WRT333

6: Popular Press
Given Oct. 31 | First draft due for in-class edit, Nov. 18 | Final draft due Nov. 28

syllabus | assignments
(Popular Press Check List—MSWord document)

Purpose: To translate specialized scientific or technical writing to make it accessible and attractive reading for a non-specialist audience, i.e., to readers outside of the discourse community.

You are to write a popular press article based on an original technical article chosen from within your disciplinary major. Your topic should be technical, drawn from within your discourse community. It should be on something that you talk about with professors or within classes, but not normally with friends or relatives. Your technical article may be drawn from papers you have recently read or written for another class: The intent is to begin with a sampling of technical writing to used as subject matter and content for your popular press translation.

To complete this assignment, submit these six components (all six!):

  1. Original audience: Write a concise paragraph describing the audience, or one specific reader who represents the audience, of the original article. For example, you might state that the passage is drawn from a paper you wrote for your animal nutrition course, where the primary reader was the professor or fellow students who were adroit in understanding the technical vocabulary and scientific style of the article.
  2. Original technical article: Write (borrowing text to a great extent) a technical article of 2-3 pages, as above. If you are extracting from a larger paper, be certain to include an introductory paragraph, and perhaps a brief concluding paragraph so that the technical article stands on its own. State a problem, illustrating some of its technical dimensions, obstacles and possible paths toward solutions, etc. For example, a climatologist might describe "forcing functions stimulating increased hurricane intensity in terms of sea-surface temperature differential or energy dynamics of vertical air columns," which would make perfect sense to fellow students of atmospheric science. Your task here is to speak expediently and with a degree of sophistication to an audience of peers or superiors, demonstrating mastery of concepts and corresponding technical or scientific vocabulary. (This could be applied broadly to, for instance, principles of psychology as exhibited in public relations campaigns developed by PR majors, genre analysis in an advanced English class, etc.). You task is to communicate to your reader as technical expert to technical expert.
    Please note: there are just some technical topics that may be impossible to open up to a general audience; give adequate thought as to whether your perfect technical article may be just a bit too perfect for unleashing on a general readership (would you talk about this topic with someone you were just beginning to date...and if you did, would you get a second date?).
  3. Description of a reader from a general (popular press) audience: Write one paragraph, probably of 4-5 sentences, imagining as specifically as possible, or characterizing a real, living, specific reader to whom you will now write, opening up the material in the original article as though it were to be published in the popular press. Name and describe the person. List a few interests which would explain why this person would be reading the article. Address some of the concerns or expectations this reader might have before reading, and state your general purpose (i.e., what you expect to accomplish in writing, or, more specifically, how this reader is expected to change as a result of having read your article). This is an important component and needs to be thought about and written carefully.
  4. Popular Press Article—First Draft: Having completed all of the above, rewrite the article for your general audience. Pay attention to your opening paragraph ("the lead"), where word choice and sentence progression are important devices to attract and retain readership. Choose words carefully, expand text to provide parenthetical or sentence-length definitions of key concepts, but avoid jargon . You may need to use simile or metaphor or words that convey a strong visual connection to things your reader should be expected to be familiar with. You may, for example, compare a computer's CPU to a brain, although I hope you can do better than that in an effort to avoid tired cliches. Your purpose is to communicate to your readers as human being to human being.
  5. Editing Session: Participate in the in-class editing session, Nov. 11. Bring four (4) copies of your completed first draft (audience identification and general audience version only) to class. You will receive editing suggestions and feedback from at least two of your peers and (within ~1 week) from Dr. Logan.
  6. Purpose Analysis and Final Editing: Conduct a purpose analysis on the first draft (general audience version only), including additional sentences describing the purpose of the paper (write this at the top of the article, setting it off in [square brackets], and a purpose statement for each paragraph (write these at the top of each paragraph, again setting it off in [square brackets]). Do not write purpose statements for individual sentences, but consider these purposes as you review the first draft. Also, review the editorial suggestions from the peer review. Then, reorder and revise the paper, based on the purpose analysis, and review, and submit a final draft.

Again, please be aware that for purposes of this assignment, it may be expedient for you to begin with a section of a paper read or written for another disciplinary course. You are encouraged to do this, so as to limit your time.

How will this assignment be graded? This assignment is worth 20% of your final grade, as follows:

  1. Original technical article
    • Technical Audience identification (specific? detailed? credible?) (2 points)
    • Technical article with restrictive ("scientific" or "technical" discourse-focused vocabulary) formal writing style (3 points)
  2. First draft
    • Audience portrayal: Detailed and specific? Useful target? Suitable for this article?)(2 points)
    • Content: Lead effective? Vocabulary defined or illustrated? Content suitable for audience of general readers? (3 points)
  3. Editing and redrafting
    • Purpose analysis: Useful overall and paragraph-level purpose statements? Effective reordering, deletions or expansions (2 points)
    • Editing session: Participation in editorial session, providing useful feedback to peers (Dr. Logan will review your editorial work and comments) (3 points)
  4. Final Draft: Error free, effective lead and ending, interesting technical translation suitable for the defined audience? (5 points)