Hector Gonzalez

Writing 2
The Flu Ruining Planet Football
Once upon a time in the planet football, where there were thousands of football fields and

chants that could be heard from across the planet, there was a troublesome flu spreading across

the fields injuring the people of Planet Football. The flu caused painful muscle injuries that made

the players miss games leaving the fans sad. Could this be the end of Football?!

But fear not! Three world famous doctors, Martin Hägglund, Markus Waldén, and Jan

Ekstrand are on a mission to defeat this cruel flu. They journeyed to 26 football teams across ten

countries, watching over 1401 players for nine whole seasons. The secrets that were discovered

were amazing.

They found that the flu made 37 percent of muscle injuries that made the players miss

games. The secrets they uncovered opened their eyes into seeing that the flu hurt the legs of

players. With these secrets our doctors couldn’t stop here they wanted to find ways to save the

players. The doctors kept on chasing the evil flu and found that the flu liked going for players

that were old. Something interesting they found out is that Goalkeepers didn’t catch the flu. Can

this be because of their gloves?

With all the knowledge the doctors found on their journey they found ways on how to

fight the flu. The players had to strengthen their legs to fight off this cruel flu. The players with

this new information given by the doctors started working hard to fight this flu head on. Their

legs were now stronger than ever, and the flu struggled to fight.

Their journey didn’t end, it was just the beginning. They kept on with their adventure to

find more ways to destroy the cruel flu and rid it from the planet Football. With their newfound

knowledge they became heroes and the protectors of the players and fans all around the world.
Hector Gonzalez

Professor Allison Bocchino

Writing 2

The Art and Impact of Translating Genres

In literature the genre translation between an academic journal to fun children’s short

story seems like a joke. Yet, the creative gap between these two genres gives the potential for

making the knowledge in the academic journal more accessible and understanding. Exploring the

genre translation there were challenges of translating the academic journal represented by Martin

Hägglund, Markus Waldén, and Jan Ekstrand in “Risk Factors for Lower Extremity Muscle

Injury in Professional Soccer: The UEFA Injury Study,” into the world of children’s story.3 This

thesis argues that the making of translating genres works as a bridge and transforming complex

information into engaging narratives changing the discourse community from researchers in the

field of medicine to a younger child.

The academic is written and structured in the way that the text follows the style of a

scientific research article. The academic journal contains a title, authors, and the introduction.

The text also includes methods and results. Discussions, conclusions, keywords, and references

were used throughout the text to complete the structure of a scientific research article. The

structure and word choice tells us that the discourse community is most likely professions and

researchers in the field of sports medicine. Although the text is academic it not only targets

educated people, but people that are interested in the sport. People interested in the sport can do

their own research and this text can help them avoid injuries. The authors used technical

language often in the article that is connected to medicine, injury types, risk factors, and

statistical analyses. This highlights that the targeted audience that it is intended for is
knowledgeable about the subject. There are many examples of technical language being used

throughout the article. The article states another interesting finding that a history of previous

injury to other lower extremity muscle groups increased the rate of quadriceps and calf injury in

the present study by 68% to 91%3.” This quote is an example of technical language being used

because it is statistical.

Translating an academic genre into a children’s short story meant understanding not only

the conventions of the academic journal but also the conventions of a children’s short story. Short

stories use the typical structure using the setting, characters, conflict, plot, and point of view.

They are often found in creative writing and storytelling. These conventions are universal in

most short stories. For example, the short stories “The Hare and the Tortoise,”4 “Goldilocks and

the Three Bears,”2 and “The Three Little Pigs”6 all have universal conventions. Their

conventions include characters, conflict, and a plot. One of the conventions that is universal in

these stories is that they have an antagonist of some sort. For example, in “The Three Little

Pigs,” the antagonist is the big bad wolf and in my genre translation the flu is my antagonist. 6

Both antagonists gave the protagonist difficulties leading them to evolve and improve leading up

to a happy ending. The antagonist causes the conflict which makes the plot in short stories. The

flu is translated from the muscle Injuries that are what the researchers want to find how to avoid.

The functions in a children’s short story are to keep a kid engaged. The short stories can be a

powerful tool for education for children.

Translating the genres for it to be accessible for children was very difficult. The academic

journal was very complex having a vast amount of information that would be impossible for

younger kids to understand. It was important to keep the main points of the academic

information found by the researchers. Keeping the main points are important to make the
translation. The short story needed to be engaging for it to be more understanding for my

intended audience which is children. Based off the academic journal I used the researchers as my

characters, the research as the plot, and the injuries as an antagonist. Like the academic journal I

used references from other genres that were similar to my genre. The same conventions were

used for my short story as the other stories in the genre used them. I used a made-up setting, plot,

conflict, and characters that were all translated from the academic journal. To try to get as much

information translated from the academic journal to the short story, I had to be creative. I had to

figure out which information to use and how to make it understandable and engaging for my

discourse community. The reading “Literary Genre Translations” by Cirocco Dunlap translated

the quote “I ate a sandwich and looked out the window” into 11 different genres.1 This

highlighted the idea that as long as you have the main idea you can translate any genre into

another genre using the conventions of that genre. The reading helped me make the translation

without being afraid to lose too much information. The article “Mad Max: Fury Road, Retold

Through Hieroglyphs Is Perfect,” by Andrew is another great example how any genre can be

translated to any other genre. Translating genres allows for the information to reach out to

multiple audiences.5

Some people may say that translating an academic journal into a children’s story will

cause information to be lost. However, even though some important information may be lost

some information will still be transferred. To begin, the information that the academic journal

contains isn’t comprehendible for children. The point of a genre translation is to target different

audiences and spreading the information in many ways. A successful genre translation requires a

balance to preserve the content of the academic article and changing it to the new genre’s

convention. The work maintains educational value while still engaging the targeted audience.
The goal of translating a genre is to spread the information making it more accessible and

understandable for the different discourse communities depending on their preferred genre.

In conclusion, the making of translating genres specifically the academic Journal “Risk

Factors for Lower Extremity Muscle Injury in Professional Soccer: The UEFA Injury Study,” to a

children’s short story seems like an impossible task.3 However, this translation of genres served

as a bridge that made complex information into an accessible and comprehensive for a wider

audience. The thesis presented the argument that genre translation functions as a tool in

literature to make information reach out in different discourse communities. The academic

journal having a rigid structure and technical language targeting researchers and on the other

hand the children’s short story targets a younger audience. The conventions of both genres

despite their differences highlight how versatile writing can be. Finally, successful genre

translations demand a careful selection of information to that needs to be transferred to

preserve the educational value of the primary text while trying to target the audience of the

secondary text.
 Work Cited

1
Dunlap, Cirocco. n.d. “Literary Genre Translations.” McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

Accessed March 6, 2024. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/literary-genre-translations.

2
“Goldilocks and the Three Bears,”

n.d. https://americanliterature.com/childrens-stories/goldilocks-and-the-three-bears.

3
Hägglund, Martin, Markus Waldén, and Jan Ekstrand. 2013. “Risk Factors for Lower Extremity

Muscle Injury in Professional Soccer: The UEFA Injury Study” The American Journal of

Sports Medicine 41 (2): 327–335.

https://journals-sagepub-com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu/doi/epub/10.1177/03635465124706

34

4
“Library of Congress Aesop Fables,” n.d. https://read.gov/aesop/025.html.

5
Liptak, Andrew. “Mad Max: Fury Road, Retold Through Hieroglyphs Is Perfect.” Gizmodo,

December 16, 2015. https://gizmodo.com/mad-max-fury-road-retold-through-

hieroglyphics-is-per-1727477739?

utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=so

cialflow.
 6
“The Three Little Pigs,” n.d., https://americanliterature.com/childrens-stories/the-three-

little-pigs.