Tritt 1

Alex Tritt
Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 1:45 AM
Comment [1]: Tritt! I know you've got a
lot to "say" -- and that's awesome -- but
you've gotta stay within the assignments
reqs. I opened this paper up in MS Word
with 12 point font (standard) and 1 inch
margins (also standard) and it was 7 full
pages.

Writing 2
De Piero
5-11-16
Dont Sweat It
Oh no. A million thoughts rush through my mind as my eyes follow the quickly
approaching hand. Can I wipe my palm on my pants without him noticing? Is he going to think

That's significant for two reasons: (1) each

extra page takes longer to read/respond to
for me, and (2) you're losing out on the
valuable skill (seriously) of condensing
what you want to communicate into the
most crucial parts. (Ie, less can be more!)

Im gross? Will he still want to hold my hand when he realizes its soaking wet? Anyone with
hyperhidrosis excessive sweating caused by a central nervous system dysfunction has

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 1:45 AM

Comment [2]: Ha!

probably been in this situation before. While changing shirts often and taking extra showers can
be a hassle, individuals with hyperhidrosis are often affected in more serious ways. While
excessive sweating is a common subject of articles in health magazines, the condition has also
been studied by psychologists and physiologists alike. Despite being written from different
scientific disciplines, research-based articles focusing on the wide range of effects that
hyperhidrosis has on individuals display a striking similarity to one another in genre, conventions,
format, and moves; therefore, they are effective in communicating their research to a similar

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 1:47 AM

Comment [3]: Awesome transitional
sentence -- moving from "this is
written/reported in ordinary ways" to
"people conduct serious research into this
stuff in very different ways."
Super-crisp flow!

audience of well-educated scientists and physicians. Meanwhile, informal magazine articles on

the same topic can differ significantly from their scholarly counterparts by utilizing a simpler
structure and reader-friendly conventions and moves, magazine articles cater to a much broader
audience of everyday people.
While the side effects of hyperhidrosis that an individual may experience cover a wide
range of symptoms from social anxiety to depression to a decrease in grip force the academic
articles that present research on these effects fall into the same narrow genre. While they both fit
in the broad category of scholarly articles, they can also both be considered members of the
more specific sub-genre of scientific research-based scholarly articles. For example, Katharina
Gross and several other psychologists examined the psychological effects that hyperhidrosis has
on individuals in their article Elevated Social Stress Levels and Depressive Symptoms in Primary

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 1:50 AM

Comment [4]: I dig the 2-part thesis.
Some questions to possibly improve it
even further:
Can you work in which conventions and
which moves? Are you examining a
bunch in your paper or honing in on just a
few? And what do these
moves/conventions *do* for the writers
and/or readers?
Also: is there a "so what?" on the line with
catering to broader/mainstream
audiences? Why does that matter?

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 1:50 AM

Comment [5]: In other words: these
pieces are different, OK... and???

Tritt 2
Hyperhidrosis. The information in this article is constructed and presented in a way that is almost
identical to Theresa Zackrisson and her teams article Patients with hyperhidrosis have changed
grip force, coefficient of friction and safety margin, which examines the grip force of

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 1:50 AM

Comment [6]: How so?

hyperhidrotics individuals with hyperhidrosis from a physiological perspective. It isnt

surprising that the format and conventions of these two articles are similar; both articles are
written in order to present experimental results to a community of well-educated scientists and

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 1:51 AM

Comment [7]: Can you back this up?
And why is this worth noting?

physicians who can use the data to further study the effects of hyperhidrosis or effectively treat
hyperhidrotics.
Although the scholarly articles that have been written about hyperhidrosis are from very
different disciplines ranging from the mind-driven psychology to the body-driven physiology
the conventions of these articles are quite similar. This is likely due to the fact that the articles

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 1:51 AM

Comment [8]: A challenge: see if you
can cut this in half.

have a similar purpose and a similar intended audience both articles are trying to communicate
the unexpected side effects of hyperhidrosis to an audience of scientific or medical professionals
who have a specific interest in the condition and its treatment. For example, both articles utilize
charts and graphs in order to visually present their data. This allows the reader to quickly
determine the variables that were being measured and aids the reader in comprehending the
results of the experiment. Because both of these articles are research-based, a strong appeal to the
logos of the reader is also made; numbers, percentages, and statistics are used throughout both of
the articles. For example, Gross and her team examined the presence of depressive symptoms in
all of their test subjects. She states, 60% of the hyperhidrotics scored values beyond the
threshold for depression in the BDI-II, whereas merely 10% of the controls did (5). Presenting

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 1:52 AM

Comment [9]: What's in the charts and
graphs? Are they the same? (Prob not...)
Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 1:53 AM
Comment [10]: What *are* the variables
being measured?
You're spending a lot of time/space on
some vague, general stuff here, Tritt -- the
format, the structure, the conventions...
*What* format?
*What* structure?
*What* conventions?
(And so what?)

the findings as a comparison of percentages makes it easy for the reader to understand the results
of the experiment from a logical perspective. In addition, citations are made within both of the
articles whenever information from a secondary source is referenced, and a full list of references
is included at the bottom of each article in order to give credit to all of those who contributed to
the experiment. This is very typical of scholarly articles; not only are the authors giving credit
where credit is due, but they are also boosting their own credibility in the eyes of the reader. An

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 1:54 AM

Comment [11]: OK, now you're starting
to get cooking on the specifics.
Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 1:55 AM
Comment [12]: From my mind, you
made a pretty (non super-transitioned)
jump here: from quant/#s/%s to citations.
Are they similar enough to include in the
same paragraph? I know they're both
"conventions," but do they share anything
else in common that merits their inclusion
in the same paragraph?

Tritt 3
appeal to ethos is important because a reader especially a scientist or physician who is relying
on the research to be accurate will not take the article seriously if they believe that the
information is false or plagiarized.
As Mike Bunn explains in his article How to Read Like a Writer, techniques that are

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 1:56 AM

Comment [13]: Worth devoting a
paragraph to this?
But also, something to think about: is this
a part of your central argument?

effective for one genre may not work well in another (77). This is due to the fact that different
genres have different audiences. While academic articles are catered toward well-educated
scientists and physicians, an article from Womens Health is meant to reach a much broader

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 1:57 AM

Comment [14]: How does this topic
sentence -- and the ideas within it -- build
off of the previous sentence/paragraph?
Seems super-abrupt to me.

audience: everyday health-conscious women. Because of this, magazine articles utilize techniques

How can you help me see/experience the

connection?

that differentiate them from academic articles. Although Jill Harringtons article Excessive Sweat:

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 1:58 AM

Comment [15]: A thought: worth laying
out your sources earlier on?

How to Stop Sweating focuses on the same topic as the research-based articles hyperhidrosis
there are certain conventions that set Harringtons article apart from her scholarly counterparts.
While no in-text citations are made, Harrington appeals to the ethos of the reader in a different
way: she includes quotes from esteemed medical professionals in the article in order to support
the information that shes providing and appear credible in the eyes of the reader. While no charts
or graphs are included in the article, a picture of a shirt with pit stains is underneath the title. This

Also: any reason why you chose to do the

2 scholarly sources (and their similarities)
FIRST and then this non-academic text
AFTER? I don't know the answer to this,
but could switching them enhance your
paper at all?

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 1:59 AM

Comment [16]: Are conventions the
same as techniques? You mentioned the
latter in your topic sentence but not the
former (like you're doing here).

grabs the readers attention and lets them immediately know what the topic of the article is. This
is also an example of visual rhetoric the use of the image appeals to the pathos of the reader
because it can trigger the all-too-familiar feelings of shame and embarrassment that are a result of
excessive sweating. In addition, the overall tone of the article is much more informal and
conversational than that of the scholarly articles. Harrington chats with the reader: Although it's
one thing to sweat while you're running, doing yoga, or having sex, it's quite another to do it all
over your boss' M&Ms jar (Harrington). This addition of friendly humor is meant to make the
reader feel more comfortable reading about a potentially uncomfortable topic; in addition, the
average population would be put to sleep if the article was filled with medical jargon and
complicated scientific terms.
Although Dirk argues that genre [used] to refer primarily to form, which meant that
writing in a particular genre was seen as simply a matter of filling in the blank (Navigating

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 2:00 AM

Comment [17]: Agreed -- displaying pit
stains is definitely a way to persuade
readers. ;)
On a more serious note: you're bringing up
visual rhetoric -- OK, that's important -- but
is it reflected in your thesis statement?
How/why is it central to your argument?
Why are you bringing this up right now in
this paper?

Tritt 4
Genres 251), this fill-in-the-blank format still applies to some of the more rigid genres. Scholarly
articles often follow a template-like structure referred to as IMRAD (Introduction, Methods,
Results, Analysis, Discussion), and Gross and Zackrissons articles are no exception. Both
articles begin with an abstract to summarize the objective, method, and results of the experiment
that was conducted. Following the abstract is the introduction; in this section, both articles
provide an operational definition of hyperhidrosis and its various effects on individuals in order to
familiarize the reader with the condition. In addition, both articles outline the purpose of their
respective experiments and hypothesize what they expect the results of the experiment to be.
Next, both articles provide a detailed explanation of the procedure and methods of the experiment
in order to give the reader a step-by-step understanding of how the scientists collected their data.

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 2:01 AM

Comment [18]: Same issue with the
"Bunn" topic sentence. It seems
mis/displaced.
Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 2:03 AM
Comment [19]: (Hey, quick side note
here, I hope you don't feel like I'm beating
you up -- you're super-smart and you're
doing a solid job here... my job is to push
your overall writing/thinking
development...)
I feel like you're jumping around a bit here.
You already touched upon the similarities
between the scholarly sources, so wouldn't
that be a good/better spot to include this
IMRAD analysis?
What are you achieving by putting *this
information HERE*? That's the question
that I always want you to be asking
yourself.

Following the procedure is a section that concisely states the results of the experiment. Finally,
both articles conclude with a detailed discussion of the experiment, which not only relates the
results back to the hypothesis but also gives the reader an idea of why the results are significant.
This format is an effective convention of research articles, especially when the results are being
presented to other scientists; the reader, who has likely conducted numerous experiments of their
own, is able to follow along with the authors process in an order that is already familiar to them.
While IMRAD is a common structure for research-based articles, this format is hardly
appropriate for articles in Womens Health. Presenting results is not the purpose of these articles;
everyday people read Womens Health to be informed about the body and its functions, so the
information must be integrated in a way that will keep the reader interested. For this reason,

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 2:04 AM

Comment [20]: This isn't a purpose of
the scholarly pieces?

detailed explanations of scientific procedures are usually omitted. In addition, magazine articles
dont necessarily have a rigid template that theyre required to follow. In her article, Harrington
organizes her information into three sections that are differentiated by topic. Each section builds

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 2:05 AM

Comment [21]: Well what explanations
of scientific procedures were included in
the psych and physiology pieces?

upon the last; she begins by explaining what sweat is, elaborates on why we sweat, suggests
methods that can be used to control sweat, and concludes with an explanation about why some
individuals may experience excessive sweating (Harrington). Each section is titled with a header
in bold type and the corresponding information is presented in paragraphs underneath the title. In

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 2:06 AM

Comment [22]: Sounds a bit similar to
IMRAD... Worth elaborating on this?
Could this provide an angle for "zooming
in" on a (more) specific argument?

Tritt 5
the section Sweat Stop: What to Do, Harrington provides a list of methods use dress
shields, watch your diet, downsize your vices (Harrington) in order to help readers control
their excessive sweating. However, instead of organizing this list with bullet points, Harrington
bolds each new idea and provides several sentences in regular type elaborating on the suggestion.
This is a consistent and reader-friendly method of providing information; its simple, its clear,
and its concise.
Gross and Zackrisson, authors of the psychology-based and physiology-based articles
respectively, use many of the same moves throughout their articles. Moves are conscious
audience-based decisions made by writers that serve a specific purpose. For example, both
articles use the Acronym Abbreviator move. By abbreviating the name of a chemical or term to
its acronym, the authors save time and space while simplifying the article for the reader. Gross
article would have gotten pretty wordy if adrenocorticotropic hormone hadnt been referred to
as ACTH (1) written in parenthesis after the hormones first appearance throughout the rest

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 2:07 AM

Comment [23]: OK, so why is this worth
noting? (Besides being a part of the
prompt.) What is all of this information
boiling down to?

of the article, and safety margin is mentioned so many times in Zackrissons article that a lot of
space was saved by shortening it to SM (279). Both articles also use the Skimmers Lucky
Day, a move in which the authors conclude the article with a summary of the results of the
experiment. This provides readers with a convenient recap of the experiment so that they dont
need to go on a scavenger hunt to find the results if they ever use the article as a reference in the
future. In addition to the summary, the authors of both articles use the Trust me, Im a Doctor
move. This means that both articles conclude with a suggestion of how to treat the various side
effects of hyperhidrosis. Gross suggests that the knowledge of psychological concomitants of
excessive sweating might contribute to a psychotherapeutic treatment in hyperhidrosis (6) while
Zackrisson explains that a lower dose of botulinum toxin should be used in clinical
hyperhidrosis treatments because it has less of an effect on the grip force of an individual (283).
This move is certainly catered toward a specific audience medical professionals because the
average person certainly isnt capable of treating hyperhidrosis with botulinum toxin on their
own.

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 2:07 AM

Comment [24]: :)

Tritt 6
Because of its difference in audience and purpose, Harringtons article in Womens
Health uses significantly different moves. To reinforce the conversational tone of the article,
Harrington uses the Parenthesis Pro move. For example, after using the word suffer to refer
to individuals with hyperhidrosis, Harrington includes, (And we do mean suffer. Dr. Glaser
recalls one patient who had a tailor put terry cloth pockets in all her pants and skirts so she could

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 2:08 AM

Comment [25]: Nice. Claim and
support.

dry her palms before shaking hands) (Harrington). By providing additional information about
the preceding statement in parenthesis, Harrington establishes an informal tone that makes the
reader more comfortable reading about such an embarrassing topic. This casual attitude is
reinforced with the Ha-Ha-Hyperbole move. Throughout the article, Harrington uses hyperbolic
or exaggerated phrases to describe what excessive sweating can be like for individuals. For
example, she refers to sweat as a tropical storm and a car wash (Harrington). The purpose of
this move is to make light of the situation; by trying to make the reader smile or laugh, shes
attempting to bring humor to a topic that may have brought them nothing but embarrassment and
shame for so long. Despite this lighthearted tone, Harrington still maintains credibility throughout
her article, especially when she disproves a common misconception with her Show Me Your
PhD move. She begins by explaining that some women avoid antiperspirants after hearing
rumors that ingredients in antiperspirants cause cancer (Harrington). Harrington refutes this by
providing direct quotes from an esteemed oncologist who falsified the rumors; by doing so, she
boosts her credibility while assuring women that using antiperspirants is a perfectly safe and
effective way to control excessive sweating.
Although academic and non-academic sources approach the topic of hyperhidrosis
differently, they are equally effective in their respective fields. Harringtons article in Womens
Health is beneficial to the everyday woman. While it doesnt provide any concrete scientific
research, Harrington offers a gentle tone and simple remedies to help control a condition that
many people are too embarrassed to admit that they suffer from. Overall, she is sensitive to the
reader. On the other hand, the research-based articles attempt to offer more substantial treatments
to those suffering from hyperhidrosis. While these articles are cold and impersonal, they provide

Zack De Piero 5/13/2016 2:09 AM

Comment [26]: Agreed. Question for
you: is this all boiling down to credibility?
Is that the common thread running
throughout this piece?

Tritt 7
numerical data that suggests that the condition affects individuals in more ways than just the
obvious. This could potentially lead to more research being conducted in the future, which could
result in the discovery of a permanent treatment. The audience should be able to respond to the
exigence. In other words, the audience should be able to help address the problem, Carroll
explains in her article Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis (49). The open-ended suggestions of the
academic articles invite other scientists to do just that. Overall, the research-based articles
approach the topic of hyperhidrosis very similarly; both articles are nearly identical in genre,
conventions, format, and moves. While the article in Womens Health is significantly different in
these areas, it is successful in communicating ideas about the same topic to a completely different
audience.
Works Cited
Bunn, Mike. How to Read Like a Writer. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Vol. 2. Parlor
Press, 2011. 71-86. Print.
Carroll, Laura Bolin. "Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis." Writing
Spaces: Readings on Writing. Vol. 1. Parlor Press, 2010. 45-58. Print.
Dirk, Kerry. "Navigating Genres." Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Vol. 1. Parlor Press,
2010. 249-62. Print.
Gross, Katharina M., et al. "Elevated Social Stress Levels And Depressive Symptoms In Primary
Hyperhidrosis." Plos ONE 9.3 (2014): 1-6. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 May
2016.
Harrington, Jill. "Excessive Sweat: How to Stop Sweating." Women's Health. N.p., 14 Nov. 2005.
Web. 07 May 2016.
Zackrisson, T., et al. "Patients With Hyperhidrosis Have Changed Grip Force, Coefficient Of
Friction And Safety Margin." Acta Neurologica Scandinavica 117.4 (2008): 279-284.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 May 2016.

Tritt 8

Writing 2 Feedback Matrix for WP2

Table of Textual Features and Qualities
Did Not Meet

Met

Exceeded

Expectations

Expectations

Expectations

Thesis Statement

X-

Use of Textual Evidence from Genres

Use of Course Readings

X-

Analysis

Organization/Structure

Attention to Genre/Conventions and

Rhetorical Factors
Attention to Moves

(overall)

(when you DID

Tritt 9
include it, at the
end)
Exploration of Disciplinarity

Sentence-level Clarity, Mechanics, Flow

X
Tritt,

Comments and Grade

Check out my comments. My main advice: be more precise

and selective. Pick 1 argument that you feel passes the so
what? who cares test which you can analyze through the
lens of our course concepts.

8/10