Textual Analysis

Textual Analysis of an Article from the Dietetics Field

            In R. P. Cant and R. A. Aroni’s article, “Exploring dietitians’ verbal and nonverbal communication skills for effective dietitian-patient communication,”   the authors intend to report the findings of a two-phase study that examines Australian dietitians involved in clinical practice for the purpose of learning about how dietitians conduct their communication with individual patients in the process of nutrition education.  To do so, the authors explain the study methodically with inclusive statistics and common knowledge from within the health industry.

            Beginning with the organization of the article, the authors made sure that the content would be easy to follow.  Following basic expectations, the article is outlined by an introductory foundation, assembled with informative infrastructure, and then completed with a final outcome.  Information within the articles is segmented in a sequential order that corresponds with the order of the study while incorporating explanations along the side.  Each paragraph is definitely separated by specific topic areas, rarely providing an opportunity for talking points to overlap, except within the transition sentences.   For example: the article is introduced, then the “methods” used in the study are briefly explained (it is assumed that the audience has, at the very least, basic knowledge about the methods), and the bulk of the rest is dedicated to discussing the results, wrapped with a neat summation in the conclusion.  This type of layout for literature is one of the most basic kinds, yet it is effective and concise, which is both the minimal and maximal effort towards writing style the authors’ colleagues should expect.  There really couldn’t be a better way of organizing an article.

The reason why the information has to be organized is so that other professionals in the field can easily flow through the material and understand what is going on, step by step.  How do we know other professionals within this field will be reading this particular article?  The answer is: jargon.  The style of writing calls for diction from the perspective of a dietitian, therefore limiting the audience to a handful of individuals who already carry the background knowledge to pick up the information “under the radar.”  A reader from the general public may not understand what the authors mean when they say that “Chi-square and Spearman’s rank correlation analyses were used to examine relationships between variables.”  Even if the reader tried to grasp the gist from the context, he or she would only read on to discover that “P<0.05 was considered statistically significant…and found to be reliable when 62 items were tested because the Cronbach alpha coefficient was 0.86, indicating good internal consistency.”  Clearly, the general public was not taken into consideration while writing this article, but rather, an audience assumed to ascertain the information with their own background knowledge. 

In tandem with organization and style of content, the way in which the authors chose to deliver the material is also effective in conveying the results of the survey.  Wrapped within the text of the article, the authors have integrated figures, diagrams, and tables with data that aids the reader in the process of explanation.  For example: the article contains a simple figure that shows, with arrows and shapes, the outline of the experiment step-by-step; this figure also contains brief descriptions of each step within the shapes.  Seeing as how not everyone can learn solely via text, the visual provides an alternative mode to absorbing the material, making the text more conceivable within the readers’ minds.  There are also tables with both quantitative and qualitative data (since the study is separated by the same idea of qualitative versus quantitative.)  Information delivered in this fashion serves to report the findings of the study in a statistical manner.  With numbers to look at, the interested dietitians who read the article will be able to examine the results for themselves and evaluate the study with their own judgment. 

In publishing the article, R. P. Cant and R. A. Aroni have allowed other professionals within the same field to add relatable information to their reservoir of knowledge for future use.  By choosing to report the results of the study through practical organization, meticulous word choice, and clarifying visuals, Cant and Aroni have effectively conveyed important information to a specific audience of interested dietitians. 

Works Cited

Cant, R. P. and Aroni, R. A. (2008), Exploring dietitians’ verbal and nonverbal communication skills for effective dietitian–patient communication. Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, 21: 502–511.