Analyzing Purpose

godserv,"Got Purpose?" 4/13/10 via Flickr, Creative Commons License

The purpose of my argument is unlike the purpose of some others' arguments. While mine does have to do with a topic in my field of study, the purpose of my argument is more about the audience and the way my argument is presented than the argument itself. I explain my purpose more in the following answers to questions from Writing Public Lives pg. 326.

1. For my argument, my purpose is to engage the public, people who usually are not into the subject of neuroscience, or at least not as much as they are into the subject of tabloids and entertainment, of current topics in the field. I want to get people talking about neuroscientific controversies, even if that means instigating the argument with a fun, biased, and opinionated argument.

2. Possible reactions: readers could become more interested in neuroscience and its controversies, readers could not gain or lose any interest in the field, readers could become more interested in gender issues, and/or people could choose to take their own stance on sex-difference research.

Less possible reactions: people are even less interested in neuroscience or gender differences, people take a stand to completely support sex-difference research (since my argument argues against this)

3.  From my possible reactions from the audience of my argument, there is the possibility that readers could become more interested in the field of neuroscience. If a reader reads my argument and is more interested in neuroscience than before, this could lead to them wanting to become involved in the field, and possibly them aiding, financing, or doing some of their own research on the subject, giving my field more help and more information to work with, as well as more recognition from the public.

4. Because nearly anyone could be a neuroscientist or aspiring neuroscientist if they cared enough about the subject and put their minds to it, my audience can be the general public. But, more specifically, I need my audience to originally know very little about or have very little interest in neuroscience. This is why a site like buzzfeed seems like the perfect platform for my argument, as it could peak the interest of a less academic public there.