Social Sciences Vs. Humanities-A Comparative Rhetorical Analysis

Writing in the Social Sciences vs. the Humanities - A Comparative Rhetorical Analysis In writing, there are several disciplinary conventions that categorize a piece of writing. Writing is most often split into three disciplines; the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. The conventions structure, language, and reference found in a piece of writing help further organize the writing into a discipline. At first glance, John Streamas’s “Narrative Politics in Historical Fictions for Children” and Lora E. Vess’s “Examining Race & Racism in the University: A Class Project” do not appear to be difficult to categorize; Streamas’s article is for the humanities, while Vess’s article is for the social sciences. However, the line between the two article’s

“Examining Race & Racism in the University: A Class Project” somewhat focuses on descriptions of observations and experiments, and Vess gives reasons as to why she chose to do this or why she chose to do that, such as when she tells the reader that “When I made decisions without students, I did my best to explain my decisions and obtain their buy-in” (4). Throughout the duration of the article, Vess uses colorful language, and is descriptive and personal. The article presents itself as somewhat of a personal narrative of the experiment. Vess describes her feelings towards certain aspects of the experiment, for example: “Listening to other people’s stories made me feel better about my own. I’m sure it was a relief for some of our interviewees to get those stories off their chests and I’m glad we gave them a chance to” (5). Such personal opinions are not often found in writing in the social sciences, and instead tend to be found almost primarily in the

Lora E. Vess’s “Examining Race & Racism in the University: A Class Project” is, for the most part, a clear example of writing in the social sciences, while John Streamas’s “Narrative Politics in Historical Fictions for Children” follows the writing conventions for the humanities discipline. Writing in the social sciences and humanities present different ideas and perform different tasks for their readers; Vess’s article tended to guide the reader through her conducted experiment, and she writes to achieve her goals. Streamas’s article presented the reader with his opinions on the subject, and was intended to almost persuade the reader to think about what exactly he is saying. Writing in the humanities and social sciences will almost always have different rhetorical situations, and Vess’s “Examining Race & Racism in the University: A Class Project” and Streamas’s “Narrative Politics in Historical Fictions for Children” clearly divide the line between the two