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Trevor Lin

Maddie Roepe

Writing 2

11 December 2023

https://sites.google.com/view/newwp1portfolio/home?authuser=1

Reflection

According to Lisa Bickmore, a “genre is a typified utterance that appears in a recurrent

situation” and “evolves through human use activity,” thus helping individuals carry “out human

communicative intentions in fairly stable ways” (Bickmore). Essentially, genres are tools “to

help people get things done” and have been generated by others’ past experiences and decisions

in a similar context (Dirk). In literature, genres organize writings based on structure, word

choice, and an author’s purpose. However, specific genres may not be appropriate for all

audiences. For example, you wouldn’t want to format an email to your boss using conventions

typically found in a children’s book. Nonetheless, if you desired to explain the content of that

children’s book in a manner appropriate for a workspace, you’d have to change enough of its

contents that a new audience could understand. In other words, you’re doing a genre translation!

For my writing project, I chose to translate the academic journal “Duration of American

Football Play and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy” into a human interest story directed

toward parents of football players as opposed to those deeply entrenched in the scientific

community. I chose to translate this academic journal into a human interest story because I

perceived the worst effects of CTE as a tragic lesson. As a result, I wanted a genre that embraced

the use of emotions in inciting change and forcing people to act. With these constraints, I landed

on a human interest story, the ideal combination of pathos and logos. By adhering to conventions
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typically found in human interest stories, I intended to raise awareness of the correlation between

duration in football and the increasing risk and severity of CTE.

The first step in this process was analyzing universal features used by authors of different

human interest stories. To achieve this, I embraced Brad Jacobson’s teachings throughout “Make

Your ‘Move’: Writing in Genres,” which focuses on rhetorical moves analysis, “a useful,

practical approach for students to understand how writers achieve their goals through various

writing strategies” (Jacobson 217). By looking for “similar kinds of vocabulary and grammar,

design features, content, and patterns for organizing their content,” I noticed several patterns

among human interest stories. For example, I discovered that what lies at the center of a human

interest story isn't the science or argumentative claims but the personal narrative. To figure out

why authors made this decision, I combined Jacobson’s rhetorical moves analysis with lessons

from Mike Bunn’s “How to Read Like a Writer.” Throughout this course reading, Bunn stressed

reading like a writer, which helps “identify some of the choices the author made so that you can

better understand how such choices might arise in your writing” (Bunn 72). Similar to how an

archetype looks at a building, I began to read like a writer and realized that the author did this to

pull on their audience’s heartstrings. By allowing the reader to hear firsthand the tragic

experiences of those close to the issue, the audience cannot help but develop sympathy for the

story's victims. As a result, readers are much more willing to support changes aimed at

preventing tragic stories in the respective human interest story from happening ever again. With

this knowledge, I started with the tragedy of Junior Seau and the impact his death had on his

friends and loved ones. I hoped the story would appeal to parents’ empathy, especially with

Junior Seau’s mother wishing God would take her instead. Because most parents share the belief
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of sacrificing their well-being for that of their children, this story would set the stage for parents

to become aware of the dangers CTE poses to their children.

Furthermore, I was interested in why authors of this genre introduced the human interest

story at the beginning of the writing process, as opposed to it being at the center of the writing

piece. By reading like a writer, I focused on how this writing choice affected me and realized that

by throwing the reader head-on into the story, they have no choice but to feel overwhelmed by

the story’s emotional appeal. Additionally, the personal story serves the purpose of easing the

reader into the reading and introducing the topic before delving deeper into the impact this topic

has on a broader scale. Subsequently, I placed my human interest story at the beginning, not just

to adhere to this genre’s conventions but to ease readers into the issue of CTE. After readers

become emotionally invested in the writing, I’d share the academic journal’s scientific findings

to set the stage for later arguments that CTE poses too much of a risk for parents to enroll their

children in football.

To translate an academic journal aimed at the scientific community into a human interest

story for everyday parents, I recognized that much of the journal's scientific jargon would

confuse my new audience. For example, many readers, including myself, have a hard time

understanding the meaning of “all primary models” satisfying “the linearity assumption”

between “CTE status and CTE severity” (Mez 120). To remedy this, I realized I had to leave out

certain details amidst the translation. This solution adheres to the ideals promoted in L. Lennie

Irvin’s “Changing Your Mindset About Revision.” Throughout his article, Irvin claims that

revision is necessary as “writing is about getting our thinking and meaning on a page,” and yet,

“we always experience a gap between what we mean and what we say” (Irvin 324). As a result, I

left out many details about how the researchers analyzed the brains and the lengths they went to
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during the selection process to ensure bias didn’t corrupt their findings. Instead, I emphasized the

statistics that proved a correlation between time playing football and CTE to get the point across

and not confuse the reader. Just as Irvine discussed losing information in translation, I lost some

technical jargon that the scientific community would understand at the benefit of parents who

lack this basis of scientific knowledge.

Irvine goes on to say that each round of revision leads us to “find something missing or

out of alignment to adjust and fix” (Irvin 324). Likewise, after losing some authority due to

removing details explaining how the experiment was as unbiased as possible, I discovered I

needed a new way to add more ethos to my essay. To achieve this, I again used Jacobson’s

rhetorical moves analysis and noticed a profusion of direct quotes from people closest to the

issue. I recognized that direct quotes provide a sense of authority because who would better

know about the matter than people with firsthand knowledge? Subsequently, I inserted quotes

from Junior Seau’s loved ones to make emotional connections between the reader and those

telling the story.

A challenge midway through the translation process was that I lost sight of my main goal

of appealing to parents of football players after connecting the personal story to my academic

journal. The essay seemed to only bring awareness to CTE with logos and pathos to show a

general audience the seriousness of head trauma from a respected authority. I felt I had hit a

writer's block and had no larger goal in mind, such as convincing parents about the dangers of

football. Feeling as though I had strayed away from my main goal, I decided to reflect upon my

letter to the reader. According to Sandra L. Giles, letters to the reader “tell the reader what you

intend for the essay to do” and help the author “develop more insight into and control over

composing and revising processes” (Giles 193-194). Reminded of my goal to inform parents
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about the dangers of football and CTE, I dedicated the last stages of the essay to portraying how

football goes against parental responsibilities. By asking questions to the reader, I hoped to get

the parents reading this project to truly consider the costs of enrolling their children in football.

Additionally, the concerns I needed to keep in mind were to be specific in my actions and

not try to spread myself too thin across genres. During Project Builder 2, I chose a news article

because its broadness provided more flexibility. Using a news article showed I didn’t have a

clear vision of how to express my ideas. However, I overcame this when recalling that “too much

variation results eventually in lack of meaning” (Dirk 259). As a result, I chose a human interest

story and focused all my attention on creating an emotional story and then putting it in the

context of my academic journal.

Because of Writing 2, I gained a newfound perspective on the importance of revising. For

example, an aspect that helped my revising process was learning and embracing peer feedback.

After reading Richard Straub’s “Responding–Really Responding–to Other Student’s Writing,” I

discovered that comments “view the writing rhetorically, in terms of how the text has certain

effects on readers” (Straub 143). When reviewing peer feedback on my project, my partner asked

if readers would best receive this information from a Google document or if there was another

form of content that better expressed my ideas. After acknowledging that a straight-up Google

document had a dull appearance, I transferred my genre translation from a Google document to a

Google site. With visual elements and more organization, I hoped this new format would better

allow readers to become emotionally invested in the tragic impact CTE had on the Seau family

and many others.

Furthermore, feedback from individual conferences combined Straub’s teachings with

Dirk’s view of genres. Dirk claims that our goal as writers is to be aware of context and “to
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recognize these shifts in location and to be aware of how much shifts might affect your writing”

(Dirk 256). Feedback from my writing instructor taught me that while parenthetical citations are

conventional for essays, they don’t have the same effect on human interest stories. Just as Straub

stresses looking at the impact specific portions of the text have on readers, I learned that these

parenthetical citations pulled the reader out of the narrative. Therefore, I replaced these

parenthetical citations with footnotes, thus making the Google site more visually organized.

Ultimately, I believe I met most of the goals I set for myself. I felt I used the course

readings to develop my reflective writing on this essay and the project builders. Furthermore, I

believe I met my goal of utilizing an emotional story to draw the reader in before getting into the

scientific facts about concussions and CTE. However, I would like to set a new goal based on

this experience. I hope to develop a better vision when organizing my essay and each paragraph

within my writing. I chose this goal because my writing process was slightly disorganized as I

kept jumping back and forth. In the end, for my first introduction to writing reflective essays and

translating genres, I believe I reached many of the goals I had set for myself.
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Work Cited

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https://www.apa.org/topics/parenting#:~:text=Parenting%20practices%20around%20the

%20world,is%20critical%20for%20healthy%20development

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mily%20of%20Junior%20Seau,a%20six%2Dyear%20legal%20standoff.

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

Contingency: How We Situate Writing to Create Meaning.

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

Press and WAC Clearinghouse, pp. 71-86.

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-take-me-leave-my-son-201235/

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