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Jose Alfredo Martinez Gonzalez

Mrs. McCann

ENGL 1301 125

9 November 2022

Rhetorical Analysis

All writings have a purpose, no matter what that purpose may be. The same for this

article, which talks about the pollution of heavy metals in the Huafei river, the people who

wrote were; Jin Bingyan, Wang Jingling, Wei Lou, and their colleagues. The article is called

"Pollution, Ecological Risk and Source Identification of Heavy Metals in Sediments from the

Huafei River in the Eastern Suburbs of Kaifeng, China." The authors express findings through

ethos, pathos, and logos.

First, the authors use ethos to strengthen their claim on the topic. Their work

accomplishes this by giving credit to the original authors of the information that was utilized in

the article. When they get information from other people's articles, they cite and give credit to

those other authors. These authors back up their claims by using data and charts. This allows

other researchers to read where these authors found these findings and to have a better

understanding of the topic. These writers even gave a brief description of the areas where they

got their 24 samples to make clear what conditions the sample was found in (Bingyan et al, p. 1).

What gives them more credibility is that they publish it under the International Journal of

Environmental Research and Public Health in Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute or

MDPI. The writers give charts and statics to back up their claims to prove their point about

pollution in the Huafei river. The format that they write is correct for this journal from their

citation to the headers of this journal.

Secondly, these researchers show their emotions on their topic by being serious and
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straightforward. Whenever heavy metal is discussed, the authors express their concern by

explaining the danger it poses to the environment. According to the writers, "Moreover, there is a

large area of cultivated land in the east of the Huafei River, so it is also an important river for

agricultural irrigation but has had a history of sewage pollution for some 58 years... continuous

accumulation of heavy metals, significantly threatening the soil, ecological environment and,

consequently, human health" (Bingyan et al, p. 2), which expresses how serious they are about

the topic of heavy metals pollution is harming the environment. These researchers also talk about

the long-term effects of heavy metals on the environment should be further researched. These

researchers (2022) even went as far as saying, "Although these studies, and others, have made

progress, they are generally lacking in long-term research on both heavy metal accumulation and

ecological risk" (Bingyan et al, p. 2). This line states that they want to do more research on the

matter and that more research is demanded on both topics. To make even more progress on

pollution research is needed to find the cause and other sources that can lead to more pollutants.

The cause of the situation is heavy human activity and natural sources. This study's primary

focus is on industry factors. These sources include enterprises, traffic, and agricultural activity. In

recent years some of these enterprises have moved out of the area. These enterprises have been

updating their equipment currently. These enterprises are mostly located in the mid and

downstream sections of the Huafei river. These enterprises are paper factories, pharmaceutical

factories, fertilizer factories, instrument manufacturers, metal smelting plants, etc. These

factories are dumping their waste directly into the river without any treatment. From these

factories, ash gets released into the atmosphere, which then gets deposited into the river. The

source of traffic is the high ways in which carbon dioxide and auto parts repair plants are the

cause of the increase in metal contraction in the river. Another cause is the sewage outlets of

various plants. And even agricultural activities, which are fertilizers and pesticides, get into the

river. Even coal combustion and mineral smelting which are industrial activities are causing
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pollution. The metals that have been, released into this river by these sources are Cd, As, Cr, Cu,

Hg, Ni, Pb, and Zn. All of this could have been prevented, which is why the authors published

this journal in the first place. Because they feel like they could have prevented this by letting

others know what is happening to the river. This is their reason for researching this river to

improve wildlife. To help protect the local fauna.

Finally, these authors used logos to show their results. They used charts and diagrams to

show their data. Include a lot of tables with information ranging from average concentrations of

heavy metals over the last 20 years to over to geo-accumulation indexes of the distribution of

heavy metals in sediments in the river. They also show a map of the rivers that were studied

where located. These researchers gave a static chart for every method that they used. They have

given the ph and the concentration of each metal they test. Jin, Bingyan; Wang, Jingling; Wei,

Lou, and their colleagues showed a map of each location of the river that was being tested for

heavy metals in Figure 1 (Bingyan et al, 2022, p. 3). These researchers give a rating of how

polluted by showing the amount of each metal present in 24 sites in the Huafei river in Table 5

(Bingyan et al, 2022, p. 18). The rapid development of the local enterprise caused zinc,

palladium, and copper to be the most dominant metals in the Huafei river, which you can see in

Figure 5 (Bingyan et al, 2002-2022, p. 9). They went one step even further and studied the

change in concentration in heavy metals over a 20-time span which can be seen in Figure 5

(Bingyan et al, 2002-2022, p. 9). Not just that, but also studying the fluctuation of heavy metals

from 1998 to 2019 in Figure 4 (Bingyan et al, 1998-2019, p. 9) has shown that few of the metals

showed a downward trend. pH levels were tested in this river which can be found in Table 3

(Bingyan et al, 2022, p. 6). All this information is to tell other professionals that pollution is

getting worse by the year. They can prove it by showing their statics on heavy metal getting more

concentrated in the Huafei river over the years that pass by. Not just but also showing the ways

how they can improve this situation.

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In conclusion, these authors show their credibility by citing and giving credit to their

sources and using the correct format for this type of journal. They even showed their passion for

their work by being dedicated to their work. Also, give an in-depth detail of what is causing this

pollution in this by using charts and data to make it easier to understand the situation. Thus trying

to help save the environment by showing others what is happening to the river. They do this by

describing the heavy metal pollution that is in the Huafei river.

Works Cited

Jin, Bingyan, et al. "Pollution, Ecological Risk and Source Identification of Heavy Metals in

Sediments from the Huafei River in the Eastern Suburbs of Kaifeng, China.", vol. 19, no. 18,

2022, pp. 11259, https://go.openathens.net/redirector/tamiu.edu?url=https://www.proquest.com/

scholarly -journals/pollution-ecological-risk-source-identification/docview/2716545734/se-2,

doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191811259.