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Let’s Talk Listen About Sex Trafficking

Karissa Low

WRIT 2 (section 2400)

24 November, 2020

 
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Part 2: Metacognitive Reflection

In the previous part of Writing Project 2, I translated a research article from the

psychology discipline into a blog post about sex trafficking. While these two pieces of writing

differ greatly in presentation, consumption, and impact, the purpose behind them is essentially

unison. The blog post aims to capture the reader’s attention, putting the spotlight on people’s

tendencies to make uninformed judgments, and daring them to confront tough topics like sex

trafficking. The research article is more methodical, using the same tactic of personal experience,

however in an entirely new configuration. After giving context on sex trafficking, the article

relies heavily on its structure to guide readers through the scientific method in uncovering key

emotional needs of women in crisis states. The subject in both the published, academic article

and student-written blog post is the same: the experiences of ten Indian women who have

suffered through being trafficked. Likewise, the purpose surrounding the subject also remains

constant: to inform. Differences are seen in the method, or conventions, in which each piece of

writing communicates its message. In other words, the WHY of both the blog and article are

identical, but the HOW is divergent. Within this metacognitive reflection, I intend to show how

the purpose of both the article and the blog post was the same, and how the conventions for each

respective writing piece signifies the audience and structure. Additionally, I will explain how

these differences and similarities influenced my choices in translating the article into a blog post.

Last, I will reveal how discourse communities play a role in the consumption of information, and

why this becomes relevant when discussing topics like sex trafficking.

My primary text is an academic article titled “Emotional Needs of Women Post-Rescue

from Sex Trafficking in India” by Irani Machado da Silva and Anuradha Sathiyaseelan. It

explores through a phenomenological approach and thematic analysis, the emotional needs of
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women who are survivors of sex trafficking in India. Interviews with ten Indian women, ages 18-

24, who had been trafficked from two to ten years, create the focal point of the article. As a

result, all analysis and findings derive from first-hand experiences. The article belongs to the

discipline of psychology, and this is made clear by the article’s publisher, Cogent Psychology,

and the author’s credentials as a Clinical Psychologist. The discourse community of the article is

closely related to its discipline, speaking primarily to other psychologists and scholars who may

be interested in the conducted research, or the topic of sex trafficking. The author implores the

audience to “understand sex trafficking survivors better,”1 leading to the main purpose of the

article. To state simply, the purpose of the article is to inform. Since the author is a member of a

scholarly discourse community, there is a set of standards and constraints she must follow in

order to be seen as credible. If certain steps are not taken, then the valuable message and

information contained within the article will most likely not be received. The standards that

make up this discourse community are imperative to the conventions of the article itself.

Structure and audience are two of the biggest factors influenced. To start, the format of the

primary text follows the scientific method (introduction, methods, results & discussion, and

conclusion) revealing a specific structure used within the psychology discipline. Specific

standards like structure ensure consistency and validity in research. Machado da Silva is looking

for ethos by employing this format, and appeals to other scholars or members of the discourse

community. An example of this appeal can be seen in analysis and findings, under the third

section of the article, results and discussion that reads, “The data was analyzed, and major

themes arose from the data. The themes were organized in categories, and they are a desire to

1
Irani Machado da Silva and Sathiyaseelan Anuradha, “Emotional Needs of Women Post-Rescue from Sex
Trafficking in India,” Cogent. Cogent Psychology 6, no. 1 (June 16, 2019): 1, 10.
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satisfy the emotional needs and expectations of survivors post-rescue.”2 Here, the author clearly

explains how the data collected was analyzed, using terminology and discourse appropriate and

applicable by others in the discipline. Machado da Silva uses the rigid structure to reinforce her

research objective and establish effectiveness in informing her discourse community. This leads

to the second conventional component, audience. The ‘who’ in the article is clearly stated in the

rationale section when the author states “that it is essential to bring this topic to the awareness of

students, psychologists and professionals so everyone can assist girls suffering from sadness,

humiliation, and pain in their life post-rescue.”3. Any speculation as to who the author is

speaking to is resolved in this claim, as well as supporting pivotal ideas within the discipline.

Psychology works towards the understanding of people in order to help people, a philosophy that

certainly exists in Machado da Silva’s article, who’s task is to understand the emotional needs of

women so that they may get the assistance they need.

The non-academic genre I chose to translate from the academic article was a blog post.

By looking at three other blog posts as examples, I was able to synthesize universal conventions

of the genre. Primary conventions include a specific objective, flexible structure that usually

includes some visual aids, and reader-friendly language appropriate for most audiences.

Beginning with the first convention, I noticed that all three of the blogs had objectives which

related to either informing, involving, or influencing readers. The first blog titled “Thoughts on

being Black in the Sex Trade,” strives to inform the audience of the perspective of a black

woman. The impact of sex trafficking is great, and the implications of compounded

discrimination and racism can make it greater. This blog in particular aimed to inform readers as

its main objective. The second blog seeks to involve its readers. Titled, “Human Trafficking

2
Irani Machado da Silva and Sathiyaseelan Anuradha, “Emotional Needs of Women Post-Rescue from Sex
Trafficking in India,” 4.
3
da Silva, 2.
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Awareness: What you CAN do,” this blog begins stating January is human trafficking awareness

month, sharing with readers how they can contribute to their campaign in helping survivors

across the globe by fundraising. The objective in this blog is to recruit involvement in supporting

women who are impacted by sex trafficking. The third blog by Cheri Crider focuses on

influencing readers. The blog is titled “Lessons Learned about Trafficking 40 Years Later: A

Survivor’s Perspective,” and gives a personal account from a survivor, who also addresses some

ideas and solutions for the reader to consider. The author of the third blog influences her

audience by presenting her own experience as leverage to bolster ideas like affecting traffickers

reputations by publishing the names of buyers who are arrested for purchasing sex in newspapers

and online.4 Looking at other examples of blog posts helped me identify the three main

objectives blogs typically have. Moving on to structure, I believe this component is arguably the

most distinctive in comparison to my primary text. There is flexibility in type face, font size,

paragraph size, and overall structure, so one blog may not resemble another. In some cases, there

were photos and other visual aids which functioned to engage the reader, keeping them logged

on to their site. Compared to pages of paragraphs in black and white writing in academia, blogs

employ an array of colors to stimulate the eyes. This diverse set of standards adds to the

relatability of blogs. By creating little to no limitations, there is an increased sense of freedom

and ability to express oneself. There are no strict rules to abide by, only the goal to have one’s

blog read and understood by another person. By translating the academic article into a blog post,

I deconstructed its rigid structure and broadened its audience to include the ‘average joe’. This

leads me into the last convention, audience. In a blog, the audience could be anyone. Instead of

appealing to academics and scholars by using jargon and systematic structures to back up claims,

4
Cheri Crider, “Lessons Learned about Trafficking 40 Years Later: A Survivor’s Perspective,” Polaris Project
(blog), October 16, 2020, https://polarisproject.org/blog/2020/10/lessons-learned-about-trafficking-40-years-later-a-
survivors-perspective/
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blogs rely mostly on facts and passion. Not to say the authors’ of blogs are not credible or

informed, but they do belong to a discourse community that is not so stringent or defined as

psychology and other forms of empirical research. Because of this, blogs are inherently more

casual and the respective audience responds to discourse that is more relatable. Blogs appeal to a

wide range of people, making the potential audience broad. By taking the topic into

consideration, it is appropriate to assume the audience includes anyone who can read and is

interested in sex trafficking or critical social issues of the status quo. A broad audience means

more exposure or recipients of the author’s message. Especially when dealing with an issue like

sex trafficking, where most of the general public lack basic knowledge about its realities,

spreading the word can be just as important as the message itself. In this way, making the

audience expansive allows for a more inclusion and increases the chances of being noticed.

Within my translation I transformed a research article into a blog post. There were

multiple steps to this process. To be honest, I was worried readers would not be able to tell the

genre I was translating. I became very aware of how I was writing, asking my housemates to

periodically confirm if my rough draft sounded anything like a blog. There was a balancing act I

was trying too hard to perform, between too formal, the audience falls asleep, and too informal,

the audience writes me off as uninformed. I found this type of overthinking elongated my

writing process significantly, and fortunately recalled reading Peter Elbow which made a

distinction between two types of thinking in the writing process, first-order and second-order.5 I

had been attempting to master my blog genre through second-order thinking, and was

“committed to accuracy,” striving for, “logic and control,” while missing the point of a blog

5
Peter Elbow, Embracing Contraries: Explorations in Learning and Teaching (New York: Oxford University Press,

1986), 55.
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entirely.6 After realizing this, I began to “write fast without censoring,” allowing my stream of

consciousness to lead me to associations and intuitions I had not foreseen.7 I started to make

progress, gaining traction in contouring my blogs specific objective, and ensuring the language I

was using could be read by anyone. I decided to reserve formatting and structure towards the end

of my writing process, since this was much more flexible and mostly for cosmetic purposes. By

focusing on the specific objective of my blog, I closely followed one of the universal

conventions of the genre. It was crucial that my blog post have distinct direction, and I wanted to

avoid writing for the sake of filling up a page and really engage with my readers. This

engagement differs from the academic article. The author of the psychology research article does

not necessarily aim to connect with her audience so much as present accurate, supported

information in regard to her research objectives. My blog post, on the other hand, intends to

speak to readers directly as a means to sustain engagement. On a similar note, I had a single,

clear desire when embarking on this translation, to make the interview piece of the academic

article my center piece in the blog post. I felt it was central for these women’s voices to be

amplified in any way I could in my translation. As a result, I made their words the focal point

and all other ideas revolve around the actual experiences of women. When accomplishing this, I

realized it would be essential to abide by the ‘rules’ and conventions of a blog post as much as

possible. I did not wish to break or bend hardly any rules, and instead wanted to preserve the

universal conventions. My motivation here is most likely developed from my earlier fear of

deviating from the blog genre. Due to this, I strove for my writing to resemble a bog as much as

possible, relying on the formatting to match and reinforce the genre as well. Additionally, the

discourse communities of blogs versus research article varies notably, with the constraints and

6
Peter, Elbow, Embracing Contraries: Explorations in Learning and Teaching, 55.
7
Elbow, 55.
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limitations of academic discourse communities being much more rigid than an internet blog post.

I found this transition rather difficult in my translation. Because blogs have little to no

limitations, there was a marketable shift in structure and deliverance of information. I struggled

to simplify jargon and include sufficient information while creating my own structure that would

be recognized easily as a blog post. Compared to author Machado da Silva, I had very few

constraints in the blog discourse community, enabling me to showcase the interviews how I

wanted, and not according to the standard demanded by the discourse community. I believe this

shows that if any conventional rule is to be broken, structure is the safest bet. So long as people

keep reading, structure most likely will not take away from the overall meaning and content of

the writing.

In order to perform this translation, I needed to have a solid understanding of both

respective discourse communities and how they operate. I reviewed Dan Mezler’s

“Understanding Discourse Communities,” to affirm my knowledge around what a discourse

community entails, looking over the six specified features mentioned in Mezler’s essay.8 This

understanding leads me to my final point in this writing project. Within this paper, I have shown

how the purpose of both the academic article and blog post are the same, they both seek to

inform. The methods used in order to inform readers, however, is different due to distinct

discourse communities. Different discourse communities speak to their members uniquely, and is

one of the features mentioned by Mezler.9 My interest is in regard to how discourse communities

contrast in delivering information, which subsequently impacts who is consuming that

information. The ‘who’ in this scenario, matters, especially because of the topic. Sex trafficking

is a critical issue pertaining to human rights that demands attention if conditions are to improve.

8
Dan Mezler, “Understanding Discourse Communities,” in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, ed. Charles Lowe
and Pavel Zemliansky (Parlor Press 2020), 102.
9
Dan Mezler, “Understanding Discourse Communities,” 102.
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Attracting the attention from the right people could be a meaningful step in making progress.

Discourse communities become extremely relevant in topics like sex trafficking because the

purpose of informing could ultimately lead to not only a more informed reader, but a potential

scholar or activist to contribute to the cause.

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Bibliography

Crider, Cheri, “Lessons Learned about Trafficking 40 Years Later: A Survivor’s Perspective,”

Polaris Project (blog), October 16, 2020, https://polarisproject.org/blog/2020/10/lessons-

learned-about-trafficking-40-years-later-a-survivors-perspective/.

Elbow, Peter, Embracing Contraries: Explorations in Learning and Teaching New York: Oxford

University Press, 1986.

“Human Trafficking Awareness: What you CAN do,” Free the Girls (blog), January 8, 2019,

https://freethegirls.org/blog/tag/sex+trafficking.

Irani Machado da Silva, and Sathiyaseelan Anuradha, “Emotional Needs of Women Post-Rescue from

Sex Trafficking in India.” Cogent. Cogent Psychology. June 16, 2019.

Mezler, Dan, “Understanding Discourse Communities,” in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, ed.

Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky, 100-115. Parlor Press 2020.

Nafula, Annah, October 25, 2018, photo, 800 x 419.

“Thoughts on Being Black in the Sex Trade,”, REST (blog), August 28, 2020,

https://iwantrest.com/blog/thoughts-on-being-black-in-the-sex-trade.