Hope Jahren has spent the majority of her life becoming one of the world’s leading specialists in geobiology. The extent of her knowledge makes her research extremely difficult to understand for most people. In order for her memoir, Lab Girl, to be compatible with a large audience, she describes her work in a way that a non-specialized reader can connect with. Jahren’s two objectives in her memoir are to make her academic work and thoughts accessible to a non-specialized audience as well as to make that popular audience invested in her work. The rhetorical devices in Lab Girl are used with these objectives in mind. Jahren joined a group of scientists doing research on the epigenetic memory of conifer trees and how it affects their growth cycle.
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For example, the abstract of her paper introduces her research like this “The temperature during post-meiotic megagametogenesis and seed maturation epigenetically shifts the growth cycle programme of the embryos. This results in significant and long-lasting phenotypic change in the progeny, such as advance or delay of vital phenological processes of high adaptive value, like bud break and bud set” (Jahren 1). None of the terms in her introduction are defined in the paper, which implies that the audience already has knowledge of the subject. However, in her memoir, Jahren introduces her research in a completely different way. “Every spruce does the same thing each autumn: they perform a ‘bud set,’ where they stop growing in anticipation of the first frost,” (Jahren 232). Both the introduction from her abstract and this quote from her book are conveying essentially the same information. However, the introduction from her memoir is much easier to understand because of the difference in language. This is demonstrated in the context that the term “bud set” is presented in each quote. The abstract uses it as an example of changes in the growth cycle of the trees. In her memoir, she puts the term “bud set” in quotations and then clarifies that a spruce stops growing due to low temperatures. This clarification is very helpful in understanding her research because it puts …show more content…
“At the end of the day I have arranged exactly one hundred tiny seeds into a grid. I take photos, guiltily indulging in forty-five minutes of insipid pop radio (music causes labeling mistakes). The finished seedlings resemble a company of green toy soldiers, and I imagine them as fresh seventeen year old World War One recruits, eager to be shipped out with no real idea of what they’re getting into,” (Jahren 236). The work that Jahren does in the lab is repetitive, time-consuming, and comes off as boring to the reader because they don’t understand the work Jahren is doing the same way she does. The research that scientists like Jahren do requires a deep understanding of plant biology, and in order for her audience to achieve a similar understanding, she has to convey information in a different way than she would ordinarily. To do this, Jahren personifies the seeds in her work by comparing them to World War One soldiers which humanizes them. As a result, the audience can draw a connection between something they understand and Jahren’s research. This allows Jahren to explain her research a non-specialized audience without actually educating them.
Jahren’s objectives in Lab Girl are to translate the work that she has done over her career to an audience of non-specialized readers, as well as make her research interesting to this audience. In order to simplify the technical language
For example, the abstract of her paper introduces her research like this “The temperature during post-meiotic megagametogenesis and seed maturation epigenetically shifts the growth cycle programme of the embryos. This results in significant and long-lasting phenotypic change in the progeny, such as advance or delay of vital phenological processes of high adaptive value, like bud break and bud set” (Jahren 1). None of the terms in her introduction are defined in the paper, which implies that the audience already has knowledge of the subject. However, in her memoir, Jahren introduces her research in a completely different way. “Every spruce does the same thing each autumn: they perform a ‘bud set,’ where they stop growing in anticipation of the first frost,” (Jahren 232). Both the introduction from her abstract and this quote from her book are conveying essentially the same information. However, the introduction from her memoir is much easier to understand because of the difference in language. This is demonstrated in the context that the term “bud set” is presented in each quote. The abstract uses it as an example of changes in the growth cycle of the trees. In her memoir, she puts the term “bud set” in quotations and then clarifies that a spruce stops growing due to low temperatures. This clarification is very helpful in understanding her research because it puts …show more content…
“At the end of the day I have arranged exactly one hundred tiny seeds into a grid. I take photos, guiltily indulging in forty-five minutes of insipid pop radio (music causes labeling mistakes). The finished seedlings resemble a company of green toy soldiers, and I imagine them as fresh seventeen year old World War One recruits, eager to be shipped out with no real idea of what they’re getting into,” (Jahren 236). The work that Jahren does in the lab is repetitive, time-consuming, and comes off as boring to the reader because they don’t understand the work Jahren is doing the same way she does. The research that scientists like Jahren do requires a deep understanding of plant biology, and in order for her audience to achieve a similar understanding, she has to convey information in a different way than she would ordinarily. To do this, Jahren personifies the seeds in her work by comparing them to World War One soldiers which humanizes them. As a result, the audience can draw a connection between something they understand and Jahren’s research. This allows Jahren to explain her research a non-specialized audience without actually educating them.
Jahren’s objectives in Lab Girl are to translate the work that she has done over her career to an audience of non-specialized readers, as well as make her research interesting to this audience. In order to simplify the technical language