I need help to write a Rhetorical Analysis essay

The Puzzle on Bariatric Surgery

It seems as though every few years, there is a new weight loss method in America that becomes popular because it is initially effective and that current new weight loss method is bariatric surgery. Bariatric surgery is a type of weight-loss surgery that limits the amount of food that the stomach can hold and decreases the amount of food calories the body can absorb. In Samantha Murphy’s article, “The Subtle Knife” appearing in the New Scientist, her main focus is that bariatric surgery has not only physiological effects, but also psychological and cognitive effects on the body that leads to effective weight loss. Murphy’s article is effective at convincing the audience because the author undergoes bariatric surgery and shares her personal experience, presents clinical scientific data, uses subtle sarcastic humor, employs nontraditional formatting, and deploys word connotation.

The New Scientist’s website states their target market is seventy percent men, and thirty percent women, that are highly educated, financially secure, environmentally friendly, influential, and community leaders. The magazine cites, “The science and technology resource for the intellectually curious.” In other words, their target readers are interested in what is current in technology and drives inquiry for their readers about how it will impact their audience’s life. Hence, these empathetic readers are interested in bariatric surgery because it has become a current, life saving, popular choice for the obese population to lose weight permanently.

The Cognitive and Behavioral Psychotherapist, turned Freelance Writer for New Scientist Magazine, Samantha Murphy organizes the scientific article like a long narrative autobiographical essay with bolded subtitles to highlight two major phases of her research findings concerning bariatric surgery. Two instances of bolded subtitles are, “Keeping the weight off” and “Super normal.” Having this narrative essay format technique gives the article a refreshing change in formatting style that normally is not found in scientific, technological, or informative writing. Actually, it did not have charts and graphs to prove the clinical research stats on bariatric surgery that makes the article appear like a science report and easily intimidates readers. Instead, she combines in the body of her essay research data, quotes with attributive tags to establish credibility and to document scientific facts.

The author has a tri-fold purpose in writing “The Subtle Knife.” Throughout her article she has pieces of scientific data to inform the reader. Murphy states, “In the US, where 36 per cent of the population is classified as obese, at least 200,000 people sign up to have the surgery every year, and that number keeps climbing.” In short, she is proving that weight-loss surgeries are becoming increasingly popular with obese people.

Another of Murphy’s objectives is to illustrate parts of the documentation that substantiates her criticisms about bariatric surgery. Murphy uses research in her article from the Journal of Clinical Neuroscience, “MRI scans revealed that those reporting cognitive problems had 24 percent less volume in the thalamus, a small area of the brain associated with memory, attention, concentration and sensory information about taste.” To put it another way, patients after bariatric surgery are permanently losing some cognitive brain function that would help them differentiate between recalling what things they did from one day versus remembering what they did on another day.

On the other hand, most of Murphy’s rhetorical techniques are used to persuade the reader toward the benefits of surgical weight-loss. To take a case in point, Murphy in her document acknowledges the info from the International Journal of Obesity, “Some researchers are beginning to wonder whether these changes point to a ‘knifeless solution’ that makes use of these hormonal fluctuations to combat obesity at the neurological level.” In other words, my understanding is that if the weight-loss solution is really a function of increasing appetite control hormones in the body, then patients would not opt to have invasive surgeries to control their obesity. Instead, the patient could take a pill with body hormones that suppresses the patient’s appetite and increases the likelihood of weight-loss.

The article’s presentation of important cognitive clinical findings helps showcase the academic credibility of the author and is efficient in building trust with the reader. Plus, Murphy’s account throughout the article detailing of her personal experience physiologically and psychological by undergoing bariatric surgery has mass empathetic appeal for her audience. She establishes credibility by reporting her findings and supporting them with well researched clinical findings. She entertains by using wit and humor to report on the serious issue of obesity and surgical weight loss. The document’s positive effectiveness in using the author’s personal experience helps the reader identify with the vulnerability and the fragileness of an obese person’s superficial body stigma of being morbidly obese.

Moreover, she uses subtle sarcasm from the beginning to the end of the article to establish incongruity between what might be expected from weight-loss surgery versus what actually occurs. One instance of subtle sarcasm Murphy uses is, “I had got off lucky.” That is she could have suffered detrimental side effects other than the simpler ones she experienced. In this manner, the author highlights the double edged knife of bariatric surgery and makes the reader aware of the positives and negatives of the surgical procedure. The use of sarcasm in the article works positively to drive major points across to the intended audience.

The author uses strategically placed rhetorical questions all over the article to purposely persuade and to invoke the reader’s critical thinking skills to focus on important areas that need to be considered, and leads the audience to her obvious answers. Some examples are, “Might the switch be psychological?”, “Are certain populations more susceptible to the positive effects of bariatric surgery?”, and “Is one kind of surgery more likely to lead to cognitive decline than the others?” To further stress her concern with a negative outcome of weight-loss surgery, her very last sentence is a rhetorical question, “Why are people reporting neurological problems after weight-loss surgery?” The use of strategically placing rhetorical questions throughout the document was effective, but confusing because it made the reader second guess their comprehension of the information presented and it gave the audience the implication that there was suppose to be another understanding of the material.

Furthermore, Murphy uses descriptive words in her publication to draw empathy from her audience and to create a feeling of desperateness and longing that she and other bariatric surgery patients experience. For instance she states, “Finally, the day I had been waiting for arrived and I mixed a glass of my favourite peach iced tea. Anticipating its tart sweetness, I took a big swig of the drink, holding it in my mouth to savour the flavor. My euphoria turned to horror. It tasted like fish.” In short, the long awaited anticipation of drinking something she recalled as having a pleasantly sweet taste, now had a repugnant taste, and it was not a side effect she had expected. The use of descriptive word connotations was effective in creating familiarity and bridging to the emotional vulnerability of the intended audience and creating greater corroboration for weight-loss surgery.

Murphy’s conclusive findings on bariatric surgery is that she agrees that it is a life saving surgery for the obese that helps to stave off diabetes, high blood pressure and sleep apnea, and that indirectly through metabolic hormones it has not only physiological effects, but also psychological and cognitive effects on the body that leads to effective weight loss. She is aware that bariatric surgery has some negative cognitive side effects, regardless she advocates that it is worth the exchange of having the health benefits of an improved life expectancy, better cognitive functions, and a general overall better everyday life.

The importance for the larger picture is that the author’s article helps the reader empathize with the obese population in their struggle for their finding a viable life saving option for obtaining permanent weight-loss because a growing number of obese people are dying from obesity and bariatric surgery is their last resort. Moreover, obesity also entails many dangerous metabolic health concerns like high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and kidney failure. Furthermore, obesity and weight lose surgery carries with it the social stigma that obese people are lazy and want an easy way to lose weight. On the contrary, these obese patients have to do a lot of work in order to meet the three mandatory guidelines set by the United States Health Insurance companies prior to being considered for any weight loss surgery by their physicians. The three mandatory health insurance guidelines are, the patient must have a BMI (Body Mass Index) of thirty-five or above, have at least three of the metabolic diseases mentioned earlier, and have followed for a year a healthy life style change eating and exercise program.

The article is effective in achieving the empathy of the reader by using the author’s anecdotal evidence of undergoing bariatric surgery and giving a vulnerable face to the emotionless, cold, and hard data behind bariatric surgery. Also, the document is convincing in its effectiveness by presenting the analytical credibility of the author and connecting it to the clinical scientific evidence. In addition, the workability of the paper’s nontraditional formatting and the use of subtle humor, along with the application of descriptive word connotations were successful in invoking an entertaining appeal to continue reading the article by its audience and gain continued support for bariatric surgery as a means for permanent weight- loss.

Work Cited

Murphy, Samantha. "The Subtle Knife." New Scientist 2865 (2012): 42-45. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Jun. 2013. Print.