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Haoran Shi

Professor Tumen

Academic Writing - Fall 2022

1 December 2022

Making Academics Easier

The original article, "Explaining Marginal Benefits to Patients, When 'Marginal'

Means Additional but Not Necessarily Small," is found on pages 5981 to 5986 of the research

by Smith J. Thomas and Hillner E. Bruce, published in Clinic Cancer Research, vol. 16 in

2010. The article's primary target audiences are academics and medical professionals. The

brief research paper aims to give physicians better methods to meet patients' and their

families' demands to "be realistic, honest, and caring about their prognosis and options, even

when the news is bad" (Thomas 5981). The article also includes statistical references and

numeric data for scholars to provide the most objective statements to patients, so the patients

and their families can "hope for the best, but plan for the worst" (5983). The academic paper

is organized differently due to the genre translation, and the discourse community is changed

from academics and medical professionals to patients and their families. The new infographic

seeks to give patients more knowledge about their condition and advice on choosing wisely.

The infographic needs to be very easy to understand for readers.

Businesses frequently utilize infographics in the marketing sector to promote

themselves. The arrangement of infographics is straightforward, with headings and

subheadings so that the discourse community may immediately understand the critical point.

The academic article uses "Explaining Marginal Benefits to Patients, When 'Marginal' Means

Additional but Not Necessarily Small" as its name. Most readers will not know what the

article is about at first glimpse. However, the infographic uses a more accessible and efficient

name, "Truth You May Not Know About Chemotherapy." Looking at the name, the discourse







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community will understand that the infographic is about chemotherapy and cancer. Most

infographics contain no more than three to four colors (Turner 1). These colors are usually

vibrant and youthful and do not conflict with each other (1). As the translation showed, it

only has three primary colors, black for the heading and subheadings and blue and white for

the background. These three colors are very young but also reminiscent of the color of the

doctor's clothes.

Furthermore, infographics have lower requirements on literacy proficiency for the

intended audience, are eye-catching, digest "text-heavy content" quickly for readers, and

enhance readability (Alves 1). The original article, as mentioned above, utilized a lot of

numeric and statistical data to make more eloquent statements. In addition, it also uses

sophisticated sentences and professional terms for scholars and doctors. On the other hand, an

infographic is significantly shorter and simpler to read while yet containing the same crucial

data. The translation needs to be summarized, and images make the text easier to read.

Numerous diagrams are included in the original scholarly publication to aid readers in

understanding the material. Nevertheless, the organization of the graphs was still too

scholarly for patients to comprehend. Readers will benefit even more from creating new

graphs with more understandable data. The pie chart illustrates that most patients would pick

chemotherapy since it has higher survival rates than the most outstanding supportive care.

Nevertheless, the second bar chart shows that the time that ordinary people will live between

the two strategies has little difference.

Supportive care gives patients more time for hospice and prevents them from dying at

the ventilators. Patients should consider the quality of life and how much pain they might

receive to make more comprehensive choices. Also, the infographic applies different diction

strategies. As an infographic for patients and their families, simple words are easier to read

and understand than those professional terms in the research. The article includes the word

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"palliative" in the context, which means "to alleviate, to lessen the severity of (pain or

disease) or to give temporary relief" (T Pastrana 223). In contrast, the infographic will replace

the professional term "palliative" with an easy sentence, such as "the chemotherapy focuses

more on the relief of symptoms instead of curing cancer itself."

One essential step for the transition is to leave out hard-to-read text but add related

and exciting figures. When translating the academic article into an infographic, the original

article needs to be split into two categories: "for doctors" and "for patients." Most of the "for

doctor" part needs to be deleted, and most of the "for patients" part should be saved. The

reason is the switching of intended audiences. Doctors and scholars need to think more

comprehensively about the issues, so they also need to think about the patients' perspectives.

Patients, as the new discourse community, focus more on their issues, so the information for

doctors would be unnecessary, even redundant to them. All of the images feature doctors,

symbols, and medical supplies. Even though viewers are far from the printed form, they can

still deduce that the infographic is about medicine because all numbers are relevant to the

subject. Additionally, when reading about a severe cancer-related topic, the reader may feel

less anxious thanks to these humorous doctor figures.

During the translation process, several concerns must be kept in mind. The sentence

should be brief in the new infographic to enhance readability. As Frischknecht mentioned in

her article, avoiding humor is crucial because expressions are not always universally

understood or appreciated (1). Cancer and chemotherapy are serious to talk about, so the

translation should pay enough respect to the discourse community. In order to make the

academic articles' sentences fit in the new genre, powerful compound words should also be

avoided. For instance, "survival tail" is deleted in the revision process. It is just hard to

explain the definition to patients with limited space. Replacing the big words with statistical

data is much easier to comprehend.




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Citation Page

Alves, Chelsea. “10 Big Ways Infographics Benefit Your Content Strategy.” Search Engine

Journal, 20 Apr. 2022, www.searchenginejournal.com/infographic-benefits/267781/

#close.

Frischknecht, Stefanie. “10 Translation Tips to Boost Content Quality.” Lionbridge,

Lionbridge, 9 Sept. 2021, www.lionbridge.com/blog/translation-localization/writing-

for-translation-10-expert-tips-to-boost-content-quality/.

Pastrana, T et al. “A Matter of Definition – Key Elements Identified in a Discourse Analysis

of Definitions of Palliative Care.” Palliative medicine 22.3 (2008): 222–232. Web.

Smith, Thomas J, and Bruce E Hillner. “Explaining Marginal Benefits to Patients, When

‘Marginal’ Means Additional but Not Necessarily Small.” Clinical cancer research

16.24 (2010): 5981–5986. Web.

Turner, Denise. “10 Tips for a Great Infographic: Novelist.” EBSCO Information Services,

Inc. | Www.ebsco.com, 10 Mar. 2021, www.ebsco.com/blogs/novelist/10-tips-great-

infographic.