Jenny Zhang

Professor Lopatko

WRIT 2

24 April, 2023

Reflection

I can't fall asleep, not because I am moody or bothered by any emotional issues. It all

starts from a matter of curiosity about my phone and being nervous about my future. Seems

familiar huh? Many people have sleep deprivation. We tend to sacrifice sleep in favor of playing

games, watching movies, working, studying, or socializing. For some time, I only slept a little

amount of time. I strongly felt a huge change in my brain and body. I couldn't concentrate on

class, my memory started to get worse, my speed of doing questions slowed down, I didn't have

the energy to walk, I started to feel pain inside my body, and my head hurt. I said to myself, “ If

you don't sleep, you'll die.” Being afraid of death, I forced myself to sleep. However, I never

really know the myth behind the science of sleep.

Thus I decided to look up some academic articles related to the science of sleep to have a

better understanding of the role sleep plays. I found a very useful academic article "The

Cumulative Cost of Additional Wakefulness: Dose-Response Effects on Neurobehavioral

Functions and Sleep Physiology From Chronic Sleep Restriction and Total Sleep Deprivation".

This article argues that chronic and total sleep deprivation has a cumulative negative effect on

neurobehavioral performance and sleep physiology. In another word, they argue that cognitive

and physiological impairments increase with each hour of sleep lost. The study provides a

comprehensive analysis of how cognitive and neurobehavioral functions change with different

levels of sleep loss. Also, it fills the research gap by examining the effect on many different
kinds of sleep physiological and waking neurobehavioral performances such as vigilance

performance, working memory performance, emotion, attention, processing speed, and other

cognitive performances through many scientific experiments and tests. This has important

implications for people who experience sleep deprivation, stay up late, work long hours, and

have irregular schedules, such as shift workers, doctors, employees, and students. They should

care about this research in the real world because the findings highlight the importance of getting

enough sleep for optimal cognitive and neurobehavioral functioning.

I decide to share the academic article "The Cumulative Cost of Additional Wakefulness:

Dose-Response Effects on Neurobehavioral Functions and Sleep Physiology From Chronic Sleep

Restriction and Total Sleep Deprivation" with high school students because many high school

students also face sleep problems. And some key findings from this scientific study could help to

use valid scientific evidence to persuade teenagers that getting less sleep has a cumulative

negative impact on their ability to pay attention, think creatively, and solve problems. And

through actually showing them the results of the cognitive and neurobehavioral tests,

participants' subjective responses, EEG recordings of sleep phases, and slow-wave activity can

help them realize the importance of getting enough sleep for optimal cognitive and

neurobehavioral functioning. They might decide to study early and get enough sleep before the

test instead of cramming the whole night before the test for optimal academic performance.

Letting them know the science behind sleep can help them better understand how sleep helps to

protect our physiological, cognitive, and health-related functions and could persuade them to

invest much time in sleep.

 However, directly sharing this article with high school students is not feasible. The major

challenge in translating the scholarly article into other genres relies on the change in audience

and purpose.This academic article is intended for professionals, scholars, and researchers in the

field of sleep science, chronobiology, psychology, psychiatry, and neurology with background

knowledge in the field of sleep science.Authors wrote many terminologies, in-depth research

methodologies related to sleep science, and complex and hard to understand sentences. Although

those word choices and techniques are very effective to show that the author is very credible and

objective, they might not fit my intended audience. It is too tedious and lengthy for my intended

audience to read. My targeted population, high school students, might already have gained some

knowledge of the importance of sleep from parents, schools, and the Internet. However, they lack

some specialized scientific and medical background to fully understand all of the methodologies,

cognitive and neurobehavioral tests, and other terminologies used in the article. Besides that, the

purpose of the article is to show its research findings and support its argument, while the purpose

of me is to raise awareness of the importance of sleep in health and academic success and

persuade teenagers to sleep more. Thus, to fit my rhetorical situation, I need to translate this

scholarly article into something understandable and persuasive for high school students.

I think an infographic would be an effective genre to translate this scholarly article into

something understandable for high school students. This is because infographics could provide

an overview of the findings in a visually appealing, well-organized, and accessible way.

Infographics often combine texts, colorful graphics, statistics, icons, and charts to illustrate ideas.

The wide range of visual aids can effectively break down complex ideas into simple and concise

ideas. Also makes it much more visually appealing and interesting than plain words in academic

articles. Before I started to make infographics, I looked at some other infographics examples to
get some inspiration. And saw how they incorporate so much academic information in limited

space. I applied techniques I learned from “How to Read Like a Writer” by Bunn, “You are

reading to see how something was constructed so that you can construct something similar

yourself.”(74). I considered the rhetorical situation and analyzed the choices other infographics

authors made and thought about its effectiveness. According to the infographic, "10 Tips for

Healthy Eating", the author uses many food icons to show what are some healthy fruits and

vegetables and many icons of the organs to represent a specific part of the body that can benefit

from healthy diets(Smith). It has a well-organized layout with the current trend at the beginning,

followed by steps to eating healthy, recommendations on food choice, specific health benefits,

tips to use healthy eating hacks, and lastly call for action. As Carroll states“Looking at the

context and components of a piece of rhetoric often isn’t enough, though, because it is

important to draw conclusions about the rhetoric—does it successfully respond to the

exigence?” (69). This rhetorical choice is effective because it raises public awareness of the

importance of diet on health, provides evidence, and specific tips, and encourages readers to

develop healthy eating habits. Another infographic that gives me some insights is the "10 core

principles of entrepreneurship" infographic ("10 Core Principles"). The infographic is laid out in

a vertical format with each principle organized into a separate section by using a specific color

scheme to distinguish them. Every principle has a short, easy-to-read text that summarizes the

key idea and an icon to represent it.

After reading as an infographic maker, I then carefully think about whether these

conventions and techniques other infographic makers used might work well in my creation. By

translating genre into infographics, I hope to spread relevant information widely and quickly by

taking the advantage of the fact that printed version infographics could be placed everywhere
around the campus. I could place it on the walls of the dining hall, library, and bulletin board.

During the process of translating, I also follow a logical order and break up the information into

easily digestible small sections. I faced many challenges with the overall layout, I tried to move

around each section and see which layout makes sense better and has a nice flow of transition.

For example, I originally placed the section that contains comparisons of cognitive test results

between chronic and total sleep deprivation first and then explained how these tests measure

cognitive performances. I thought from the readers' perspective, and then I realized it is better to

explain how these tests measure cognitive performances first and then introduce the cognitive

test results. Because high school students lack some specialized scientific and medical

background to fully understand some cognitive and neurobehavioral tests and other

terminologies used in the article. I tried to avoid using complex jargon and replace many of the

scholarly terminologies that may lead to confusion. Also, I wrote a short, easy-to-read text that

briefly explains slow-wave sleep, Psychomotor speed, sleep δ power, and melatonin. Because

gaining this basic background knowledge could help them understand. Besides that, I also put

some pictures of the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) and Digit Symbol Substitution Test

(DSST) to help readers understand how the cognitive test works. I used many relevant icons to

represent sleep, brain, test, time, electronic devices… These help to make my infographics more

interesting and visually appealing. I chose a color blue and purple as the overall color scheme,

because these colors make readers relax and calm. The language used is simple and in an

engaging tone. The biggest challenge overall is that I am also unfamiliar with many concepts

and the tests used in the study. The data are not straightforward. It has many weird and

difficult-to-understand mathematical and statistical analyses. However, just like what “Reading

Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources” states, “This is a good place to re-read,
highlight, underline, look up what you don’t know.”(Karen, 216). I reread the article several

times to make sure I understand the terms and concepts. This academic article assumes the

readers know a lot of things. I have to look up some things that are not only coming from this

article to help me understand. I paid more attention to these essential parts, annotated the

important research findings. Another challenge I met is that the academic article contains too

many experiments, and there are too many difficult-to-interpret statistical analyses on the results.

Infographic posters only have limited space. Inspired by reflection by Cali Sullivan, “I chose to

leave out or consolidate some of the more in-depth explanations provided in the article... I also

didn’t translate any of the graphs or numerical data, as they would be difficult to correctly

interpret without prior experience reading neuropsychometric tests.”(91) I prioritize the

information that highlights the effects of sleep restriction on cognitive performance, including

the ability to pay attention, think creatively, and solve problems. And I decided to not include the

in-depth details of the process of the experiments, methodology, polysomnographic assessments,

those statistical analyses, and indirect statistical data. Because I cannot even correctly interpret

that information, and this information would confuse my audience. I am not interested in

presenting the details of variables and math computations, instead I chose to only present some

direct research results that show that sleep deprivation led to changes in sleep physiology and

certain cognitive functions. Also, I chose to only use percentages as my statistical evidence,

because these are more straightforward and convincing. Also, this article just shows the data, a

lot of math computations, and statistics that show peoples' cognitive performances become bad

after not getting enough sleep. It didn't really explain much about the science behind sleeping

and why cognitive performances become bad. I need to fill that gap as well because one of my
purposes is to let students have a better understanding of how sleep helps protect our cognitive

functions just so as to persuade them to sleep early.

From reading an article, to successfully translating the message of this article into another

genre. I believe I could also translate the skills I learned to my future writings. I learned how to

read with questions and goals. I began to think about why the author wrote a certain way,

interested in clues about the writer’s motivation, and how the way the author delivers messages

affected the reader. And I learned to use these reflections to guide me in applying useful

techniques to my own writing. I am no longer a writer who cares only about grammar, sentence

structure and rules. I began to pay more attention to how my content affected my readers.

Besides, I try to break through the original writing rules and pay more attention to how to present

my writing under different objectives and different scenarios, and what genre can effectively

convey the message. Meanwhile, I also learned how to use review and edition to improve my

writing. In the future, I should think about my writing goal first, then write down all my ideas,

and finally start to re edit according to the logic and change the grammar.
 Works Cited

Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, vol. 2,

edited by Charley Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky, 2011, pp. 71-86.

Carroll, Laura Bolin. "Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis." Writing

Spaces: Readings on Writing, vol. 1, edited by Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky,

Parlor Press, 2010, pp. 67-82.

Rosenberg, Karen. "Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources." College

Composition and Communication, vol. 63, no. 1, 2011, pp. 210-220.

Smith, John. "10 Tips for Healthy Eating." Healthy Living Magazine, 2022,

healthy-living-magazine.com/infographics/10-tips-for-healthy-eating.

Sullivan, Cali. "SCUBA DIVING: GOING DEEPER." TRANSLATING GENRES, edited by

Elica Sue, Instructor, 90-94. 2021.

"10 Core Principles of Entrepreneurship." Visual.ly, 2023,

visual.ly/community/Infographics/business/10-core-principles-entrepreneurship.