Wayne Cole

Mrs. Hansen

Composition II

14 February 2022

Reflection Essay

In my rhetorical analysis of “The Extraordinary Importance of Sleep” I went through the author’s thesis, supporting evidence, and their choice of diction to better understand how they chose to inform their audience on the importance of sleep. I chose this topic to analyze because I hoped that my audience, people who are interested in sleep medicine, after reading the rhetorical analysis would come away with more knowledge on sleep and how significant of a role it plays on your health.

During the writing I strengthened my ability to read through medical journals and pull out evidence that can support a claim or thesis. Reading through medical journals that aren’t necessarily intended for the general audience can be tricky because you don’t have the terminology nor experience to fully comprehend that field of medicine. However, after reading through the paper multiple times you begin to understand that it is just a summary in terms of pulling scientific data and studies then those details into everyday work as a researcher.

In my first draft of my essay I went through paragraph by paragraph and included all the necessary information for each. Meaning that the paper had everything it was supposed to, but the syntax was broken when transposing between paragraphs. In my second draft, I went through and fixed the flow errors and included some analysis of logos, pathos, and ethos.

For my paper I hope that the audience takes away the basics of a medical journal and that they would hopefully go out and do their own research on sleep.

Wayne Cole

Mrs. Hansen

Composition II

8 February 2022

The Extraordinary Importance of Sleep

In this peer reviewed journal article the author Susan L. Worley, a freelance medical writer, is trying to assert the importance of sleep in order to inform medical professionals and the public alike. The advances in the field of sleep medicine has revealed the true importance of sleep, being one of the leading causes of mental and physical issues showing that sleep plays a major role in the overall health of an individual. The author focuses closely on their key claim, the importance of sleep, whilst also exploring the topics of public safety, comorbidities, and the effect that society has on sleep. The intended audience of this journal are people who practice medicine, the author established a formal relationship with the audience.

Worley begins with introducing the topic of sleep medicine. She does this to give the reader important background information as to how sleep medicine has advanced over the years and what current research is being done in the field. “Today, researchers are more deeply probing the cellular and subcellular effects of disrupted sleep, as well as the effects of sleep deprivation on metabolism, hormone regulation, and gene expression. Newer studies are strengthening known and suspected relationships between inadequate sleep and a wide range of disorders,” (Worley) This allows the reader insight into sleep medicine and how sleep can play a major role in overall health.

Building off the strategy she used to begin, she counterclaims her initial statement by saying despite the acceleration in research over recent years, health and safety is still threatened by inadequate sleep. “Modern industrial pressures to use time 24 hours a day have led to shiftwork and a world in which virtually everything operates 24/7” (Worley) because major industrial disasters such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill were linked to inadequate sleep. Showing the reader that society, despite research findings, continues to underscore the public safety and the positive effect that sleep has on public safety.

After the counterclaim the author moves to a plea on how no matter the busyness of our lives we can no longer ignore what research is telling us about the importance of sleep for our safety and mental and physical well-being. “We know for sure that sleep serves multiple functions,” (Worley). Here the author is appealing to the reader's pathos by invoking an emotional response from the reader. The reader can then relate more deeply to the text cause they themselves may have encountered difficulty of sleep due to busyness.

The author appeals to pathos by giving real life incidents that occurred during lack of sleep, such as the Exxon oil spill. Appealing to pathos not only helps relate a reader’s experience, but it also helps to build a relationship with the text so the reader can apply the author’s main claim to their own lives.

Worley then gives the anecdote to the reader who may now be worrying about their own sleep. She begins by offering a simple question that may be plaguing the reader, “How much sleep is enough?” (Worley) This sets up her new supporting claim of finding the sweet spot for sleep. This sweet spot is seven and seven and a half hours, but with this sweet spot comes a host of other important variables that may require the reader to get even more sleep. For example, “This is especially true for vulnerable populations. There is concern about school start times and bus times affecting the sleep of children and adolescents, and about extracurricular activities,” (Worley). Showing that research is still evolving and although there may be a sweet spot, not all individuals will find that seven to seven and a half hours to be adequate sleep.

The author appeals to ethos by having the correct credentials of being a freelance medical writer. The author uses correct medical terminology and uses credible sources.

Building off of the sweet spot for sleep, Worley begins to explain that each individual demonstrates adverse effects of inadequate sleep, which can vary considerably. “Differences among individuals exist with regard to both the effects of sleep loss and the ability to recover from the effects of sleep loss.” (Worley) Explaining that the reader could have patients that are doing everything right or everything wrong regarding sleep, but still see results that do not derive from their lifestyle. Worley explains that people may have predispositions to the negative effects of sleep deprivation and that researchers are currently exploring biomarkers to help individuals with these genetic markers for worse sleep. She strengthens this claim by acknowledging that, “approximately 70 million people in the U.S have at least one sleep disorder, experts estimate that up to 80% of sleep disorders may go undetected or undiagnosed.” (Worley) To go along with the predisposition to worse sleep, Worley presents the challenges that clinicians face during the assessment of people's sleep issues. Challenges like the process of identifying and sorting out comorbidities.

To alleviate the reader from research findings of predispositions and comorbidities Worley writes about the promising medicine in the field of sleep. “Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which involves techniques that work in part by reducing cognitive and somatic arousal,” (Worley) this new behavior therapy is estimated to be effective in 70% to 80% of individuals treated. Insomnia being one the most common sleep disorders is treated with CBT and short-term medications. The author appeals to the readers' logos to curb their expectations and introduce the “placebo effect”. Since the primary reader of this article is medical practitioners the appeal helps bring the treatment down to believable form of expectations. “We sometimes have to let patients with chronic insomnia know that we may never get them back to where they were when they had optimal sleep,” (Worley). Showing that although this medicine may not completely solve the problem, if it even slightly increases sleep quality then the patient might see significant improvement in their quality of life.

The author appeals to logos by making clear logical connections between the claims presented and their thesis. They successfully implemented studies, doctor statements, drug trials, and facts that concisely appeals to the reader’s logos.

Worley makes the supporting claim that improving clinical research will ultimately need to “put an emphasis on patient engagement and patient-centered outcomes” (Worley). Worley is finally making her last supporting claim that is directly speaking to the readers of the article to affect the quality of clinical practice and research. Practitioners would need to improve their patients' perspectives to better understand how to pioneer clinical research, so that it is not invasive on the patient. Invasive clinical research could be incorporating too many tests and measures without being aware of the burden that it can have on the patient.

Worley focuses on the importance of sleep throughout the text to get the reader to understand that it is critical for people to get adequate sleep. Now knowing through extensive research that sleep plays a major role in people’s mental and physical well-being, Worley conveys her claim through the use of logos, pathos, and ethos to drive home the point. With the author being effective in conveying not only their claim, but also their supporting claims. The audience taking in real world examples and scientific studies that support Worley's claim helped persuade the reader to incorporate the claim into their own practices of sleep, whether it be through the diagnoses, the study of medicine, or even the average person trying to understand why they need to sleep.