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Samantha De Dios

Writing 2

Maddie Roepe

February 2, 2024

Reflective Essay

Using the article, “Pokémon GO: Healthy or Harmful?”, from the American Journal of

Public Health, I made an advertisement for a mental health support group. I decided to translate

this article because I felt like I would have more motivation to work on something that aligns

with my personal interests. As I was reading the benefits of Pokémon GO in the article I thought

about how this information could be helpful for someone who is struggling with their mental

health. This is because I have seen many mental health professionals due to my own struggles

with anxiety and depression and they all told me that physical activity and socializing would

both help lessen my symptoms. Despite being told this, anxiety and depression make it very

difficult to find the motivation to get up and do those things. Once I downloaded the game, I was

able to experience the benefits detailed in the article myself. I went outside more than I had since

the summer. I settled on a mental health support group because I knew that if I was a part of a

group like that it would be a fun way to hold me accountable to take the steps to improve my

mental health so people like me would benefit too.

The advertisement that I created is targeted towards young adults ages 18-24. I decided

on this because the original was intended to be for students since it is a scholarly article. I felt

like the information would not just benefit students but anyone who is struggling to increase their
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physical activity levels or combat depression and anxiety. Since this information could benefit

anyone I had to then think about what age group would benefit the most from a Pokémon GO

support group. I decided to keep young adults in general in mind and chose a specific age group

once it came to me. When I was reading over the risks part of the article I came across a point

that said young adults 24 or younger were more likely to engage in risks and decided 18-24 year

olds would benefit the most. I mainly went off of personal experience to decide whether or not

my advertisement would be effective towards 18 to 24-year-old adults. As a 19-year-old

Pokémon fan, I knew already that adult Pokémon fans existed. Since I am a fan, I was familiar

with how the Pokémon Company would make their ads look. My first game as a child was from

the Unova region so I know that people my age also grew up during that era. I designed my

advertisement in a similar way that Pokémon advertisements during this era looked. This style

was familiar to me since I grew up seeing it, so I knew that people my age would also recognize

what I was trying to do. For people who are not major fans like myself, I put recognizable

Pokémon and a pokéball in the advertisement so that even people who have a slight interest in

Pokémon can recognize it. I stated at the very top that it is a mental health support group so fans

can recognize the poster from far away and see if they are the target audience when they get

closer and read who it is for.

The biggest issue I faced while creating my translation was trying to create a translation

that looked like a professional advertisement and not something that a student made on Canva.

When I finished my first draft it had too much of my personal desires in it. I liked the idea of an

advertisement that had my favorite Pokémon and was a little humorous. After asking my friends

about what they thought of the advertisement I realized that I needed to make it look like a real

advertisement. I also struggled with getting words from the article into my advertisement. I was
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very excited to be doing a project on Pokémon but did everything else before I even got started

on adding words to my advertisement. When it came to writing I had a hard time starting and I

kept putting it over. I decided to first write down all the things I found in the article that I could

include in my advertisement and put them into bullet points. Once it was all written out it

became much clearer how I would be able to use this information. I treated it like a free-write

and just kept writing until mini rough drafts of the paragraphs that would go into my

advertisement. After this, I stepped away from what I wrote and took a break so I could revise it

with a fresher mind. Instead of using the same poster, I made an almost completely new

advertisement with the new ideas that the first draft gave me. Once I was done I asked my

friends what they thought of my advertisement. I asked questions like if it felt too aggressive if it

looked real, and if they would be interested in joining my group. Stepping away from it and

looking back helped me not go crazy during my revision process. It helped me more clearly

identify what I felt was working and what was not.

I needed to keep in mind that although I was choosing a topic that I was interested in I

could not just do whatever I wanted. I had to remind myself that the main idea of the assignment

is that there are things that characterize every genre so I needed to be sure to include those

things. It was important to me that the advertisement looked real while also including the

components that characterize the genre. I also needed to make sure I included the big things that

were mentioned in the article. I made sure to do this by looking over a bullet-point list of

rhetorical moves I identified while looking at examples of advertisements. Once I completed

each draft I went down the checklist to be sure I was including the moves that were necessary for

the genre.
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I kept in the studies that were referenced in the original article such as mentioning the

information came from an internal Microsoft study so that my audience would see that there is

proof to back up the claims of my advertisement. I want my audience to trust that playing will

help them and that the hosts have done their research on the topic. I used the positive health

impacts found in the article to create a paragraph for the advertisement that detailed how

Pokémon GO could be beneficial for their health. I used the risks associated with playing

Pokémon GO that were discussed in the article to highlight that the organization is aware that the

game has caused people to participate in risky behavior but addresses the problem by using a

group leader as a solution to ensure safety. I also did this so that I could connect the findings of

the article to my intended audience since it states that people 24 and younger are more likely to

engage in risks. The article ends with talking about how augmented reality technology has some

good public health benefits but there are a lot of risks associated with it so it calls for game

developers to develop safety features so people can enjoy the benefits with minimal risk. Instead

of adding this to my advertisement the wellness counselor addresses the safety concerns that the

original article calls for the game developers to fix.

This project helped me analyze different genres so that I could successfully write in any

genre. This was through learning about rhetorical moves and how authors use them to fit within a

genre. Before starting this project I was not very familiar with reading scholarly articles that

were not assigned to me. I did not think much about the different moves that define a scholarly

article. After this project, I found that a scholarly article’s target audience is students. This one

was an obvious one that was pointed out to me by my instructor but now I know. They

sometimes begin with an abstract and always end with a bibliography. This bibliography

references studies outside of their own that influenced the article and are sometimes mentioned
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in the article. They also include original research that was peer-reviewed before publication.

When I was investigating what a mental health support group advertisement usually entails I

asked the questions “Who, what, when, where, why?” to identify common moves that were used.

I found that they included what the group was for and made their target audience clear.

Occasionally they included why they were hosting the group to get people to join. They then

included somewhere who they were and when the group would meet. Depending on the group,

there would be a place to sign up. I also noticed that the style the advertisement was in went with

the target audience. An example is the black support group having pictures of their group

together to show their audience. The flip of this is the Pokemon club that had a pokéball on it to

draw in Pokémon fans. As an author, I found that every choice I made was important because it

is such a small poster. The choices I made even with just the graphics are important to draw

attention. Once I determined my target audience I had an easier time making these choices.

When I set out to do this translation, my goal was to create an advertisement that would

make people go “Wow I wish that existed.” This would let me know that I did a good job selling

my idea and a good job at making a realistic advertisement. I hoped that this goal would make

me a better writer in the process. I did meet the goals because I made my friends wish my idea

existed and my parents thought it was a real thing I was joining at school. To meet the goals I set

for myself, I approached this project more like a writer. The things that I have learned in the

readings from class gave me the tools to meet my goals. To make a realistic advertisement I used

Brad Jacobson’s piece to help me identify the different moves that are used in advertisements. I

used different examples and circled all the moves I found to see what was the same between all

of them. This helped determine what was necessary for my genre translation. I became aware of

my choices as an author because of Mike Bunn’s piece. When I started revising I’d read my work
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like I was not the one that wrote it and tried to put myself in my reader’s shoes. If I did not know

what my readers would think I’d ask a friend. Peter Elbow’s piece also really helped me with just

getting started with my project which is always the hardest part for me. This was because it

reminded me that what I write is not permanent and that first-order thinking can help me come

up with ideas I can polish later on. Creating more than one draft allowed me to look at it on

paper and decide what I wanted my project to look like. This piece worked together with Lennie

Irvin’s piece because I was able to use first-order thinking to make my trash drafts and

second-order thinking to revise them and learn that anything I write can be fixed and does not

have to be perfect the first time. If I did another translation I would spend more time free writing

using first-order thinking so that I could get all of my ideas down on paper early on. I would also

look at more examples to get an even better idea of what is and is not an acceptable move when

writing in whatever genre I want to use. I would also spend more time during my revision

process. Even though I spent a lot of time revising, I feel like I could have done a better job of

organizing my thoughts and creating maybe one more draft to see what I liked the best. I am

proud of what I created but if given the chance I would look for more opinions on how I could

make it even better.

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Works Cited

1. “Black Peer Support Group.” NAMI Miami-Dade County, National Alliance on Mental

Illness, 31 Jan. 2023, namimiami.org/support-and-education/support-groups/bpsg/.

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

2. 2011. Pg. 71-86

3. Elbow, Peter. “Teaching Two Kinds of Thinking by Teaching Writing” Embracing

Contraries: Explorations in Learning and Teaching. New York: Oxford U Press. 1986. Pg.

55-63

4. Irvin, L. Lennie, "Changing Your Mindset About Revision." Writing Spaces: Readings on

Writing, Vol. 5. Forthcoming 2022. Pg 318-333

5. Jacobson, Brad. “Make Your ‘Move’: Writing in Genres” Writing Spaces: Readings on

Writing, Volume 4. 2021. Pg. 217-238

6. “Pokemon Club.” Stirling Library, Stirling-Rawdon Public Library,

stirlinglibrary.com/event/pokemon-club-3/. Accessed 1 Feb. 2024.

7. “Support Groups: The Counseling & Wellness Boutique.” TCWBoutique LLC,

www.counselingandwellnessboutique.com/supportgroups. Accessed 1 Feb. 2024.

8. Wagner-Greene, Victoria R., et al. “Pokémon GO: Healthy or Harmful?” American

Journal of Public Health (1971), vol. 107, no. 1, 2017, pp. 35–36,

https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303548