WRT533

Popular Press
Given 4/2 | Due 4/17

In a scientific and technically complex world, it is important for specialists to communicate outside of their discourse community. The public, for example, needs a better understanding of the highly complex causes and effects from global warming, but the community of storm forecasters and climate change modelers have until only recently only been talking among themselves, through conferences and the scientific literature. The public has been left with an inadequate understanding insufficient to motivate a change movement, or worse, with misleading understanding that prevents appropriate public response, in service to short-sighted or selfish corporate or political interests. As students within scientific or technical disciplines, you need the ability to write in both a disciplinary discourse community and in the surrounding public. This assignment is designed to improve your ability to do both and to recognize critical differences between the two domains.

You are two write two brief articles, approximately 2-3 pages each, double spaced so that I can edit ( / kibitz) between lines. These are to be on the identical topic, chosen from within your disciplinary major. Your topic should be technical, preferably bordering on the esoteric, something that you talk about with professors and study groups, but not normally with roommates or your parents.

You can choose to state a problem, illustrating some of its technical dimensions, obstacles and possible paths toward solutions, etc. A climatologist might describe forcing functions stimulating increased hurricane intensity in terms of sea-surface temperature increases or energy dynamics of vertical air columns. (Huh?) 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). You task is to communicate to your readers as technical expert to technical expert.

Having completed the article for your technical peers, now rewrite it, with the same content, but for an audience that includes no one with any of your disciplinary training. You can assume that you are writing to intelligent adults, familiar with the world around them and with advanced vocabularies and a predisposition to find out more about your topic. But assume that they will not understand any of the particular jargon, terms, concepts, or underlying principles of your technical paper. Your purpose is to communicate to your readers as human being to human being.

For purposes of this assignment, it may be expedient for you to begin with a section of a paper written for another disciplinary course. We're not trying to demonstrate capacity to work, but rather to merely anchor a popular press piece with a technical or scientific root. If you can do this, make sure that the technical original is self-contained (don't just life a couple of pages from a longer report) and complete as a presentation in itself.

A component of this assignment will be to first generate a reasonable draft (content "about right" and initial style and readability check complete). Then, you will be asked to conduct a purpose analysis (discussed in class) on the completed popular press (general audience) version only.

Note due date, intended to allow me time to grade and return before the end of classes.