Evaluation of Rhetorical Situations

In this post I will evaluate acts of public speech on a controversy in my discipline.

Public Domain Pictures. "Unknown" September 24 2013. CC0 Public Domain.

1. "Stimulating Controversy" on Electrotherapy in Physical Therapy

• The author of this piece is Gad Alon. He has a PhD and is a Physical Therapist. The author doesn't introduce himself but it is mentioned at the beginning and end of the piece. If the author were someone with less credibility, the piece would be less informative and lack the variety of information. The authors values are shown a little bit throughout the text. It's obvious that he is concerned with the results of the studies being done on electrotherapy. At the same time, it's clear he tries to mask his opinion and just give the information that is currently known.
• The primary audience is other physical therapists looking for more on the controversy or patients looking for information on why the treatment has been put to question. The text assumes that the audience values proper and effective treatment through physical therapy whether that may be through the use of e-stim or not. The audience values the most effective and least harmful treatments.
• This piece was published in April 1, 2001. This medium is an informative article on a medical search engine. This article is related to all other physical therapy controversies and different types of treatments. It is unknown where the author published this text. Other texts that are similar to this one are posted on a link at the bottom that includes articles of or relating to physical therapy and different types of treatments.

2. "Vitamin D: How much is enough?" 

• The author is Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay. There is no evidence that he has any professional knowledge on the subject but he quotes reputable sources throughout the text. It's possible that if the author himself were more credible the piece would contain information of better quality. From the introduction, it's obvious that the author is very in favor of using vitamin D supplements as a treatment. The rest of the information given throughout the text shows that the author is backing up his opinion with factual information.
• The primary audience is people concerned with the amount of vitamin D they're consuming or anyone looking for information on the controversy. The genre of the text is similar to that of a QRG which makes it a little more official. This makes the audience a bit more broad. 
• This text was published in June/July of 2014. The context fits that of a quick reference ride but it is more formal and more in depth than original QRGs. Other texts similar to this one can be found on the website where it was posted.  

3. "Case study report: postural restoration: an effective physical therapy approach to patient treatment"

• The author is a physical therapist name Holly Spence. Due to the fact that this piece is a case study from a patient the information is very reliable. The author provides a table of the patients history and progress which shows evidence of the treatment working. From the type of language used thtoughout the text, it's very obvious the author has a lot of information on the subject. 
• The primary audience of this text is mentioned at the beginning. The piece is designed to inform other physical therapists or professionals in the field of new and effective treatments. The language used makes it obvious that the reader should have some knowledge on the subject of the treatment or of other treatments. 
• The piece was published in April of 2008. This makes the information pretty recent in terms of medical treatments. The piece was a case study of a patient where the use of postural restoration was successful. Other texts similar to this are difficult to find but they can be found on medical journals. 

Reflection

I reviewed Jayni's post and Kelly's post. The formats of both of their posts were different from mine which only gave me more ideas on how to construct blog posts in the future. Jayni set hers up as a table and Kelly used short sentences with titles to evaluate hers. I admired both techniques. After seeing my peers posts I can confidently say that my post reflects the amount of time I spent analyzing my sources. My peers did give me ideas on how to effectively format my blog posts. Looking back I should have used titles separating my different paragraphs rather than bullet points.