Rhetoric Analysis of the Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid Article

By definition, rhetoric is the art of composing effective discourse using persuasion or an argument and incorporating information into the piece. Rhetoric also has a primary and secondary audience that it tries to address their argument. In the article called “A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid.”, by Watson, James, and Crick, Francis, the article is a great example of how rhetoric works in a writing piece. One example that the article is rhetorical is it provides a strong argument as to why the Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid structure model created previously by two scientists called Pauling and Corey is inadequate to how the DNA structure appears and is held together. In the article, it provides the argument on page 1 stating, “In our opinion, this structure is unsatisfactory for two reasons: (l) We believe that the material which gives the X-ray diagrams is the salt, not the free acid. Without the acidic hydrogen atoms, it is not clear what forces would hold the structure together, especially is

The key to rhetoric is providing an effective discourse and to do that an author must provide information. In the scientific article, Watson and Crick provide information on what the molecular structure of DNA is composed of and how this relates to the flaws in the model created by Pauling and Corey. They provide information of studies that back up their claim on what the DNA structure is made of such as in paragraph 2, “It has been found experimentally 3'4 that the ratio of the amounts of adenine to thymine, and the ratio of guanine to cytosine, ore always very close to unity for deoxyribose nucleic acid”. Essentially, they provided information and studies to back up their claims as to why the other model is faulty in showing the DNA structure and why it should be changed based on the facts. The article provides information, which makes the scientific text rhetorical as