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Eric Bui

Allison Bocchino

Writing 2

11 December 2019

Medical Journals to Children’s Stories

Different genres require certain genre conventions that are specifically used in order to

convey ideas made by the author. In the case of an academic article, the author uses information

regarding the academic discipline and conventions from that specific genre in order to convey a

purpose. Regardless of what the author’s purpose may be, they must write with an intended

audience in mind. The intended audience determines the writing style and conventions used for

an article, story, or other forms of literature. In the case of a scientific medical journal, the

information presented and the conventions used should be more comprehensible to someone

within the field of medicine. The primary text being translated is the medical article “The

Continuing Importance of the Art of Medicine in Modern-Day practice” by Dr. Lyman A. Rust.

The translation of the medical journal into the genre of children’s story will no doubt drastically

change the writing style as the intended audience has changed. This process may result in a loss

of ideas from the original text since the conventions between the two are much different.

Scientific articles seek to provide information to readers through the use of scientific evidence,

research, and sources with the hopes of further advancement in that particular field or topic.

Children’s stories aim to entertain the reader, but most importantly to teach the child a lesson and

develop their emotional intelligence, creativity, and growth. Although the genres of academic

articles and children’s stories vastly differ, authors of both genres maintain the desire to convey
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their ideas to an intended audience. In doing this translation, I changed the narrative, tone, and

jargon of the medical article because the genre, purpose, and audience changed into that of a

children’s story.

When looking at medical journals, the author’s purpose is to provide material valuable

enough to help physicians and those in the medical field improve their medical practice. Dr

Rust’s article, “The Continuing Importance of the Art of Medicine in Modern-Day Practice”

seeks to analyze the state of medicine past, present, and future; examine medicine as a form of

art; and emphasize how vital it is that physicians maintain the true practice of medicine for the

sake of the patients. This article approaches medicine with a much more humanistic aspect than

many other medical articles. Rust utilizes this writing style in order to more easily convey his

ideas. For example, the article does not include heavy scientific jargon regarding medicine.

When examining the article as a whole, it is clear that there is no need for complex scientific

language as it will only distract the reader from Rust’s humanistic approach. However, since the

article is still academic, the language used is advanced; therefore, a certain level of higher

education is required to understand it. With regards to his main ideas, Rust states in the article’s

historical overview, “He [Hippocrates] wrote that medical art consists of 3 main factors: the

disease, the patient, and the physician.”1 In comparison, Dr Rust references similar ideas made

by Dr. Bernadine Healy, “that the art of medicine is based on 4 principles: mastery, individuality,

humanity, and morality.”2 The principles made by Hippocrates and Dr. Healy reveal that the

main idea of the article is the emphasis of the importance of true doctors and the requirements

needed to successfully execute the art of medicine. Throughout the article, Dr. Rust uses a

1
Lyman A. Rust ​"The Continuing Importance of the Art of Medicine in Modern-day Practice," ​American Journal of
Obstetrics and Gynecology​ 202, no. 6 (2010): 604-07. Web.
2
Rust, “Art of Medicine,” 607-07
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variety of sources in order to analyze the progression of medicine over time as well as its current

condition. The use of credible sources is a convention almost always seen in academic papers.

This article is no different as sources such as Dr Norman Cousins (dean of UCLA, School of

Medicine), Dr. Healy (former head of the National Institutes of Health), and the Associate of

American Medical Colleges (AAMC) are cited among others.3 ​Academic articles have certain

conventions that are universal to all examples in that genre. These conventions reveal that the

purpose of academic articles is to educate and inform readers; and that the intended audience are

those within the same discourse community seeking to further their understanding of the topic.

In examining the genre conventions in children’s stories, one can see the differences

between the two genres. The purpose of children’s stories is to entertain children in the form of

literature, but to also teach them lessons and develop their emotional intelligence and creativity.

For example, almost all children’s stories consist of a protagonist that needs to solve a problem.

The protagonist is usually dealt a situation in which they must make a moral decision and reflect

upon the reasons for that decision, as well as the positive or negative consequences. An example

of this can be seen in the story “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”. The protagonist in this story is

Goldilocks, a young girl who comes across a house belonging to a family of bears. She makes

conscious decisions to trespass upon their home, eat their food, and sleep in their beds. In

performing these actions, she ignores the potential negative consequences of her decisions.

Stories like this introduce children to the ideas of right and wrong and develops their emotional

intelligence at a young age. Another universal convention of children’s stories is the presence of

a child or child-like character. The introduction of a naive character allows for their development

Lyman A. Rust, "The Continuing Importance of the Art of Medicine in Modern-day Practice." ​American Journal of
3

Obstetrics and Gynecology​ 202.6 (2010): 604-07. Web.

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throughout the story. For instance, the story “The Ugly Duckling” revolves around a young

duckling being born uglier than his fellow ducklings. After facing many difficulties regarding his

appearance, the ugly duckling grew up and came to realize that he was never a duckling in the

first place, but rather a beautiful swan. Children’s stories often have their protagonist going

through a series of challenges and lessons in which they achieve a higher level of maturity by the

story’s end. The purpose of including a child character is to provide the audience with characters

they can identify with. As a result, the story will have a much more resounding impact on the

child. Furthermore, children’s stories utilize simple language in order for children to understand.

Using complex jargon will only cause the child confusion, resulting in their failure to grasp the

message of the story. The use of pictures is very prevalent in children’s stories as well due to the

fact that pictures are easy to understand and they help children connect what they observe in

pictures to the words on the page. The simple language and use of pictures give children’s stories

light-hearted and entertaining tones, thereby attracting children to read these types of stories.

There are many different forms of children’s stories in the literature community such as picture

books, short stories, and chapter books. All three are examples of literature that contain the

universal genre conventions of children’s stories.

The translation of the academic medical article to a children’s story resulted in the change

of many conventions of the primary text. This was not surprising due to the fact that the genres

of academic articles and childrens’ stories consist of many differences in their purpose and

conventions. According to “Navigating Genres” by Kerry Dirk we must “think about genres as

tools to help people to get things done.”4 In the case of the primary text, the medical article is a

4
Kerry Dirk, “Navigating Genres,” Writing 2: Academic Writing (2019): 1-8
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tool to help educate people about medicinal history, as well as its current and future state. With

regards to the translated text, the children’s story is a tool to teach children about the importance

of medicine and the value of doctors. In order to successfully translate the article into a

children’s story, I had to take the main idea from the article and apply it to a fictional adventure

story that children could read. I began with the convention of a child character by creating “Little

Tommy” to be the protagonist of the story. I then gave little Tommy the problem of disliking

doctors and medical professionals. As a result, the story revolves around Tommy having to

overcome his dislike of medicine through a series of historical lessons given to him by a ghost.

By the end of the story, the lessons have given him a new found appreciation for medicine. The

story itself is clearly fictional, however, the lessons given to Tommy throughout the story are the

translated forms of the academic medical article. Aside from the creation of the narrative story, I

needed to change the type of language used in the primary text when translating into the

secondary text. Although the original text did not contain complex, medical jargon, the language

used throughout the article remained much too complicated for children to understand. I utilized

simple words and captured the general idea of Dr. Rust’s main points in order to translate it into

a level in which children are able to comprehend. I also had to change the tone of the primary

text as well. The medical article has an informative and analytical tone that examines medicine

as a form of art. The translation of the article into a children’s story required me to give the story

a more humorous, optimistic, and light hearted tone. Although the language I used was much

more simple than the original text, it is still above the level of young children. In addition to

translating the language of the article, I included pictures to go along with the story itself.

Considering my translation was a children’s story, it would be reasonable to have images to go

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along with the words on the page. I chose specific images to provide visual context to the content

I had within my story. For example, reading about ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and then seeing

a picture of it allows readers to make a better connection between the two, therefore improving

understanding of the concept. The main conventions I mentioned previously are what I believe to

be universal to all children’s stories. Aside from those conventions, I don’t believe there is a set

of rules the translation is required to follow. In her article “Strategies for Reading Scholarly

Sources”, Karen Rosenberg states, “If the reading comes from an academic journal, then chances

are good that the primary audience is other academics.”5 This greatly emphasizes the importance

of paying attention to primary audiences through the observation of the origin of the work. The

targeted audience for the medical journal can be academics or other educated people in general.

In contrast, the audience for the children’s story will clearly be young children.

It is clear that the genres of academic articles and children’s stories are very distinct with

each of their conventions having well defined differences. Thus, the translation process of

medical article to children’s book required a change of narrative, tone, and jargon. Although

these changes were critical, the true successful translation of the primary text can be seen by the

preservation of the main ideas from the original to the secondary text.

5
Karen Rosenberg, “​Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources.” Writing 2: Academic Writing
(2019): 45-50.
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Works Cited

Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres.” ​Course Reader​ (2019): 1-8.

Rosenberg, Karen. “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources.” ​Course Reader

(2019): 45-50.

Rust, Lyman A. "The Continuing Importance of the Art of Medicine in Modern-day Practice."

American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology​ 202.6 (2010): 604-07. Web.