McGuire 1

“The name is waste management”

How does waste management, workers, sons of the workforce

And wage, get pushed in the middle of a dangerous
Spot in the world by jobs and desperation, in squalor
Grow up to have cancer and exposure.

The produced gases founded by one another

Got more toxic by being put together
By being emitted stronger
By being an impactful problem
By to late, they will change our whole life state

And every day while trash is being burned and thrown

Away across the land, they struggle to keep their health up
Inside, they are dying for someone to help them be safe
The brothers were ready to beg, pray, borrow or barter

Then more chemicals came, and devastation reigned

They saw their world drip, dripping down the drain
They put landfills near homes and led to mass concern
Then studied the response and the testament to their pain

Well, the word got around, they said, "There’s a birth defect, man."
Took up a collection of low birth weight and death
"Get your dream house, but don't forget where the landfills are, and
The world's gonna know your name. What's your name, man?"

Waste management
My name is waste management
And there's a million things I trouble you
But I won’t stop, I won’t stop...

While being exposed they were tested , full of it, sick spreading
years later, see them with their families bed-ridden
Half-dead struggling with their own sick, the scent thick

[Full Company (whispering):]

And landfills got bigger but the workers went quick
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Moved on with self reports, they said it would help the famine die
Left them with nothin' but ruined pride, something new inside
A voice saying, “People you gotta fend for yourself."
They started reportin and investigaten' every illness in the town

There are ways to prevent and help it

For anyone who knew
They could be dead or all alone
Without a cent of restitution
Started workin', just trying to help pay their own bills
tradin' labor and loyalty and for what, nothing but death itself?
Hitting elders and kids first cause their susceptible
plannin' for the future about near seems impossible
The brink of destruction headed for more problems
All landfills do is kill and it’s not stoppin

In Landfills you will find organic compounds

In landfills you will find carcinogens
In landfills you will find potential hazards
In landfills
landfills
Just you wait!

Waste management
We are waiting just for you
You could fix so much
But You never care about their lives
Oh, waste management
When America prays for you
Will they know what you could do
Will they know you act so blind
The world will never be the same, oh

The workforce is in shambles now

See if you can spot them
Another laborer
Comin' down with a problem
His bosses destroyed his life
America forgot him

Other laborers:
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We fought with him

Environmentalist:
Me? I cried for him

Boss:
Me? He trusted me

Work:
Me? I provided him

Cancer:
And me? I'm the damn fool that killed him

There's a million things they haven't done

But just you wait!

What's your name, man?

Waste management

Kelyn McGuire
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Writing 2 T/R: 8-9:50am

Tym Chajdas

March 2nd, 2020

Writing Project 3: Reflection

How can an academic article and a song from a musical convey the same message? Even

though they are both exceptionally different, there are ways to share the information to make it

understandable to all audiences. An academic article has genre conventions that are specific to

itself while a song from a musical also has conventions that make it unique to its genre. Their

rhetorical situations have some similarities but for the most part have a variety of differences that

are specific to that genre and allow for it to be recognized easily. Kyle Stedman author of

“Annoying Ways People Use Sources” said that one of the most important ideas of rhetoric is a

writer's ability to tailor their writing to their audience.. Both the author of the academic article

and the play writer use rhetorical devices in order to make their pieces more appealing different

groups. After further analysis of the academic article, waste management can be properly

translated into a song from a musical because although the format is changed dramatically into a

new genre, the new genre is still able to preserve the conventions of the original article.

The article that I decided to translate is an academic article called “Health Hazards and

waste management”, written by Lesley Rushton, a member of the MRC Institute for

Environment and Health. In the article Rushton explains that this generation of the collection of

waste is vital to the wellbeing of the general public health and environment in the future. She

then goes into detail about what exactly waste is and what’s happening behind the scenes that we

don’t see as consumers. After her brief introduction about the problems that are being created by

waste overuse, she presents a very clear list of ways to solve the problem. Rushton follows her
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description of America’s waste management problem with more detail about the hazardous

substances and materials that come from landfills. As well as the consequences that they have on

the human population that is situated near them. The intended audience of this article is

environmentalists who are concerned with the waste management problem and/or worried about

the future of the environment and population of the world. As for the age range, it isn’t an easy

read and most likely would not entertain the younger population because of the use of complex

words and data. Although it’s not a light read for the younger generations, it’s important

information to be taught to them since it is their future that is being changed drastically so it is

expected for the older generation to read this article then relay that information to the younger

population. The conventions that are in this article are specific to the genre that is being

conveyed. In these types of environmental academic articles, the author's main focus is to try to

show and explain the facts that are being found by scientists to the general population. They are

trying to show these problems to the public because otherwise they would go unnoticed until it is

too late. Along with that, more scientists and activists are also becoming a part of the audience.

This is due to the fact that the article is about the wellbeing of the environment and the people

who are affected by it. They read these types of articles in order to better strengthen their

argument and gain more background information about the subject.

I decided to translate “Health Hazards and waste management” into a song from the

Broadway musical Hamilton. Hamilton is a musical based on the life story of one of America's

founding fathers named Alexander Hamilton. The musical is spunky, fun and easy to follow

along to even though some of the subject matters are more advanced and dark in content. It goes

through the whole timeline of Hamilton’s life in the form of song. In the performance, there is

energetic dancing that makes it extremely entertaining to watch. From personal experience, I
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have been to a performance of Hamilton and I can say that during the catchy songs that were

sung, there is a variety of visual queues that made the performance ten times more enjoyable.

The audience for Hamilton is all ages. Since it is an educational piece it can be appreciated by

the older ages, while also entertaining the younger populations because of the use of visual

effects and dancing. The younger people that watch this performance or listen to the soundtrack

will enjoy it because of the musical beats that are in it, however, they might not be able to

understand the deeper meaning that is found in the words of the song. That is why the musical

and its songs are also satisfying for the older generations, because they are sophisticated enough

for them to feel like it’s age appropriate for them. The conventions that are found in this genre

are similar to those of a normal song. It contains a chorus that is often repeated, it has a

memorable tune that is easily recognized by the public and is most times continued throughout

the entire song, and it also has lyrics that go together. The challenge that I had with translating

to this song however were extremely difficult. Due to the fact that the song is from a musical,

there isn’t a strict rhythm that is kept throughout the whole song. Which is whey when I was

changing words, sometimes the words don’t sound like they work together. The song that I’m

translating is called “Alexander Hamilton”, it has some of its own conventions that are specific

to the musical in which it comes from. Those conventions include, conveying a storyline that is

usually in chronological order, having multiple singers who are in the play, and they also having

fluctuations in their voices and the rhythm because there are usually breaks for things to happen

on stage.

I translated my original text by rereading the academic article first and finding all of the

main components that made the article unique. I then found lyrics of the song online and copied

and pasted it onto a google doc, from there was the fun part. I started with the beginning of the
 McGuire 7

article and worked my way down. Finding keywords that I thought would transfer the message of

the article without having to say all of the filler information. Since I copied and pasted the lyrics

to the song directly onto the google doc, I was able to attempt to preserve the same rhythm and

beat to the song since I replaced words that had the same or about the same syllables. Along with

that, I made sure to keep a lot of the lyrics that were from the original text because I knew that in

order for the song to be recognizable, some of those words would have to stay. I began by

replacing the words that were telling the history story with words from the article making sure to

stay in sequence so the convention of a storyline still remained true. The differences of the new

translation conventions compared to the original conventions are somewhat similar. The new

translation’s conventions are still containing rhythm and tune, however instead of the new

translation being uplifting and fun information, the lyrics that are being sung in the song are

darker and more realistic. The audience of new translation is more on the older generations

because of the topic at hand. Even though it is still really fun to sing along to because the beat is

memorable and exciting, the language and the wording that is used is not uplifting or easy to

understand by the younger generations. Yes, the information that is being relayed in the new

translation is still very relevant for these younger populations, it might come off as it is trying to

scare them rather than inform them of what the future will be like. I purposefully left out the

quantitative data that was specific to the math side of the article because I knew that if I

attempted to write those in the lyrics, then I would lose the beat or it would come off as

completely random and not make any sense in the story at all. I decided to add more of an

emotional side to the song in the new translation because I knew from past experience that when

a song had an emotional attachment to it, I would remember it more or pick up the overall theme

of it better.
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When I was translating my original academic article into the Hamilton song I was

concerned that the message that was conveyed in the article would not be transferred properly in

the translation. I thought that it would be somewhat easy for the emotional part of the

information to be shown in the song because there are words that can be used to make the point

come across as an urgent one. The thing I was most worried about was the idea that the original

song that I was trying to translate my academic article to was extremely fast. This song has a fast

tempo and contains words that are specific to the beat which made it difficult to replace. I also

had a hard time translating the academic article into song lyrics because the genre conventions

were extremely different. However, I believe that there were genre conventions that could be

translated. I’m confident that I was able to share the entirety of the academic articles purpose in

the translation that I wrote in the song.

Work Cited
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Rushton, Lesley. “Health Hazards and Waste Management.” OUP Academic, Oxford University

Press, 1 Dec. 2003, academic.oup.com/bmb/article/68/1/183/421368.

https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article/68/1/183/421368

Stedman, Kyle D. Annoying Ways People Use Sources . 2011,

writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/stedman--annoying-ways.pdf.

http://writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/stedman--annoying-ways.pdf