PB3A: Proposal for Your Genre Translation

             Being able to translate a scholarly article to two different new genres can help you develop a better understanding of the conventions and moves within each specific genre.  You are able to use knowledge and conventions of the genres while developing your writing.  I have chosen the article “The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change” written by Clay Shirky and reviewed and published by the Council of Foreign Affairs.  This article is written about the use of social media and its effects on politics and political voice for the public. 

             The one of the two genres and articles you can use to translate this article into is a previously discussed genre: a Buzzfeed list.  Buzzfeed is a popular media website that is famous for its use of lists to convey its message and news.  Buzzfeed spans a large variety of news and popular culture posts.  It has actual news articles about present day issues.  Buzzfeed also focuses a lot on popular culture.  I think that this scholarly article could be utilized perfectly for this genre.  You can take all of the main points of the article on social media and politics and convert it to a list.  You can take the main points of how politicians use media to better their public image.  Another angle you can use is a list of how to better people’s use of social media for getting their voices heard.  “1. Make a hashtag and get your friends together to get it treading.  2. Create a Facebook group to increase social media presence. Etc.”  These lists will be able to attract a large following with both the politically involved and just interested young generation.  I think that the use of “The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change” in a Buzzfeed list would be a great genre and medium to translate the article to. 

             You can use the explained scholarly article is many other ways to better reach a targeted audience.  While the Buzzfeed article would be better suited to a younger generation and audience, you can transform “The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change” to a more developed and mature article.  I think an opinion piece on the recent use and benefits and detractions of social media in present day politics.  You can use the arguments in the given article to better understand the use of social media in present day political campaigns and other political movements.  I would also for example highlight the strengths and successes of the Obama 2008 Presidential campaign.  He was one of the first politicians to successfully use social media to benefit and attract people to his campaign.  You can cross reference strategies explained in the scholarly essay and real life uses and examples.

             Understanding an article and genre enough to be able to translate it to another genre with the same message is a particularly helpful exercise.  You are then able to use and develop each genre with a message using its own conventions. 

PB2B: "Moves"

Moves are critical for an authors because they define their style.  Authors use hundreds of different moves in their writing with the overall goal of getting their thesis and argument better understood by their reader.  Together with the content of the writing, a move is a big definer for specific authors.  Dan Brown, for example, is known to have extremely short chapters with an increasing pace to his writing.  Using the writing pieces “Understanding Rhetoric” and “Shitty First Drafts” we can better understand the use of moves within published works.  

“Understanding Rhetoric” written by Losh and Alexander is a very useful writing piece with the overall message to help the reader better understand what rhetoric is and how to better use it in their writings.  There are many unique moves used by the writers to better their paper.  The most obvious move they used was the form of a comic.  This unorthodox writing style greatly beneficial to the message of the essay.  It gets the point across in a easier to understand method due to the unintimidating structure.  While most authors are set on having a conventional technique and style for their writings, these authors decided to divert from this and make this writing particularly unique.  Most conventional essays eventually blend into each other.  When you read a writing piece such as a comic, you remember both reading it and the messages it describes.  Writing the piece as a comic was a very wise move and really helped the overall message.

Another move that is unique to this piece is the use of direct communication with the reader.  The use of “you” is throughout the writing.  This is a very interesting move since it familiarizes the reader with with the text and makes it easier to relate to the message.  Unlike the comic move, this is used to make it sound like the message and dialogue in the text is directed toward the reader.  When someone thinks that they are being talked to as equals and not by some distant professor they are much more likely to listen and agree with them.  The use of these directing words are a very specific move used by the author and is very beneficial for the essay.

The essay “Shitty First Drafts” written by Anne Lamott shares a lot of the same moves as “Understanding Rhetoric”.  The first move is the use of informality with the essay.  Unlike “Understanding Rhetoric” it is written in a typical essay style, but it still utilizes the same informality.  First off, the title includes “Shitty…”.  Using a commonly used curse word in a title immediately catches the reader off guard.  When reading an academic writing, the preconception is that of a developed and scholarly tone.  When the title contains a curse word it intrigues the reader.  This is a very interesting move and one that if utilized properly can assist in building credibility with the reader, something that every author desires.  

Next, while writing “Shitty First Drafts”, instead of using “you” Lamott includes“I”.  Like the use of curse words in the title, the use of “I” is a move that builds credibility with the author.  The reader will convey this move as the writer is just having a casual conversation with them instead of an academic essay to learn from.  When you are more relaxed and easygoing, you tend to learn a lot more and empathize with the author on a peer to peer basis, instead of student to teacher.

When determining a moves usefulness you have to understand the overall intention of the specific move used.  I think the moves highlighted in my analysis were all quite successful.   The moves that were pointed out all were specifically successful with their own motives.  The difference between the moves with “Understanding Rhetoric” and “Shitty First Drafts” is the unique take on informality.  While “Understanding Rhetoric” took a most stylistic approach with the use of the comic formatting, “Shitty First Drafts” took a more direct tone and diction approach to capture the audiences attention.  

When it comes to a successful essay, you must use certain moves in your writing to better convey your point.  These moves can range from using certain italics, including a summary, to even adding pictures throughout your essay.  The two essays I used to better my  understanding of moves used them in a similar fashion.  The use of moves for both “Understanding Rhetoric” and “Shitty First Drafts” was to provide the audience with unorthodox writing which leads to better absorption of the overall material of the essay.   Moves are crucial to writing and using them correctly will make your writing more successful.

PB2A: Comparing Genres

              There are a countless number of specific genres.  Ripping them apart and comparing them together reveals the conventions and rhetorical features used.  To get a more in depth perspective on the use of genre, you should comparing two pieces of writing within the same genre.  I compared the rhetorical features of the “SCIgen” genre generator and of the academic publication “Political Traditions and Political Change: The Significance of Postwar Japanese Politics for Political Science” written by Professors Bradley Richardson (Ohio State) and Dennis Patterson (Michigan State).  The similarities of both of the publications all follow the conventions of the specific genre of academic writing.  There are 2 main similarities between the two pieces: the tone and the audience. 

             A tone of a paper sets the initial perspective of the paper for both the reader and the writer.  Genre conventions greatly affect the specific tones used for every single genre.  Wither it is a comic strip or a press release, the genre determines the tone.  There is a very unique tone used then it comes to academic papers.  The tone is that of formality and precise.  When trying to get the most amount of information across, the authors specifically try to be as clear as possible while maintaining a scholarly disposition.   This can be seen in both of the papers chosen.  “Two properties makes this approach perfect: our algorithm…”  (1, SCIgen) and with the Richardson and Patterson’s paper “…electoral mobilization has been a frequent theme in descriptions of Japan’s political arrangements…”  (5, Richardson & Patterson)  Instead of commentary on the subject itself, the authors make a distinct choice to limit their writing to specific material on the subject itself. 

             The audience of the writing piece is a particularly crucial part of scholarly writing.  This is the main convention of the genre and is the baseline for the tone and style to be based off of.  The audience is limited to those qualified and educated in the topics of the subjects being written on.  These publications are not for those who are alien to the subjects at hand.  There is no baseline introduction to the overall subject of the paper nor is there a summary or breakdown of the arguments or topics being written.  This is unique to scholarly writing because it is usually difficult to find the writing without seeking it out.  This leads to the presumption of those who seek out the writing are already in the know about the subject.  In the SCIgen paper, “The evaluation of 64 bit architectures has constructed…” (1, SCIgen)  This sentence is the first line of the introduction section of the paper.  For such a complex and specific topic to be discussed that early in the paper, it is easily shown how the audience is meant for those with prior knowledge within the subject.

             There are a lot of similarities within the genre of academic writing, but there is a very distinct difference between all of the writings.  The different disciples that are the subject of these writings provide a unique structure and style of writing.  While science writing is much more quantitative with extreme specifics, social sciences and humanities is much more observational and deductive.  “Elections inevitably involve an interaction between what politicians do to gain popular support…”  (13, Richardson & Patterson)  This is a very distinct difference between these different writings within this genre.

             Genre is critical to the formation of proper writing and the basic understanding of those writings.  We can pick part and compare writings within the genres to really understand what the conventions actually are.

                                                                  

Works Cited

"Eggar: A Methodology for the Investigation of Link-Level Acknowledgements." Eggar: A Methodology for the Investigation of Link-Level Acknowledgements. SCIGen, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2015.

Richardson, Bradley, and Dennis Patterson. "Political Traditions and Political Change: The Significance of Postwar Japanese Politics for Political Science." Annual Review of Political Science 4 (2001): 93-116. Annual Reviews. Web. 31 Jan. 2015. <http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.polisci.4.1.93>.

PB1B: Inspecting Genre Generators

             PB1B lets us better understand genre in our everyday lives.  With the studying of several genre generators, we are able to understand the formula or conventions of a different type of genre or writing.  Such generators can better help you understand how to write or apply specific genres that we have studied.

             Starting with the SCIgen generator, you can easily figure out that the generated genre is in the category of an academic paper.  Such an article starts out with a large complex and academic title that provides the audience with the understanding of the overall subject of the article.  Underneath, are the submitted names to act as the authors of the paper.  As the paper starts, an Abstract section takes up the first section followed by an Introduction, Related Work, and other seemingly important topics to cover in the paper.   Such an article has a very distinct audience of which it is trying to relay information to.  The audience and tone reflects the professional and scholarly audience of the paper.

             Next, the comic strip generator has even stronger conventions than that of the academic paper generator.  Right away you notice that it is a generator of comics.  The conventions of this particular comic strip are based mainly on the layout of the strip.  The strip contains 3 large boxes of which the dialogue is contained.  The dialogue is also writing in a bubble format to portray the fact that it is dialogue not just text.  This specific comic strip contains two specific characters, one that wears a green shirt and the other a maroon one.  The comic audience and tone is informal and crude.  It is mainly intended for people that find shock or crude humor funny. 

             Next, the meme generator is extremely helpful in fully understanding what the conventions of a meme truly are.  When you first notice a meme you understand that it is a type of cartoon or comic.  Such a comic as that of a meme is contained in one square box, unlike the previous comic that took up three.  The dialogue also is contained to the top and bottom of the square.  The main feature or highlight of the meme is contained within the main center of the square.  A large picture or cartoon takes up the majority of the space.  Sometimes the dialogue even is ontop of the displayed picture.  The main differential between a comic and a meme is usually the relevant and mostly satirical content.  The audience and tone are directly targeted at a young demographic with knowledge of current trends.  Memes are a successful way to poke or make fun of a current world issue while providing a better understanding of that topic through a picture or comic. 

             Lastly, I choose another generator to better assist in the understanding of conventions within specific genres.  I used a tweet generator.  A tweet is a short sentence or so that is spread on the social media platform of Twitter.  Such a generator I found on eviltrailmix.com/tweet/.  The mechanics of a tweet is very distinct and easy to understand.  The tweet is characterized by a sentence or saying that is less than 140 characters.  A tweet usually contains the “@” symbol which indicates a specific direction or association with the tweet.  Also, a hashtag symbol is used to connect similar tweets together that share the same hashtag phrase.  The audiences of the tweet are those who use the specific social media site, a site consisting mainly of younger generations that what to share their reactions to world issues, popular culture, and other areas of interest.  Overall, the tone is extremely informal due to the multiple abbreviations that are used within the tweet and the character limitations.  The tweet is a very interesting genre and understanding its many conventions can better you in overall understanding of genre conventions.  

PB1A: Dissecting a Genre's Rhetorical Features and Conventions

When picking a genre’s rhetorical features, I settled on a “Buzzfeed List” type of article.  Buzzfeed has become a major media and news source for many young people over the recent years.  Buzzfeed is known for a specific type of article construction… the list.  Such lists populate their website and can range from: “32 Magical Destinations to Visit in This Lifetime” to more serious topics such as “Divers Reportedly Locate AsiaAir Plane’s Black Box”.

             There are many specific characteristics of a Buzzfeed list article.  When you first look at the website you notice the large intensely intriguing article title overtaking the entire screen.  This initially draws your attention straight to the topic that is covered below.  Such a title usually is accompanied by a picture that assists the title in conveying its point to the reader.  Below the large title is a quote or statement from the article.  It could be the overall argument from the article or even a direct quote to further get the point across. 

             Another major characteristic that all Buzzfeed articles share is that of the author information, which typically lies below the title quote and tag line.  The author’s name is usually companied by a picture of that author and something about him/her; either the location of the writer or their specific job title.  Below all of the headings and titles, the article/list starts out always with “1.”.  It is the start of the list they are writing about.  Next to each number is the specific information about the point they are trying to get across.  Below the number point lays a picture or a GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) a.k.a. a small video that better represents the point the author is trying to make.

             A lot of the specific characteristic of the Buzzfeed list lies in the audience and tone of the article.  According to digyday.com 56% of Buzzfeed users are between the ages of 18 and 34 [1].  Similarity, 56% of its users are women [1].  Such a demographic is easily seen with the tone of the articles.  Such a tone consists of informal words and sayings.  Slang and fashionable diction is also heavily used to associate with their youth audience.  The articles can been seen more directed toward popular culture and current events.  It is even possible to note a more liberal tone within the articles.  When discussing current world issues, such articles will include points that can be also be seen on websites of MSNBC and other predominantly left-leaning media.  This is a major characteristic that targets the usually liberal outlook that such a young demographic usually has. 

             Buzzfeed articles and lists have gained immense popularity over the years, mainly due to the demand for quick information that can be easily processed.  Such a unique genre that Buzzfeed dominates contains many specific conventions that make them so popular.  Such features are the characteristic of the actual list, tone of the article, and specific audience that is targeted. 

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[1] Sternberg, Josh. "13 Interesting Facts Brands Should Know About BuzzFeed - Digiday." Digiday. Digiday, 29 Apr. 2013. Web. 11 Jan. 2015.

About Me...

My name is Oren Merry and these are some interesting things about me!

Basic Info:

I’m from Mountain View, California which is right in the heart of Silicon Valley.  My Father was born in Israel and my Mother was born in the US.  I am a third generation Gaucho.  My Grandfather got his Ph.D. here in the 80’s, my Mother went here, and my Brother is a senior here!

Hobbes and Interests:

·        Scuba diving, hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, anything outdoors

·        I’m a DJ and ran a very successful business throughout NorCal while in HS

·        I love traveling… I recently went on a month long backpacking trip in Peru with my brother

       - Other travels have taken me to Belize, Thailand, Cozumel, Israel, Europe, etc.

·        I love sports including 49ers football, and Sharks hockey

At UCSB:

·        Currently Undeclared – interested in Poli Sci, Psych, and TMP

·        I am involved in the Greek Community @ UCSB
 ·       I’m interested in getting involved with tour guides, excursion club, and club rugby

Thanks for reading about me!
Oren