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Jun Park

Professor King

WRIT 2 – Section 2500

12/5/19

Reflecting on my WP3

For the first part of my writing project 3, I translated Ferguson and Burkhalter’s Yo, DJ,

That’s My Brand: An Examination of Consumer Response to Brand Placement of Hip-Hop

Music to an online newsletter. The original academic paper is a communication study about

features that affect brand placement in the songs. This scholarly article was translated into an

online newsletter for non-communication people. And this paper reflects upon the translation

process from one convention to another. As the intended audience have changed from scholars of

communication to people who have not studied communication the translation had to change a

lot of original conventions in order to help the understanding of people and to also follow the

conventions of online newsletter.

For intended audience of the original academic paper, the communication community,

would have a better time reading the primary text since they would be familiar with the difficult

jargons specialized in communication. However, the online newsletter would be a better option

for advertisers or musicians who won’t be familiar with those jargons as much as communication

scholars. I intend my translation to share an important scientific study throughout the audience

who would be interested in the article but who are not intended audience: brand managers, music

producers, etc.

The original academic paper was a scientific communication research paper that talks

about an empirical study done. As a scientific paper, the paper keeps conventions like being
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objective, providing data to support his argument, and opening new possibilities for future

research. This shows that the discipline, communication, is looking for well-supported fact-based

argument that can also be built on for the development of the whole community. Communication

value data and the real effect it can have to the world than one’s opinion or interpretation. For

example, Ferguson and Burkhalter executes an experiment in order to show that their hypotheses

were either supported or not and opens new possibilities of future research in the paper’s

discussion section.

The non-academic genre I translated the scholarly paper to is online newsletter. The

newsletter is similar to the scientific communication I mentioned above in a way that they are

both objective and non-bias. Newsletter are, especially for such hard news that shares facts and

what happened, the author must write an objective and non-bias paper. The online newsletters

have their own conventions like big titles and its structures. The big titles clearly showing what

the newsletter is about attract the readers who are interested in the topic to read the newsletter.

After the big main title, the subtitle comes to show what specifically each paragraph or some are

about. The newsletter usually writes the main conclusion at the very top of the article. For

example, in my secondary writing, the article starts with the conclusion of the study: “Ferguson

and Burkhalter revealed that brand placement using hip-hop songs can positively impact people’s

memory about the brand.” This rapidly tells the readers what the whole article is about, acting as

an abstract. Although title is not as lengthy as abstract and includes even less evidences than

abstract, it is similar that they show what the paper is about in a short text. Since newsletters are

also for the people who have no time to go over the whole article, they usually put the most

important information at the very top of the article and then explain the details in further

paragraphs. The biggest information was given above for people to have a quick look and still
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get the idea, and small details were explained below for people who want have a thorough

reading of the whole story. During the paragraphs, pictures that are related to the topic, either

directly related or indirectly related, are added in to aid visuals. These pictures help the readers to

imagine the story and assist them to focus into the story. This structure of newsletter can be

observed from the newsletter from theSkimm. For example, an editorial from theSkimm about

food stamps show the structure of newsletter very well. The main story about food stamp being

vulnerable is said at the first sentence to deliver the main topic as fast as possible. Following the

top sentence, the details that are separated into subtitles. A picture of the related to food stamps

were provided to aid visuals in the story helping the readers to imagine and focus on the story.

For the translation, I had to change the whole structure of the primary text to fit in a

newsletter format. Unlike a long introduction that explains method, results, to conclusion fully

and orderly, I started with, as mentioned earlier, conclusion of the study came first and then to

explanations of the details to add on to the conclusion. I didn’t change the objectivity using study

data from the primary academic text since newsletters also should be an objective article.

Therefore, I didn’t include any of my opinion and used direct quotes from the study to create

objective validity of the article. In the scholarly paper I chose, the paper included mathematical

equations to show their data which may put readers who have not learned about communication

into confusion. This information is unnecessary for newsletter where readers can be not just from

communication discipline, but also anyone related to music and advertisement, who may not be

familiar with those equations. To prevent confusions, such professional information was either

excluded or was translated into simpler language in order to provide an understandable reading

for the audience.

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The convention of newsletter I bent was that I used old study. The study by Ferguson and

Burkhalter was done at 2015, and it is hard to say it is a ‘news’ when the study is more than four

years old. This article was chosen though the study is not brand new because it was a journal

paper that was most familiar to me and at the same time and looked very suitable for a

newspaper as well. However, although it might not be a brand-new study, I think that such

information could be shared late as well. This newsletter is not containing a time critical story

like a series murderer in town that everyone should have an eye on. Stories like the one I used for

my translation are still valid until now and still can be implied to aid people’s business. It would

be better if such news could be shared immediately, but it still can impact and help people even

though it was shared late.

Overall, the translation from Ferguson and Burkhalter’s academic communication paper

to an online newsletter was successful. The structure of the paper was changed to fit the

convention of a scientific scholarly paper to that of online newsletter. Things like pictures were

added to aid the online newsletter, and things like mathematical equations were deleted to make

the content easier for anyone. Although some rules were bent in the process of translation, it can

be excused for a reason that the paper still contains what may be a valuable information for the

readers.
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Reference

Chen, Natasha, and Holly Yan. “The Pastor of a Black Church Targeted in a Foiled Attack

Praises a Student for Preventing 'a Bloodbath'.” CNN, Cable News Network, 24 Nov.

2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/24/us/georgia-black-church-foiled-attack-

sunday/index.html.