August 17th, 2017 was when it all started, but it wasn’t until August 25th when Harvey decided to take a shot at Texas. The nation was shocked by the highest winds of 130 mph, the 84 confirmed deaths, and the thousands of homes destroyed. Why did Harvey develop into something so destructive? In “Hurricane Harvey: Why Is It So Extreme?”, Mark Fischetti successfully explained the science behind how and why Hurricane Harvey became so powerful and destructive in Texas to the public, from a natural science perspective. To provide clear and accurate answers, Mr. Fischetti reached out to meteorologist Jeff Masters for expertise. Throughout his article, Fischetti effectively used rhetorical appeals of ethos and logos to provide explanations to the
…show more content…
Fischetti wrote in passive voice, with the exception of quoting Masters in talking about hurricanes in general. It was necessary for Masters to give a understanding and foundation of how hurricanes work in which he used an active voice, but Masters would use passive voice when he applied that information to the status of Hurricane Harvey. For example, Nguyen and Masters discussed how Harvey produced so much rainfall, despite no longer being over the ocean. Masters explained how hurricanes normally pull moisture from the ocean and release it as rainfall in active voice, but changes to passive voice when talking about what Harvey specifically did. It’s typical to write natural science articles in the passive voice. Nguyen’s article was written simultaneously while the organizations were offering assistance, so it’s in active voice. It is evident in the article from the choice of verbs the article is written in present tense. Nguyen uses the verbs such as, offering, operating, serving, and moving rapidly. The overall language used in both articles is simple and direct. Fischetti’s article was seen as a source of information to answer the many questions the public had about Harvey, so it needed to be written in a way ordinary citizens could understand. Nguyen’s article was seen as something to show the country how communities across the nation were coming together to provide relief and comfort and in a way Nguyen wrote the article in a more personal way than Masters. There were two instances in Fischetti’s article where Masters used meteorologist vocab, but he defined what the word meant. The effect of doing so reminded Masters the audience is the general public and allowed the audience to have a complete understanding of what Masters said. An example of this is in answering the question of how Harvey went from a category one to a category four so rapidly. In paragraph two, Masters stated
Fischetti wrote in passive voice, with the exception of quoting Masters in talking about hurricanes in general. It was necessary for Masters to give a understanding and foundation of how hurricanes work in which he used an active voice, but Masters would use passive voice when he applied that information to the status of Hurricane Harvey. For example, Nguyen and Masters discussed how Harvey produced so much rainfall, despite no longer being over the ocean. Masters explained how hurricanes normally pull moisture from the ocean and release it as rainfall in active voice, but changes to passive voice when talking about what Harvey specifically did. It’s typical to write natural science articles in the passive voice. Nguyen’s article was written simultaneously while the organizations were offering assistance, so it’s in active voice. It is evident in the article from the choice of verbs the article is written in present tense. Nguyen uses the verbs such as, offering, operating, serving, and moving rapidly. The overall language used in both articles is simple and direct. Fischetti’s article was seen as a source of information to answer the many questions the public had about Harvey, so it needed to be written in a way ordinary citizens could understand. Nguyen’s article was seen as something to show the country how communities across the nation were coming together to provide relief and comfort and in a way Nguyen wrote the article in a more personal way than Masters. There were two instances in Fischetti’s article where Masters used meteorologist vocab, but he defined what the word meant. The effect of doing so reminded Masters the audience is the general public and allowed the audience to have a complete understanding of what Masters said. An example of this is in answering the question of how Harvey went from a category one to a category four so rapidly. In paragraph two, Masters stated