Rhetorical Analysis of Academic Journal

Alexander McCarthy, "Journal" via Blogger, 2/29/16. Public Domain.

Looking for outside resources for my research on the types on genres worked with in my field, it is important to look at collections of academic work, often known as journals within each respective field. In my search for a physical copy, I came up stumped, even through the University of Arizona Library, the Pima County Library System, even Barnes and Noble. Finally I picked up a lesser known magazine dedicated to airplanes called Air International, seen here, where I searched through the magazine and found mostly current events on types of aircraft and their mission. While this is part of the project, it is not very representative of the aerospace engineering academia, therefore, for my discussion on an academic journal, I will use the AIAA (The American Institue of Aeronautics and Astronautics), one of the most popular journals in the field, which is only found only, pictured below.

Alexander McCarthy, "Journal2" via blogger, 2/29/16. Public Domain.

Answering specific questions regarding their rhetorical situation will allow to analyze the major portions of the genres developed within my major. Questions such as the following:  

Who are the authors/speakers published in this specific issue of the academic journal you've selected? How many different authors are published here? What do you know - or can you find out - about these people? How are the authors/speakers portrayed in the journal issue? Cite specific details from the journal issue in your answers. 

The type of author that is involved in this journal are highly developed professionals, such as graduate students, Phd students, professional workers or professors that engaged in the field. There are roughly eighty two authors in this first issue of the journal, from which there are sections dedicated to specific projects, designs, or ideas. There is little to find about many of the first few authors I found besides the information provided at the beginning of the journal, telling about their primary position, such as Jeroen P. J. P. Van den Eynde, who can be found on google, working for the University of Southampton, after some experience with the European Space Agency. This is typical of the various authors of this journal, a background or some experience in the aerospace field, along with an upper level degree and work on research projects. The author are only ever acknowledged in the start of the article, and are not mentioned throughout.

Who is the intended audience for this particular journal issue? How can you tell? Are there any secondary audiences included here? Cite specific details from the journal issue in your answers.  

The intended audience for this particular journal issue is other professionals in the field who can use the articles within this journal as a resource for citation, such as the citation as the bottom of the article titled Numerical Simulations of Translations Due to Isolated Roughness Elements at Mach 6. At the end of this article, there are many citations of other projects, and also citation from other articles using the one within the journal. This, and the type of genre used, of a formal research paper make it easy to distinguish the intended purpose of the article. The secondary audience is businesses that might be able to use these types of developments to create new products or enter new markets, such as supersonic flight when referencing the Mach 6 article. 

What is the context surrounding this particular journal issue? How does this affect the content of the journal? (See the bulleted questions on Student's Guide page 180 for specific questions about context). Cite specific details from the journal issue in your answers.  

Reflecting on the fact that this journal is very modern and condenses many of the recent scientific findings of aerospace engineers around the world, in the form of a long collection of formal papers, this journal it can be seen that our modern world is advancing towards efficiency, and pushing boundaries. While I do not see many new products or designs being proposes, I see many articles pursuing the transition between boundaries such as near mach speeds, the aerodynamic effects at high speeds, and specific situations designed to study the efficiency of different wing types, such as NASA's Common Wing design. This is indicative of the greener world we live in, where fossil fuels have increased in cost, increasing the airline industries expected increase in fuel efficiency, much of which lies in perfecting existing designs. Also, studying the effects of new boundaries such as high speeds will create new markets for companies and help research for scientists who are looking for faster and more agile vehicles. Projects such as these show how our world is reacting to climate change, and is also trying to perfect and improve our last frontier, into space and supersonic flight. 

What is the overall message of the journal issue? How did you decide this? Cite specific details from the journal issue in your answers.  

 The overall message of this journal is that we are advancing toward pushing efficiency levels and closing in on perfecting greater than mach speeds, such that hyper sonic airliners may be in the future, working on projects such as a laboratory size replicate of a super sonic jet. But with all of this research still ongoing, it proves that we still have much more testing to go through, and that this is a very active and alive field.

What purpose is the journal issue trying to achieve? Cite specific details from the journal issue in your answers. 

The journal issue is trying to spread research publications to a wider audience of professionals and companies that may follow this journal. With almost every article being a study, experiment, or analysis of various effects or situations, this journal is solely dedicated to bringing together research papers, with the intended plan to spread these ideas and allow citations from a much larger reader base than man be available from the local reader to the articles respective authors.