Rhetorical Analysis of Academic Journal

Journals are a huge genre in any field of academia. For my major specifically though, the most common genre of writing seems to be the journal article. Below, I will do a rhetorical analysis of one of the journals, The Journal of General Physiology.

Author/Speaker

• Sharona E. Gordon- professor of physiology at the University of Washington

• Elke Bocksteins-professor at the University of Antwerp

• Victor De La Rosa-department of physiology and biophysics at Commonwealth University

• Esteban Suarez-Delgado-more information could not be found :(

• Gisela E. Rangel-Yescas-professor at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico

• Leon D. Islas-professor at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico

• Franklin M. Mullins-physiologist and journal contributor

• Richard S. Lewis-professor of molecular and cellular physiology at Stanford University

• Kevin Michalski-graduate student at Cornell University

• Toshimitsu Kawate-lab director and researcher at Cornell University

• Violetta V. Kravtsova-affiliated with St. Petersburg State University

• Alexey M. Petrov-professor in the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy at Wayne State Univ.

• Vladimir V. Matchkov-Dept of Biomedicine at Aarhus Univ.

• Elena V. Bouzinova-Neuroscience, Physiology, and Women and Politics at the Univ. of Aarhus

• Alexander N. Vasiliev-specialist in the field of condensed matter physics

• Boubacar Benziane- integrative physiology at the Karolinska Institute

• Andrey L. Zefirov-pathology and gastroenterology at the Kazan Federal University

• Alexander V. Chibalin-Karolinska Institute

• Judith A. Heiny -professor and researcher at the Univ. of Cincinnati

• Igor I. Krivoi-researcher at St. Petersburg State Univ.

• Eric N. Senning-physiology expert, Univ. of Washington

• Teresa K. Aman-researcher, expert on cell biology, physiology, and neuroscience

• William N. Zagotta-professor at the Univ. of Washington, dept. of physiology and biophysics

• Moshe T. Gordon-director of undergraduate research, Univ. of Washington

• Mika A. Munari-research scientist at the Univ. of Washington

The authors of the articles in the journal are all professionals who are highly qualified to be writing about what they are writing about. For the editorial pieces, the authors have more of a voice and are portrayed as more "human" and less robotic than in the research pieces, where they hardly have any voices and are portrayed as just professionals who happen to be experts on the particular topics.

Audience

The audience for a scientific journal can be extremely broad. Each article has an abstract, which is designed so that anyone can read it, whether they have scientific background or not. Then there is the full article, which can sometimes be much more complicated and intended for a much more scientific audience. So, theoretically, anyone with an interest in the article can read the abstract, however the main article may be much harder to read and comprehend for just anyone. 

Context

• This journal was published in February of 2016.
• The particular journal is found online, but there is probably a print version as well. A journal found online is going to be very similar to the one found in print. A journal found online would still have the same conventions that a journal found in print would have. Among these conventions are multiple articles, a table of contents, multiple authors, and full size articles as well as simplified abstracts. 
• Contemporary events, such as the introduction of new scientific techniques, etc. may change the author's views on what he or she has written. The audience's views may change depending on their own personal knowledge about the topic, or the credibility of the author. 
• This journal has to do with modern experiments and reviews in science, so any of the topics that are covered in the journal could possibly be a hot topic in social media, however, due to the audience of the scientific journal, it is unlikely that the science involved in the journal would be related to a social movement.  
• The background of the primary audience is probably going to be someone with a high degree of education, most likely in a science field, who is interested in what is in this particular magazine. The secondary audience may just be any person, like myself, who does not have the education to understand everything in the article, but still has a little bit of an interest in the topic.
• This journal is published in the United states, so it focuses primarily on topics that are relevant to scientists and physiologists in the USA.
• I would say that any journal that contains similar articles would be a supplement to this text, however, I don;t think that this particular text is a reaction to any of those texts. Because of the nature of a scientific journal, it is more about facts rather than opinions and reactions.

Message

The message of this journal is the information that is covered throughout the journal.

Purpose

The purpose of this journal is to educate the audience on the topics covered in the journal. The author of each article wants to explain the research to the reader and explain how it is important.