Elliot Stanger

Zack DePiero
Writing 2
11 May 2016
Deflategates Inconclusiveness
Deflategate, another terribly-coined scandal that is one of the latest
in the ever-controversial National Football League(NFL), is the latest attempt
to pin one of the leagues franchises as cheaters. To analyze and gather a
deeper understanding for this outrageous and heinous attack on Tom Brady
and the New England Patriots, two scholarly pieces-- Football under
pressure: Assessing malfeasance in Deflategate by Kevin Hassett, Joseph
Sullivan, and Stan Veuger, and Nature or Naughty: Bringing Deflategate to
the High School Chemistry Classroom by Elizabeth Megonigal-- and a nonacademic piece -- an op-ed published in the New York also written by Kevin
Hassett and Stan Veuger named Deflating Deflategate were examined. In
the following paper, similarities and differences are examined between the
academic and non-academic sources rhetorical features and conventions
such as logos to present scientific facts, pathos to appeal to readers
emotions, formal and non-formal diction to achieve a genre-specific tone,
how each author uses different moves to enhance each works attempt at
breaking down Deflategates flaws, and how the same author uses the same
moves in two different genres. Whether the piece is about reviewing a
classroom activity or presenting the flaws in the Wells Report(a report done
on the Patriots by the NFL regarding alleged deflated footballs), each also
contains features of how they appeal to their specific audience.

The first scholarly piece, Football under pressure: Assessing

malfeasance in Deflategate by Kevin Hassett, Joseph Sullivan, and Stan
Veuger was a research article included in a sports law analytics issue of a
journal of sports analytics. The purpose of the article was to asses the flaws
in the controversy, and more specifically the Wells Report, their statistical
analysis, and quality of data. The piece starts with background information
from the case, and later presents the data the NFL used in their investigation
which they analyze, conclude, and then label as a malfeasance. Throughout
the article the authors use a move from the They Say, I Say called, The data
suggests because Gillen claims, data [is] crucial to scientific arguments,
but by no means the end of the story. This move provides previous data
while the authors also include a rhetorical feature, logos, to present scientific
facts and equations while evaluating the statistical model and the results
that followed it in the Wells Report to reject it and counter with their own
statistical analysis. The use of this rhetorical feature, logos, paired with the
move appeals to a reader's desire to know the true facts. Nothing but the
truth is wanted by their audience(being a published scholarly article) and by
presenting scientific facts such as Hassett, Sullivan, and Veuger do when
they argue,
that Mr. Anderson used the Logo Gauge to measure the Patriots footballs, but the Non-Logo
Gauge to measure the Colts footballs, the difference in deflation drops is no longer
statistically significant. In that scenario, the coefficient on drops to 0.23, meaning that the
measured decrease in air pressure in the Patriots footballs is estimated to be only 0.23psi

larger than the measured decrease in air pressure in the Colts footballs. This difference is
not just substantively, but also statistically insignificant (t=1.53)(Hassett,Sullivan,Veuger)

The authors are compelled to include scientific data just as Megonigal is in

her piece Nature or Naughty. She wants students to [analyze] and
[interpret] data using mathematics and computational thinking. Each of the
academic pieces focus on scientific data as a way to provide a logical
argument that readers can easily understand. In the scholarly pieces, a move
called As a result by the They Say, I Say appendix is used to connect the
data to the main point with analysis. Without conclusory statements that
follow data, the reader would be confused as to how the data presented was
significant.
The op-ed piece published in the New York Times, was written by the
same authors of the first scholarly article(with the subtraction of Sullivan)
and was published to pull more attention to their research article and was a
quasi-plea to the NFL to acknowledge their findings. The piece summarizes a
majority of the other published article and gives the reader a sense of the
many different ambiguities and holes that the Wells Report includes. Given
that the op-ed is written by the authors who wrote Malfeasance the same
moves appear in both sources. Within each text, parallelism is used to
convey an important point with unique sentence structure. In the op-ed, the
authors implore the ambiguity of the whole situation-- while using
parallelism-- in which the balls were deflated when they claim, There are,
after all, two possibilities. The first is that the Patriots balls declined too

much. The second is that the Colts balls declined too little. And in the
research article they state, The Patriots footballs were measured first,
followed by the Colts footballs, after which those Patriots footballs that were
deemed not sufficiently inflated were re-inflated. [Or] The Patriots footballs
were measured first, followed by reflation of those Patriots footballs that
were deemed not sufficiently inflated, and only then were the Colts footballs
measured. These two instances of parallelism come during important times
within both pieces, as they are giving one of their main arguments in each;
that the Wells Report ignored the second possibility of each scenario
therefore making the results inconclusive.

The presentation of data is not seen in the non-academic source, as

the methods of persuasion are less fact-based and the arguments include a
pathos appeal to the reader's emotions, instead of being driven solely by
facts and the analysis that comes with it. Nature or Naughty possessed a
didactic and pedantic tone while it reviewed a step by step exercise done by
students to evaluate the flaws of Deflategate in a classroom setting. This
source outlines an activity completed by science students about Deflategate
and the flaws of the Wells Report taken from a scientific perspective. It
showed how the students conducted their work to analyze the given
situation, as well as how they collaborated in groups to organize and finally
present their analysis based on their scientific background knowledge, and
the information given to them regarding Deflategate. Instead of including

scientific data to logically appeal to the audience in the academic piece, the
authors used an informative tone combatted with the use of the first person
to reach the hearts and emotions of their readers. Carroll conveys, ...it is
difficult to get us to act unless we are also persuaded in our heart.(53) For
example the article states that, Considering that our impartiality was at
least implicitly recognized by the N.F.L. in the past, we believe that our
analysis of the evidence in Deflategate, in a study released Friday by the
American Enterprise Institute, could help resolve this latest controversy. In
the first part of this thesis-like statement, the informative tone is set with
specific diction and phrases like, implicitly recognized illustrate the
authors previously earned credibility from their problem solving skills shown
in the Bountygate scandal.
A different tone was presented in the scholarly article, Assessing
Malfeasance and contained a ruthless, diametric tone towards the NFL. Like
the non-academic source, the diction included in the academic sources
depicted the type of tone that each source would contain. The authors of
Malfeasance contend that, One could argue that the broad range of
uncertainties we have identified here makes for evidence that does not
provide a reliable foundation for decision-making, and that the lack of
robustness of the results presented suggests that the methods applied by
the Wells report are unreliable.(Hassett) within this sentence the ruthless
and diametric tone are prevalent and assist the authors in attacking the NFL
to reassess their actions regarding Deflategate.

Megonigal makes moves of her own in her analysis of the classroom

activity. This analysis which includes a step by step procedure to conduct the
activity, is meant for other teachers and educators to take and try on
students of their own. To keep her audience attracted and for this activity to
stand out from other possibly boring classroom lesson plans, Megonigal uses
the I swear this isnt boring move seen in one of the first sentences of the
introduction. She makes Deflategate sound like a soap opera(it kind of is?)
and tells the reader-- most likely a teacher-- that their students will feel like
detectives. No teacher wants their students to be bored, and Megonigal
takes advantage of that soft spot by asserting that, In this activity your
students delve into a real-life sports melodrama involving footballs, inflation
pressures, temperatures, and perhaps mischief and rulebreaking. This
ingenious move will draw extreme attention from any teacher looking to
spice up their classroom and any student who is bored within their required
high school chemistry course.
While examining the similarities and differences between rhetorical
features, tone, data, and how those affect the audience and purpose of
academic and non-academic sources it is clear that each has strengths and
weaknesses in achieving different goals. At times, scholarly articles can be
more persuasive than a non-scholarly ones. For example, the op-ed that was
written to draw more attention to the scholarly research article that refutes
the Wells Report was not nearly as persuasive as the research article itself.
Most of these limitations were constrained by the conventions of the genre

that it was placed in. The inclusion of scientific facts and data made it clear
that the Wells Report was wrong and the data to prove it was present. The
data included in the article would not have fit in the op-ed piece, as it was
catered to a broader non-scholarly audience which had yet to be introduced
to all the details of the story and is most likely unfamiliar with the
mathematical processes used. The op-ed was able to use the first person -unlike the scholarly article -- which allowed the authors to maintain an
informative tone. The classroom activity was different in that data was not
presented, but instead it was included as a background information handout
for students to ease them with constructing an opinion regarding
Deflategate. The genre suited this specific scholarly piece perfectly and any
other genre that the information was presented in would have negatively
impacted its effectiveness by not allowing it to appeal to bored students and
teachers wanting an interesting classroom activity. Similar topic can be
written about using similar or different rhetorical features, moves, and
purposes, but some genres suit different topics better than others to convey
a similar message.

Works Cited
Carroll, Laura Bolin. Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical
Analysis. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter
in Academic Writing. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. Print.
Hassett, Kevin A., and Stan A. Veuger. "Deflating Deflategate." The New
York Times. The New York Times, 13 June 2015. Web. 11 May 2016.
Hassett, Kevin A., Stan Veuger, and Joseph W. Sullivan. "Football under
Pressure: Assessing Malfeasance in Deflategate." - IOS Press. N.p., 17
Dec. 2015. Web. 11 May 2016.
Megonigal, Elizabeth J. "Nature or Naughty: Bringing "Deflategate" to the
High School Chemistry Classroom." - Journal of Chemical Education. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 11 May 2016.

Writing 2 Feedback Matrix for WP2

Table of Textual Features and Qualities
Did Not

Met

Exceeded

Meet

Expectatio

Expectatio

Expectation

ns

ns

s
Thesis Statement
Use of Textual Evidence

X
X

from Genres
Use of Course Readings

Analysis

Organization/Structure

Attention to

X /X+

Genre/Conventions and
Rhetorical Factors
Attention to Moves
Exploration of

X/XX

Disciplinarity
Sentence-level Clarity,

Mechanics, Flow
Stanger,
Comments and Grade
I can tell you put a lot of work and effort
into this paper -- thanks. :) Its got a
bunch of potential, and I hope my
comments can guide you in a productive
direction.

My overall piece of advice is: find your

argument. Think long and hard about
how all of this adds up and, more
importantly, why it matters. I want you

to find an angle here that passes the so

what? Who cares? test. Its gotta all be
relevant though: dont just lay down
any/every sort of information you can -pick your points. Think strategically, just
like a badass gameplan for a high-stakes
playoff game.

Z
8.5/10 - 0.5 for no feedback matrix =
8/10