PB3A

  For this PB, I have decided to use the research article “Evoked Emotions Predict Food Choices” as my scholarly, peer-reviewed, academic publication. This research article is about how people would often choose which food to eat based on their emotions rather than just mere liking. “Evoked Emotions Predict Food Choices” focuses on an experiment that tries to prove this theory by predicting which breakfast drink the participants would chose and then comparing it with the real results. It shows how evoked emotions better predict food choice than perceived liking alone. This article could provide information useful to people of all ages since it can explain someone’s eating habits. However, this research article may not appeal to a wide range of audiences. Since it is an academic, peer-reviewed article, it was most likely intended to appeal to educated scholars who are experts in this field. People from a younger and older audience wouldn’t be appealed to this certain genre of writing so it would have to be modified to their liking.
Younger audiences would be completely turned off from reading a scholarly, peer-reviewed article and wouldn’t even give it a second glance. There is a lot of text all crammed together in a long article. There isn’t any pictures or colors throughout the text. It may seem very boring and not very appealing. To attract a younger audience, I would turn this research article into a storybook. I would incorporate a story into this experiment to showcase the information. I feel like a story with fun characters in it would entertain a younger audience more. It would make it more interesting to read. I would also add more pictures and colors to the text to make it more visually pleasing. To make it easier to read, I would use vocabulary everyone can understand instead of jargon that only a certain group would know. A little humor to the story would also make it more appealing and entertaining to a younger audience. A younger audience would generally be more attracted to reading something that is a lot more interesting and fun. A storybook can be successful in changing a scholarly, academic journal into something younger people would be more interested in reading.
Similarly, this academic article wouldn’t be that appealing to an older audience either. An older audience wouldn’t be attracted in how long and in depth the article is. Older audiences tend to be busier, and have a family to take care of or work long hours. They would just want a quick, easy read so I would change this scholarly article into a news report that could be found on TV. This could be a 10-15 minute segment of a news channel to highlight the important information in the experiment. Older people tend to watch the news more often right when they get off of work in the evening. It is also a efficient way to get the information across. The older audience can just sit there and watch the news report. They would be more attracted to this medium because they can still do other things while watching the news report since they are very usually very busy people as mentioned before. A news report would be more effective in appeal an older audience than an scholarly academic journal.

PB2B

            Each and every writer has their own moves that they incorporate into their writing to be more rhetorically effective. These moves show the author’s own personal style into their writing while also having some kind of rhetorical effect. How a writer choses to approach a topic and put it into words can really help us understand the purpose of a piece of writing. Using “Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking)” by Janet Boyd and “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis” by Laura Bolin Carroll, We can compare and contrast the rhetorical moves used and see exactly how effective they were.

            Since both articles were meant to teach students about writing better, the main audience of the articles are mainly students, who were usually young teenagers in high school and/ or college. In order to appeal to this audience of young students, both Boyd and Carroll wrote in very casual and conversational tones throughout their articles. “Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking)” is mostly in second person and uses “you” a lot to engage the audience into the writing while “Backpacks vs. Briefcases…” uses a lot of “I” statements, keeping it very casual. A lot of slang and informal language was used throughout both pieces. For example, at the end of her article, Boyd said, “… you are already in possession of the rhetorical skills necessary for mastering the genre of academic writing and that you need only apply them, I wasn’t just feeding you a bunch of bull”. She writes as if she is speaking in person to the reader and also uses slang to end off her article. This tone is able to successfully appeal to a younger audience because it makes it easier for these students to understand and follow all the information given. It would also keep the student more interested and into the topic.  

Another move, both writers use, is listing things out with bullet points and numbers. Boyd used bullet points once to list out a series of questions that help her explain a point she is making. Carroll uses this several times in her article in addition to numbered lists. This move makes it easier to provide a lot of information without overwhelming the reader. If all the information listed were placed into a paragraph instead, it would look very clustered and long. This move allows writers to give a lot more examples while still keeping their article very organized and easy to follow.

In addition, both writers further explain themselves through the use of parentheses, dashes and colons. Carroll uses parentheses and dashes to elaborate more on whatever she was trying to prove and provide even more examples. Boyd also uses both of these in her writing, but more for side comments. She also asks a lot of rhetorical questions to guide her readers the way she wants them to go. In addition, Boyd also adds in many italics to put emphasis on certain words especially important vocabulary. All of these moves are intended to aid the writers in effectively proving their arguments. However, Carroll was more successful in using the parentheses and dashes in her writing because they added more depth and insight to what she was trying to say. Some of the things Boyd put in parentheses were unnecessary and the essay could do without it. She did do a good job in italicizing important words so that they stand out to the readers. These moves still add to both of the writer’s style.

Even though both pieces are on the same topic, the two authors use different approaches to explain their arguments. Carroll would explain one point and then follow with examples to further prove that point. However, Boyd took a different approach and did the opposite. She made the audience do an activity before she explained the point and used that as her examples. This made her article a lot more interactive since she made her audience essentially participate in her writing. Boyd’s approach was a little more successful in teaching the audience since she make the audience create an example and then she would explain what the significance of it was. Carroll’s way was more of the traditional way where a writer would explain something and then follow it up with examples. The way the writers presented their examples shows how different moves can be used.

There are many different types of moves these writers could have incorporated into their writing, but I have only pointed out a few. Moves allow writers to create their own flare to their piece while still having some kind of rhetorical purpose that will appeal to their audience. While both “Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking)” and “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis” were trying to teach aspects of rhetoric, they used different moves to accomplish this goal. Both pieces were able to use moves successfully, proving their main argument.

PB2A

            Scholarly academic publications and computer science research papers have many similar features, but they each have specific rhetorical features and conventions that are unique to each that make it up. Looking back at the computer science research papers from the “SCIgen” genre generator, it creates random research papers when you input a number of authors. Each output creates a paper on a different paper, but they all have the basic elements of a computer science research paper. For the scholarly academic publication, I searched up on the UCSB library database for an academic journal relating to economics. I ended up finding the research article, “Economic stress or random variation? Revisiting German reunification as a natural experiment to investigate the effect of economic contraction on sex ratios at birth” by Sebastian Schnettler and Sebastian Klüsener. There are many similar features in both of these pieces of writing especially both are academic-related, but there are still certain aspects that make it it.

             The biggest similarity between the two pieces of writing is that both use almost the same format to organize all their information in their papers. Both the scholarly academic journal and the computer science research paper have sections that divide up and organize all the information from their experiments. The method is very useful since both papers were intended to explain the findings of their experiments. Both papers had a abstract to give insight into the paper, but the abstract for the academic journal was much more in depth than the research paper. The research paper only had a couple of sentences, while the academic journal had the subsections: background, methods, results, and conclusion with a paragraph for each. Each had different titles for the each respective section, but they have the same idea, where they explain how they did the experiment and their findings after doing the experiment. Both also has tables and graphs to physically display their data. A reference page is also present in both to cite the sources they used. Both has numbered their sources and ordered them in alphabetical order based on author. However, the academic journal has bolded the title or each source, which makes it a lot easier to read and locate the source.

            Although both papers have a lot of physical similarities, the rhetorical features are very different since they are each appealing to different audiences. They need to write in a specific way to attract the audience they want to read their papers. The computer science research paper was intended for people very knowledgeable in computer science because it uses a lot of terms and concepts that only these people can understand. On the other hand, the academic journal appeals to a wider audience because it uses very broad terms and is on a topic that everyone can relate to. The purpose of the two is pretty similar in that they both explain their experiments from their methods to the results of the experiments. The context of the academic journal is to discuss the effect of economic contraction on sex ratios at birth, which can be affected by anyone. The context of the computer science paper is focused on trying to come up with a synthesis of congestion control using a lossless model. The computer science paper is a very specific experiment understood only by experts in that field, while the academic source is a much broader topic that can be universally understood. The style of both papers is almost the same, where there are sections with titles, telling the audience exactly what that paragraph is about. Both are academic-related papers in that they both have a academic and professional tone. They both give a lot of information and is intended to teach the audience something new. Each author uses different rhetorical elements to cater their writing to appeal to their intended audience.

            Both the computer science research paper and the academic journal are in a similar format to achieve their purpose of explaining their experiments. However, the pieces of writing each had different contexts that appeal to different audiences. The research paper can mostly be understood by experts in computer science, while the academic journal had a much broader topic, appealing to a wider audience. Other than that, both pieces of writing had a similar style and tone to it, where it was both written in an academic tone and is very informational. The academic journal and research paper had many similar features, but still had significant differences that define each genre.