what is being portrayed by the technical terms
associated with the first piece.
The structure of Chois research is set up in an analytical format, double columns without
any titles to each separate section, and long-winded sentences containing difficult terminology
and chemical acronyms that only botanists and biology majors would necessarily understand
(Choi, 6500). This makes the information quite intimidating to first-time readers of findings, and
may turn some off to figuring out what the text is about. There are also graphs, charts and figures
present in the text which would be hard to decode if not explained by the author, which they are

not (Choi, 6498). The intended audience of Choi, therefore, was most likely a range of scientists
and biologists who could appropriately interpret the data given.
The structure of the piece by The Conversation reads like a short story, in paragraphs
with decent, short, understandable terminology and three or four sentences to each paragraph so
readers wont get flustered quickly (Malcom, 1). There are short, catchy titles to each section and
humorous intermissions give the piece a more laid-back tone, perfect for the high school or
university-aged student who was clicking through Facebook before finding the article. This
makes the general public and perhaps even the younger generations good recipients for this
piece.
There really isnt any metaphorical language in the research by Choi, but in the article by
The Conversation, the author is constantly personifying the plant as a human. It talks about how
we should help it (Malcom, 3), how it feels pain (Malcom, 3) and how we should almost pity
it for the pain it has to feel from our salt-use. What it emulates is a documentary made by an
animals rights group for why someone shouldnt eat meat. It is pathos-heavy. The Conversation
wants the reader to feel bad for the plant and expresses its response to pain with calcium as a cry
for help in its system.
The research by Choi is extremely logos-heavy, probably primarily due to its intended
audience of other scientific professionals. It focuses on the findings he found through science
and what triggers a reaction; what stimuli is necessary and what responses take place; what
chemicals are used and what happens when the plant puts up its defenses. It is also ethos-heavy
as the research comes from a university setting and was done with other researchers who he cites
at an extensive list at the end of his article.

Ethos is also presented through numerous graphs and diagrams that have pointers to
locate every single different type of measurement, temperature, oxidation level, etc. The
diagrams are labeled with letters A, B, C instead of with interesting titles to grab readers
attention (Choi, 6500). There are also tables with genes and which genes are released because of
which stress, such as water stress distributes the POP2;3 gene shown in Table 1 (Choi, 6499). By
just looking at these tables and diagrams, you would not be able to gather what was being
displayed, and even with background knowledge, it would be difficult to understand even using
the text. Pathos is basically nonexistent in this research, unless brought on by the reader
themselves.
Quite the opposite is shown in the second piece. In the article by The Conversation that
covers the exact same topic, logos is shown in a very small dose. Basically, the understanding of
what is going on is present, but the numbers and analytics associated with the research is missing
from the evidence, and what is given is only a basic outline. The little logos that appears in the
text is that of time relevance (over the past 50 years) (Malcom, 2), and percentages of salt
levels that have risen over each year. Ethos is also basically nowhere to be found, except for in
the middle of the article where it cites that the work was originally done by Choi and links to the
second piece I refer to which is his scientific research, along with the website for the university
he conducted the research at. Pathos is the big winner here, with catchy titles infiltrating every
paragraph of the short piece, such as the title of the second paragraph: These roots werent made
for walking (Malcom, 1) and the caption of the stock photo depicting a crane carrying a huge
load of salt that says One scoop or two? (Malcom, 2). The article talks about humans as the
bad guys in the story, speaking of the enormous amounts of salt we use when our roads are
iced over, and how much we contribute to plants and the negative sensation that occurs in their

cells when they encounter that salt. It brings stress to a linkage to actual physical pain that
humans feel, and though a good strategy for bringing about change, this isnt necessarily a one
hundred percent fair approach when using data, and could be swayed in different ways that
makes it stray from the original information found.
Although each of these articles talks about salt and plants chemical reactions to
exert calcium to defend against salt intake and its harmful effects to its structure, they are
presented in extremely different ways. One way is the analytical, technical approach to inform
the scientific community of a new finding on how body systems communicate within themselves
and protect themselves from the outside world, while the other is the human-linking, emotional
approach to a purely natural and biological reaction in order to bring the attention of everyday
humans who may or may not feel kindly toward their plant partners. I suppose whichever way
appeals to you the most, the information is still (sort of) being sent. It is all in what approach you
decide to take and what information you actually want to gather or if you just want to understand
a conveyance of it.

Works Cited
Campbell, Malcom. "Plants Respond to Salt Just like Humans Respond to Pain." The
Conversation. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.
Choi, W.-G., M. Toyota, S.-H. Kim, R. Hilleary, and S. Gilroy. "Salt Stress-induced Ca2 Waves
Are Associated with Rapid, Long-distance Root-to-shoot Signaling in Plants." Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences 111.17 (2014): 6497-502. PNAS. Web. 02 Sept. 2015.

Imagine audience does not know prompt of assignment- talk explicitly about what youre doing
Same info displayed in two discourse communities. I will be looking at what rhetorical appeals
each communities used to properly express this knowledge to their audiences.
Expand on audience, and why these are each written (to foster research, to entertain,etc)
take out long-winded: too colloquial- no opinions/bias- be objective
is short story and short, catchy titles in the same trope
expand on ethos- how can we trust these authors
history on the conversation
revise introduction and get to point of what i will be doing quicker
also conclusion
pathos
citations need to be in APA