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.