Dave Camilien

Professor Delamare

Writing For Engineering

May 6 ,2020

Rhetorical Analysis on the adaptive control strategies

            The field of robotics is constantly evolving and changing as new technologies are introduced. Robotics is a multi-disciplinary field; many people can donate their expertise to design better robots. There are the obvious contenders like computer scientists, mechanical engineers, but other inspiration for robots can be taken from nature. We can see this by looking at the emerging branch of robotics known as soft robotics. Medical Robots are used in many applications from extremely precise, to assisting with patient recovery. The authors of this paper have used this paper to describe a control system used for a robot with a medical application. They are designing an exoskeleton for people need physical therapy, and the research is very cutting edge in terms of medical applications of robotics. The purpose of this rhetorical analysis is understanding how the authors use language in scientific setting.

            The authors of this paper use the standard format that is used in scientific papers. The IMRad format is used for this paper.  The authors don’t really deviate from the IMRad format, they go from the introduction, straight into the content, which is divided into methods and the results, and then the conclusion. The paper does not contain any sub headers.  The abstract of the paper mainly is there to give the reader an introduction to the use of wearable robotics. I felt that handling the paper this way was appropriate because we are dealing a regular science paper and they can typically be divided into these three sections. The effect on the audience is minimal because I’m sure the audience that it is intended for his been exposed to dozens of papers of this type.

            The authors use of logos and ethos is common throughout this paper. Logos is the use of logical thinking, and ethos is the use of emotional appeals. During the beginning of the paper, the authors mention the applications of the research to people who are recovering from accidents and other trauma. This appeals to the reader’s emotions since some people may know other people who are injured.  The use of ethos to justify the research is clear in the paper. The use of logos is used to justify the results of the paper. For example, in the results of the paper are presented in logical fashion that shows that results are measured based on emotional appeal but rather on cold hard quantitative analysis.

This is important to strike a balance between these two styles in the scientific world. Too much appeal to emotion and little facts can make your paper seem unscientific and poorly written. And paper that is too logical and technical can seem like just another dull, dry research paper, but this can be advantageous depending on the particular audience. It is important for perspective authors to strike a balance with both.

            The audience of this paper was clearly intended for this in the engineering field. Somebody with experience in robotics and someone is knowledgeable in control theory, the reason why I came to this conclusion is by analyzing the language in which the paper is written in. For example, in the Results and Discussions section first paragraph it states, “The role of each strategy, as explained in the previous sections, is evaluated here. The internal perturbations caused by the subject with the upper body motion, alter the internal parameters between the different links of the body”. In order the understand words like “perturbations” one needs specialized knowledge in mechanics. That is why I came the conclusions this was written for those with an engineering background. Another hint that this was intended for engineers was the publication, Science Direct. Science Direct is a subscription service that is utilized by City College, according the Wikipedia page, it hosts over 3,500 academic journals, and 34,000 e-books(Anon, 2020). This subscription service is would be very hard for the average lay person to afford; only large institutions and universities can afford this.

            There are four authors of this paper, V. Rajaskaren, Joan Aranda, Alicia Calas, and Jose Pons. The primary author is Vijaykumar Rajasekaran he received a master’s degree from the Ecole Centrale de Nantes, and he is going for a Ph.D. in the Universität Politechnica de Cataluya (UPC) in Spain. The second author, Joan Aranda is a researcher at UPC, and the third researcher, Alicia Casals is a professor at UPC her primary interest is bioengineering. The fourth researcher is Jose L. Pons he is a doctor working for the Spanish research council. The purpose of the paper is plainly stated in the abstract and in the introduction. We know the potential applications of the control system will have the research.

            In conclusion, I found this assignment to be very informative on how to understand whether a research paper is good or not. My understanding of scientific papers has been greatly enhanced by the knowledge of the IMRad system. The IMRad system has helped me classify the different sections of this scientific paper in a more academic way. This rhetorical analysis will improve my writing in the academic world as it will leave me aware of the standards of the industry and I believe that this will help me more in my analysis of further research papers.

References:

1. Anon. (2020)Science Direct . In Wikipedia. Retrieved September 13, 2013, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ScienceDirect