Throughout this chapter, Bazerman states numerous times about the importance of specifying and identifying the genre of texts being analyzed, especially if the person doing the analyzing is looking for a particular genre. The loose definition of genre, that is, a repeating, recognizable pattern across texts, allows for those doing the rhetorical analysis to be as broad or vague as they desire. Bazerman does state, however, that the best forms of analysis are often as focused as possible, with a clear question that can be answered by looking into the desired texts. Typification, according to Bazerman on page 316, is the process of creating standardized forms of text that are meant for specific circumstances and understanding of particular situations. This boils down to having a format for writing in a genre. For example, a research paper and an article that summarizes the paper’s findings have very different formats, sections, and language, yet both cover (hopefully) the exact same subject.
For the first major assignment, I am interested in how an individual may take a paper, such as a research paper meant for a specific field of science, and make it accessible for a different audience while still including as much information as possible to get its original message across. Accessible can have several different meanings, such as entertaining, easy to read, or to pique the audience’s interest to read more on the subject, or the original work. Additionally, this accessibility may be across other fields or studies within a particular field. This goes back to the three-leveled speech analysis of the text, in which a reader or audience may not understand what the text is trying to communicate and misinterpret it, while a different audience may be more attuned to the word-choice or layout of the text. In my study, I would prefer to focus on articles that were written on specific research studies or topics, that also site back to the original article or articles. I would prefer to analyze articles and papers that are focused on marine biology, or biology in general, with a practical use or reason to be brought across genres of writing. The interview would either be with a professor who has written papers in their field, and had papers or articles reference back to their works, or with the authors of journal articles who had done research on a research paper. Preferably the interview would be in person, as to get the most direct and animated response, but questions over email would allow the individual to refine their thoughts before speaking them. However, I am concerned about how to go about the interview, in terms of what questions I could ask that would best answer my original question.
2 Comments
Jacob Fies
2/7/2018 10:44:07 am
In response to your concerns, I may have a couple ideas that could help out. First, when going into the interview with an author of an original research paper, you could ask such questions as: do you have the general public as an audience in mind when writing the paper, and if so, why or why not? If the general public is part of your audience, what sorts of language do you use, (or avoid), so as to make it accessible to them?. On the other hand if you were interviewing the author of a "mass media" journal article, (writing about other peoples ideas), you could ask them similarly focused questions just slightly tweaked. For example: who do you have as an audience in mind when writing and why?, or, when converting a research paper to a form for the general public, whats types of language do you keep from the original paper, change from the original paper, or what may you add to make it more appealing to a wider audience?.
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Ava Mastrostefano
2/7/2018 06:10:45 pm
This is a very interesting and important topic. Public access to scientific research is a huge issue. Most of the time, people never see the real results. They just see how popular media sources interpret the research-- which is usually an over generalized statement like "A glass of red wine is the same as going to the gym for an hour" which is obviously not true. We need to find a better way to communicate science to the public in an accurate way that they will care about and understand. Additionally, you might want to think about how society views scientists. Most of what society thinks of science is what they see on shows like The Big Bang Theory-- a bunch of nerdy people who are stuck in a lab and apparently have way too much free time. How does society's view of science/scientists affect how seriously they take our research? Do they think we are antisocial nerds stuck in a lab who know nothing about the real world? If so, they likely take what we say with a grain of salt.
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