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Laura Perez-Landin
Professor Speiser
Writing 2
6 October 2016
Genres in Global Warming
Global warming is an issue that has been regularly debated by scientist and politicians
alike. For those towards preventing it, most of them say that it requires a universal effort, yet not
everyone is interested in preventing it. The million-dollar question is: how do we get people that
are not scientist or politicians to care about global warming? Different genres try to get the
public interested by employing rhetorical strategies and more. By analyzing the rhetors choices,
it is clear that the genres blogs and documentaries have to impact their viewers with pathos,
ethos, and other methods constantly to not only keep the audiences interest, but to also have
them care enough to take action.
First, we will look at the conventions of documentaries. Documentaries are usually long
films of about two to three hours that highlight a certain issue. The narrators explain most
scientific diction, and as a result, the audience can be anyone who is interested enough to watch.
Simple diction means they can introduce an idea and convince a broad range of people to have
the same values. In the documentaries, Global Warming: Documentary on Climate Change and
the Extreme Ice Survey and Earth Under Water, the topic is global warming. The documentaries
feature clips of ice melting and breaking while narrating in an ominous tone Temperatures are
climbing, and the ice is melting faster than ever (Global) and One of Londons most famous
landmarks, the tower bridge, will become a somber outpost in the sea (Earth). Diction like
somber and faster intensifies the tone and keeps the interest of the viewer as they are worried

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and interested of Earths future. Dramatic music adds to the ominous tone as it plays throughout
the introduction and certain stirring clips throughout the film. Altogether, these features create
pathos by engaging the audience through their emotions.
To add opinions to the documentaries, the directors utilize scientific researchers as
evidence that climate change is happening My hope is that it will be powerful and immediate
enough for people to say yeah this real (Global) and It is going to challenge the existence of
civilization (Earth). Dramatic quotes like the ones aforementioned retains the viewers
attentions. Various professors and scientist are featured with their name and field in captions, so
opinions and predictions are common and occur frequently. In addition, plenty of anecdotes are
provided to corroborate the opinions and add a personal touch to the documentary. In Earth
Under Water, a scientist shares a story from college about his professor who showed him corrals
that were evidence of a higher sea level in the past. The anecdote was companied by a clip of the
corrals to keep the audience visually and audibly impacted. Not only does the anecdote provide
some pathos, but also brings ethos, or credibility, to the documentary.
For their conclusions, the documentaries employ rhetorical questions and some solutions
to prevent human-induced climate change. The questions like what will all that melting mean
for us? produce an eerie feel for the audience (Global). However, the solutions ease the
audience by indicating that we will become a united world (Earth). These questions and
solutions leave the reader thinking, wanting to do their own research, and hopefully take action
to decelerate global warming.
Similar to movies, documentaries can be seen on television and on streaming sites. As a
result, documentaries have an entertainment feel to them based on their settings. People can
easily access documentaries and are more likely to watch them because of their easy access.

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They can watch these documentaries in the comfort of their home at any time of the day.
Documentaries are informative and entertaining; therefore, it can be directed to a more general
audience. The audience can be and wants to be entertained and informed at the same time.
Without the attractive visuals and daunting music, the viewer might want to click away or change
the channel to something more of their interest.
Generally, a documentarys purpose is to introduce a certain issue and try to persuade
their audience into taking action for their cause. For global warming, the documentaries show
compelling clips about the realities of climate change and explain how urgent it is to change
human ways. The visuals demonstrate to the audience how their world will be changed. Instead
of explaining statistics, the directors employ pathos by creating devastating images of familiar
places Significant sea level rise may turn Berlin into a coastal town within centuries, another
hundred years and the city will be lost to the sea (Earth). The idea of so much change causes the
audience to react and try to make a difference. The audience is now informed of the topic and has
an urge to take action.
Now, we will look at the conventions of blogs. In contrast to documentaries, blogs are
concise. The authors include the date when the blog was written and a funnier, eye-catching title
like this blogs, Last time CO2 was this high, our ancestors were using stone tools (Wadard).
Pictures are also used to entice readers and provide a visual aspect to the text. The introductions
are only about a sentence long, leading straight into the meat of the topic: global warming. The
short, straightforward nature keeps their readers interested.
For evidence, the authors write fact after fact, with little explanation in between. It is
assumed that the audience knows enough about environmental science to know that the statistics
mean danger for Earth. Furthermore, the writing appears to be of first order thinking because of

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the grammar mistakes and casual disposition from jokes like Man made global warming deniers
want to send us back to the caves (Wadard). Most of the statements are supported by research,
even jokes like the title of a blog entry Last time CO2 was this high, our ancestors were using
stone tools are supported by evidence provided by uncited studies, The last time CO2 reached
the symbolic milestone of 400 parts per million in the atmosphere-in the Pliocene eratemperatures rose by between 3 and 4 degrees and sea levels were between five and 40 metres
higher than today (Wadard). The placement of continuous facts adds a shocking factor to the
blog without the imagery of a documentary. Few quotes are provided by professors and scientist
due to the concise nature of the blogs. Moreover, if quotes are provided, they are often not cited,
unlike scientific journals. Due to the free speech nature of blogs, anyone can write a blog and
choose how professional or unprofessional they would like their content.
To conclude, the blogs quickly explain why the information they wrote about is important
and what the future will bring as a result of the information. In the blog Negative Effects of
Global Warming, the author concludes with global warming will have more negative effects on
our planet and way of life the longer and more severe climate change becomes (Wong). Instead
of questions that get readers to ponder about the world, the blogger is straight forward with his
conclusion and reminds the readers of the negative effects aforementioned throughout his blog.
Authors direct their blogs to those of the same scientific community. While most of the
diction is more casual, when describing specific scientific facts or statistics the rhetor utilizes
unique diction without explaining the term. This allows the blogs to be shorter, causing the
reader to be more willing to read it. The tone is mainly cogent, but occasionally shifts to
humorous and casual. Quick information in a specific, yet informal way reveals that the audience
needs to be bombarded with straight-to-the-point facts with low intimidation. However, one

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constraint of these types of blogs is that they cannot appeal to wide range of audiences like
documentaries can because of their specific diction and little visuals. However, they both still
relay information in attractive means according to their audience to grab and retain their
attention.
Despite the argumentative undertone, blogs have more discussion than debate by the
reader and writer. The posts purpose is to provide statistics for the audience to discuss in the
comments section. Just like the blog post, the commenters have free speech and typically type
their comments with a little care of grammar and structure. The audience responds with opinions
and ways to interpret the information in the blog like this reader Pollution makes dirty and weak
of our planet. Through Pollution global warming totally affected. We must safe our area clean so
our planet may be safe from negative effects (Wong). The comment has some grammatical
errors and may sound incoherent, but that is fine and expected by regular blog commenters
because of the freedom they have in writing their comments. It is important to take note that
those with bad grammar are not taken as seriously compared to those with correct grammar, but
they are nonetheless welcomed in the discourse community. Additionally, to be a part of this
community, the audience is assumed to have some sort of background in science. Unlike
documentaries, the blogger can respond to those in the comments section and possibly edit their
blog if there is any misinformation or if he or she simply wants to elaborate on a certain part. In
addition, the ability to comment makes the readers feel engaged and interested in the blog.
Although the audiences are different, they have a commonality of needing to be
continuously attracted to the genre while reading or watching. The audiences engaged in these
genres seem to have a shorter attention span then with other genres like journals and essays.

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Therefore, in order to make a difference in the world, communicators need to be either
entertaining or to the point.

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Works Cited
Earth Under Water. Directed by Tilman Remme, National Geographic, 2010.
Global Warming: Documentary on Climate Change and the Extreme Ice Survey. Directed by
Noel Dockstader, Nova, 2009.
Wadard. Last time CO2 was this high, our ancestors were using stone tools. Global Warming
Watch, 29 Apr. 2013, globalwarmingwatch.blogspot.com/2013/04/last-time-co2-was-thishigh-our. Accessed 28 Sept. 2016.
Wong, Bryan. Negative Effects of Global Warming. Global Warming, 02 Jul. 2009,
globalwarming2009.blogspot.com/2009/07/negative-effects-of-global-warming.
Accessed 28 Sept. 2016.