PB3A

For writing project number three, we have to find a scholarly journal and convert that piece into two different genres. One genre being directed to a younger audience and the other being directed to an older audience. As I research through different kind of scholarly journals, I find myself thinking, “How am I supposed to change this work into a different genre?” It sounds difficult and it is something I haven’t done. One of the scholarly-academic journals I have searched for is one based on Comic Books. Kat Kan’s journal, What Kind of Kids Read Comic Books, consists of the many different kinds of kids that read comic books and how comic books are relevant in academics. How can I changed this journal into a different genre? Can it become an actual comic book itself? Can I make it a Tweet? Can it be a poem? It must be a certain genre that pertains to a younger audience and older audience respectively.

When you think of genres for younger audiences, many ideas come to mind like cartoons, texting, tweets, social media status updates, and children books. With all these genres, to make the academic journal into one of these, you have to think about the conventions of the genre. For example, when you think of a children’s book you think about illustrations, animals, farms, color, and short simple word/sentences. By taking these factors into consideration you can create your own children’s book. In this case we take the topic of the different kinds of kids that read comic books and put it into a different perspective. I would have my characters be farm animals discussing who reads what. There would be a pig that reads history books, a duck that reads comic books, a horse that reads comic strips, and other kind of animals that read different materials. Then the duck will ask the others if they have ever read comic books. They all would answer yes and the pig will go into detail saying, “Comic books lead us to read different things. It showed me that reading is fun to do!” Of course it sounds like a moral of a story which is also a convention of children’s book genre.

On the other hand when you think of genres for older audiences, you come across bills, resumes, newspapers, emails, and poems. I feel like this conversion is more complicated because the scholarly journal has high vocabulary that u expect older audience to read in their genres.  If you were to translate this journal into a poem, again you must consider the conventions of a poem. There are many different kind of poems, haikus, sonnets, free verse, but the first thing usually think of when it comes to poems is rhyming. For example, I would have my poem be, “Comic Books are for everyone/ read by many or one/ smart or not smart/ with or without art/ Comic Books are for everyone.” This would not be my final poem because it is very simple and can probably qualify for a younger audience as well. Again to change the scholarly-academic journal to a different genre, we must consider the conventions of the genre and also consider the audience.

PB2B

Almost every writer has their own technique and style in their writing, yet to convey their style to the audience they use certain “moves.” Moves can be anything in the writing world. The kind of language they use, the way they communicate to the reader, and the structure of their essay are just a few examples of moves writers use. Two articles that I have read so far stood out to me because the authors used different and various moves to capture their audience. Kerry Dirk’s Navigating Genres gives clear rhetorical strategies that help bring his point across and it also incorporates a different style which sets it apart from other articles. Mike Bunn’s How to Read Like a Writer is similar to Dirk’s article, yet it explores a different topic and it has an interesting style. Both articles have similar ways of communicating to the audience in terms of perspective and also have similar use of language. On the other hand Bunn’ and Dirk’s articles differ in the way they are structured and how they hooked the reader.

Authors can use many kind of perspectives like first or third person point of view. In this case both Dirk and Bunn, use the first person point of view strategy to connect with their audience. Plenty of “I” and “you” language is used throughout both writers’ articles respectively. For example in Bunn’s article he states, “When you are reading like a writer you work to identify some of the choices the author made so that you can better understand how such choices might arise in your own writing.” (Bunn, pg. 121) This strategy is very straightforward and I, myself, enjoy when writers attempt this technique because it feels more like a conversation and it makes reading more interesting. Along with “I” and “you” language, both writers use rhetorical questions and questions. Dirk uses many questions like, “What rhetorical moves might I use, effectively or ineffectively?” (Dirk, pg. 15) In this case, this is a rhetorical question, it does not need to be answered. But sometimes writers, like Dirk and Bunn, use questions and then answer it on their own usually after the question was mentioned. Why do they do this? I believe these authors use this move to continue to hold on to the readers’ attention. Sometimes as a reader you begin to daze off and lose track of what you are reading. With questions like these, I believe we become more interested in the material because it is something unusual to see in writing.

The difference between these two writers’ styles is the way they try hook their audience in their introductions respectively. Writers usually use a hook to grab the attention of the reader immediately and so that they can also begin to establish their point of their topic or essay. For example Kerry Dirk begins his essay with a joke, “What do you get when you rewind a country song? You get your wife back, your job back, your dog back…” (Dirk, pg. 14) He then goes on saying you might laugh at the joke or not -- I personally laughed so much – and I believe this is risky to use at times, yet in this case it is used well. He is not going of topic as he is using this to build up to his thesis which is what a genre consists of. On the other hand, Mike Bunn has a strange hook that you wouldn't often see.  He begins his essay with an anecdote, which isn't wrong to do, but in my opinion it was somewhat off topic. And though it was off topic, somehow his essay still kept me interested. These authors used their own moves to try to convince the reader into continuing to read their topic. Through both respective ways, the authors attempt was successful in hooking me because it was something new to me as a reader. Sometimes as a reader and a writer you want to switch things up and not follow specific conventions that are held for writing.

Both Bunn’s and Dirk’s moves were successful in their own ways in capturing my attention as a reader. They had a similar way of approaching their audience by using a first person point of view style of writing which I enjoyed. With this perspective I believe their point came across more clearly and smoothly because it felt as if it was a simple conversation and not a dull lecture of some topic. Each writer’s hook was different and interesting, Dirk kept his hook on topic to his essay, while Bunn used a different technique and both still kept my concentration as a reader. The rhetorical moves both authors used helped establish a bridge between the author and the audience as it helped me, as a reader, understand their topics better.

Sinceriously

Carlos Alberto Pena

PB2A

The genre generator, “SCIgen,” creates a fake computer science research paper that looks real because of the way it looks. In research papers we see specific rhetorical features and conventions that must be present in order to make the paper a research paper. In a scholarly journal that I looked up that consisted of communication and media, you can also see how it can relate to the research paper as they are very similar. Though these two are already contrast in their topics, computer science versus communication and media, they are both under the same genre, a research paper. Research papers are particularly distinguishable from other papers. Research papers usually consist of data, experiments, analysis, methods, results and other key factors. Both the computer science paper and the communication paper share these characteristics, yet they differ mainly in that the communication paper is an academic journal, while the computer science is a non-academic source.

Both the genre generator’s research paper and the academic journal share what most research papers have to have to make it a research paper. The first thing that you will notice is the abstract of the report, which gives the overview of what the report consists of. The difference between the two is not only the material, but the way it is presented. In the genre generator it is clearly stated that it is the abstract while in the academic journal it is not. I believe it is structured in this way because research papers have to follow the convention of the paper being in APA format. If you were to see a research paper in a different format, you would think twice about it; maybe you would not consider the paper to be reliable to you or something in that sense. Another similarity is that research papers have to have some kind of data to show results of experiments; the data can be shown in different contexts like in tables or graphs. Both also contain a conclusion that states the results and outcome of their research as well as a references section.

The major difference I see between the two is that the academic journal is almost like a genre within a genre. In the SCIgen website, the research paper provided is a standard research paper; anyone could have made it. On the other hand, the scholarly academic journal can only be done by an academic. These journals are based on research from a scholar and is peer reviewed, while the other is just a standard research paper that anyone could do. If I were looking for reliable research topics I would most likely consider the academic journals rather than the non-academic contexts. Though the research papers may share some similarities in their structure and format the material will be different and have different credibility. 

Reference:

http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=531eed15-f631-4f74-aa00-34f883ac799b%40sessionmgr112&vid=7&hid=124, Helen Yost Si Fan, "Social media technologies for collaboration and communication: Perceptions of childcare professionals and families." University of Tasmania. June 2014.

http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/#generate