PB2A

            When analyzing a scholarly academic publication, it is important to first ask the question of “What is this article asking?” Once you discover what the article is asking, you can begin to get an idea of what the article will be about.  The publication that I will be analyzing is “The Logic of SETI: 20 years later “Where do we go from here?” The focus of this article is asking the fundamental question “Is there intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, or are we, the denizens of Earth, alone?”  SETI is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.  SETI has been funded by NASA at points in the 1990s and is a group of people that examine different aspects of the universe and break down the question of whether extraterrestrial life exists elsewhere in the universe.

            In this scholarly publication, it begins with a short quote from a book.  The reason for this is to catch the reader’s attention and make them want to read the article.  It is interesting because it reads “I only wish I had such eyes to be able to see Nobody! And at that distance too!”  and that relates to the discussion of questions relating to the actual question of whether extraterrestrial life exists.  After the quote, it talks about the history of the human interest in the possible existence of extraterrestrial intelligence.  The purpose of doing that is to give the reader an idea of how long the question of ET intelligence existing has been around.  It is attention-grabbing because the article gives examples of ET in pop culture and organizations created because of exactly that question.  For example, the article points out the box-office success of the Star Wars Trilogy and the award-winning series Cosmos. 

            When specifically looking at the structure and layout of the article, is it clearly broken down into different sections.  As I previously mentioned, the beginning is started by giving a background on interest in SETI.  It is then followed by breaking the article down into sub-categories.  For example, sections are broken down into “The Logic of SETI,” “Using the parable, inserting doubt” and “True or false.”  This allows the article to have its ideas structured in a way that is comforting to the reader instead of intimidating and confusing the reader.  The article also has diagrams throughout which appeals to the reader because the reading is accompanied by pictures instead of just having straight writing throughout the entire piece.  For example, the article discusses the classical Aristotelian study of logic using four categorical propositions.  To illustrate those four examples, the author uses the example of all cows being herbivores.  In discussing the nature of logic of that statement, diagrams to the left of the writing express what the writing is saying with color and pictures.  This concept is operationalized by strictly outlining the study of logic and the meaning of it with the help of pictures. 

            A convention that is very specific to scholarly academic publications is the use of citations.  Citations are spread throughout the entire piece.  Citations are used in these publications because the author pulls in a lot of outside information.  The reason for doing so is to incorporate other’s viewpoints and knowledge into his own argument.  Outside knowledge can be anything from opinions to statistics done by other researchers. 

            Regarding the author’s argument, I believe that the author’s argument is the most important aspect of the scholarly piece.  Not always does the author’s argument seem to be an argument exactly, but it may seem to be just the main focus of the article being discussed.  For example, in this academic publication, the main focus (or argument) is that of SETI and the fundamental question of extraterrestrial intelligence existing outside of Earth.  Is is clearly stated to the reader that this is the most important idea of the entire piece.  It was easy to see that because the author used the key word ‘fundamental.’  Knowing that that question is fundamental allows the reader to pick up that the question of extraterrestrial intelligence existing is vital to the piece’s coherence.   

Works Cited

Chauvin, Michael. "The Logic Of SETI: 20 Years Later "Where Do We Go From Here?." Planetarian 44.1 (2015): 18-29. Academic Search Complete. Web. 31 Jan. 2016.