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Jacob Faulkner
2/17/2015
Intermediate English
Professor Skutar
Essay 2
Rhetorical analysis over TedTalk
“Color-coded surgery” was a TedTalk video discussed by Quyen Nguyen which argues
that color-coded surgery is a useful tool that could be used in medical surgeries today. In this
rhetorical analysis I will discuss how Quyen Nguyen’s debated how color-coded surgeries are a
useful method and how it benefits others. I will be using ethos, logos and pathos to furthermore
critique this video discussion throughout my body paragraphs. I will also evaluate the purpose of
this article, the tone that Quyen Nguyen uses, and the audience she is spreading this information
to. I will also be diving into the rhetorical strategy in light of the genre by discussing the genre of
the text and how this genre effects the communication of the text and how it is brought to the
viewer.
First, I am going to briefly cover the main topic in Quyen Nguyen’s TedTalk. “Colorcoded surgery” is a TedTalk video that evaluates how fluorescent lighting can become effective
for the medical field. In most medical text books, a lot of times the anatomy shown is colorcoded to help the learned understand the material better because the color-coding helps the
student see the anatomy more effectively. However, when a student goes into the actual medical
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field everything that was originally color-coded, no longer is. In the actual human body, there are
no fluorescent colors and organs, cancer, nerves, don’t all stick out as well and are not as easy to
find. That is until Quyen Nguyen who is a surgeon thought that maybe bringing fluorescent
lighting into the body would be possible. She and another researcher came up with a way for this
to become possible and now surgeons are able to make cancer cells light up in florescent colors
as well as nerves or other veins. This helps surgeon more easily find and excrete cancerous cells,
or helps better complete surgeries without paralyzing a patient hitting a nerve. Quyen Nguyen
strongly believes that this process really makes a difference in surgery and will help future
surgeries tremendously.
The purpose of this article I believe is to inform more people about this tremendous
discovery. I also believe the purpose of this article is to show patients that this source of surgery
may be another option that surgeons can use to have more successful surgeries. Color-coding
helps doctors better see cancer cells which would help patients not have to get second or third
surgeries because the surgeon missed a few cancer cells. “With our technology, we can tell right
away.” Quyen Nguyen made this quote referring to the cancerous cells during surgery.
Sometimes surgeons miss some cancerous fragments because they are hidden underneath tissues
or mixed in with other organs and are difficult to see with the naked eye and Nguyen states that
with florescent colors it makes it easy to tell right away how much of the cancer is still in the
body. The purpose of this discussion was to show how effective this method can be when used
during surgeries with cancer or with nerves.
Quyen Nguyen uses a tone that shows how effective she thinks this method is and how
she takes great pride in her work and discoveries. She sounded very intelligent about her topic
and she used her grammar very well to help get her points on the argument across. The listener
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should have been able to tell that she rehearsed the discussion a few times most likely because of
how calm and collective she was. I did not seem to understand one metaphor she used referring
to if a gas station had gas or not. The point she was trying to make made sense, but the metaphor
did not. Nonetheless Quyen got her point across very well and did it in a very professional way.
She sounded slightly bias but only because she was trying to argue her side of the discussion but
she never really gave any negative effects that the florescent lighting may have on the body in
the short or long term of a patient’s life. However the listener is able to tell without a doubt how
much Quyen cares for this product and she shows how useful it can be during surgeries with the
help of videos. She used her tone in a very effective way to help draw the listener into her story
and to help get them on her side of the discussion.
Pathos was shown a lot through Quyen’s tone, but was also shown through the amount of
work that was put into this presentation. Some of the TedTalks were brief and lasted maybe five
minutes at a time, but Quyen Nguyen’s discussion lasted 16 minutes and was full of numerous
slides with a lot of information on each slide she presented. She gave the story of how this idea
came to be and why she decided to go along and try and make this idea to become reality. She
explained how her and her “team” combined different molecules together to form this
fluorescent color and to use it to color-code in the body to help make surgeries easier. Quyen
talked about stories where her co-workers told her how in the beginning that the color-coding
idea was not going to be effective and she would not get any support on the idea, when after she
made the discovery and made the crazy idea into a reality, her co-workers realized that they had
some patients who may be able to benefit from this type of help during a surgery. All of these
things Quyen Nguyen used to show her facts and information, but at the same time the emotion
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was carried with those facts into each slide. She showed tremendous passion for her work which
was almost inspirational.
The imagery that Quyen used also really helped her persuade the listener or viewer and
showed pathos. She showed videos of surgeries and asked the viewer to see if they could identify
where the cancer cells were and it was very difficult to determine where until she showed the
florescent lighting that lit the cancer cells up like a light bulb. She did the same thing with a
nerve and described how important it was that a surgeon doesn’t hit a nerve during surgery
because it could lead to paralysis. Nguyen asked the viewer again to point out the nerve and it
was fairly easy to see the main part of the sciatic nerve, but it was impossible to see the branches
of the nerve that broke off into tissues and hid behind tissues until she showed the florescent
view of it and then stated that with the help of this surgeons are easily able to see if they got all
of the cancer by removing all of the florescent color, or how to avoid puncturing a nerve. This
showed great emotion throughout her presentation. She backed her information up with
tremendous facts and great imagery.
Quyen Nguyen described her ethos by telling the viewer at the very beginning of the
presentation how she is a surgeon and that she also is a researcher. She also described that
medicine always has been like a team sport. Doctors and researchers work together to make great
discoveries and that is the case in this instance as well. Nguyen mentions that she had help from
another doctor Roger Tsien who won the Nobel Peace Prize in chemistry, and a team of
researchers to help make color-coding possible. She also describes how other surgeons are
interested in her research as well. She does not give a lot of information on herself however you
can assume her information is credible and reliable with how much passion she has for her work.
The main information she gives is that she is a professor and a surgeon at the Facial Nerve Clinic
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in San Diego, California and that shows she knows what she is talking about and is a reliable
source. This information would make the reader to consider Nguyen to be an expert in her field
of medicine.
Logos was used in a very broad way throughout Quyen Nguyen’s entire presentation. The
presentation was filled with facts to back up her argument on whether or not color-coding is an
effective method or not. She used a lot of videos and made a lot of interesting points to back up
her video. One very important argument she used to help back up her main point that colorcoding is important is during the discussion about cancer. Nguyen showed a picture of a couple
slides that were cancerous pictures and asked the viewer to see if they could point out where the
cancer was and it was hard to point out. On one slide you could clearly see one part of the cancer
cells, but the rest was near impossible to see unless you knew what you were looking for and
knew what was abnormal. Quyen then shows the same slides with the florescent coloring added
to them and says how it’s extremely beneficial to the patient because surgeons when removing
cancer have to take out all the cancer they see, and have to do a series of tests to see if the cancer
is completely gone or not. Even when the surgeon says they got it all, it doesn’t necessarily mean
they got ever fragment of the cancer and they will not know that until they run tests to see if they
did. Sometimes the doctors realized they missed a few pieces of the cancer and the patient has
the option of either going through another surgery, or the patient could get radiation or kemo
therapy to try and get rid of the remaining cancer. Nguyen states that this could no longer
become an issue for patients with the color-coding because the surgeon would know immediately
without running any tests whether or not the cancer was out of the body because they just had to
remove the pieces that were lit up florescent colors. Unless the cancer is too severely spread to
be removed, it’s easier to get rid of now because you can clearly see where the cancer is.
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Quyen Nguyen presented a topic about color-coding surgeries. In a lot of medical
books, the anatomy shown is not necessarily how it is in the body and that is something that
Nguyen thought would be a very useful tool to help surgeons during surgery. Nguyen presented
her topic in an extremely effective manner. She used images and videos to allow the viewer to
see the problems and to see what her solution could do to fix the problem. The purpose of this
presentation was to show how effective color-coding could be to medicine and to show other
surgeons that this may be a practice they want to pick up. The purpose also of this I believe was
like a medical journal, to spread the facts to the world of this incredible discovery. Nguyen’s
tone was used to demonstrate how much she cared about her work and the passion was shown
throughout her presentation. This tone helped draw the listener into what she was passionate
about. Quyen uses ethos, logos, and pathos very well through her presentation. For ethos,
Nguyen states her experience in the medical field and tells the viewer how she is a surgeon and
also a professor and does a lot of research with her team which shows that she in without a doubt
an expert in her field of medicine. For logos, she gives a lot of solid points on how this product is
a great discovery and how it can help with patients during surgery by showing videos and using
great imagery. For pathos, the viewer could really tell how passionate Quyen was about her work
and how she thinks this is a great discovery for medicine. Throughout her presentation she states
numerous facts about how this is a beneficial discovery and will play a large role in helping with
surgery. Overall, Quyen Nguyen did an outstanding job presenting this information to the public
using TedTalk. She was confident, prepared, and gave a tremendous piece of information that
helps others be informed that a great discovery has been made in medicine to help with surgeries.
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Work Cited page:
Nguyen, Quyen. "Color-Coded Surgery." Www.ted.com. TED, 11 Oct. 2011. Web. 17
Feb. 2015. Oral Presentation
<http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ted.com%2Ftalks%2Fquyen_nguyen_color_coded_surgery%23
t-2888>.