Saturday, February 25, 2012
Rose response
At the end of his discussion on the dialogic relationship between academic and public discourse, Rose comments on his students' realizations: they "gain a heightened sense of the potential relevance of their work to issues of public concern" (289). Consider your own academic piece as you begin to revise: what potential relevance can you see your ideas having for the public?
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Before I enrolled in Bleich’s Genre class, I had read very little feminist theorist literature, although I had heard about feminist theory in class. At the beginning of the class I had no idea that I would choose the topic I did for the final paper: The male-coded versus female-coded portrayal of female characters in erotic literature. This topic likely would not have been of interest to me before reading Andrea Dworkin. I had never before thought about the difference in male and female authored literature, let alone looked at a specific feature of this such as character.
ReplyDeleteSo what relevance does a revision of this research have for the public? I have chosen a safe option—perhaps feminists would be most interested in my research and the literature I read to come to my conclusions. However, writers and literary hobbyists may also serve as a potential audience. Had I stumbled upon an article similar to the one that I am about to write, I would have had a completely different outlook on the portrayal of women in literature. I would like to heighten public awareness of these stereotypes in women that the literature depicts. Oftentimes, they go unnoticed.
My article would represent the crossover from scholarly writing to the opinion piece. I need to condense material and relate my research and findings to a specific audience. There are tons of approaches I could take with my paper; for example, I could choose to focus on the specific archetypes of the “good” woman versus the “evil” woman, or I could choose to focus on my analysis of Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber. There is so much information in my research paper, I just need to figure out what applies to my audience and how I can apply it.
Your discussion at the end reminds me of my own thoughts about writing. Though I know I need to cnosider the audience I'm writing for, I usually choose journals, and, thus, their audiences, that best fit my own style of writing. I resist having to write for other people; I try to stick to my guns. But if I want to be published bad enough, I have to bow to the man.
DeleteWhen I first set out conducting research about whether or not people were using social media to access news information, I did not know if I had discovered anything new or that could have potential crossover appeal. Now as I am researching non-academic genres, I think that I have a piece of writing that has relevance for the public. Twitter and Facebook are two types of social media that do not seem to be going away anytime soon. So one form of relevance that this project will have is that it addresses something that is current.
ReplyDeleteIf I choose to use Blend magazine, which is by the National Scholastic Press Association, then hopefully article will have relevance for their audience: high school journalism students. I know my sample size was small, but I think that the research that I conducted was important. I was able to discover in my sample group that college students were still reading the newspaper in print, but were also using social media for breaking news information. Maybe high school journalism students might be able to present breaking news information using social media, something that they might not have either been aware of or used in that way before. This is just something that I have been thinking about as I have glanced through various issues of Blend. Five years from now who knows just how many people, if any, will be using social media. But at this moment in time, my article definitely has some relevance.
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DeleteThe “So What?” question has haunted me ever since high school, ever since the time my senior year English teacher scribbled those exact words in big green letters at the bottom of my paper. Because of his comment, I almost always second guess my writing. I wonder—really wonder—why someone else would want to read what I write.
DeleteLately, I’ve been thinking a lot about this revision assignment. I don’t yet know how I will start revising. Something on the top of page 289 particularly struck me: In Rose’s article, he mentions that “One student said, ‘every sentence was changed. It does you no good to hold onto your previous words.’” I envision balling up my twenty-page research paper and tossing it into the trash bin. Maybe that’s what will happen, but I’m thinking something a little different at the moment, something a little more rational.
For example, over Spring Break, I go on a hike with my favorite hiking partners, Brad and our dog, Rex. I let Brad use the bulleted directions; I use the narrative directions, and we’ll see who has to refer to their directions more often. Then, I somehow incorporate the idea of gender stereotypes regarding wayfinding directions into my new piece of writing. Gender stereotypes are very relevant to the public.
Or maybe I should approach my story from a different angle. Maybe I explain that my research showed that more participants preferred the bulleted directions, so Brad and I only take those on our hike. Then, after hiking with the bulleted directions as our wayfinding guide, I write a commentary on the succinctness that the “Twitter generation” seems to desire so much. That’s relevant to the public, too. I don’t know. I think I like the latter option, but I’ll use any excuse to go hiking. After all, it’ll be homework.
Matt and Aimee:
DeleteYou both bring up good points about the revising process. Aimee, you're using ideas out of not only your experiences as a hiker bu also the study you conducted for your paper in order to get to something else--something else that your new audience will identify with. So, in a sense, you wouldn't be throwing ideas away, though you'd throw away words.
Matt, you're focused on your audience: high school journalism students, who probably do critically see the value in social media as a source of news; regular consumers might not question the value or the impact of it. So your study certainly has value for intended audience.
I’m writing for a fairly specific public audience: people who keep chickens as a hobby or small business (i.e. readers of Backyard Poultry Magazine). At first glance, my focus on chicken vision might not seem to be of interest to very many people, however, the number of people who keep “backyard chickens” has greatly increased over the past years and this is a group that is very devoted to their pets. Anyone who keeps chickens has undoubtedly seen clues that they do not see the world in the same way we do. For example, they are very good at picking tiny, invisible to us, bits of food off the ground, while at the same time scanning their surroundings for predators. They chase after insects that human eyes are incapable of following. They are very averse to darkness, but is that because they can’t see in the dark? And how can they focus on anything when their heads are constantly jerking around? So most narrowly, my piece will help chicken owners better understand their birds’ behaviors. But this is also an audience that cares very much about issues such as ethical treatment of animals and where food comes from, and how chickens see the world has many implications for raising them humanely on a large scale. With the growing consumer interest in food production, the promoting of “cage free” and “free range” eggs (for a greater price), and McDonalds and Target’s recent boycotting of a major egg producer, this is also a timely issue that easily could be addressed to a more general audience. If I were doing that, I would focus less on specific behaviors that only chicken lovers are familiar with and more on how a chicken’s physiology and natural history relate to ethically raising and eating them and their eggs. What looks humane to a person often looks different to an animal.
ReplyDeleteThese two ideas are not discrete, of course, but are both ideas too much for the magazine? Would you be able to tie both ideas together for this one venue? I can certainly see both discussed in an academic article.
Delete"We are all researchers." For those of us who took Dr. Klein's class last semester, we were all made aware of this fact, whether we knew it or not. One of things that I wanted to look at was why some areas of research are not as acceptable as others. I am a little biased, I took a course where I researched information and produced it on Wikipedia, which is one of the most "unacceptable" sources teachers tell students about. So, what I researched was how Wikipedia can be used in the legal field. I wanted to make legal professionals aware of it and how they can use it and find it to be more reliable than some print sources.
ReplyDeleteAs to the relevance of my piece, it not only can be influential and informational to legal professionals, but to the public in general. I hope it will open the eyes of others to realize that Wikipedia can be a reliable source for research (at least as a beginning stage) and to get more people involved with producing reliable information on the pages. The more people go about helping out, the information will get better.
Wikipedia seems to be good at catching articles that seem dubious, and they flag those articles, suggesting revisions and citing appropriately. Is this something you discuss in your own piece?
DeleteThe idea of writing for the public is one we should all have in mind as we begin our projects. After all, isn’t audience awareness one of the most important factors in considering how you begin writing? Unless whatever it is that you’re writing is for your own personal journal or diary, your writing will have an audience of sorts. For the projects we are working on now, we’re in the process of transitioning from an academic audience to a nonacademic audience. Many of us are choosing magazines, which obviously have a public audience.
ReplyDeleteIn Rose’s article, he describes how students transition between writing opinion pieces and scholarly pieces. He says, “They learn, for example, to present their argument quickly, tersely, without the scaffolds of jargon, catchphrases, and a swarm of criticism” (289). Our writing to the public (in my case, to the readers of Epicurious.com, an online community for those who love to eat) needs to be whittled down from our academic pieces. It needs to be catchy and attention grabbing. This kind of focus on opinion pieces for the public leads to an attention to style that is different than we may be used to.
Rose says, “I think that the primary thing students acquire is a rhetorical sense of their writing; style and audience are more on their minds. As one student put it so well, ‘The course got me to think of my writing as strategic. Who am I writing to? Where do I want to take them with my argument? How can I get them there?’ ” (287). These are all valid points for us to keep in mind as we write for a public audience. In terms of my project, I need to be aware of who reads Epicurious and why, and how I can catch their attention to read my story. Out of the countless other stories that are on the website, why should they read mine?
I want to explore why chefs use narrative to connect to an audience during an instructional cooking show. Instead of appealing to an audience of academics who may be familiar with gender stereotypes and the use of narrative in television, I want to reach out to an audience of those who enjoy cooking. I want to show them that these cooking shows are more about appealing to an audience and making a connection than they actually are about the recipes. Who actually watches the cooking shows and makes the recipe at the same time? People would go online for that. It's my goal to give insight to this audience of food lovers as to what I think is really behind these instructional cooking shows.
You say early on, "Unless whatever it is that you’re writing is for your own personal journal or diary, your writing will have an audience of sorts." Even the diary or journal writer is an audience of her- or himself. We try to communicate things to ourselves more than might be apparent. Think about a grocery list: if you prefer to wrie a grocery list based on the way the groacery aisles are laid out, then you'll organize your list accordingly. In this way, then, you're writing for yourself, keeping in mind your own values and ways of doing things.
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ReplyDeleteI hope that the potential relevance that my piece would bring to the public would be in the form of a public service announcement. In rural communities there is a lack of broadband Internet services as compared to densely populated areas that people may not be aware. Someone who telecommutes, uploads large data files to servers remotely, uses video conferencing software, or a dedicated gamer that needs to play online may need a broadband Internet connection of over 15mbps of bandwidth in order for programs to effectively run on their computer or video game consoles. Many rural communities do not offer broadband Internet speeds of over 4mbps and as a result, someone thinking about moving to a rural community I hope would do some research after reading my article in order to see what services are currently being offered.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is great that we are learning about how to structure our ideas based on the audience. This is important because I have asked myself the question, just how formal does one have to be countless times when responding to blogs or even e-mail messages to faculty. Everyone wants to be taken seriously. When preparing for a job interview, it is expected that you dress for success, as opposed to preparing for a trip to Busch Gardens. I find that the way I write is a representation of how I would like to be perceived and depending on the situation, as rose describes it, writing, voice, audience and tension are all factors that need to be considered. I agree that as academics we are caught in the linguistic bubble. I like the analogy that Prof. Klein used in class where he stated that in order to break the rules we have to learn them first. Picasso was a great painter, able to paint in a realistic manner, but decided to break the rules which allowed him to achieve great success. We can learn to be great writers and editors, but in order to connect with the public we need to break out of the linguistic bubble and connect with our target audience.
I would say that great writers and editors are great partly because they're so well connected to their target audience. There are some great people who don't consider their audience and write whatever they want--which I certainly advocate (as I note in my reply to Megan B above), but such a move might not sell publications.
DeleteI think that the project we are doing for our editing class is a perfect example of what Rose is talking about in his article Opinion: Writing for the Public, being able to write for (and communicate with) both an academic audience and the public at large. By adapting our research article, which was written primarily for an academic audience for a wider non-academic audience, we will be reaching out and communicating our research findings to a larger audience.
ReplyDeleteI remember having to emulate the language and style of academic research articles while drafting my own research paper. We were required to read through a considerable amount of academic research articles while preparing our annotated bibliography. As a result, I started getting familiar with the research paper genre and mirrored it in my write-up. I have always believed that our writing reflects what we read; a person who mostly reads academic journals will most likely write in an academic style while a person who reads popular magazines will write in a popular (non-academic) style. Rose has shown how students had to read and analyze a considerable amount of opinion pieces in order to be able to write in that style. They were also following the same theory - you have to read and be familiar with a particular style before you are able write in that style.
Therefore, for our project too, I know that I will have to read a lot of articles from the magazine I select for my write-up. Only after reading a whole lot of articles, will I be able to be familiar with the style of the articles, and hopefully be able to mirror it in my own write-up. I hope to convey my findings that social networking sites such as Facebook do not isolate its users; rather they help in building a larger social network of friends. I feel that this information will help my non-academic audience to overcome the stereotypical thinking that social networking sites isolate their users.
Your getting to the idea of expectation: if audiences of either academic or nonacademic genres expect a certain style of writing that helps to construct that genre, then a style unexpected would challenge the standards of that genre, and thus the identity of it. Readers might not be able to identify with it as much as they had.
DeleteLike Megan R., the idea for my feminism-centered paper surprised me as the class progressed. I’ve always had an interest in marketing strategies, and exposing myself to Andrea Dworkin and Toril Moi helped to cultivate my passion for feminist theory. I chose my paper to fit a nonacademic genre because I feel like it has a good amount of relevance to a contemporary public. I didn’t just focus on feminism on my paper, I also discussed racism and homophobia.
ReplyDeleteAdvertising researchers/specialists would be interested in my ideas, as well as those seeking social change. My research fits a very proactive audience, and I can’t wait to tailor that to be especially relevant to the ideas of an open-minded society.
I think the main issue in my paper is that I lost contact with my audience, especially as I lost steam as the paper became more drawn out. I’m excited to fix this audience relationship and focus more on communicating with the public like Rose discusses. Shortening the length and getting straight to the argument will help this issue immensely.
**Ah sorry, I meant Megan B. Also, I forgot to add, Rose's article made me think a lot about visuals. My paper is heavily reliant on image examples to demonstrate my points. Rose points however that that can be harmful. On page 286 he discusses how this "substitution" can lead to "simplification" instead of heavy examination. I'm going to work on taking these images and giving them more depth, perhaps transforming them into solely a written analysis.
DeleteThese are issues to consider when you also revise for the academic genre: if you lost a sense of your audience, you'll want to regain it in the long form.
DeleteEveryone has a name. It is our identifier, it is our greeting, and it is chosen for us. When choosing a research topic I wanted to choose something that is a part of our daily lives but that we pay little to no attention to. That’s why I chose to research whether our name (based on it originating in either the eastern or western hemisphere of the world) had a psychological affect on how we feel about ourselves and about others.
ReplyDeleteHaving never done such a lengthy project as my research paper, I agree with Prabin when he said “I remember having to emulate the language and style of academic research articles while drafting my own research paper. We were required to read through a considerable amount of academic research articles while preparing our annotated bibliography. As a result, I started getting familiar with the research paper genre and mirrored it in my write-up.” More often than not I feel that my style of writing is more informal and conversational, and definitely never quantitative, and so I really had to work to write the whole paper in a formal academic tone. I also knew that since I was doing a quantitative approach in my research that I had to back up my claims with statistics and tables as evidentiary support. Being someone who literally covers their ears when people talk about numbers this was an ordeal for me, but I knew that it was a necessary evil for my audience at the time.
Many of you have written about giving in to the audience. And sometimes you do have to do that in order to be heard--but that's also a tragedy and one of the hegemonic issues that maintains such social problems. This is why, during this project, I have emphasized starting with your own purpsoe and then exploring who might be an appropriate audience for it. You'd still have to write for that audience, but you'd be heard by an audience that wants to hear you; you wouldn't fight to be heard.
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