Rhetorical Analysis
My rhetorical analysis is about meningitis. The analysis will be describing many rhetorical elements that are portrayed to be showing connections. It will also be describing the causes and effects as well as preventions that can be made. It also provides ways the author uses these connections to prevail how the authors explain each detail and how it can be used to betterment our knowledge as well as educate us on the studies.
The article “Meningitis” by Katherina Putz MD, Karen Hayani MD and Fred Arthur Zar MD is regarding Meningitis and the cause effects and treatments of it. This article was written by three doctors who have studied and researched about it. Meningitis is caused by an infection which can be either bacterial or fungal located right between the skull and the brain. This sort of infection can usually be treated with a vaccine depending on what kind of meningitis it is. Most times meningitis can be detected by an abnormal amount of white blood cells. This article shows a closer understanding of meningitis through the help of rhetorical elements provided by the research done by the authors/doctors.
The purpose of this article is to provide context and a better understanding of meningitis, it’s symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and more. They also pointed towards how different viruses can point towards meningitis while having many subtypes and how it can also cause it to worsen. In the article it states, “More than 30 different viruses and subtypes have been shown to cause acute meningitis; however, enteroviruses and their subtypes are the leading etiologic agents and cause 85% to 95% of cases.” This quote from the article provides us with a better understanding of how many smaller viruses can create subtypes which can then affect the already established meningitis as well as create it to be stronger.
The authors have also provided a list of key points that can be taken into consideration to understand the age group most affected, the understanding of differences between them and what type of treatment usually occurs. As stated in the article, “Meningitis is an important infectious disease that affects different age groups. Bacterial meningitis must be distinguished from aseptic meningitis and specific antimicrobial therapy must be provided emergently. Although aseptic meningitis usually follows a benign clinical course, occasionally hospitalization and specific therapy is required.” This quote shows us how the author is providing us important information on what age groups can be affected and that there are some types of meningitis that causes you to be hospitalized.
The medium being used is the clinical key website accessed through CCNY’s database which can also be found online. This article can easily be accessed by any CCNY student. This social website can be used by anyone interested in medical studies or of neurological diseases. The audience of the article is mainly targeted to people who may be affected by it. They could be interested in knowing or defining which kind of meningitis they may be diagnosed with and how they can treat it. This can also attract a lot of medical students on the path of becoming a neurologist as it will help them understand the structures and causes and effects of the brains more with viruses.
A specific medical language is being used in the article. The word being used is “virus” which can often be taken as something life taking or life threatening. This collides with the context of the word “virus” being used in the article because in the article it refers more to a spread of the infection into the meningi rather than the whole body like a normal virus would do. It would’ve spread throughout the whole body but for meningitis it’s only surrounded the meningi in the head.
The rhetorical elements media, language, medium being used in the article have helped better understand more about meningitis. It helps better develop what kind of meningitis there is. Which ones are more harmful than others and which ones must be treated in hospitalization or at home. The main purpose was to further educate readers on a very common virus that can be easily detected with just a simple blood test. The article fully explains each detail connecting back to meningitis as well as providing facts from other sources and having a deeper research on each aspect of it. The only improvement this article needs is to try to make the words easier to understand rather than using medical words because some readers may be from the non medical field which may cause some complications in understanding it.
Work Cited
Hayani Karen, Putz Katherina, Zar Fred Arthur, “Meningitis”. Clinical key, 2013.
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