Running head: CRITICAL GENRE ANALYSIS

Critical Genre Analysis of Climate Change Controversy

Anna M. Pavlak

University of Wisconsin-Stout
Running head: CRITICAL GENRE ANALYSIS

Abstract

Climate change is one of the most controversial topics of our generation. Within this

paper, I will be analyzing different sources and their style of writing and the effect it has on the

audience. It turns out, they all have a similar style of writing when it comes to this controversial

topic. We will be discussing the effect of their writing and how their message gets across to the

audience.
Running head: CRITICAL GENRE ANALYSIS

Critical Genre Analysis of Climate Change Controversy

Global warming can be classified as the earth’s temperature increasing at a faster rate

ever recorded in history, this is the biggest aspect of climate change right now. Climate change is

one of the most pressing concerns of our time. It is a very controversial topic in the sense that

they are not certain if it is a natural part of the planetary cycle, or if it is due to human influence.

Also, not all parts of the earth are heating up at the same rate, it varies between the two

hemispheres.

Genre analysis is important because it helps develop reading and writing skills. There are

many specific patterns to writing, and to be able to create and analyze writing is a skill needed

for many different aspects. In order to fully understand the authors motive, it’s important to

know how to analyze the genre in order to get a better understanding of the authors purpose.

The controversial topic I am writing in this paper is a pressing issue of our time.

Therefor, it will benefit to people with little knowledge of the topic, as well as a student in my

major being able to view how to analyze this genre. When it comes to controversial topics,

especially within science, analyzing the genre can be a great tool for all audiences trying to

interpret the writing.

What rhetorical features are used by authors to address climate change in different

contexts?

Methods

I extracted data from the UW Stout library database. I found an article titled “Is Climate

Change Controversial? Modeling Controversy as Contention Within Populations”. Within this

article written by Shiri Dori-Hacohen, Myungha Jang and James Allan, it goes through how
Running head: CRITICAL GENRE ANALYSIS

climate change is controversial, why it is relevant, and how people are presenting it to the public.

The second peer reviewed article I found within the library database was an article more towards

the political side of climate change titled, “The Economics and Politics of Climate Change”

written by Robert W. Hahn. The last source I analyzed was a book titled “Why We Disagree

About Climate Change”, which is more of a research book on climate and what it means.

I used the University of Wisconsin Stout library database, as well as google scholar to

find these articles. It was very efficient and trustworthy, which is very critical for this topic.

When I discovered facts and important information towards climate change, I double checked it

by simply searching into google and seeing if there were other controversial facts similar to the

one I would be using.

When using these sources, it is important to analyze different aspects of the articles.

These consist of determining purpose, which is important, so one can really focus in and use

specific material that will help one’s writing. Another aspect is to study the context of the genre.

This should be done by looking into the date of the article, author, audience, and the purpose the

author is attempting to convey. Next, I examined the patterns of the writing, such as what they

choose to exclude and include in the writing. Sources are important when analyzing as well, if it

is factual information, be sure to fact check with their sources that should be provided. I then put

both the context, and the pattern, of the article and analyzed what these patterns reveal about the

context. I did this by looking at ethos, pathos, logos, and the format of the articles.

Results

The results of this research are for the most part straightforward. The authors of these

articles all seemed to follow a similar pattern. Although they all had different contexts, such as
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politics, climate in general, and just the sheer controversy aspect of it, they all had many things

in common. One thing that differed was that one of the articles was more about how climate

change is seen and how the media portrays it. One thing that was similar was the agreement that

it was a very serious and real issue.

For instance, they all contain a social aspect within their writing, how the community

views climate and the effect this controversy has had on the society. We can see this within the

book written by Mike Hulme (2009), “The ease with which we use ‘climate’ in its metaphorical

sense helps us to understand that there are other ways of conceiving climate’s relationship with

the physical world than solely through the meteorological statistics… Climate has always carried

a deeper, precarious and more ambiguous meaning for humans than the merely prosaic” (p. 6).

The article titled “Is Climate Change Controversial? Modeling Controversy as Contention

Within Populations”, shows a social aspect as well, “Meanwhile, a disparity is growing between

scientific understanding and public opinion on certain controversial topics, such as climate

change” (Shiri Dori-Hacohen, Myungha Jang and James Allan, 2017, p. 1).

Another topic they all had in common was how the media and politics play a big role

within this topic. The book states “Not only is climate change altering our physical world, but the

idea of climate change is altering our social worlds” (Hulme, 2009, p. 8). We see this through

Robert Hahn’s article as well, “…an analysis of climate change politics can identify the kinds of

policies that are likely to be feasible- and not feasible-and the kinds of actions different countries

are likely to take” (1998, 26), within his article he writes a lot about the reasoning for politicians

leaning one way. As for the third article, they had an interesting research method, “We also

obtained a data set…which offers users the chance to report their opinions on a wide variety of
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controversial topics, and outputs the information of which political candidate they most closely

align with” (Shiri Dori-Hacohen, Myungha Jang and James Allan, 2017, p. 4).

So, as we can see, the rhetorical features used by authors to address climate change in

different contexts are similar in different ways. It can also be seen through lots of ethos and logos

within these excerpts. One difference was that the book uses some pathos as well, it incorporates

phrases like “human obligation”, and “climate change as the inspiration for a global movement”

(Hulme, 2009, p. 3). This was really one of the only things that stuck out to me while analyzing

the strategies that these three sources used.

Discussion

Strategies like ethos and logos are some of the strongest strategies when writing about a

topic such as this one. Since it is mostly facts and data, it is extremely important to use these in

order to convey to the audience what your saying is real and intellectual. It is more effective to

refrain from pathos to rule out bias, especially with a controversial topic. People are more

concerned about factual evidence than one’s opinion. As for structure, the most common and

effective way of writing seen within these articles, and many others, is a cause and effect

structure. They state the problem, why it’s happening, and the effect it has on its surroundings.

These rhetorical patterns are effective because of the way they interact with the values of

reader. The audience for this particular subject ranges from scientists, to common citizens.

Therefore, the rhetorical patterns can be tricky, because the goal is to appeal to the entire

audience. Especially writing as a student within engineering interested in this topic, because of

the controversial background, it can be difficult to per sway without sounding bias. The popular

source, which was the book in this case, used more pathos, and was less concerned about
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sounding bias to the audience. The academic source, which was the two articles, was strictly

factual information and did not attempt to stick to one side. Overall, when writing about a subject

such as this one, be sure to do the following:

For an academic source:

 Strictly stick to ethos and logos

 Be sure to cite your sources well

 Be sure to include both sides of the argument, backed up with facts

For a popular source:

 Cautiously use pathos, make sure it’s helping your case vs. hurting

 Try to relate to the audience when using pathos

 Be sure to include both sides of the argument, one might lean towards a side to appeal to

the audience
Running head: CRITICAL GENRE ANALYSIS

References

Braziller, A., Kleinfeld, E. (2014). Encyclopedia entries. In A. Braziller & E. Kleinfeld, The

Bedford book of genres: A guide (pp.102-106). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Dori-Hacohen, S., Jang, M., Allan, J. (2017). Is Climate Change Controversial? Modeling

Controversy as Contention Within Populations. Cornell University Library, Pages 1-11.

Hahn, R. (1998). The economics and politics of climate change (AEI studies on global

environmental policy). Washington, D.C.: AEI Press.

Hulme, M. (2009). Why We Disagree About Climate Change. New York City: Cambridge

University Press.