Meza Galindo 1

Abril Meza Galindo

Final WP1 Reflection

WRIT 2

The New and Improved Chummy Podcast

For this writing assignment, I chose an academic journal article titled “Crucial Stem Cell

Experiments? Stem Cells, Uncertainty, and Single-Cell Experiments”, written by Melinda

Bonnie Fagan. In this article, Fagan discusses what a stem cell is, how single stem cell

experiments are conducted, and why the methodology of these experiments is flawed. She

carefully defined a stem cell and explained the reasoning behind each step of the methodology

that most researchers apply in these experiments. She did this as a precursor before diving into

her critique of the methodology, claiming that a stem cell cannot be used to measure

differentiation or renewal. She continually brings up counter arguments and then rebutts them,

stating that these “stem cells” cannot be proven to be stem cells, and thus should not be used for

such specific data.

For my translation, I settled on making a podcast transcript. For nearly half of the article,

the author carried a two-sided argument. This led me to think that the best course of action would

be to translate the article into something more conversation-like. Much like the Yelp review

example in “Five Star Fire Ecology: An Analysis of a Genre Translation”, I wanted this very

technical, scientific article to reach a new audience. Fagan stated in her conclusion that the stem

cell research community needed to pay more attention to the fallacy issue she wrote about. By

writing a translation that reaches a wider, “Average Joe” audience, I wanted to emphasise the

importance of this fallacy and its impact on research and on regular people, in order to garner

more support and interest.

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As challenging and engaging as it could’ve been, I decided not to write a Yelp review, a

Reddit thread, or any other comment section-like genre. They were very restrictive when it came

to the material. Stem cell research is a very complex subject to write about, especially towards an

“Average Joe” audience. Thus, I chose to write my translation in the genre of a podcast

transcript.

Thanks to reading pieces such as “Genre in the Wild: Understanding Genre Within

Rhetorical (Eco)Systems” by Lisa Bickmore, I was able to focus on my purpose and go from

there. I began by identifying the conventions of my genre. Genres are formed due to how

effective they are at addressing a certain audience for a particular task, so I chose to use these

“podcast transcript” genre conventions in a way that fits my “Average Joe” audience. I wanted an

engaging transcript with an understandable format and an easy-to-understand main argument.

Something I decided early on was the organization of my podcast transcript’s

commentary. I knew that my main argument had to be the fallacy in the way differentiation and

renewal are studied in stem cell research. However, I also knew that this fallacy meant nothing if

not prefaced by some context. Additionally, my WRIT 2 instructor suggested that I should

explain why stem cells matter. Otherwise, the audience could easily tune off because they don’t

care or understand how stem cells affect them.

I made a rough draft of what would be happening throughout the commentary section of

the podcast: It begins by mentioning the guest scientists’ academic background and experience,

to raise their ethos. By doing this, I would garner credibility. I proceed to explain what stem cells

do for your average person, and how they are useful in so many different contexts. It served as an

attention grabber of sorts, since this section explains different situations in which stem cells can

help you or somebody close to you. I also wrote that I wanted to explain that “stem cells'' may
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sound intimidating at first, but they are used to treat people with common conditions, ranging

from diabetes to a nasty scar. This makes the topic we are covering more approachable. After

capturing the audience, I can give some basic context into what stem cells are. I define stem cells

as those capable of renewal and differentiation, which then allows me to elaborate on what these

two different processes are. With the help of the hosts, I draw a comparison to different breeds of

dogs. This makes the two processes easier to understand and keeps the conversation lighthearted.

Finally, I arrive at my main argument--the fallacy. I must lead the entire conversation to this very

point, for my scientist characters to delve into what they came to talk about. The scientist and

hosts would then spend much of their time talking about this issue in order to drive the argument

home.

Podcasts are a relatively new thing, having gained a lot of popularity because of how

convenient it is to listen to them on the go, and because they are all so different from one another.

I came across many subgenre types of podcasts while doing my research, so I was overwhelmed

with the possibilities. I knew subgenres such as history, music, and arts were out of the question,

though. I ultimately decided to pick the “chum buds” genre in which people on-the-go listen to

new fun facts and stories that may pique their interest, picking different topics every week. I’ve

heard these before, and I’ve noticed the genre is quite popular within my age group. After some

further research, I learned that most podcast listeners are young and educated on-the-go people.

The Why Podcasts page, especially, gave plenty of information on who I am appealing to--the

regular, somewhat busy podcast listener. By appealing to them, I was hoping my podcast

transcript would be engaging enough for them to want to learn more.

To make my writing engaging, I knew I’d need to make some likable yet distinct

characters that the audience could relate to. Initially, there would be two guests and two hosts.
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Much like in the academic journal article, they would be discussing what’s good and what’s bad

about single stem cell research in a back and forth argument between all. Midway through, I

noticed that I was referring to the original text very often, and that I would be writing comically

long paragraphs to fit all the information in. My purpose for writing this was to make stem cell

research more appealing and approachable, not dull and never-ending. I noticed the characters I

had created to carry out the job of having a conversation were lacking in personality, since I was

choosing to ignore small conversational opportunities of fun in favor of very lengthy

explanations that even I couldn’t understand.

My peers said the same thing during the writing workshop. They said that they liked the

introduction of the podcast, but were lost once they arrived at the meat of the transcript. They

didn’t retain the main idea, because my sentences had slight jargon and it gave off a crowded

feeling. To fix this, I knew I’d have to make my sentences more concise and to the point. I’d also

need to develop my characters’ personalities a bit more by cutting down on the number of

characters and, thus, giving each one more lines. When I chose to make “characters”, I took into

account the characters of “Five Star Fire Ecology: An Analysis of a Genre Translation”. They

were especially written with certain backstories in mind for people to relate to, and I thought that

was amazing. It makes the translation believable and engaging.

I settled on three characters--two hosts and one guest. My first character, Alex Nguyen, is

one of the hosts. He is confident, optimistic, and gets very excited every time they receive a new

guest. He is especially excited to welcome his college-friend-turned-reputable-scientist to the

show, since they seldom see each other. Alex represents the Average Joe listening to podcast,

since he's light and enjoyable to listen to. Celeste Stevens is the second co-host of the The More

You Know Podcast. She’s a bit more quiet, attentive, and good at directing the conversation. She
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helps keep the structure of my translating intact, since she does not engage in as much small talk

and side-questions as Alex. Although this is her first time meeting Dr. Balmer, she is happy to

see her after so much appraisal from her co-host. Both hosts have prepared by doing their proper,

basic research on what a stem cell is before they arrived at the studio.

Dr. Miranda Balmer is a noteworthy scientist with more than a decade of experience in

the field of stem cell research. She decided to step away from experiments in order to publish

more papers on her ideas about stem cell research methodologies. This character represents

Fagan and her argument in the original article. They all have good chemistry, but decide to keep

the banter short in this podcast, since they'll be talking about something as important as stem cell

research. Nevertheless, they have fun and set a calm, nice environment for the audience to listen

to. Balmer wants more people to learn about stem cells, so she tries to use more simplistic words

and descriptions of the processes she uses.

Throughout the podcast, I use my diction in a way that fits each character properly. The

two hosts talk casually, while Dr. Balmer makes more pauses in order to piece together her

thoughts for a general audience. In other podcast transcripts, they point out the speakers and

sometimes specific gestures, serving as a way of showing exactly what was occurring throughout

the podcast. It’s for the audience to create a vivid image of what’s happening. It makes the

writing seem less cold and formal. The small pauses in conversation and gestures add a lot of

character to the transcription, since the characters are more realistic when they’re well-described.

These small details were very helpful in distinguishing the respective speakers and their points of

view, so I did the same for my translation.

I then focused on making my format look like a podcast transcript, allowing me to get

into the feel of the genre and to make the writing fit the genre’s conventions. Moreover, it was
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vital for my translation to reflect the genre’s formatting conventions in order to make it more

easily recognizable and approachable by the average public.

After looking and reading through about ten different podcast transcripts, I wrote down a

few things that they all have in common. They all had legible writing in black font, usually in

font size 11-13. These podcast transcripts also had titles, the name of the transcript writer, and

points of contact at the very end. The features that I knew I couldn’t implement were the box

with the audio and the time stamps, since my writing task does not include making a video.

Because of all this, I decided to implement the ideas of having blank inked, 12 font,

legible writing. I made a convincing title (“Stem Cells” for Dummies, and Other Stories), wrote

who it was transcribed by, added a patron link, and listed social media handles at the end.

Additionally, I chose to make my transcript easier to read by pointing out who the hosts are,

color-coding the conversation, and marking sections of conversation with properly named

subtitles. I think this is a reasonable instance in which I “bend” the rules, since I believe that it

improved upon the original, simplistic format I had encountered. Instead of taking away from the

genre, my change added to the ease and convenience of reading a podcast transcript. It was

something I wanted to do, because reading such long, one-hour podcast transcripts gets

somewhat confusing when they are not properly formatted. I also made sure to include a fake

audio box that makes the podcast transcript look more realistic as a whole. Something I didn’t

take note of when I wrote my prior draft is that the borders of my transcript made it look very

essay-like. They fit the MLA format, making everything look like essay paragraphs. I decided to

make the borders 0.3 thinner, which makes the transcript look like something you’d see on a

website.
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Bibliography

Bickmore, Lisa. “GENRE in the WILD: Understanding Genre Within Rhetorical (Eco)Systems.”

Go to the Cover Page of Open English @ SLCC, Open English @ SLCC, 1 Aug. 2016,

openenglishatslcc.pressbooks.com/chapter/genre-in-the-wild-understanding-genre-within

-rhetorical-ecosystems/.

Celebrezze, Joe V., et al. “Five Star Fire Ecology: An Analysis of a Genre Translation.” Starting

Lines: An Anthology of Student Writing , 19th ed., Hayden-McNeil, 2020, pp. 155–158.

Fagan, Melinda Bonnie. “Crucial Stem Cell Experiments? Stem Cells, Uncertainty, and

Single-Cell Experiments.” THEORIA. An International Journal for Theory, History and

Foundations of Science, vol. 30, no. 2, 2015, pp. 183–205., doi:10.1387/theoria.12707.

WhyPodcasts. “Podcast Audience.” Why Podcasts? Why Companies Should Invest In Podcast

Advertising, Why Podcasts?, 2019, www.whypodcasts.org/audience/.