In WP3 we are putting our knowledge of genres and their conventions to the test. The idea is to take a scholarly article and translate it into two different pieces; one geared towards older people, and the other geared towards younger people. With that said, it is obviously important that we keep the rhetorical features of each genre, specifically audience, in mind. We need to take the information from the scholarly article, and translate it so that it can be interesting to and understood by our new audience.
For my scholarly article I decided on the topic of exercise. I chose this topic because I believe it is something very relevant for both younger and older people. It makes more sense to present a topic that these audiences would normally be interested in to begin with. After searching the UCSB library I decided on the peer-reviewed article “Exercise acts as a drug; the pharmacological benefits of exercise,” by J Vina, F Sanchis-Gomar, V Martinez-Bello and MC Gomez-Cabrera from the Department of Physiology at the University of Valencia. This article postulates the idea that exercise can be considered a drug based on its effects on the brain. It also says that exercise, like any drug, has a proper dosage to create the most beneficial results. Now, the task before us is to take this information and transform it into something that would be both interesting and appropriate for our new audiences.
For our younger audience, I hope to create a children’s book. This is a textual genre intended for much younger audiences. To create something like this, we must understand the conventions of the genre and change our current article to fit those conventions. The first thing that comes to mind when you think of a picture book is the large, often colorful and cartoony pictures. These are there to keep a young child interested and help them to view the content in a way that is simple and easy to understand. Another convention of children’s books it the small, simple sentences that accompany these pictures. When it comes to children, the simpler the information is presented, the more they will understand and maintain interest. This is where we will put most of the information from the scholarly article in a much simpler presentation. Big fonts and colors are also a common convention found in children's’ books. The large and colorful presentation makes it easier for kids to read and stay interested. Most children’s books have the purpose of teaching a valuable lesson to young developing children. In this particular case we will be teaching children the importance of exercise and how it can be helpful to their health as well as exciting.
For our older audience, I will create an online mainstream news article. This is a genre geared towards an audience that is old enough to use the internet and be interested in reading the news. One convention of this genre is the use of a big hook of a title. The title is often the link that interests the reader and gets them to look further into the article. Another convention of this genre is the use of smaller professional pictures or visual aids that relate or add something to the information being presented. These types of articles are often intended to be informative and use higher level but informal vocabulary. The information needs to be given in way that is appropriate for adults, but not be as dry as a scholarly article would be to the general public. Comments at the end of the article are also a big convention of this genre. This determines how the public perceives the article and sparks further discussion and clarification of the ideas in the article.
These are the general ideas I have decided on for these two translations. The details are still in the works but the key for planning this project is to outline the conventions of each genre. If I can create a sort of skeleton or template for both transformed genres, I can tailor the information from the scholarly articles to fit.
I like your ideas Andy! I'm also planning on making a children's book conforming to the younger audience[I changed My mind after writing my PB3a] about healthy food, so our topics sort of go hand in hand. I thought it was great ho you talked about the different conventions that each audience fit and how for the children's book, the use of color and and big, appealing letters would be necessary. Also, I thought it was interesting how you talked about the comments at the bottom of the older-audience article. I would have never thought about that, but It works! How exactly are you going to go about making these comments? Are they intentionally going to be all positive in order to make your article seem credible, or will they have a balance in order to make your project seem less biased? Anyways, Great ideas man, and I liked how you talked about the option you were doing before you explained what translations you were going to make. This made your paper easy to understand!
ReplyDeleteWhat I really like about your idea is that you are specifically gearing your younger audience piece for children while your older audience piece is not exactly specific. It is simply for a older “tech-savvy” audience which I didn’t really even consider in the first place. I think you interpreted the assignment a lot like I did but better. I am still a little lost in the whole “conventions” aspect of it but I do totally get the “essence” part of it, much like Dom said. I definitely want to keep the same topic throughout the translations but I haven’t really found a way to make the project seem creative or out of the box the way that you did. I feel like I keep telling everyone this, but you are definitely moving in the right direction and I think that’s all you need at this point. What ideas do you have in terms of incorporating different conventions into the translations rather than the topic? I would like to do something like that so it’d help if you told me what you have in mind for this.
ReplyDeleteRight of the bat I have a question about your topic. What aspect of exercise are you going to focus on or is it going about be about exercise in general? I’m asking this because if you talk about exercise in general your article could be very vague which you don’t want. You want to be as specific as you can be. I really like your idea for the children’s book though. I really like how you are already planning what to do. This makes it easier on you when you actually start to make this thing. One question I have is that are you going to limit how much info from the scholarly article you are going to include and how are you going to phrase it? Let’s be honest children won’t understand most of the stuff in a scholarly journal if anything at all. Good luck on it though. I also like your idea for the older audience. An online news article is a great genre because it is fairly easy to write and understand. The question I had for the younger audience also applies here. How are you going to include and phrase the information from the scholarly article? News articles are geared towards the general public not a select group of scholars.
ReplyDeleteAndy T,
ReplyDeleteExcellent PB. It sounds like you’ve got the gist of what we’re doing in WP3 down pat.
For the children’s picture book piece, I’d encourage you to include text within it. With all due respect to picture book authors, I don’t feel like that’d be “enough” for this project—I want you to gain practice in applying the appropriate audience-focused conventions to the language itself (in addition to the pictures too: think “visual rhetoric”—that’s important!).
Re: the older transformation, I want you to be very specific about what KIND of mainstream online news article you’ll be creating. They’re different depending upon the source it’s being published in/for, who’s writing it, why that persons’ writing it, and what that publication’s/author’s “readership” is like. I want you to think about these factors because that ultimately impacts online news pieces. Another—I think, suuuuuuuuuuper cool idea—would be to include a mini comment/discussion board thread? You get a lot of freaks commenting on those forums, but it should make for an interesting addition to this genre. Plus, that’ll also help get you thinking about the different (rhetorical) choices you make while writing this piece.
Don’t forget to give full consideration to the “essence” and “big ideas” part of the prompt too—in other words, don’t just start creating these genres; make them purposefully with reasons that can be tied back to the original piece.
Z
First of all you do have a good ideas for your two genres, but as I was reading your post it seemed as though you were stating the general conventions of those genres rather than telling me how you will formulate your two genres based on your topic and audience. So by stating those general conventions of the genres are you planning on using each one? Plus based on your post I am assuming you are using option#1 for your WP3. To achieve an awesome WP3 start translating your topic to these genres and use the conventions that fit the situation created by translating them. Also do not only take into account that the audience are adults and youth, but also think about what type of adult and youth you are trying to appeal to based on the genre you chose. When you proposed your ideas for translation for each genre it seemed less personalized and more like something you and the reader (me) would do together. Just make sure to make this project your own and be creative with it!
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