Segal, Judy Z. “Internet Health and the 21st-Century Patient: A Rhetorical View.” Written Communication 26 4 (2009): 351-69. Print.

• Segal defines “internet health” as the “public use of information Web sites to facilitate decision making on matters of health and illness”
• Segal’s argument is that internet health – usually conceived in the rhetorical triangle – focuses only on the speaker.  Segal’s work hopes to illustrate how internet health is a complex entity that is not merely transferred but also translated by the web.  Further, she wants to also take into account the audience and how audience also transforms health information on the web.
• S. defines the problem and her terms in the beginning of the article. Re: internet health, empowerment.
• Segal’s argument is that the “internet-health user” is remade by health discourse on the web in sometimes unempowring ways – in ways that compromise her as a decision maker.
• Disrupts the idea that diseases are a “list of symptoms.’
• Natures of “knowledge and expertise” not merely access should be the prime indicator about health care (audience assumptions).
• S. views her essay as a “prolegomenon to further study of the rhetoric of internet health”
• The corpus of texts the author read for the study is detailed at the bottom of page 6  - a literacy narrative of sorts for this project.
• The author notes her “filtering theory” as made up of, primarily, rhetoricians like Burke, McLuhan, Lash, Rose, and Aristotle.
• Uses APA?
• “Rhetorics of Reliability” – the rating system encountered in ratemyprofessor.com, angieslist.com, etc.
• Because of the mediating presence of technology, the rhetorical triangle in this case – and all cases – must be recounted for.  In this process, the transferability of information must be recounted for – non linear, rhizomatic.
• Logos and pathos internet searchers – one is rational and one is panicked, emotional.
• End of article offers a “where to go next” call to extended research into “the phenomenology” of internet health (and the rhetoric).

Dahl, Trine. “The Linguistic Representation of Rhetorical Function: A Study of How Economists Present Their Knowledge Claims.” Written Communication 26 4 (2009): 370-91. Print.

• This article is studying the placement of claims in economist publications.  In these forums, claims are usually presented three times: abstract, introduction and conclusion.  Considering this, the authors ask what “rhetorical function each of these three text parts has [and whether they] have an impact on the linguistic realization of the claim.”
• Corpus of texts id’d in the intro.
• Claims are apparently also always presented in the “simple present” tense.
• Discussion of findings usually includes the views of the discipline insiders, “providing clear indications of the strategic nature of the research communication process.”
• Every article has a “keywords” section that IDs the important terms for the article.
• Economics is both “hard” science (science mathematics to draw up interactions between humans and markets) and “soft” (issues related to human behavior in the context of markets)
• Parts of a research article: 1) propose new knowledge to the research community, 2) each part of the article performs a specific rhetorical function, 3) each part incorporates several lower level functions Swales calls “moves” or “steps.”
• Extended literature review of published research on this particular line of research in the beginning of the article.
• Complete method, corpus of text selection and steps in study documented in this piece also.
• Sets up entire discussion of each section before jumping in.
• Take away from analysis: people use signal phrases, claims are hedged and present tense is usually used.
• Very clear conclusion that pays close attention to recap and also relates the study to written communication as well as to the research subjects – in this case economists.

Kenkel, James, and Robert Yates. “The Interlanguage Grammar of Information Management in L1 and L2 Developing Writing.” Written Communication 26 4 (2009): 392-416. Print.

• Relies on scholars from the field of rhetoric and composition (Shaughnessy, Bartholomae)
• Corpus of texts are identified early in the work.  Also, constructions usually labeled as errors are in structures that are “principled attempts to meet their obligation of managing information”
• Work begins with a lit review that explores the commonalities between L1 and L2 writers.
• A clear path is provided for the reader in the introduction that clearly outlines where the article is going.
• Scaffolding – in the way of definitions – occurs throughout this piece.
• Much like the Dahl article, the authors use explicit snippets from the gathered data to demonstrate their points.
• As in the other articles, this piece has an extensive “method” section that takes into account where and how the data was collected.  The method section also demonstrates how the data was analyzed, categorized, filtered and made sense of.
• There is some serious stat/table work in this piece.  The graph on pg. 404 is really complex, but represents the findings of analysis visually instead of merely textually.  The graph is also in the article itself, not in an appendix.
• If, as the authors claim, “both native speakers and nonnative speakers make similar language choices to meet obligations of ordering information in their texts” I wonder how this idea complicates Kennedy’s comparative rhetoric.  Are the L2 students simply changing their information ordering skills to meet Western discourse or are thinking patterns more than site/culture-specific?
• This article has an extensive appendix that demonstrates the research, method, and data.

Thompson, Isabelle. “Scaffolding in the Writing Center: A Microanalysis of an Experienced Tutor’s Verbal and Nonverbal Tutoring Strategies.” Written Communication 26 4 (2009): 417-53. Print.

• This piece analyzes an experienced writing center tutor’s use of direct instruction, cognitive scaffolding, and motivational scaffolding.  Also, the analysis also considers how hand gesturers and interactive gestures are at work in the tutoring session.
• Piece includes a rather extensive review of literature related to writing center research, scaffolding, and cognition in the introduction.  This review is more extensive than the other articles.
• The article defines all terms in individual sections.  Scaffolding is discussed in the context of psychology and gestural cognition.
• Again, this article also contains a section on method that describes when, where, and how the data was collected.  Further, this section also discusses how the data was analyzed (method of collection and subsequent analysis on 427).
• IRE – initiate-respond-evaluate turn-taking is discussed on 433.  You do this, but need to do it less! J
• Much akin to a couple of the other articles, this one calls for an extension of the research into broader, more diverse contexts.  In other words, RAD.