For Romancing the Atom, the author is Robert R. Johnson who is professor of rhetoric, composition, and technical communication in the Humanities Department at Michigan Technological University. I believe that the primary audience for this text is other teachers or scholars that work in the same field as Johnson, or just anyone else that is interested in this topic. It was easy to read and somewhat easy to follow. This text says that rhetoric is used to try and persuade or change the way that people think. Johnson says that the way we think and the way that we view things are created and manipulated by ourselves and others. There were many different genres used in this text there were quotes from very smart people, such as Albert Einstein, and reports. These were used to help get the main point of the text across. Rhetoric is extremely important when writing scientific texts. You want to have people agree with you. Robert R. Johnson also wrote“For the Love of Pretty Things: The Radium Girls and ‘Dying for Science.’” This text is not about the same topic but its main message is the same. In this text, Johnson is talking about Katherine, who was a Radium girl, and four of her partners. Rhetoric is used to persuade the readers and it was used to show the audience of this event how harmful radium was. When these five women because sick because of radium. They were not the only ones who became ill. It became a large issue and something had to be done about it. When they spoke out on their health, they used rhetoric to try and get the public and others with high authority to try and do something about it. When speaking out on something or trying to make a change, it is very hard to do it alone. You need people to agree with you and support you. Without that, you goal might not be achieved. That is where rhetoric comes in.
Robert's Blog 