THE LITERARY RHETORIC OF SCIENCE: COMEDY AND PATHOS IN DRINKING DRIVER RESEARCH.

This paper is part of a larger study of how knowledge is used in strategies for the solution of public issues. I examine research papers on the issue of drinking and driving, treating the scientific document as a literary, artistic product. Principles of literary criticism, utilized in the analysis of narrative, drama and poetry are applied to the presentation of research to show how statements of fact are given scientific legitimacy and how the literary formulation transfers such statements into rhetorical prescriptions for action. Theorizing and conclusion-making are shown to involve presentational devices of literary selection and language which confer policy implications upon them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]